Conditions at the Delaney Hall Detention Center

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Discover Woop at Woop.com These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere. Every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agents' identities, a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an agent supports one user or the whole enterprise, Okta turns risk into opportunity. Secure every agent. Secure any agent. Okta secures AI . Welcome to Plot Save America. I'm John Favreau. I'm John Levin. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the news that Trump appears to be giving up on his $1.8 billion insurrectionist slush fund. He also seems quite uninterested in ending the Iran War, saying he quote couldn't care less whether talks break down. Uh, we're also going to talk about Tuesday's big primaries this week in Iowa and here in California, as well as more turbulence in Maine for Graham Plattner, and more turbulence for J.D. Vance and his quest to become Donald Trump's number one boy, chosen successor. Then New Jersey Senator Andy Kim talks to me about the horrifying conditions he witnessed at the ICE detention center in Newark, where the Senator was pepper sprayed by federal agents. Before we start, you guys see the uh that that CBS's Scott Pelley accused uh Barry Weiss of murdering 60 Minutes? Uh that sounds like a really fun meeting to have attended. No Weiss at the meeting. office, you're trying to find the bathrooms, you're seeing which where your badge works and where your badge doesn't work. Next thing Scott Pelly's saying, you piece of shit, I will fucking rake your dead corpse over the bones of Don Hewitt. And obviously uh Lovitz was hyperbole, but not as much as you might think. Honestly, it was pretty close. Yeah. Reading uh stat uh Oliver Darcy's uh status has the whole uh transcript of the meeting. It was uh it was something. Um anyway, I just bring that up because uh if if all of you want to support the growth of an independent pro-democracy media company that Barry Weiss can't murder, um at least not yet. No yeah. Uh please consider becoming a friend of the pod subscriber. You get ad-free episodes of this show, all your favorite crooked pods, subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, our secret extra episode of Pod Save America, and full access to all of our substack newsletters like open tabs. Check it out at Crooked.com slash friends. All right, let's get to the news. With the Middle East still a mess and gas prices still high, the president is once again working hard to communicate to the American people how little he cares about these things. Um, here he is during a hard-hitting Fox interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, focused like a This will be the entrance into the ballroom. The bowroom will be right here. No, the ballroom is a gift to America from me and from Apple and from lots of great people. How often are you coming out here to check the progress? Well a lot. We're gonna have the inauguration here. Oh wow. This stone can last a million years. You know, most people would put brass on top of a piece of wood. It would be called laminated, and then in about two years you'd see the brass falling on the floor, you know, would delaminate this is look solid brass. Same thing with this. This is all solid. Beautiful solid action. It's it's uh it's the f the pudding uh look, I we've suffered a lot under this guy. The putting labels on the rooms outside the roads. Did you guys read um Ashley Parker's story about Trump as a gay icon in the Atlantic? I didn't know you will love it. It's so funny. It's so good. They're having the inauguration out there? No, they're not, by the way. Congress decides. I'm sure he means like the balls and some of the you know the balls that would happen around the inaugural. I mean says him. He's not there anymore. Right. But he won't be mu he shouldn't involve in the planning of it, you know, one would hope. Does he just is he just gonna stay on as like physical plant director. You're going home. Um no, so that was on Fox over the weekend for Fox viewers who wanted just a little more on what the government is doing about this terrible economy. On Sunday morning, uh they get to hear this from top White House economic advisor slash Democratic Party plant Kevin Hassett. People are spending more on gas, but they're also spending more on everything else, not just groceries, but restaurants and so on. And I think that that's a sign that you would see when people are optimistic about the future. Now Tommy, you put this in Slack yesterday, I think, on Sunday, and uh I was like, isn't that the clip from last month when Kevin Hassett said this, and then I had to click on it and realize that he basically said the same thing again, but maybe worse this time. No, they just keep putting the MAGA Dennis the Menace on TV to say stupid shit. I mean they just like they could not seem more out of touch if they tried. Spending more on gas and groceries does not suggest that you're optimistic about the future. It suggests that you need gas and groceries and those are non-negotiable items. They're not taking out loans to start a business. Like what are you talking about? It's also like oh you know, hey man, like most people are just they're just not really paying that close attention to aggregate consumer spending. Right. Like that may that matters to you in your morning meeting. Trump clearly wanted to talk about the brass thing he put on the wall. Like he he could, he could write Laura Trump's questions for her if he wanted. It's his daughter-in-law doing the interview. And he like, they clearly went out and then they pitched this. Like he just he wants to tell us, I don't give a shit about anyone or anything about uh in the world except for myself, my arch, and like he seems annoyed almost that we don't believe him at this point. It's so funny because we also on Friday's pod covered Besson in the briefing room when some reporter asked him about um like people's savings being low, people dipping into their savings, and he's like, Well, according to the economic literature, that could be two things. One, the doomer view that you just took, um, which is that uh people aren't confident, or they're spending so much because they are confident and that's why they're dipping into their savings. Yes, people are people are racking people are racking up credit card debt because they're betting on themselves . That's what's going on. That's what's going on. Just thought of it, thought of it too late. Phantom of the ballroom. That's's what he sort of aiming for. Something like that. Something like that. But sort of imagine I said it earlier. The university imagine I made this joke earlier. The University of Michigan's uh consumer sentiment index is at a record low of forty four point eight in May of 2026. That's lower than fucking doomers. COVID. Doomers. So the biggest concern, by the way, is cost of living and gas prices. Yeah, well, you know what the solution is? Turn that frown upside down, all you doomers. Believeie.ve Bel in Donald Trump and his wild. Look, if a if a man can can do that with brass, imagine what he can do for your savings. Besson going out there with the $250 bill, too. Like the whole thing, it is crazy. It is he wants to lose the midterms. You see him holding up the the story being like the whoever edited this who did a terrible job. He looks so his he has such a terrible, like kind of his whole facial expression is just like just Aaron Powell So obviously none of this is going too well politically for Trump, but unfortunately for him, even his renovations and corruption are running into some uh stiff headwinds. On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump's plan to close the Kennedy Center for renovations and also ruled that he can't just rename it for himself. There was a very long truth social post where he was ranting about that that I have to tell you, I honestly But basically he's like, I'm giving up on the Kennedy Center. That's it. Forget it. It's like, all right, cool, cool. Yeah. Um Hey man, yeah, leave her alone. Uh the same day, another federal judge in Florida reopened Trump's IRS settlement with his own DOJ because of what she called, quote, grievous allegations that the $1.8 billion insurrectionist slush fund was, quote, premised on deception, then another federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the transfer of money in or out of the fund while she waits to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging it. Finally, after all these reports that both Republicans in Congress and White House aides were pushing Trump to just give up on the slush fund altogether. It appears as if he's done just that. Two senior administration officials told Axios that Trump will drop the slush fund, with one saying, quote, it's dead for now. DOJ also uh posted a statement saying it'll quote abide by the court ruling blocking it, even though that block is only temporary. Um do you guys we haven't heard from Trump as of this recording? Yeah, we gotta hear from the big we gotta hear from the big boy. Before it's done, it's not done till the big boy speaks. Yeah. And even then, who knows? Even then, right. But do you think he backstab this easily? And and I think more importantly, do you guys think this is still a political issue for Republicans? So uh for also Senate Republicans actually were pretty bothered by this in a closed door meeting, of course. John Thune was was actually out there saying he didn't like this very much, uh, which is impressive uh for him. Of course, the only thing Senate Republicans could manage to do is um uh quietly oppose it and then bravely leave town. That was their way of protesting it. It was we're not going to give him more money for immigration that we don't need, and we're going to leave town to signal our unhappiness with it. I assume and hope that we'll still have votes on it this week. I think there's no be given that it's only temporarily on hold, uh, and Trump clearly wants to do this. I think Democrats need to get Republicans on record that they would oppose having this kind of a slush fund be legal now or in the future. And so let's get them voting on that. Uh because even if they're privately saying it, they'll have to publicly do something. Yeah, the for now bothered me. The for now part of that report bothered me. I I'm hopeful that, you know, when you're primary John Cornyn and you're primary Bill Cassidy and when Tom Tillis hates you all Republicans in the Senate, maybe they will prevent this from ever passing or coming to be. I don't know. I don't know if you guys read the big New York Times piece from over the weekend about how the slush fund came together, but it r it read like uh the blueprint for a future RICO case. It was like Boris Efstein on the outside, like coordinating things. The Trump kids want immunity for like all IRS audits uh for their tax returns in the future. The professional staff at DOJ are either horrified or quitting. And then the White House political staff was just cut out of the process because they probably knew that it was toxic. And it's just like the most corrupt sounding shit imaginable. And so I don't know, knowing Trump is probably not the end of it. Yeah. Schumer um is going ahead with or he said he's going ahead with making sure they have to vote on it. And the vote is going to be on you know, originally I think the first time we talked about um Democrats potentially proposing amendments on this, it was like to restrict the fund or whatever. There was a couple proposals out there to just ban the fund completely forever. And that's what Schumer's going with, reportedly, he uh he said today. And I think that's great because like it what Republican now is going to vote against the ban now that Trump has said, or at least the White House has signaled that they're giving up on it. So if Trump doesn't say anything between now and the vote, like you if you're a Republican voting on this, you can either vote against the ban and really fuck yourself uh in the midterms, um, because now the White House has abandoned it, but now you're on record supporting it, or you can vote for the ban and then the ban becomes law, and then it doesn't matter if Trump backs off because now it's against the law. Well, right. Oh, w Democrats are a great this is ridiculous. There's no good vote for the Republicans. They have in in the past chosen this is a political ploy because there is no fund. So I'm voting