Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Thanks for having me.
Scott Shafer: Hey Joe.
Marisa Lagos: So under the wire, made it back in time for this taping. And, you know, we should say this guilty verdict came out today very shortly after the prosecutors had rested their case. Explain what he’s been convicted of exactly.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Yeah, sure. So it’s not as straightforward as you would expect as an attack with a hammer would be. These specific federal charges rely on Pelosi as a federal officer. It’s attacking the family member of a federal officer — assault, I should say — and attempted kidnapping of a federal officer in retaliation for her duties. So that makes this a lot different than what folks might expect.
Scott Shafer: And we saw DePape did take the stand in his own defense earlier in the week. I mean, did he talk about his intent? I mean, it was kind of surprising to some that that he actually, you know, was there to sort of help himself, but he didn’t really say anything that would seem to help him.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Well, I you know, it’s it’s an interesting choice because it really isn’t common to see the accused up there on the witness stand, right? But again, it has to do with these very specific charges. What the defense really was trying to get at is, why did he target Pelosi? What was his reason for going after Pelosi? In the defense’s arguments, they essentially were trying to say, well, if it was not because of her federal duties, like because she took a vote that they didn’t, that he didn’t like, or because she took funding away from a program that he didn’t like, if it wasn’t related to that and it was something outside of that, then actually this federal statute, this very particular and unique federal statute should not apply. So they got him up there and he’s telling way more details than we had heard before. He had an inflatable unicorn costume that he wanted to wear on video while breaking the speaker’s kneecaps and then potentially wheeling her out in the Congress. How he gets from her home to Congress, I can’t tell you. But what I will tell you is that was part of his plan. And then to lure someone that the court called Target One, who is an academic in queer theory to Pelosi’s home. That was the fascinating part. Pelosi wasn’t even his main target. His main target was this academic who he accused, quite erroneously, completely ridiculous of being a pedophile.
Scott Shafer: I’m still stuck on inflatable unicorn. Yeah.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: They held it up in court.
Marisa Lagos: Oh, he had it. He had it in his possession?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: They had it on his backpack in his person. Had it on his back in his purse. No, no. Not one, two. You have to have a backup.
Marisa Lagos: And those things aren’t cheap. I know. I bought my kids them for Thanksgiving or for Halloween, rather. So I do want to back up, though, Joe, because a lot of the things you’re talking about sound pretty crazy, I think, to your average citizen. And but they do track, I think when you think about it with some of the conspiracy theories we’ve heard particularly Q Anon, when you talk about, you know, targeting someone like Pelosi, part of the whole Q Anon belief system is that Democrats are pedophiles and there’s a lot of sort of obsession with, I think, the queer community and LGBT rights. So what, I mean, can you just explain a little bit more about what the defense said, what he said about his own thinking? Because I think, you know, one thing I hope we can do is, I don’t know, maybe take some lessons from all of this about the kind of moment we live in. And is there anything that we heard that could push back against a lot of those conspiracies?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: So DePape had a very, I would say, a sad and and hopeful and then sad again tale. He was a homeless man for a long while. But then when, you know, he started hatching his plan against Pelosi, he had found a home. Someone had let him live in their garage. He didn’t have a bathroom. He didn’t have a shower. He didn’t have a bed. He had a futon. We saw pictures of his futon that was slid up against the wall. A neighbor let him shower at her house. But, you know, there wasn’t other support for him. And here he was alone in this garage playing video games all day. And he described on the stand how he became radicalized. He would listen to right wing YouTubers and podcasters spewing all of this hate for hours. He would listen to it all weekend from start to finish, from when he woke up until he went to sleep and that radicalized him. And to the things you’re talking about, the pedophiles, the ideas that Democrats are helping pedophiles or that academics who study sex theory are pushing for molestation, all these crazy ideas. And that’s where he descended. There are groups doing this work. I talked to some folks at a group called Peril, which studies extremists, and there are ways to help people and deprogram them. But they are not easy.
