Taxing Cory Booker's Patience
4/5/20261 hr 17 min
Senator Cory Booker stops by the studio to talk to Lovett about his bold tax proposal that would see the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax. Jon and the senator debate what it means when both political parties become anti-tax and discuss Trump's war with Iran, AIPAC's role in the Democratic Party, and the president's sudden firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi. You can check out Senator Booker's new book, "Stand," wherever you shop for books.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
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First 90 secondsJon Lovett· Host0:00
There's a new book that I think is particularly timely. It's called Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short. Author Glenn Galich offers a rare insider view exposing why billionaires and millionaire donors move so slowly while communities battle urgent crisises. In Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short, Galich reveals how our philanthropic system and culture encourage excessive donor control and keep over two trillion from reaching communities. By prioritizing wealthy donor interests, power, and control, the system doesn't simply slow social progress, it structurally prevents it. This is a really interesting deep dive into the world of big philanthropy, which I think we think is a sort of unadulterated good, but actually these billionaire donors, they have their own motives. Uh, they have their own reasons for doing things. They can distort the way philanthropic giving works. They can distort public policy. Uh, they can control the capital allocation and decision-making. So it's really interesting and worth better understanding how this kind of extreme wealth helps shape our society and then also how we can fix it. It's a great book to read. Order your copy of Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short by Glenn Galich from your favorite indie bookstore. That's Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short, out now. [upbeat music] If you guys like Pod Save America, please consider subscribing to our Friends of the Pod program. So Friends of the Pod get lots of stuff. You get more Pod Save America. That includes our new show, which is called Pod Save America Only Friends.
Speaker 1· Host1:18
It's where Dan gets naked.
Jon Lovett· Host1:19
Where Dan gets full-frontal nudity, but mostly it's a biweekly subscription [laughs] exclusive podcast that is basically Pod Save America but behind a paywall. So it's a little bit looser and more fun,