against this because Dem Democrats are playing politics. Of course, just giving them a craven path. Or it is too late. Those have been two positions they've taken in the past in trying to stop Trump. Uh the the the other part of this too is like po in in in fairness to Trump, he must be surprised that there's any pushback whatsoever. It's sort of I think must have caught him off guards that repo Senate Republicans have found a line uh because they've tolerated so much brazen corruption, the pardons and all the rest that led to this moment. As we're even as we're speaking, DOJ is uh trying to vacate the convictions of the oathkeepers that Trump only commuted but didn't pardon. So they they they still are kind of just going full speed ahead without having to worry about the Republicans in Congress. I love that Mike Pence was on the Sunday show as being like, please don't pay the people that tried to hang me. Come on. You know what's right? McDonald's. I watch, I watched tried to hang me. They set up a stocks in a news. He I watched part of that Mike Pence conver on on Meet the Press. I don't know why. This doesn't sound like me. But uh but it was he's sure it was served to you by accident. His book is about his book is about like the need to take on the right wing populist while he's like up there just like praising Donald Trump and how on so many things he's doing such a great job. And then he's like, now I do have to say I am a bit critical of his continuing to support the people that tried to kill me, but nobody's perfect. It's not unbelievable that he's still out here out there like uh doing this thing. I think that there's a very small but non-zero chance that the the other option for Donald Trump is saying, fine, I'll just pocket the cash then . Well he's remember remember he had that pissy post last week when there was a lot of political blowback on the slush fund and he was like, I could have just kept the money . Well that's why he's he's annoyed, right? Because he thought I'm gonna do a 10 billion dollar lawsuit. Yeah. And then I'm actually going to do something really cool, which is which is going to be like beloved by all because I'm not gonna keep the money I'm g meanonna they be taught. It was like too clever by half. Yes. Yes. And you can feel that this is the White House staff being annoyed at Todd Blanche for running this drug deal behind their backs. So good. Amazing. Um Um all right, let's talk about Iran, where Trump can't even seem to get a bad deal, let alone one that would uh justify the insane amount of money and lives the war has already cost. Uh military strikes have started again. Iran state media said it was pausing negotiations. Trump told CNBC on Monday morning that he, quote, couldn't care less if the negotiations collapsed, that they, quote, took too much time, and started to get very boring. Um, this was after he complained on Truth Social about how negative, quote, chirping about the war from political hacks is making his job tougher, and that we should all just sit back and relax because it will all work out well in the end. It always does. Trump then reversed course again uh and said that talks between the US and Iran were quote continuing at a rapid pace. Um taking too long and getting kind of boring is also um what he said the one and only time he went down on Havana. Never never made that never gonna make that mistake again. Where that came from the golf course. Sorry Tommy We were um we were reliably told by Scott Jennings last Thursday that Trump had reached a deal with Iran that got us, quote, everything we want. What happened? Is it possible that Scott led us a strength? Yeah, uh before I get to Jennings, I want to just read a little more of the transcript of the CNBC interview. This is what Trump told Amon Javers from CNBC about the peace talks . I don't care if they're over, honestly. I really don't care. I couldn't care less. If they're over, they're over. If they're not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring. Again, 13 service members dead, hundreds more wounded, entire global economy is on the brink of collapse, gas prices are up 50%. So he's bored. Um, it's just hard to wrap your head around a politician saying that, a president saying that, and it not being a career-ending moment, kind of like on site, but here we are. Fox News will never air it. This will never have happened in the MAGA media world. Now, Scott Jennings, uh folks know him from CNN. You know him, you hate him. He's a hack, he's a fool, he mindlessly regurgitates. Uh, whatever talking points he gets sent from the White House, including blatant disinformation. So I expect nothing better from him. Um but I I'd like I do hope that this disaster makes the Axios and some other news outlets um that kind of cut and paste whatever some senior administration official told them, whether it's Jared Kushner or the press office or whomever, just help like rethink how you're doing your job. Because I get that journalism is very competitive. I get that reporters are battling for every mini scoop these days. But at best, you look silly. At worst, uh you are a pawn in oil market manipulations, right? This happens every Sunday. And then ultimately you're pumping out this information to the entire world. Like remember, economies in Southeast Asia like have stopped because they have no oil and gas. And so on the question of where do we stand on a deal, I don't know. Like one the the deal was off, the deal was on, we're on it when we're on the cusp of a deal. Then we're bombing the Iranians again. Trump just said he talked directly with a Hezbollah representative. You guys see that today? That's new. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. And and and then said and said that that Hezbollah and Israel, they're cool. There's a ceasefire in Lebanon now. The Iran talks are proceeding quickly. Then Netanyahu was like, No, they're not. What are you talking about? So who knows? I also I mean, you tell me, Tommy, but like I don't think that um all the pre spinning of what the deal is going to include from the White House is actually helping the negotiations that much and in fact maybe hurting them because every time they get close to a deal, then an Iran's probably thinking, okay, like we're gonna do this, maybe, you know, and then Trump goes out and is like, we destroy themed, we got the best deal ever, we got everything we ever wanted, and then the Iranians are probably like, well, fuck, no, I'm not gonna do this now. Trump is gonna have to give on something, whether it's uh you know the duration of the deal, like sanctions rel,ief, unfrozen assets, something, but he refuses to look weak. He doesn't want to look like he gave a JCPOA like agreement to the Iranians. So you're right. I mean, he he it sounds like his staff are kind of giving, and then he goes out and says, actually, no, we're gonna take the dust to we're gonna not give them any money, like all the reports are bullshit. And you're running it's okay, okay, fuck you then. Yeah, I feel like there's two things happening. One is what an actual deal will ultimately look like if there is one. And then there's how Trump, how the Trump administration talks about the deal, and then what's reported. This has been this has been sort of uh the media has been getting led around by Trump from when Vance went to Pakistan because Vance goes to Pakistan and then within twight within you know eight hours, twelve hours, the reports are stalemate talk at his at an talks at an impasse, talks are falling apart. There haven't really been talks. Yes. And we've spent the next last several weeks having deal falls apart, verge of a deal. Deal falls apart, verge of a deal. When what would be happening in a normal administration is the long grinding negotiation of a complicated deal in which in which there are gives and takes and and like you know and and and puts and and whatever. And instead it's the kind of through the Trump prism. And so all these outlets are hearing, I guess from the administration officials from who knows, saying we're on the verge of a deal. They report that out faithfully, and then it falls apart the very next day. The reality of there will be hopefully there will be a deal. It will look something like the uh JCPOA and then Trump will declare it the best, the best deal in history. Like one hopes that that's what we'll eventually get to. And then this all this up and down shit will have just been to sort of like silly Trump chaos on the way there. I guess. I think what's what's tr triggering the hell out of me though is like ultimately like there will be a reporting on that will evaluate the merits of any deal, but that deal could have been gotten without a disastrous war that led to the deaths of thousands of Iranians and persons of service members in the entire economy. And it's like, I I'm not worried about this table losing that context. I am worried about the broader media like helping Trump sell a deal by like doing this constant constant incremental reporting by retweeting, you know, Scott Jennings saying this is a win for the Trump administration, et cetera. It's like, no, this is a disaster no matter what happens next. Yeah, because the honest thing to report on this, or if you were uh some kind of a conservative pundit, the honest thing to even say is, glad it's over now, but that wasn't worth it. And not not in exactly those words, but like that is the tenor of whatever deal we're gonna get. Is that like there's no way we came out better than we started. Right, 'cause the the even like just on the on uranium enrichment, what I saw over the weekend or or early today was what was on the table was a twenty year moratorium, which is what up from the 10 year moratorium. So that you you you claimed you this was the worst deal in history. Your deal is just a slightly longer timeline on one piece of it with other concessions. That was their starting position and they worked down to 15, maybe. So who even knows who knows? Who knows? But it's just like obvious like the he is just there will be a hard if there's a deal, it will be a deal that isn't some amazing victory for Donald Trump. He'll call it that. He'll get his 24 hours to say that, and then we'll live with the consequences of having fought this stupid fucking war. Podsave America is brought to you by Article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collections of mid-century coastal and scandy furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly, so you can create a cohesive des igner look that will stand the test of time. We got a bunch of great article stuff here at the office. We have chairs, we have desks, maybe couches. I mean we have bought so many things from them at this point that I've lost count. It's all super high quality.. It looks good It's comfortable. It all holds up for a very long time. Highly recommend it. 