Scott Shafer: Well, you know, we call them crazy ideas. And, you know, Marisa, you alluded to sort of this moment we’re in in our politics. I mean, just the other day, Donald Trump was in New Hampshire, he called Nancy Pelosi a crazed lunatic. And then he says, what the hell was going on with her husband? Let’s not ask. I mean, this guy.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah, he said similar things when I saw him speak in Anaheim.
Scott Shafer: Yeah. So he’s like, fueling this stuff. And I have to say, it’s not quite related to the trial, but it’s beyond me. How folks can think that is the kind of mindset you want in the White House.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Honestly, it’s very related to the trial because, and I’ll tell you, because on the witness stand to have talked about how he wanted Nancy Pelosi to admit the lies she had told about Trump with Russiagate — this is the accusation about pornographic tapes with Trump in Russia, and he wanted her to confess to her lies about it. He had her YouTube videos that said that she lied about it. The YouTube videos told him that Trump was innocent and the left wing media was making up lies about Trump. And that is what radicalized — he went into tears was crying on the stand when he thought about the times when he was against Trump until he saw the light.
Marisa Lagos: Wow. Well, I’m curious how prosecutors responded to like this sort of novel legal defense that, yes, he did this horrific act, but it was not directly related to Pelosi’s official duties. What how did the you know, federal prosecutors kind of counter that in the courtroom and just talk about the vibe to like during all of this. What was the audience thinking? What were the court officials, you know, what were their faces looking like?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Tlking about vibe? The most shocking moment in this whole trial, I think, and we saw some pretty horrific stuff was when the defense first gave their argument. Because when the defense first gave their argument, they started out by straight up listing DePape’s crazy conspiracy theories with no qualifiers that the Jodi Linker, the federal public defender for the northern district, she starts by saying, Tom Hanks has raped a young girl and such and such a person is a pedophile. They start listing off these crazy things to the point where I think everyone in the room thought, Wow, do you believe this? Did DePape get you to say this? What’s happening here? And then she pivoted and says, Well, these are the crazy things DePape believes. You think they’re crazy. I think they’re crazy. But this case is not a whodunit. It’s a why done it. But the prosecutors, as you noted, as you’re asking about, prosecutors don’t really address that at all. 80% of the case, they never poked a hole in it. They never really went to it. Instead, they hammered home. So sorry, poor choice of words. They really pushed hard on the idea that he planned this meticulously for weeks, that he planned it through paying and purchasing for online services to find the addresses for his targets. And he had a long target list and that he meticulously purchased things that he knew would get him into the home and studied the home to get in. And that must have found purchase with the jury because they eventually came to the verdict they did.
Scott Shafer: Yeah. And they deliberated, I think, about 8 hours. And I don’t know, you know, it was a fairly short trial, so I don’t know if that seems like a lot of time or a little time. But it would have been shocking, though, wouldn’t it, given that all of this was on tape, you know, the hammer attack and him lying in a pool of blood, even though the federal charges kind of you know, as you say, they required intent, proving intent. But it must have been hard for the jurors, I would think, to separate out, you know, what he did versus why.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: I think this is a testament to how strong the defense’s case was, how strong they presented their case, I should say, because going into it, the experts I talked to said this should be a really open and shut thing. This should be really easy. And those are the ones where prosecutors sometimes fail. Right, Because it seems so easy. The defense really came out with all guns blazing. And I got to tell you, just as a layperson sitting in the gallery, like the prosecutors didn’t seem, it didn’t seem as immediately compelling, you had to think more about it. You had to think a lot more about really worked through the logic of what they were saying. Whereas if you just went off of how you felt in that moment, the defense really was very convincing.
Marisa Lagos: What was Paul Pelosi’s testimony like? He did take the stand. And I mean, I don’t know if all of our listeners have watched that horrible video, but he’s been through quite a bit. And it sounds like he, I don’t know, you characterize what it was like.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: So he came in and I have to say there was a kind of a hush over the courtroom because we had been hearing all about the horrific things that happened to him. We had seen it from multiple angles. We had seen video that hadn’t been released to the public of him laying in a pool of his own blood and his what they call agonal breathing, which is like the death rattle when you’re trying to get more oxygen to your brain to save your brain. And it was absolutely horrific and frightening. And then here he is finally in person. And he described fear. You know, DePape burst into the room, surprising him as he was asleep on the third floor of his home. He described DePape repeatedly as like a bigger man. And DePape is quite tall, especially compared to Paul Pelosi. And how he had tried to escape. First, he tried to escape to the elevator, which is there’s an elevator door across from their bedroom and he couldn’t make it to kind of shut him off. And then he described how he hatched the plan to call 911 and kind of signal to them surreptitiously that he was in trouble without angering DePape.
