Back in 2016, a new politics podcast, Keepin’ It 1600, appeared on Bill Simmons’s website, The Ringer, and it was nothing like anything I had heard before. Then current White House aides Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor talked about the presidential campaign in a way that made you feel like you’d stumbled into a hip DC party, and by tuning in you were allowed into the most informed and entertaining conversation to be had about politics. The podcast was immediately popular, and even though the campaign ended in singularly depressing fashion, the group saw their opportunity to go into business on their own and formed Crooked Media and its flagship podcast Pod Save America, where they have done their part to encourage and comfort those who refuse to accept President Trump and his MAGA-hatted followers’ vision of America.
Occasionally, the Pod Save America crew takes its show on the road, and last week they stopped in at the Keller Auditorium in Portland at a rather opportune time, just when the Ukraine story broke and Speaker Pelosi had thrown her long-delayed support toward impeachment. I had a front-row seat to the proceedings, and I can vouch for the enthusiasm among the capacity crowd at the prospect of kicking the Orange One out of the Oval Office. The full podcast can be heard here:
“Big Liddle’ Lies.” (LIVE from Portland!) | Crooked Media
No need to recount the whole show since you can listen for yourself, but a couple of comments are in order. First, I wonder if Rudy Giuliani has any idea how much comic material he provides to his adversaries with his goggle-eyed stream-of-consciousness cable TV appearances. The dignity he once had as America’s Mayor and a mob-prosecuting US Attorney has long since vanished, and it will not be anything of a surprise in the future to see him on infomercials featuring the latest in male enhancement potions.
There was a nervous moment, bleeped from the online podcast, when a fan leaped up on the stage just a few feet away from me and was quickly hustled off. Though the general atmosphere was much less menacing than what I have heard of Trump rallies, it still seemed to me that the Pod Save America crew might consider some added investment in security for their road trips. Even among Friends of The Pod, you never know what kind of weirdos will show up at public gatherings.
The show was worth the price of admission, and it is even more worth your time to tune into the podcast, which generally posts twice a week. In the face of what is guaranteed to be extraordinarily aggressive insanity in the coming weeks and months, this group will be very helpful in keeping our heads straight and our eyes on the prize.
– Vino Knight-Trane