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I love AG One. Visit drinkag one dot com slash crooked to get a free morning person hat and free AG one flavor sampler in your welcome kit with your first AG one subscription and eighty two dollar value. That's drinkag one dot com slash crooked and if I see you in a free morning person hat, I will punch you in the face . As you're listening to this, uh, voters in Iowa and California are voting in some very consequential elections. Let's start with Iowa, where state representative Josh Turek and State Senator Zach Walls are in a tough primary fight for the state's open Senate seat, which will be hugely important. Uh this one has become yet another meta commentary on Chuck Schumer and the DSEC trying to influence key primaries. Uh this in case in favor of Turek. Schumer hasn't uh publicly endorsed Turek, but his like aligned pack has contributed. So his Jillibrands, he wa you know, it's reported that he was sort of a a Schumer recruit, um, much to Turek's dismay. Um orse Walls. Right. Um Tommy, you interviewed both Turek and Walls on the show. Uh for people just catching up, what are each of them bringing to the table? What were your general impressions? Yeah, I mean, so Josh Turk is a he's a state rep in uh western Iowa in Council Bluffs. He was born with spina bifida, uses a wheelchair. He's a two-time paralympic gold medal winner in wheelchair basketball. And he's just like his life story, he's just incredibly gritty , um, determined guy. Like he got cut from the men's team six times before he actually won the gold medal. He just kept coming back and come back and competing. And like there's videos of him, he literally like climbs out of his wheelchair, climbs up the stairs with his hand , drags the wheelchair up after him, and then knocks on doors. Like that's how he goes door to door. So like gritty dude, uh clearly benefiting from being Schumer's pick and an associated nine million dollar vote vets's add ad bu byy that that has drastically increased his ad uh name ID because no one knew who any of these guys were. And then Zach is a member, Zach Wall is a member of the Iowa State Senate. He's from Iowa City. Uh he was Senate Minority Leader for a couple years. Our listeners probably saw him speak in 2011, even though they don't remember it, or knew it was him at the time. He was a 19-year-old. He delivered a speech asking uh Iowa legislators not to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that went super viral um back in what 2011 and it was a great speech, really powerful speech, like supercharged his career. Um so I interviewed them both. I liked them both a lot. Um everyone seems to think that Josh is likely to win. Uh a lot of the people I know who work in Iowa politics think he is more electable because he's one in more conservative parts of the state. The winners gonna take on Congresswoman Ashley Hinton for Joni Ernst C because she's resigning. And uh no matter who wins, Iowa is like ground zero for politics this next cycle because you got Rob Sand, uh who could be the next governor, you have this open Senate seat , uh, and then there's like three competitive house races, a bunch of other statewide things. So like Iowa is absolutely crucial. So this was one we're gonna be watching going forward. I will say that I'm I I've been impressed by both of them, by both Josh Turk and Zach Walls and I know some of these Senate primary fights are particularly intense and I know this one is too. Um I do know like I I was kind of joking about Josh Turk probably wishing that Schumer didn't uh spend uh some some pack money on him or or or necessarily recruit him. But like I think that I understand why Walls is you know, h Walls has tried to make this a race about um sort of an outsider versus the establishment as Turk as the establishment. I kind of think that like, you know, Turek being picked by Chuck Schumer is not quite the same as Turek being part of the establishment or the establishment spending money on him. Like a lot of the money that's spent on him is vot vets. So it's like it's not at least for me, it' doesnt worry me that he's some establishment pick necessarily. I feel like the case for that isn't as strong as in some of these other cases. But I also like, you know, Zach Walls was in here too. I thought he was very compelling as well. So I like both of them. Love it? Anything? No. Yeah. I I think look, there's some races where being seen as like the Schumer guy, the DC guy, I think has been a real uh cross to bear. I think that was that happened in Nane, which we'll talk about in a second. I just don't think it's been that in Iowa as much this time, in part because this vote that's by has been so big and so significant in helping push push Josh forward. Also he's a known quantity in Western Iowa. Um I think it's he's never been worked in DC. Yeah. So I think it's harder to lay that on him, but we'll see. We should also say that for people wondering, the reason that votes vot es is uh spending money on him is not because he's a veteran, but his his father was in Vietnam and potentially exposed to Agent Orange. And that's why they think Josh has spined a bit. But also I think Vonvetz is seen as doing Schumer's political getting here. Also true. Also true. All right. Let's turn to California. The big race, of course, is the jungle primary for governor. We have covered the campaign a lot, and between us we've interviewed Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, and Matt Mahan. We also reached out over a dozen times to the apparent frontrunner, Javier Becerra. Um, and even though they expressed interest, they unfortunately wouldn't commit to a time. Um okay, same question for each of you. Who'd you end up supporting and why? And uh who else did you like? If this were ranked choice voting, uh who might you uh support after that? Well my ballot still hasn't been filled down. Ooh , last one last year. I'm still gettable. I'm still gettable. Uh I am gonna vote for Tom Steiner because I would like to see if Pacera, if the polls are to be believed and they've been pretty consistent, Becer ra is going to move on, one other will, there's a chance Tom Steyer can be that second person. I would much rather have two Democrats battling it out for the future of the Democratic Party in this state than I would have Becerra versus a Republican who has not passed the threshold question of uh opposing Donald Trump's election lines. Like that to me is a threshold question. You can be frustrated with Democrats in this state. You can you can believe that Democrats have have have fucked up in California, but if you can't say that uh that that Donald Trump lost that election, if you can't stand up to him, then that is so fucking dangerous and he is a nut for that. So that's where I'm at. I also really liked my conversation with Tom Steyr. I think he had good answers for some of the questions about where Democrats have gone wrong in California and some of the criticisms. I also really like Katie Porter, but she just hasn't risen to the top of the polls. Like she was she kind of slowly fell behind and I think it's it sucks because I really like her, but I'm trying to be pragmatic with my vote. Yeah, I missed someone like if I could wave a magic wand and make someone governor, it would be Katie Porter. Uh but she is down in the polls and I I I'm having the same I have the same rationale. I want to vote strategically because I think Steyer and Becerra going to a runoff would be great. It would kind of be annoying if we had to deal with, you know, running in Steve Hilton, who's a random British short king who's like deep in the tech community. But the uh I do love that that triggered you of all the all the criticisms. But like I also love that Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are calling on each other to drop out still, even though Hilton is like crushing Bianco and Trump has endorsed Hilton, but that that's where I was. Yeah, I would if I were doing rank choice, I would be Katie number one, no question, because that that's that's who that's who I'd vote for. But that's not the world we live in. I um I had a real hard time with this and I voted a couple days ago. Um I uh I uh California's a a big state with uh it's hard to govern, a lot of problems. I don't really feel I would think I thought about Bacera, but like I don't feel confident giving the top job to someone who's had he's had thirty five years in elected office to to prove himself, but has received um mainly bad reviews from his colleagues , um uh and the one exec especially in the one executive job that he's had, which was HHS secretary under Biden. Um, and you know, just an exit like I think his housing policy, which was also like he was very late to introduce any kind of housing policy whatsoever until after ballots dropped. And then even then it was like more nimble than Steyer or Porter or anything else. And now I like I hope I'm wrong. And if he wins then like great, maybe he'll be a a great governor. But I was like, yeah, I I just it it prevented me from from voting uh Becer ra. Steyr, like I'm I'm more confident in Steyr, but even then like on the experience question, there is just something for me it was like the combination of he's never had any experience in elected office or governing anything, and is a billionaire who basically like, you know, ran for president first, flamed out there , then spent just v uh GDP of a small country on this race. And like I think he had like I I like his positions better than Bacera and a lot of the other candidates, but I'm just like there's just something a little icky to me about it. And I am not as worried if it's Steve Hilton versus Becerra or Steyer because the state's registration is going to take care of itself. And there's just I just I'm it's it's not a concern I have that Steve Hilton's gonna become governor. Um, so I just voted for Katie Porter because I like her. And it's like I realize that she has it is the the least strategic . It is the least strategic thing I could do. But Katie to me is like like I've known her a while. The the temperament with her staff stuff is obviously like it bothered me a lot because like we've known her forever and I actually didn't know that until those stories came up. And not I also don't think she's gonna win at this point, but I'm like, who do I wanna be governor? She's thought about the job a lot. She has like a really well thought out policy platform. She's actually worked on passing legislation and getting things done when she was in Congress. And I feel like she's just like done the work for the job more than anyone else. But if you would rather Tom I feel the same way. But I would rather like as of right now. And I want to talk to Javier Becerra if he's willing. Now like I I think Javier Becerra has has said he wants to come on the show, but he's hoping that he and Hilton get through the other side, right? And then of course we're doing an interview about a Democrat versus a Republican, which is very different than a conversation about a Democrat versus a Democrat. But but as of right now, I think Tom Steyer has answered some of the harder questions better than Javier. Becerra, and if it's Becerra, I'm voting for him. And if I'm if I'm trying to best dem because I believe you, I don't think I don't think Hilton's gonna be the governor of the state, uh, I want the best person to be the governor of California. And right now if there's I wanna see and maybe also Pizero having to beat Tom Steyr would make him a stronger candidate too. So that's that's my kind of yeah hope that we can get Tom Styre through this thing so that we have a better debate and and how VR Piserra has to be put through his paces if he is gonna win. Yeah. I do feel like uh you know as sort of blah as this race has been for governor, I am very open and hopeful that both like that either Steyr or Becerra will like prove me wrong and become a great governor. And you're right, maybe if it's Bacera and Steyr in a runoff, then there's even more time for them to duke it out and and and show their uh show that they're ready for the job. Um we also got a mayoral race uh going on here in LA . Uh love it. Interviewed uh challenger Nithya Raman for the show, who we all know. Um, and I I supported Nithya, donated to her, I've known her a long time. Um, we also reach out to Karen Bass, um, who has come on the show before, uh, but she opted not to come on before the primary. Um, Nithya and Bass are in a close race with reality TV personality turned mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, uh, a registered Republican, quasi-endorsed by Trump, who said, I like him. I hear he's MAG. I like him. Um uh and uh Pratt was in New York over the weekend closing the campaign like this. That even testing your d drugs on a dog is the least of the worst of what these demons are doing to these Sir, this is a Wendy's. Yeah, I don't doubt that there's horrible things happening to animals in some of these places, but what is he I it's very weird that he decided to go to New York for several days. I think dropped thirty four thousand dollars on his hotel rooms uh and left the state the week before the election? Yeah, there's billboards all around, or at least I saw I I think I saw at least two uh in downtown LA of him saying if you're you know dogs vote for Spencer Pratt. So he's trying to make this like the closing thing the for whatever reason they think this is something that's gonna break through for them. I don't know. I the race. What do you think of the Spencer apparently Spencer Pratt's already sold the rights to do a reality show if he if he becomes the mayor? Um here's my here's I think this applies to both the governor's race and to the LA mayors race, which is when you watch the debates, there is a and like Steve Hilton, Bianco, uh, Pet Pratt, they are capturing what is a very real frustration with democratic governance in this state, uh, with mismanagement, with a kind of fecklessness and lack of emotion and passion for good government and making shit work, work better, work faster, like answer people's concerns. I don't think the ans wers that