Scott Shafer: And he’s very lucky. But it’s really extra showed extraordinary composure on his part to be able to the fact that he’s alive.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Oh, my God. Talk about composure. He was so composed and he was so diplomatic with DePape, that DePape on the stand said, I had a good rapport with Paul Pelosi. I think we were getting along. Then the interesting thing about DePape is he’s the kind of person who, if you talk to him for five minutes about something completely innocuous, you would never know that he had a unfortunately twisted mind.
Scott Shafer: And he did apologize, right. To to Paul Pelosi.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: He did. He did. He said, you know, Paul Pelosi was never my intended target. He only got in my way of pursuing evil, is what he said.
Marisa Lagos: So former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not in court. I know one of her daughters, Christine Pelosi, was there supporting her father.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Every day.
Marisa Lagos: What has been the reaction from the Pelosi family and what was it like, you know, having them in court, do you think, for all the various players in this?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Well, the family really focused on Paul. They they you know, they called him Pop in their statement and said that he had incredible composure both that night in order to get himself safe, and on the stand. Which, you know, is very true. You heard him on the stand talk about how he lost his hair and wasn’t able to grow it back for nine months. You saw him on the stand while we looked at a photograph of his skull, depressed in the front from the hammer blow. And and you see all that and you’re watching all that while you know Christine is just behind you in the back row and thinking about what their family must be thinking. It’s quite a harrowing thing for all of them to go through.
Scott Shafer: Yeah. Of course, this was a federal trial with federal charges. There are also pending charges from D.A. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. Any sense of where that’s going to go now that we have a guilty verdict?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Absolutely. Jenkins released a statement right away saying, hey, we’re pursuing those charges. We’ve got a pretrial hearing on the 29th of this month where they’re going to set a trial date. And he faces again up to life in prison for these state charges as well.
Marisa Lagos: I guess I’m just curious before we let you go, Joe, like what’s your takeaway from this in terms of, like I mentioned earlier, just the bigger politics here, This was clearly, you know, a horrific event for the Pelosi family, for the city of San Francisco. I don’t know. Do you have any any hope that we can we can have better a better sort of dialog moving forward?
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: I mean, it’s not lost on me that, you know, a big central part of the case was the radicalization of David DePape, the kind of conspiracy theories around Nancy Pelosi that led to this. And those have not stopped. She she continues to hear them every day.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, well, not only her. And, you know, you wonder what impact that there’s been a lot of convictions in the January 6th cases as well. Same kind of radicalization happening. And you don’t, you know, you would hope that it would send a signal to people like, hey, maybe this isn’t the best, you know, route to go.
Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez: Well, and, you know, as they talked about on the stand of Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley was talking a lot about this statute that was tried under the one about federal duty, specifically, this was used in the January 6th insurrection. This was used the same statute for the insurrectionists, and it may need some updating. There’s a lot of debate about the intent of the statute, and it seemed there were some loopholes that may have been possible for the defense to drive through. I mean, we saw a day’s worth of deliberation.
Marisa Lagos: All right. Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, KQED politics reporter, thank you so much for your time on this.
Scott Shafer: Thank you both.
Scott Shafer: Thanks, Joe.
Marisa Lagos: All right. We’re going to take a short break. When we come back, Guy Marzorati is going to join us to talk about all the other news this week. You might have heard there was a conference here in San Francisco. You are listening to Political Breakdown from KQED Public Radio.
Marisa Lagos: Welcome back to Political Breakdown. I’m Marisa Lagos here with Scott Shafer. And Guy Marzorati, our trifecta of politics. Guy, welcome back.
