214: Mark Leibovich on the Week in Washington

The Al Franken Podcast

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4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

We're joined by our friend Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic to break down a wild week in Washington D.C.! Donald Trump gave his address to Congress. It was the longest one ever and didn't seem to say much (except blame Joe Biden for all of the country's problems). We also take a look at America's deteriorating relationship with Ukraine and how Republicans who USED TO support Ukraine are turning their backs when our ally needs it the most. Plus, we discuss the ongoing drama around tariffs and why Trump can't seem to make up his mind on using them.

Read Mark Leibovich in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/author/mark-leibovich/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. We got a great one today, you know, for a change. Our old friend Mark
0:09.7	Leibovic joins me to discuss what's going on in our nation's capital. For those of you who
0:14.9	don't know Mark, he's a staff writer at the Atlantic, formerly with the New York Times. He's also
0:20.6	an MSNBC analyst.
0:23.6	Trump gave his address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, of course, the longest one in history. For all intents of purposes, it was a State of the Union address.
0:35.6	Trump certainly treated it that way.
0:38.5	I know he set a record for people he introduced in the balcony.
0:43.3	I may be wrong, but the first president I remember doing that was Ronald Reagan.
0:48.0	And he had one guy who had he jumped into the Potomac to save a woman's.
0:57.3	This is January. Fridid waters, early 80s.
1:03.4	This guy dived into those icy waters and the Potomac to save someone.
1:08.1	And since then, other presidents have introduced people in the gallery. But nowhere near as many as Trump introduced this this past week.
1:13.1	But he had plenty of time to call Joe Biden the worst president in our history.
1:19.9	I've never seen that. And then Trump blamed Biden and not the bird flu for the price of eggs.
1:28.2	One of the people Trump introduced was Elon Musk,
1:31.1	the head of Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency.
1:34.9	He's also the richest person in the world
1:38.3	who cut off life-saving aid from USAID to the poorest people in the world.
1:47.3	And through Doge, he has been firing untold numbers of federal employees throughout the
1:52.7	country.
1:53.2	About 85% of federal employees live outside the D.C. area of Virginia, Maryland, and that
2:00.4	area.
	...

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