that these Republicans are offering or that Spencer Pratt are offering are what we need. But the fact that there's an opening speaks to the failure of Democrats, both on policy, but also just as candidates to rise to the to meet what is like real and deep frustration with people in Los Angeles. These are all Democratic voters, for the almost all Democratic voters. And they have real like anger about about what they feel is the decline in Los Angeles. Now, I I like think Nithia uh cares deeply about the city. I think that she is thinking hard about how to actually address these issues. I think what has been a challenge in her both in that debate, I think with her on the campaign trail, is you know, when I talked to her, she made this point, which had really resonated with me that like there's this feeling when you talk about Karen Bass, like, where's the energy? Where's the the hunger? Where's like the speed? Where's the sense of urgency? Right. That's been that was about the fires, but everything else. And I wanted to see more of that from Nithia. And to be honest, I feel like as a candidate, she hasn't shown the same kind of spirit that she's promising to bring if she becomes mayor. But I do think that she has thought a lot about how to address her housing issues. She's thought a lot about what is uh uh uh has allowed production to leave Los Angeles I am voting for Nithia um and my hope is that Bass and Nithia make it out of the primary so that the two of them can go head to head and then I think that'll be like a great contest. Yeah so I I'm full disclosure I'm a Nithia donor mostly because your wife asked me to be. But I voted for Nithia too the reason I I'm mad about the status quo too. Like I share a lot of Spencer's rage about the fires, especially the communications issues after the fires or during the fires. I don't think he's the answer to those problems, but I share his anger at the frustration. And the problem, it wasn't just that Mayor Bass was out of the country when the fires started, although that was extremely bad and kind of in my view, was hard to forgive. But it's I think hard to overstate how bad the communication was from the city during that period and how scary it was to live here when the sun would go down and the winds would pick up and you'd lie in bed being like, Am I endangering my children by sticking around the city? You know, like that's where people's heads were. And there was just like the the communication wasn't just bad. Remember that night when there was like four mistaken like fake amber alerts telling people to evacuate when they didn't, right? Like that shit is unforgivable. So that is why I voted for change. Um, but if we were being honest, like I do think Nithia has has struggled in this race. She has struggled to articulate like clearly what she would do. She uh struck seems to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail. And then the debate was quite bad, like Spencer Prat t, I think, defined her as like a coincumbent at the debate. Um, and she didn't seem like a challenger. And so if she makes the runoff, and I really hope she does, uh she's got a lot of work to do to get things back on track and to It has seemed to me like in this race, we've ended up with three archetypes of candidates uh that we see across the country and have for the last like decade now. Which in in Bass, you have uh someone who is very much establishment , along with all of the uh lack of energy that comes with that. And she's kind of just, you know, exact like, you know, running around bragging that like we've reduced homelessness by 17%. And everyone's like walking around and and you can see that you're like 17%. It's doesn't look like 17% and is that a big number? And um has also been more nimby on housing, has sort of gutted a lot of the housing reforms or hasn't pursued them, hasn't been a great communicator, and you know, is just kind of in the job and doesn't communicate well or a lot. And then in Nith ia, you have someone who is like, she this is like what I was just saying about Katie Porter, right? Who has really thought about these issues, who I think is a wonderful public servant and I think could be a really good public servant, but like has not met the sort of performance related um requirements of a candidate. And it is unfortunate that you can't just be ready to be good at the job and be really smart and into the policy and stuff like that and that you also need to perform, but we've said this a million times on this show forever. Like that's what you need. And we also have like a lot of Democrats like that across the country. And then in Pratt, you have someone who, when there is democratic governance and a person in power does not fix the problems that an area is facing, it is fairly easy for a right-wing populist who's good at getting attention and no one's better at getting attention than a reality TV star to come in and tell everyone, yes, you are pissed, I'm pissed too, and if you elect me, then you can like stick it to the people in charge, even though his plans are not just cruel, they're just stupid. And that he can't do them. They're against the law. Like he doesn't have the power to do a lot of the shit he's talking about. He's just making a bunch of fucking, you know, empty promises that he's not going to be able to fulfill if he wins. But no one cares about that. People care about like, okay, he's angry and I'm angry and that's enough. It was so cool when Nithya just like, you know what? Fuck it. And drove down and said, I'm gonna run for mayor. And that was it was so exciting because it was like, you know what? She's nobody else is stepping up. People, no one, everyone is frustrated with Karen Bass. There's a collective judgment that Karen Bass just like just didn't bring uh like the the energy and and direction that the city needs, and she's gonna jump in and be the one to do it. And I've wanted that same energy in the campaign, but just hasn't been there. Like with Bass, like you know, she I when I talked to her on Love It or Leave It a couple it was right before she came out, she she ran claiming she was not going to be a NIMBY. She uh put out some housing policies that were pretty good, but then they got watered down through consensus. Also sounds like what Pacera did. Right. And then you and then she comes out against SP 79 because that's what the city council is doing. Uh took her years to put to put in charge somebody to make someone the czar of filming in and in LA right like she's just no deputy mayor for housing and and so like that that that to me and and you know part of why I think the campaigning does matter and why we why I think I want to see Nithia be a stronger candidate and stronger campaigner is because in this moment, in like in the in our in politics today, how you campaign, showing that you can do it, that's a big part of what it is to be a mayor, like someone who's gonna be out there every day, like hitting the message, someone who's gonna be like making news all the time, showing people what you're doing, showing people what matters, right? Like, like it's not just about the kind of performance, not just a show. Yeah. Now I will say uh there's been a a ton of uh you know, commentary on this race and analysis, people talking about it. I have no fucking idea what's gonna happen because what this electorate looks like. I know. It's just r and uh for people who who don't know LA, it is fifteen percent registered Republican. Right. And so even if, you know, Spencer Patton some of these polls is getting like twenty percent anywhere between twenty and even as high as thirty percent, that's still like nowhere what you'd need to win a general election, certainly, and maybe not even to advance in the primary. Also, the way LA is set up, Santa Monica has its own like if you're in Santa Monica or West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or or Pasadena, like you're not voting for mayor of LA. A lot of people think they're Pratt voters and then they're gonna get to the polls and figure out that they're not eligible. Because they're in LA County. It could end up he so he could either surprise us and do really well, or it could be this election where just a bunch of people who don't pay attention to politics at all in other parts of LA just like dutifully vote for Karen Bass. Or or Nithya. Like we I just I don't know. So t pretending that I know it's gonna happen is just yeah crazy. It just it is an interesting window into just sort of the zeitgeist of the electorate. I mean, we're there is a anti-incumbent rage across the country right now, but we're in California, a state where there's all democratic governance. And so Spencer Pratt is sort of channeling that in a different direction. It's interesting to see. It's also interesting the way he is kind of exposing the incoherence of the MAGA and the Maha agenda. Like I remember when they were very mad about uh the COVID vaccine. And now Spencer Pratt is like, I will take all the drug addicts and I will lock them up for five days or whatever and force them into treatment it's like, oh, okay. Well that's different than than uh the freedom agenda that we were talking about under Robert F. Kennedy, but okay. Well they don't well the way it wor it's a freedom for me. Not for the not for them. Um I don't know if you guys are excited or looking into any other races in California, but Michael Tubbs for Lieutenant Governor. Remember, crooked contributor and former crooked guest is running for lieutenant governor. Love Michael. And um and our buddy Jake Levine is running against Brad Sherman, Congressman Brad Sherman, in the California 32nd, which is Palisades and upwards towards Encino in that area. So that's giving him a good challenge. And the hope there, right, is that that he can keep Sherman because Sherman is is well known in that district and is expected to to like sort of lead the polls and old he's old. Um but if Jay can get it to keep him under fifty and then they can go on to a a runoff. Oh one other thing for people watching the returns um a lot of Democrats, including John Lovett here, have held onto their ballots till the very end. And California is always notoriously late in counting ballots. And so it's a high probability that this will have a um a red mirage um in in in the voting as as the returns come in, especially this year. Someone did a um a party breakdown, I think it was Galen Drook, um that in twenty twenty two, the final party breakdown was uh 50% D, 29.5% R, 19.9% other . Right now, the party breakdown and the ballots that have come in, and this is like election day basically, uh forty five point nine percent, thirty-three point five percent, twenty point six percent. So that so it's already like it it's it's off. And so the first ballots that are gonna be counted are the ones that are already in. And so now the electric could also be more red, but I I am am already worried about the Spencer Pratt and who knows Donald Trump could jump into and be like, we won and then suddenly we're being overtaken as the ballots are counted later in the week. So everyone should prepare for that. One possibility I think it's like pretty high in the list of possibilities. Is on election night you have Becerra one, Hilton two, and then over the next couple of days it goes Becerra Steyr, and then all of a sudden Hilton is saying I was locked out by the Democratic machine. Yeah. The good news is yeah, that message I think will resonate nationally. I think California voters are pretty well conditioned how stupid and long it takes us to count ballots. I wish it was faster. But see, this is probably why it's this is like the whole thing. It's like that's how it is in California. We do it the stupidest way fucking possible. Why? Why? Every other states can count balance in a couple of days. Why does it take here to weeks? Fucking stupid. I think it's all the mail, right? Because if it if you can if you can drop it in a mailbox on June 2nd on the day of the primary, then like it takes at least a couple days for the mail to get it. Yes. But then it but that is not still keeps going. But there's all there's some built-in just because of the mail. Well, you gotta get rid of those mail-in ballots, like Trump says. Thank God we have mail in ballots. Our ballot is very long. It's complicated. There's lots of things you search. There's lots of positions you've never heard of. It's very thank God for the mail in ballot. Pot sa of America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to this uh copy here, a report by CNBC indicates that almost half of all hiring managers view a candidate's enthusiasm as the single most important element when evaluating them for a position. I don't mind that enthusiasm gap. Yeah. I guess you don't want them too enthusiastic. You don't want them like breaking into your office, I guess. You don't want them falling asleep. Yeah, there's someone climate like World War Zing into the place. Um, if you need to hire for your business, how can you separate the candidates who are really excited about your opportunity from the ones who are just meh ZipRecruiter? 