Scott Shafer: Hey there.
Marisa Lagos: Welcome to the other side of the glass.
Guy Marzorati: Good to be here.
Marisa Lagos: So it was a bit of a raucous we here in the Bay Area, ya’ll. We’re taping this Thursday afternoon. Thursday morning, protesters fully shut down the Bay Bridge for hours. Some of them allegedly threw their keys into the bay to, you know, to prevent their cars from moving. We saw a protest most days. President Biden was down at this beautiful estate south of San Francisco, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Governor was here, vice president. I don’t know. Broad takeaways, guys, what do you think?
Scott Shafer: Well you know, I think it’s not quite over yet, but it seems from San Francisco’s perspective, they got a lot out of it. You know, it looked good on TV.
Marisa Lagos: Even the protests.
Scott Shafer: Even the protests and the protests were, you know, they didn’t get out of hand. This wasn’t like the Democrats convention in Chicago. You know, in 1968, it was you know, they got a chance to make their point. The police seemed to
Marisa Lagos: It did seem a little on the edge yesterday.
Scott Shafer: It was on the edge, yeah, it was on the edge. But I think, you know, in some ways and people will talk about the summit with, you know, Biden and Xi Jinping. But I think in some ways, you know, when you have events like this, what the long term takeaway is more the connections that are made between people, you know, from different parts of the world, whether they’re talking about climate change or trade or whatever, immigration, whatever it might be. And I think those are that’s really the value of conventions generally, those those connections you make.
Guy Marzorati: I mean, going into this, I think given the stakes of the US-China relationship, it seem like there is no way that Biden’s meeting with Xi could be overshadowed by anything. But it almost was. I mean, I think the takeaway for a lot of people living in the Bay Area who may not have been involved in APEC might be the Bay Bridge shutdown and the and the protests over Gaza that were happening there. And even Biden’s press conference yesterday, I think, you know, there was so much focus on on his description of Israeli Israel’s attack on the hospital in Gaza that I think almost that news and that issue itself in some ways overwhelmed what the real purpose of of this convention was and certainly the summit between those two leaders.
Marisa Lagos: Although you could argue maybe that’s not the worst thing diplomatically. I think that, you know, the relationship between China and the U.S. was so bad going into this. I mean, our military is haven’t even been talking in the last few years. And, you know, I think Biden went in with very clear goals. He wasn’t going to make best friends with Xi. Right. He was going to try to reestablish those relationships, make sure that when something goes wrong, that they can, you know, pick up the phone, you know, and and it was funny, though, I say that they’re not best friends, but he I think he said they met for 68 hours at one point when they were both vice presidents or
Scott Shafer: They spent a lot of time together.
Marisa Lagos: So they do know each other. But yeah, I mean, I do think that obviously in general, what is going on in Israel, in Gaza is the sort of biggest news right now. And that is a huge part of this. And to your point, I mean, we heard him, I think very forcefully sort of restate his support for Israel this week, but and allude to this idea that, I mean, he kind of hinted that he thinks they’re making progress on the hostages and he definitely backed up Israeli defense and intelligence over this question of whether there is Hamas operating out of this hospital.
Guy Marzorati: And kind of a split screen moment with Biden’s comments and then the protests we see on the Bay Bridge on something that you’ve been looking into, which is how local congressional delegation here in the Bay Area is responding to this. And it’s an issue in which you do see daylight between our congressional delegation, all kind of all Democrats in this region, daylight between them and the kind of activist wing of the Democratic Party.
Scott Shafer: And even their staff in some cases.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah.
Scott Shafer: You talked to Ro Khanna this week.
Marisa Lagos: I did. So I’ll just tease. I have an episode dropping tomorrow on our podcast, The Bay here at KQED. So I looked pretty deeply at where all roughly ten members of the Bay Area delegation, you can, you know, grab some and takes them out depending on where you sort of put that. But nine out of ten of them are not calling for a cease fire, which is exactly what the protesters on the Bay Bridge were asking for. Barbara Lee is the only one who has called for that. And yeah, I had a phone call with Ro Khanna, who had a staff member depart pretty publicly over his refusal to call for a cease fire. And, you know, Khanna was very blunt about the fact that he just doesn’t feel like that that is the right diplomatic move right now. But he also was very, you know, sort of strong on his feeling that there’s no justification, you know, that killing one Hamas fighter cannot justify killing 500 civilians. And he had very kind words actually, for his former staff staffer. He said it was a very civil conversation. It sounds like they both left it respecting each other. This young man just didn’t feel like he could work for Khanna over this issue.
