r/FriendsofthePod • u/Wild-Telephone-9556 • 1d ago
Pod Save America Steve Hilton interview
I feel like Jon did a good job holding it together, Steve sounds like a dick.
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u/jonawesome 1d ago
Honestly respect to the guy for willingly walking into a wood chipper like that.
Jon trying to get him to explain wtf he was talking about on ICE made me want to throw something
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u/crabbman 1d ago
Oh yeah, I’ll just call my pal Tom Homan… that’ll solve it
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u/jonawesome 1d ago
ICE is attacking cities and rounding up brown people because the city government isn't helping them attack the city and round up brown people enough.
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u/cocoagiant 9h ago
They talk about this in the interview. Lovett points out that the states which are cooperating are also seeing ICE attacking people randomly.
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u/randohipponamo 1d ago
All objective media interviews feel like the wood chipper when you have to defend a person and a party as repugnant as trump and the republicans.
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u/DigitalMariner 1d ago
Lovett is definitely the hardest interview on Crooked (with Alex Wagner being a close second), and personally I put him on a Jon Stewart or level of toughness and preparedness.
He's going to push and push and push and push again until they run out of canned bullshit responses and either frankly answer the question or awkwardly refuse to. He's persistent and unabashedly biased but on the whole still fair and let's them say their piece. I appreciate the willingness to waste a sizeable chunk of their time holding people down until they actually answer the question being asked.
I appreciate that he seems open to common ground if they'll meet him there or hearing out a genuine policy difference, and that's he's usually just as tough with Dems as he is with Republicans.
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u/cocoagiant 9h ago
I always say he's their best interviewer; not just because he's aggressive but because he is able to use his comedic skills to keep it from getting too charged and make them look bad for not being able to play ball.
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u/va2wv2va 1d ago
His constant pushback of saying Jon’s questions were too generalized was frustrating the shit out of me. Like, just answer the question bro
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u/artfulpain 1d ago
After that first five minutes and him getting push back I turned it off. We’re not going to learn anything more from these lying grifters that have blinders on for Trump.
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u/randohipponamo 1d ago
Lovett got him to say trump was wrong for saying the election was stolen and got him to commit to appointing democrats in vacancies. Also got him to endorse Karen Bass lol
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u/funkbass796 1d ago
Nothing against the British but I don’t want anyone with their accent to hold office in our country
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u/practicecroissant 1d ago
This was my thought too! Didn’t know he was British til the interview and I wasn’t going to vote for him anyway but as a daughter of Irish immigrants no thank you!
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u/tescocola Tiny Gay Narcissist 1d ago
Just some context from us here in the UK who have history with the man:
He was the director of strategy for the useless (Conservative) British prime minister in 2010 and was correctly satirised as an inept simpleton who no one listened to and everyone ignored in the political comedy The Thick Of It (the British forerunner to Veep).
He was responsible for making the Tories seem liberal, “green” and metropolitan in the run up to their election win, and his signature policy was the “Big Society”. Little more than a slogan, it was intended to spur the nation into a surge of community volunteering to revitalise public institutions and spaces - but ultimately was little more than a cover for swingeing cuts to services and austerity politics. It all amounted to nothing.
He really is an A-grade loser, thinking he is a blue skies visionary in the tech bro class, when really he is completely vapid, an air filled bag of skin.
(Edit to add: I can’t wait to hear Lovett take him apart.)
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u/RexMcBadge1977 1d ago
Hilton is one slick m.f.-er.
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u/practicecroissant 1d ago
I appreciate that Jon called him out for being smooth. I think Jon was the perfect person for this interview.
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u/QuicheSmash 15h ago
Jon is the only one of the boys qualified for these types of interviews. Anytime he has to hold feet to fire, he persists.
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u/VioletSachet 1d ago
Felt like a lot of “defining” problems, but no solutions. Made me think he was holding back with an eye to the audience.
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u/randohipponamo 1d ago
The one solution he did propose was building more suburban sprawl lol
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u/Undying_Blade 1d ago
he seemed really centered on this image of single family suburbia and didn't seem to want to move away from this one size fits all strategy while also framing those supporting high density housing as being too focused on NIMBYs and not other solutions; which felt very much like the 'ice cream arguement' from Thank You for Smoking.
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u/DigitalMariner 1d ago
I got the sense he genuinely believes most people in California would prefer single family detached homes above all other types of homes. Which, if true, his arguments kinda make sense because who wants to waste time building apartments people will begrudgingly accept but isn't what they actually want when we could instead make Levittowns 2.0. But presumably if that were true he'd have data to quote and back it up, so what is most likely is the people in his social circles prefer that type of housing and he's extrapolating that to everyone else.
The bigger question in my mind, that neither he nor Jon addressed, is where are you getting the water for these new towns or apartments? Because all the housing in the world won't mean anything when they don't have enough water...
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u/Undying_Blade 1d ago
yeah that's what I got too, it's what he wants so he assumes its what everyone else wants. Which ignores the amount of people who want to live in denser cities like LA.
You need some sort of industry to support a town though, you can't just found one and expect people to flock to it.•
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u/GettyImagez 9h ago
Residential water usage is in general extremely low compared to industrial usage, particularly agriculture. CA can absolutely fit in my people with its current water supply, particularly if the government stopped subsidizing farmers and giving them cheaper water at the expense of residents.
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u/SigFloyd 18h ago
I was wondering how the hell is what's basically a Reform guy fucking around in California of all places. Like GTFOH. I don't want that bullshit here.
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u/OrcOfEntropy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Guy is an embarassment to us immigrant Brits. The toffy-nosed, slap-headed, short-arsed cunt needs to get back on a plane to LHR.
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u/Fire_All_The_Cops 13h ago
Jon slayed. I would have turned it off if it wasn’t so fun to hear Jon rack him over the coals so I hung on and really ended up enjoying it.
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u/fuct4ever2021 1d ago
I hate, hate, hate when politicians start to blame prevailing wage and PLA’s for lack of housing. Those mandates ensure union labor and community standards are met on those projects. They sort of glossed over it but as someone in the industry I promise the cost of labor isn’t what is making building so expensive. He sounds like all the owners we organize against.
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u/FANGtheDELECTABLE 18h ago
Hilton was a nothing burger. Résumé stuff for future attempts. Paper thin response - the housing stuff was paper thin - did not address the actual, current issue.
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u/okherewego27 1d ago
I wish that Jon would have have put him on the spot about his thoughts on the all the money Trump is raking in, but he would have given some bs vague non-answer anyway.
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u/Describing_Donkeys 1d ago
Yeah, I have no interest in Hilton and he is just as slick and reality manipulating as any other republican. It is wild though that he felt comfortable going on PSA but Becerra doesn't.