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Now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ziprecruder.com slash crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter . We also had more news over the weekend in the main Senate race, uh, where Graham Plattner is likely to win the nomination in next week's primary. Stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that as his campaign began last year, Plattner's wife Amy Gertner told a campaign staffer that Plattner had exchanged sexual messages with several women, and this was after Plattner and Gertner were married in late 2023, but that they had stopped before the campaign began, and Plattner and Gertner had gone through therapy. The entire situation is very messy. Uh, the staffer that uh uh Plattner's wife told, Genevieve McDonald, has since left the campaign, and she was the one who uh originally talked to the Wall Street Journ al and she's talked to the New York Times and she's become a public critic of Plattner. Um, Plattner said that at least some of what McDonald told the New York Times wasn't true, but both he and his wife, Amy Gertner, and the campaign have all confirmed the existence of the messages. Um and then Janet Mills, who uh suspended her campaign in April, um said in an interview on Sunday that actually she's still on the ballot. And uh and she also just um posted the first tweet from her campaign account since uh the tweet where she suspended her campaign and it was uh it was a happy Pride Month tweet. Well that's that's a sort of neither here nor there, I think. Try or don't. Yeah. Yeah, you can't half run for office. Come on. What are we doing here? Um well you could make the argument that she kind of half ran. Yeah. All right. What do you guys think about this latest development and how it might impact the race. I look, I mean the I think the the main risk for Platiner is the cumulative impact of these stories and scandals along with the Reddit stuff. Because I think main voters were have shown to be quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the past Reddit posts and accept his explanation that I was in a bad place. This happened in the past. I've grown. I've changed and moved on. You know, I think voters are like, okay, but we get that. Uh this latest uh what are we calling it? Sexting scandal, like this stuff was very recent. We're talking like 2023. And so um I think these days uh sexual allegations of where it's just infidelity or infidelity adjacent uh like don't tend to be campaign ending, especially when Amy Gertner said, This is a private matter, we worked through it, I love him, I have a great marriage, et cetera. But I do worry that the cumulative nature of this stuff might make voters think one like is this guy a good guy and two um what else do we not know about him and so I think Plattner's campaign can weather this they will likely weather this I would recommend less criticism of the media for covering the story. I think it's a valid story to cover. Um and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal ultimately got the story right. Right. And I would just say, you know, I think you have to own it. You have to own that this was shitty behavior. It was a mistake that we've moved , uh, we've that the two of them have worked through privately. And then in a few days from now, that's when you sort of pivot to the message about getting back to issues, because that's right. That's what is what voters want to talk about, but there's going to be a period of time where folks talk about this because it just broke. And I think you can't scold the press for covering a thing that was valid enough that your spouse brought it forward to your campaign staff to talk to them about. So um, you know, look it's fair game, obviously. If s if Susan Collins was slinging nudes on Snapchat, like we'd be talking about it. You know what I'm saying? So by the fall we might be. We uh um sorry. All that said, like I do think what platform 's got that hammer and sickle tattoo too. Yeah. What Jim Jennifer McDonald, the Platinum staff former Platinum staffer, did here is really uh shitty on a human level. It's unethical. Um, if I were Amy Girdner, I would be furious. Um and so, you know, that part of it's pretty gross. Yeah, like if a candidate just had the Reddit stories. Like I was going through a really tough time in my life and I posted some heinous shit. It was like and I regret it, uh, but I've been through a lot of therapy. It had to do with my PTSD and I'm on the other side of it. You'd be like, okay, like people grow and they change. The tattoo. You'd say, I this was stupid tattoo. I didn't understand what it meant at the time. Uh I'm covering it up. Okay. Uh early in my marriage, I was a real I was in a really shitty place and I was uh having these I was I don't know what he was doing, sexting, whatever. Uh but my wife and I have worked through it and it's a private matter. She's with we're together because we we love each other and uh that's all that should really count. You'd say, okay. I I feel like you add them all up together, and then there's all these insinuations that there's more coming, more coming , more coming. You see why people would be concerned. What I find like sort of uh hard to wrap my mind around this is that like why do we care about red flags, right? Like all of these are not. What kind of center is he gonna be? Is he a good person? Does he have our values? Does he does he have a good character at root? Or is he a is he a flawed person who's made terrible mistakes, who's trying to become a better person? Or is the insinuation that all of this adds up to evidence that he will be a bad senator who's actually not going to do the things he is claiming he's going to do, that he's going to be a fetterman, right? That he's going to disappoint us in some way, that he has like fundamental flaws. And I don't know the answer to that. What I'm amazed by is how many kind of active, hyper-engaged Democrats online who do shape how we talk about these things, claim to know with such certainty about this, right? Like they know, they know, and they're so shocked that other people don't agree with them. And and I look, I'm not a Maine voter. Do you think that he's going to lose because of these stories? Which is just another way of saying you think the voters of Maine will think he's a person of bad character. I don't I don't know, but I just uh I I find that it's a lot of people kind of fighting uh over not whether or not Graham Plattener is gonna do the things he says he's gonna do and is the person he claims to be now , more kind of relitigating their arguments and and anger kind of at the factions of the party that they're always in dispute with. Yeah. I was in thinking about this, I was trying to separate out like my personal feelings about this with like my political analysis of what it means. And personally, it's like, you know, I I think infidelity is a mistake and it shows poor judgment. I also, for me, it's like it's not a deal breaker if a candidate with past infidelity issues has worked through those with their spouse to their spouse's satisfaction, which is the case here. It's like still not great, but it's not a deal breaker. Um, if it's a deal breaker for other people, I don't judge that either. Like you make your own determinations. I think in the in terms of like the timeline when everything happened, it is very clear to me, and I think it's probably clear to everyone now, that Graham Plattner did not think he was going to be a candidate for office up until the minute he was a candidate for office and lived his life accordingly. Um, and probably, you know, other people will say, well, I didn't make mistakes like he did and I didn't tattoos. Correct. Right. Like he he lived his life not thinking he would ever be a candidate for public office. And then he ran for office. And then they were like, all right, what's in the past? And all the stuff's coming out, including at the time he decided to run for office, these messages, which his wife um brought up to uh the campaign. So again, all of the accusations and all the stories about Plattiner have been from about behavior and things he did before he started running for office. Right. And so for me, I think, okay, the whole like I've changed and I've grown, it's not about like I was a kid and did crazy things. It was I was never going to run for office and now I'm running for office and I'm trying to your senator. So what kind of senator are you going to be, right? Um politically, the the uh my analysis of this is you're right that like these things start stacking on top of each other. And I think that the larger issue for people becomes trust, right? Because and this is where the is more gonna come out or why did n't the campaign like first of all some people are like why didn't tell us this if they knew this I don't think campaigns are necessarily in the business of dumping all of the opposition research they do on their own candidates into the incredibly personal painful stuff. Right into the public like that doesn't usually happen. Absolutely not on this one. She came up. Hey, just so you know, this is something that happened in our past, but we're good. It's not an issue. We're together. We're happy. That is never, of course they don't come up. That's a private matter. Right. But I think that um look, uh Andrew Kaczynski on the tattoo story, like whose reporting I trust a lot and is a very good reporter, has the you know the story that maybe Plattiner knew what the tattoos signified sometime after he got up up before he ran, and the t and you know, Plattner's been a little s sort of sketchy on just explaining that. And now this one, it was like, well, I think that she she told the you know, she lied to the times and the time story wasn't right, but it was. So there is this. What I worry about, and what I think about if I was them is like there is a trust issue now that could become a bigger trust issue. And I do think that that the campaign and Platinum might think these issues don't matter or or they're private whatever, but he has to now work to build people's trust and keep people's trust between now and November, because people, even people who like him, are gonna start to question: well, is he telling the full truth about everything? Is there more? Are they transparent? It you know, like and and that to me does bear on what kind of senator you are. So I think the most important thing for them is to like go and do the work and like earn people's trust and take all the tough questions and and give all the explanations you need until people are bored to bored asking the questions. Aaron Powell Yeah, I think you gotta probably be a little more transparent on this one. draw a line at when you s decided to run to office for kind of like when they judge your decision making or the morality of the decision. They make it I think I think if like the tattoo is a bridge too far to you, I I understand that. I'm not gonna tell you otherwise. I mean what what I you know when, I talked to him about this when we sort of they showed us the video, the thing that I always stuck with me was he took his shirt off and sang that song at his was it brother's wedding and his sister-in-law is Jewish. So like you have to be a real asshole to do that and display that tattoo, kind of knowing full well and being fully cognizant of what it meant at that wedding. That to me was a convincing explanation, but I've read Andrew's reporting too that maybe there's some questions at the timeline. I think that's a fully uh a totally reasonable thing to wonder about. I think the threshold question is are there other things in this guy's past that suggest he ascribes to Nazi or fascist ideology? And that's where the Reddit archive is actually quite useful. Yes. Is what it shows is the exact opposite. I know. Right. And then that's where I think people kind