Scott Shafer: Well, and I think that these protesters and world leaders, too, who have been talking about this. The U.N., for that matter, they’re making their point. They’re being heard. I mean, there’s no question that the president and secretary of State, Blinken, they’re pivoting, they’re recalibrating their position on this. They’re talking more about Palestinians and a two state solution that must happen. The fact that Israel cannot occupy Gaza after this is all over, Israel has yet to come up with the solid evidence that there was, in fact, a military base under that, you know, hospital. So, you know, I think, you know, to your point about the press conference, Guy, with Xi and Biden, I mean, there are really more questions about Israel and Hamas than there were about the talks that had just happened with the two leaders. And I think in some ways, you know, if you’re the White House, if you’re the presidential campaign, that’s not such a bad thing.
Marisa Lagos: That’s what I’m saying.
Scott Shafer: You know, and and I think, too, they’re probably just grateful there were no huge gaffes. You know, and it’s funny because when you when you watch the president, you know, you’re just waiting. He doesn’t have that command that you would hope a president would have. You know, he didn’t make any mistakes. But, you know, you kind of you’re kind of waiting.
Marisa Lagos: This is funny because I think we all blame that on Joe Biden’s age. But let’s face it, like that’s been Joe Biden for a long time.
Scott Shafer: That’s Joe Biden brand.
Marisa Lagos: But I agree. I think that in some ways, in these diplomatic, very tense talks, like no news is good news in a weird way, like, no, you know, nothing upsetting the applecart, so to speak.
Scott Shafer: And also, you know, the kind of news cycles we have now, the two big breakthroughs on fentanyl and reconstituting the military communication between the two countries. Like that came out like a day before, you know so it’s all kind of like old by the time the press conference happened for sure.
Marisa Lagos: But I do think I mean the fentanyl thing I think is worth mentioning, given where we’re sitting, that that is a huge issue for the U.S. And I think that, you know, it’s not going to solve it. But but China has a lot of power here to disrupt the flow of these precursor chemicals. And I think that, you know, any opening in that is something that is good from a public health perspective and potentially is going to be good for politically for for Biden. Okay. Before we wrap this show, let’s talk about your exciting weekend ahead, Guy. Heading down to Sacto.
Guy Marzorati: Heading to the Democratic convention, the organizing and endorsing convention of the state Democratic Party. So these are all the, you know, the party faithful, the delegates from all corners of California descending on Sacramento. I kind of, so the big highlight, I think we’ll be hearing from the Democratic Senate candidates who are going to have to address delegates now that there’s not, you know, an imminent government shutdown. This feels like Barbara Lee’s moment. This or to put it another way, this kind of feels like Barbara Lee’s last stand. Right. You know, the issue environment that exists with what’s happening in Gaza, she is is this kind of seems tailor made for really her career and kind of the moral authority that she’s held on on foreign policy issues dating back to her historic vote, being the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization of force for Afghanistan. It kind of feels like, you know, she needs to draw the contrast, certainly with Adam Schiff, also with Katie Porter to some extent, and really make herself the candidate for, you know, the people that are in the streets protesting right now, you know, pushing for a cease fire, which, as you said, she’s been the only member of Congress here in the Bay Area.
Marisa Lagos: But she hasn’t been out there pushing
Guy Marzorati: She hasn’t been out there. And, you know, even, you know, the super PAC that’s supporting her, they put out a million dollar ad buy. I think they’re feeling that pressure right now, like we need to, you know, really up her in the polls before it gets too late. And even that it relied a lot on her really incredible life story, but it didn’t draw that really sharp contrast that I think she needs to be drawn at this moment.