of refuse to kind of engage with this broader body of factual information that we have when we want to assess what this man believes. And I and I will say this is why I personally, and and people have seen me do this online, but this is why I get more frustrated with people people's um uh with people being upset at the at the tattoo thing more than uh if you're upset with all the old Reddit stuff and you feel like he's apologized for that but um the apology not accepted then like that's your decision and I I understand that. If you're upset about this the sexting scandal, then like I understand that. But the the you're right, the tattoo thing, the guy just posted on Reddit, again, like he was never running for office anonymously, has all these things that he said that he's now regretting that are some are offensive, whatever else. None of them even hinted that he has ascribes to any of this kind of idea. So the sounds like a commie. And everyone's like Nazi head okay. I saw when we yeah, when we were, when you were about to interview him Tommy and we saw the video, I was like, uh what's the problem? It's a skull and crossbones. Now, everyone now can be like, you didn't know it was a fucking cobb. No, we knew it was a tone cock. I thought it was a skull and crossbones. And I'm sure maybe if Andrew's story is correct, then at some point someone said to Platiner, Hey, that skull and crossbones you've got, do you know that's a Nazi tattoo? And he's probably like, Well, I've been screened for the army twice and they screened for tattoos for this and no one ever said anything. And I have a Jewish family and no one ever said anything. So maybe he then Googled it and was like, oh yeah, it is. But again, was probably like, well, what do I I like am gonna go cover it up? I'm not and then he didn't clearly something changed in their thinking between when I talked to him and a couple days later. Because when I talked to him, he was like, no, I did this, this was the deal, it was a stupid tattoo. I was an infantryman, I was in Croatia, I was a dumb kid, whatever. And a couple days later he got it covered up. Right. So like something occurred to him that this, oh, actually, this is a real problem that I should fix. But this is where it's like people just sort of call him a Nazi. And it's like and then then it's like you say, well, hold on a second. Like no one, you don't have to listen, anyone. You don't have to believe anyone, you don't have to take more information in, you don't have to have a nuanced view. You can just call somebody a Nazi if you want. The reason symbols matter is because they're supposed to symbolize something, right? Like we're we're we battle about symbols on social media because it's that's what the medium is for. It's for taking little tokens of something and drawing a conclusion about it. It's very small space. So we do it with symbols. But the symbol has to mean something. Like it has to be a red flag of something. Like, do you think he's a Nazi? Of course you don't. Of course you don't. You think maybe think he's a stupid tattoo? Maybe think he didn't care enough about it being a Nazi tattoo. That's a fair argument. Maybe he was it was pointed out. He didn't take it seriously enough. I that's okay. All of it's like just, but like can we just have an honest conversation about it rather than like uh it's a no for me because of the the the tattoo. It's like uh okay, that you're free to do that. We're just gonna we're just gonna have the rest of the conversation even if you don't wanna have it. Also also the other thing and I think ultimately here, this is up to the people of Maine and this is up to the voters of Maine. And if this whole time he was going down and down and down and down in the polls and peop and people were not buying this, I would have been like, okay, then but then then he shouldn't be the nominee. Or the NFL. Mills stayed in the race because she wanted to fight it out. Well, so even even Mills now saying, like, I'm technically still in the race and whatever. Like, that's fine. If she wants to campaign for the last week and and if she's on the ballot, we're gonna be talking about this race on June 9th. If the people of Maine now decide that they want Janet Mills instead of Graham Plattner because of this l last scandal and everything else, then like they should do that and then then the national party should get behind Janet Mills and we'll be off to November. Probably she quit. Because she saw the writing on the wall. Because because she because she didn't go down in her last race, which is fine. But if Platner gets a ton of votes in the primary and still does really well, then like that's what the people of Maine wanted and, they met him. And they didn't you know, it wasn't just online discourse like they met him. So we gotta we gotta kinda take the lead of the people in Maine. Yeah. So there's not a like a I I know we're all used to losing and being fucking losers, and we're talking about a loser mentality, and like a loser mentality is like um i like this is bad we have to do something else i'm scared i don't like this this is bad i'm done with this we can't do this we have to do something else and it's like guys he's if if there if there was someone else running you could have a debate and maybe vote for somebody else. He's right now the only person that's kind of putting up a fight for this race. If you want to say that Janet Mill should get back in, if you want to say that he should drop out, whatever, say what you want. But really, what you're saying is I'm worried he's going to lose. Well, people are stamparing it to like that. Well, people push Biden out when they thought that Biden did sit there and but I'm like but that was the opposite because in that scenario the whole country didn't want Biden and Biden and his campaign were saying yes yes you will get him no matter what that was this this is is a a f f this is a flip thing where where the voters of Maine are like, no, no, we like him and then other people are worried about it. You know, it's just a different thing. It could come to that. When nobody was challenging Biden and Biden was the nom inee, and there it still seemed like there's a chance he could win. That was actually when we s when we would talk about how we were concerned he wasn't his age issues, but he's gonna be the person, so we've got to do everything we can to help him win because he's the only person that we're gonna have. Then he eats shit in that debate. Joe Biden thought he was having a stroke. Didn't tell us at the time. Okay, babe. But the but but then it was now clear that he could not win. And so it was time to do something in an emergency because it was pragmatic. It was crazy. It was it was risky , but it was actually pragmatic because it was the only hope of winning the election. Nobody can make that argument right now based on the polls around Grand Planner. They just can't. Yeah. All right. So that's that. I'm sure we won't talk about that anymore between now and November. Um, one more thing we couldn't resist, over the weekend, the New York Times published a brutal and hilarious report titled, Is JD Vance the 2028 Frontrunner? Trump has questions. According to the Times, Trump is quote, not so sure about Vance. Trump has pointed out that Vance's political success has largely depended on Trump's support, that Vance takes too many vacations, that Vance opposed the war in Iran, and that Vance, frankly, sometimes doesn't look or act very presidential. We, of course didn't wanna be unfair to JD. So uh we thought we'd check the tape of of some of the moments in question. Let's let's play. JD buds into conversations. What's I wanna have I wanna have that for at least a couple of days, okay JD I'll give you guys American Vice President . Okay. My wife has the right to skydive. But she doesn't jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not gonna do that because I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. Well they say it's racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're gonna call that racist too. But what is uh this what is uh Zach? You g'onnare have to help me out with her name here. I lost my page here . Okay . Alright. Now you can't boo me. I'm vice president of the United States. Couchfucker! Couchfucking, couchfucker! That's JD Vance the fucking Oh . Oh my god. That's so funny. What did you guys think of the story? I love the story so much. J JD Vance is just the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Trump wheels him out, have a little box, humiliates him, puts him back in. Um the details are so funny. Like the man who spends one third of his time at Mar-a-Lago thinks JD Vance takes too many vacations. Delicious. I love that Trump thought the uh the trophy incident that we just watched there twice was as embarrassing as we all did, and that it just like exposed JD as just like a phony non-sports fan loser. I love that Susie Wiles took away JD's phone privileges and tweeting like he's some, you know, like her teenage son got in trouble. Uh that clip of Trump scolding JD for talking in meetings and not acting like some like CCP commissar is beautiful. Like they set him up. They went through this like his failure tour. It was the Iran talks, the Victor Orban campaign stop, uh Indiana. Indiana Republicans trying to jaw bone them into redistricting. Failure, failure, failure . Uh he killed Pope Francis. People forget about that, but JD Vance was so annoying to Pope Francis. Got us better. Yeah, he did get us a better Pope. Which who he then uh uh don't be a pe aceful thing. Shut up and dribble. Yeah, shut up and hope it like ultimately like this is a win-win for Trump, right? Because if whoever comes next, if it's JD or Ruba Rubio or whoever, if they win, Trump will say that's because of me. If they lose, he'll say, can't win without Trump, right? So he's pumped no matter what, but it is so fun watching him just fuck with these guys. states it as a fact that I didn't wouldn't have occurred to me as a fact that Trump is just spending more time with Rubio than he is with J.D. Vance because Rubio is of course not just Secretary of State. He's he's he's he's national security advisor and JD Vance can't ride on the plane with Trump because he's vice president. Vice President can't go on Air Force One with the president. Just doesn't happen. Uh and so he's a little bit outside of things. I will say that the like the JD Vance's whole life just having FOMO. I I think I think they've given him uh almost as annoying jobs though. For sure, for sure. But I think they actually listen when he says stuff. Uh but I'm gonna run . That's true. Well, yeah, fair enough. But uh, I mean, even the thing though, he was by the end, Bance was saying he was in favor of doing if we're going to do it. Go big, go big or go home. So even he tried to stay on the right side of that. But anyway, uh I think like what Trump sees is what we see. Is it like Vance can't help but reveal his nature. He can't help it. He can't help it. He can't go into a donut shop and be normal. He doesn't know how to talk to people because he's putting on a show, but the like that that like ambitious little nerd, that kind of like that that that thing inside of him, it just can't stop from coming out. And it makes everyone, including Trump, uncomfortable. And I love it. I just I just want to um zoom in again on the uh the social media part with my my Twitter pen pal, JD Vance. This is what the Times says. In meetings, Mr. Vance frequently scrolls his phone and he uses social media to fight with his critics. The president frequently posts a truth social, but he does not spend time replying to people online as Mr. Vance does. I I just love that they have separated out the kind of poster. Yeah like reply guy. Trump's out there, he's posting like thirty times a night in the middle of the night. AI he's a c yeah, he's he's a producer really. He's just putting it out. And Mr. Vance is there just replying to people online, How dare you sir. Susie Wilde and the other staff have all gotten together to tell him to have an intervention and say that uh that the fighting was beneath his office. The idea that anyone in that fucking building is gonna tell anyone what's beneath the office And yet they do, and yet I believe it. I know, I absolutely believe it. But they made him say it was for Lent. I know. I know. And then he's like He's like I liked it so much, I just kept it off my phone. Giving up for Lent. Sure. I love that. I love that. I took it off my phone finally. You did? This weekend. I'm proud of you. Yeah. It was the play it was the Platinum stuff that did it. I was like, I can't. I started I saw it starting blowing up. It's like I'm just gonna I'm gonna save my thoughts for Monday. It was like I can't have uh a grand platinum thing and then and then two fights going on. Uh Dave Portnoy tweets at me and then Nira with like five tweets. I was like, I'm done. Yeah, you need like a it's like the quadrennial the quadrenal phone quadrennial tweet review where like you can't be fighting, you have to be able to hold one front and also win on another front at the same time I've said this before I was like the JD Vance thing, yeah, I'll fight with JD Vance on like no, not that this is the I what I did this week it was not good. Okay. Not good. Yeah, it's not fun. Nice to admit that. When we come back, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim will talk to me about the conditions at an ICE detention center in Newark where he was also pepper sprayed by federal agents. Podsave America is brought to you by Quince. As the temperatures heat up during summer, you want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable, things that are easy but still put together. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Well-made basics but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quince European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation, starting at just thirty-four dollars. Their tees are soft and easy to wear, and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Quince goes way beyond clothing, custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. Um, I just got uh one of the lightweight cotton sweaters. Nice. Yeah, because it's good for, you know, it's uh it gets a little chillier at night in LA even when it's warm in the day. And so the lightweight sweater is perfect. Um elevate your summer wardrobe, go to quince.com slash crooked for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's q u I N C E dot com slash crooked for free shipping and three hundred and sixty-five-day returns, quints.com slash crook ed Senator Andy Kim, welcome back to PodSafe America. Yeah, thanks for having me back. So um for anyone who hasn't been following the story, uh there's a privately run ICE detention center in Newark called Delaney Hall. Around 300 people are being held inside. Um some have started a hunger strike over the conditions. You tried to visit last Sunday, were turned away, got in on Monday, Memorial Day, and then by the end of the day, you got pepper sprayed by federal agents. Can you just walk us through that whole experience and and what you saw? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for shining a light on this because this is a problem not just for us in New Jersey, but all over this country. Uh this is a facility that has about 800 right now, several hundred of them participating in the hunger strike and the broader protests. But uh I was been able to go there a couple times and and look, you know, some of the things that I've heard most recently. Uh you know, these are people that are, for instance, a a man telling me that he's got stage three lung cancer, doesn't want to be there anymore, willing to go back to his home country, but not being allowed to do so, not getting the medical care that he needs. You know, there's a pregnant woman there telling me that she's not getting the medical care that she needs as she's gearing up to have a baby. And she's literally looking me in the eye and she's saying, like, do I need to be prepared to have a baby here in Delaney H all. You know, they they have she has no movement on her case, you know, no understanding what's happening next in the courts. You know, the woman that was translating this for me, you know, turned out to be an 18-year-old high school senior who's in there by herself. I actually talked to her mom outside of Delaney Hall and she was worried sick. You can imagine, you know, having your your daughter, an 18-year-old high school senior in a detention facility by herself. Um, you know, this is a a young woman who was telling me all she wanted to do is go to the prom and graduate from high school this year. And so like when Trump's telling you these are the worst of the worst, telling you that he's going after the violent criminals. You know, I wanted the people across this country to just hear what I'm hearing inside that facility. And sure, they're they're complaining and raising the concerns about the medical care or the lack of medical care, about the horrible problems where they're having with food. Like one man ran up to me with a milk carton and showed me what was inside, and it was just congealed solid on the inside. I mean, it's disgusting. And uh, you know, they're raising concerns about the extreme heat that they're feeling, and I felt it too as I'm sweating there in their room. Um, and it wasn't even a particularly hot day. But what they were also flagging is just like the lack of any movement on their cases. I mean, some of them in there for eight months, some of them in there for over a year, not having any movement forward in any credible way. You know, one man ran to the hallway and grabbed a piece of paper off the bulletin board and you know, showed it to me. And it showed me that like on one day, you know, when courts came back into session after the Memorial Day weekend, on one day, on that Tuesday, this one jaws had 74 cases before her in you know i you know i in just one day. And like you know, like I did the back of the napkin math, that's like about five minutes per case. I mean it's a farce of a a legal pro cess that's just you know keeping them there while you know while these conditions are terrible, not moving anything forward. And who's paying the bill? It's us. It's the taxpayer dollars that are that are paying you, know, Geo Group, you know, millions and millions of dollars to run these facilities. So that's you know, that's that's at least what I saw inside. First of all, that is just horrific. And um it seems like the delay in hearing these cases is both a function of how many people um they are detaining, um clearly not the worst of the worst, but uh a whole bunch of other um immigrants, some of whom I imagine could be here legally, um as well as just the sort of failure to properly resource the immigration uh courts with uh enough judges and to properly resource these facilities. Is that what you took away from it as well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, look, uh, you know, some of this is absolutely just a lack of investment. I mean, like, we're like as they're surging up ICE and CBP through the reconciliation bill. And I'm you know down here at the Capitol now because they're about to try to push another 60, 70 billion dollars towards the enforcement side. But where's the energy towards uh towards the courts? You know, we already had millions of cases of backlog that was going to take a decade or so just to be able to get through. Like we all know that we need to invest uh in the courts, that we can have a judicial process that can hopefully take on these cases in a matter of days and weeks rather than years or even longer. And that should, you know, that backlog is what is putting so much strain on our system and is costing us so much. So that's part of it. But like, look, you can't help but think through. I mean, like, this is Geo Group, you know, for those that don't may not be following this, Geo Group's a for-profit company that runs this facility, runs 19 other facilities, about 20 facilities around this country in charge of detaining over 20,000 people for ICE. You know, this is a group that is just making money off of this all. Like they're just printing money off of this all you know they're getting paid by the bed by the day you know so they're not certainly complaining about this process uh and like when you uh you can't help but think like look when Tom Holman comes from Geo Group into the White House to run this process. When they just chose actually today is the first day of the new head of ice that they just uh picked and it came again straight from Geo Group. You know, like you can't help but think like this revolving door uh of just profiting off of this, you know, human misery, uh you can't help but think like this is the point that they are trying to make things so bad for the detainees there, that detainees just give up and sign whatever papers that they want or whatnot. And you know, and I felt it there. Like there was just so little accountability. Like as you said, I tried to get into the facility uh on on Monday uh early in the day I tried to get in. I actually even let them know ahead of time and got approval to be able to go into the facility that day. I show up at the gates and the geo group guards are just like nope. Like you're not allowed in and you're like I'm a I'm a U.S. senator and I've had authorization to do this. Had to call secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. I talked to him and told him, like, let me inside. Like, I have a right to be inside . And so finally they let me inside. And I go inside and I talk to the head of geo group in the facility. And I told him, by the way, your guards just told me that I can't come inside. And he just looked at me. He said, you're a liar. He just literally to my face called me a liar. I mean like that I give you that not because it was insulting to me, but I give you that because I want you to understand like the type the the kinds of of dynamics that there are. That situation was very indicative to me of the lack of just the lack of care about any accountability or transparency. Like they don't feel the Geo Group doesn't feel beholden to the American people, certainly doesn't feel beholden to Congress. And that is, you know, that is because of just this dynamic between ICE and groups like Geo Group and Core Civic and these other companies, like they're just in a world and a league of their own. They're just like operating off on their own. And because you know speaker Johnson and others are just giving them that kind of carbon. So they they were just in some, you know, in some world of their own and feel nothing. You know, and then so when I and then when I came out from that facility and was alerted by my team and the people on the ground that there is now like a standoff of people outside. So not only is there chaos inside Delaney Hall, but now I come out and emerge outside and see that there's a stando ff between ICE agents. You know, they have a row of ICE agents that are armed. Uh they have an armored vehicle. Uh they and they're you know just on a standoff with the the the protesters there. I mean look, you know, like uh my immediate concern was like I this cannot become Minnesota. Uh we saw what happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Uh I was terrified that you know we're gonna see that type of violence and and and potentially bloodshed in the streets so i i was trying to figure out like is there any any way to be able to off ramp this? Is there any way we can uh be able to to the lower the temperature? And I was talking to to to the the the head of ice outside there and at some point he just told me look look we're gonna just drive these vehicles, our vehicles out. And and I looked across the the the field there and I said like you cannot just simply plow your vehicles through a crowd of of civilians. Like you you have to try to figure out you know how we can try to do this without the violence and uh look i was trying to see if there's any arrangement but like again like it shouldn't be just on me like when it comes to de-escalation like what role are their officers supposed to play. Like, and and that that's what I think was so alarming, John, is like there was just like at some point just a feeling of inevitable violence. And I it was just so jarring to me. Like the ease with which ice just went out and drove their vehicles literally through a clock a crowd, just not even like not even putting effort to try to avoid that circumstance . It shouldn't be that easy to have violence in the streets of America. Like it shouldn't be that easy for federal agents that are supposed to swear the same oath that I swear about protecting and defending the Constitution and supporting the American people to find themselves in a circumstance. So it's just like, you know, I saw this unfold, and immediately, you know, my instinct was to run into it and try to put myself between the ICE agents and the crowd. I was trying to keep that physical separation because that is where we saw so much of the uh uh of the violence escalate in Minnesota. If I could at least keep them physically separ ated, you know, perhaps we could avoid the worst. But it was uh it was uh it was it was so jarring. It was it was really scary just to see that type of violence in my state, frankly, anywhere in the country. And to know that, you know, this is still could very well be a you know a problem that we see continue in my state and and elsewhere. And so because you put your body in between the protesters and the um ICE agents, the federal agents, um, eventually they started uh shooting pepper balls. Uh I believe that there's one that uh struck by your feet um and and you know you inhaled it as well. Um Secretary Mullen and and DHS are saying uh just a number of things that don't seem to be true and and certainly are not your account that there is no hunger strike, that the complaints are about uh certain inmates not getting or certain people that are being held by the facility uh not getting their ethnic food of choice, that the conditions aren't bad , that nobody was directly struck by pepper balls uh about you. What do you make of just the the what what they're saying about all of this? Well well first of all, just again , like I saw what I saw. Like I talked to the people, like there is a hunger strike going on inside and a larger protest . And there are are certainly people that are not getting basic care. You know, like like again, they're not they're not asking for for the moon. They're they're they're asking for just a certain baseline of human dignity. Especially as we're again keeping them there for indefinite amounts of time. I mean there was I was in the medical isolation area and there was a man there in a wheelchair. He hadn't left that room in four months because like that facility is just not meant to handle someone with a wheelchair. So they're like, you're stuck in this room now. Like, you know, and like not able to go to d to go and and and leave. He was like, Can I at least be at a hospital? And frankly, look, there was actually someone who was sent to a hospital, a woman that was sent to a hospital for quite for no quite a number of days. By the time I got there, it was like day 12 or 14. The family didn't even know where this woman was. They because ICE wouldn't tell her what hospital that she was at because of security concerns. So you can't tell them where you're hospital which hospital you're at. They can tell them the nature of the you know the severity of the problem that she had to be at a hospital. I mean she was there for like 12 to 14 days. Uh that's a civ that's a significant amount of time in a hospital. And the family has no idea they can't visit them. And so I asked like what can the family do to learn about this? And literally like like it it breaks my brain thinking about this. Like ICE looked me in the eye and said, oh the family can FOIA this information. I mean just like thinking to myself like what ? Like like they're they're family member could be in some life-threatening situation at a hospital and you want them to FOIA this information about their loved one? Like that's like the just the the craziness of the so like when you know when when Secretary Mullen or others say this , you know, they're just in like damage control mode. They saw what happened in Minnesota when the American people actually saw what was happening. And the American people, they're smart about this. They understand that there are just lines that should not be crossed. Yeah. And whether that's for American citizens or anybody in this country. And frankly, look, a lot of the people I met with at Delaney Hall, they are married to American citizens and and par pa ents of kids that are American citizens. Um, you know, so that that's what I think they're afraid of. They're afraid that the American people will understand and learn the truth about what is happening in our name with our money but without our say and without our approval and and that's just you know that's just wrong and and that's what needs to be changed here. You know I, we have the capacity to do so. It's just a matter of political will that this administration refuses to put towards this. I know that Governor Sherrill sent in state police to help set up protest zones and sort of asked demonstrators to lower the temperature. Some of the activists outside Delaney heard that as as her policing them instead of the feds. Where do you come down on some of the the tension between trying to conduct oversight , give people uh a safe space to protest while also trying to maintain safety um uh in you know the general area. Yeah. I mean, first of all, look, I mean this is chaos that is inherited from ICE that they have been filming. And they look they've been threatening to bring many, many mu more ICE agents to New Jersey, you know, basically threatening you know a surge similar to Minnesota. So I understand, look, you know, we're gonna try to avoid that scenario. But look, I you know there are legitimate concerns at Delaney Hall. And as a result, there are legitimate, you know, legitimate reasons to be able to protest that. And I want to make sure that we are trying to address that. Like we are allowing that kind of space. I get it. Like, you know, the we can't have this unrest continue on. In fact, I'm hearing it from the families of the detainees saying that it's been preventing them from being able to visit their loved ones, that the attorneys are not able to get access because you know because uh of some of the roads have been shut down and other things. So like look , like we want to make sure we're not getting in the way and losing sight of what we're really trying to address, which is the the the the detainees and their conditions. Um but like there there's got to be a way that we can do this, uh, you know, while while we're also making sure that you know people have the rights afforded to them in the constitution, especially for free speech. So like I'm I'm trying to work on this, trying to address this. Uh I talked with not only the governor's team, but also Mayor Baraka from Newark to try to think through like what other steps, what other ways can we do this that isn't going to just further inflame what is already this horrible situation that ICE has you know thrown our state into. But you know, it it it is it is difficult. But I'm I'm trying my best to be able to push forward and in a way that is going to make sure that again we're keeping the needs and the plight of the detainees front and center here. As you mentioned, you know, one opportunity to sort of make some change here is, you know, the Senate schedule to consider this $72 billion budget bill funding for ICE that would fund ICE through the end of Trump's term. Obviously, it doesn't seem like Democrats have the votes to stop it in the Senate, because it's it would only require 51 votes. But are you and or other Democrats planning to offer any amendments that you that you think might actually be able to pass with some Republican support that might rein in some of the abuses we're talking about? Um or or you know, make any kind of uh corrections to some of the things that you saw. Well look, uh here here's what I lay lay out lay out for you. I mean there are a whole slew of problems that are are facing Douaney. And I want people to know, like it's not that Delaney, Delaney is not some bad apple that is just, you know, we just have to address that. This is a system-wide failure, yeah, uh, and problem. As I said, you know, Geo Group's got 19 other facilities, you know, core civic and other I mean like and and then now you know ICE is trying to build these warehouse detention facilities and hopefully we can push back and stop this. But there's a broader problem, systemic not just in the culture, but just in the in the broader process . And and that's what I'm trying to expose. You know, and so there's three things in particular I'm trying to push towards, both through the legislation as through other means. You know, like first, like let's get uh let's surge some medical support to del aney and these other facilities like like there are clearly people who are not getting the care that they need and and Senate secretary mol d can can dispute that but like again, it's not what I'm hearing, it's not what I'm seeing. And and I just don't see why anyone's gonna stand the way and say, like, look, let's let's just try to see. I mean the DHS has a a medical unit, you know, we can be able to surge up there in that kind of capacity right away. Like right now, they have one doctor for one full-time doctor for about 800 detainees. Uh, you know, that many of them have significant medical concerns. So like, that,'s what I'm trying to do initially. Like, let's surge up there. Let's have uh, you know, number two, like let's have like a real investigation into these different claims uh that are about there, whether it's about the food or the other conditions. And number three , the detainees were very clear with me that it's not just about the conditions, it's just about having that movement forward on their cases. So I'm trying to again take what I'm hearing and figure out how to put it in action. You know, I'm I've been talking to Secretary Mullen this week, telling him what I'm hearing on the ground, trying to see what we can move forward because they could do this on their own if they wanted to right now. You know, they they could demand, you know additional doctors, they could demand you know efforts to be able to surge this. And that's what I I hope people understand. Like Geo Group got a nearly billion dollar contract for Delaney Hall. So they could hire more doctors tomorrow, today, but that's gonna be less profit for them, right? Like they could, they could have better quality food or fix the extreme heat that I'm hearing, but then again, that's cutting into their profits, right? So we can change that. So I I have been and will continue to be pushing for amendments along these lines of just saying, like, let's have a baseline of medical resources available. I hope we can all agree that regardless of the circumstances that someone's in there, like we want to make sure that they're getting some semblance of medical care for key needs. You know, I'm trying to push forward on on something that is about de-escalation trade. I literally uh uh submitted that uh uh amendment uh before I even went back to Delaney Hall about how we can uh ensure that there's de-escalation trading for ICE and CBP after what we saw in Minnesota and and every single Republican on the homeland security committee voted against my amendment, you know, and then I went back to Villane and saw and experienced what I did. So I'm pushing for it. But again, like this is something where we really need the American people to kind of come behind us on this. You know, we the only times we've seen this administration back down or pull back has been when there's wide public outrage. You know, we saw that with Minnesota. We see that actually just today. It looks like we're seeing it when the Trump administration seems to be backing off that $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6th rioters. Uh, I hope that's true, that that they're backing off of that. But like, you know, that's what we really need is is for us to say, like, you know, this cannot be what is happening in our country and to be able to try to stop it. And I know you know reconciliation and voteramas in the Senate. This is not like must-watch TV, right? Like this is not something that's gonna necessarily like uh you know have people tuning in at whatever god out god awful hour in the middle of the night that you know the Republicans force us to to vote on these. But like I I I ask people please like like for my state for our country, like please tune in to what is happening because what they're trying to do is give upwards of 70 billion dollars more for ICE and CBP. Not only is there no reforms and acco untability in there, like what Americans have been demanding since Minnesota, but there's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your healthcare. There's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your groceries or for the rising gas prices. There's nothing in it for you. It's just more money that's going straight into geogroups' pockets and to just continue this lawlessness that we'd see. This cannot stand. And this is something