Scott Shafer: I think the most important thing that any of the Senate candidates could get would be an endorsement from the party. But that seems completely out of reach. You need a 60% vote. So Barbara Lee is not going to get that, even though this, you know, this party is to the left, even of the, you know, the base of the Democratic Party in a lot of ways in California, we’ve said before they didn’t endorse Dianne Feinstein, you know, six years ago or five years ago when she was running against Kevin de Leon. But what else is happening, Guy? Because, you know, there will be an endorsement, but there’s also some talk about Rusty Hicks, the party chair, and what’s going to happen with him. He may run for the state assembly.
Guy Marzorati: Right. He’s now moved up to the north coast. So he’s in this second assembly district that Jim Wood, who is, you know, held for a number of years, says he’s not going to be running again in 2024. So that’s created a lot of speculation. Well, maybe Rusty Hicks is going to leave the party chair and run for this assembly seat. There’s going to be a lot of, you know, endorsement fights, I think, happening in districts even here in the Bay Area, state Senate districts in which we have multiple Democrats running. Again, this endorsement thing, basically there’s a pre-convention process that happens if you get within a certain threshold that then goes to the convention. So you’re going to see some districts where literally the party endorsement is at stake this weekend. And I think it means a lot in a thing in an assembly race or in the Senate race, especially with the timeline that we’re talking about here before the March primary. Voters just aren’t going to have a lot of information to work with. Voting starts at the beginning of February. We are, you know, literally getting within months of that. And so for in a lot of these races that Democratic Party endorsement means a lot. And that’s why it’s going to be, you know, a lot of fighting happening on the floor in Sacramento this weekend.
Marisa Lagos: I’m interested to hear afterward like how much some of these looming ballot measure fights could also play here. I know I have already talked to some consultants who are working against big oil to defend the setbacks that the legislature passed, you know, requiring oil and gas operations to be a certain distance from schools and homes and things like that. There’s this huge fight looming over this business roundtable measure we’ve talked about before that would essentially cut off local governments and the state government at the knees around tax increases.
Guy Marzorati: Or even an issue like rent control that divided the Democratic Party in each of the last few times it’s been on the state ballot. Again, as Scott alluded to, this base of delegates is to the left of the electorate, the Democratic electorate. And so you have seen the party support these efforts for rent control in the past, even when leading Democrats in the state, like the governor have not backed it.
Marisa Lagos: But that one’s more complicated anyway because of who’s sponsoring it, the AID’s health care foundation, there’s a big take out today in the L.A. Times looking at the that organization and Michael Weinstein, who leads it and the sort of horrific conditions at some of their low income housing and the evictions that they have undertaken. So that ones like that, there’s a lot going on with that.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, well, and coming back to the Middle East, too, I mean, Palestine, Hamas, Israel, I mean, I’m imagining that’s going to be a big topic. Protests and, you know, topic of conversation. You know, depending on what Rusty Hicks does, there could also be a fight for party chair. We’ve seen that be pretty heated in the past between him and Kimberly Ellis a few years ago. Any sense of you know, that? I mean, let’s just face it, we care about that and maybe five other people.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah.
Scott Shafer: It’s not a big —
Guy Marzorati: The timing would be would be interesting, though, right, to to make this move for the assembly now —
Marisa Lagos: As we head into 2024.
Guy Marzorati: As we head right into this election in 2024, when really like the organizing of the party does need to be on point, especially in these kind of swing districts where you need that kind of grassroots structure, infrastructure.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, you wonder if people might just want him to stay there.
Marisa Lagos: Okay. Less than a minute left, guys. But we got to mention the fact that Kevin McCarthy got accused of —
Scott Shafer: Kidney punch
Marisa Lagos: Kidney punching another member of Congress
Scott Shafer: An NPR reporter was there and witnessed it.
Guy Marzorati: We had the Draymond head lock. We had the Kevin McCarthy elbow. People need to —
Marisa Lagos: My kids are wrestling
Scott Shafer: He didn’t get suspended, though. Unlike Draymond
Marisa Lagos: It feels like things are going a little off the rails in Congress, ya’ll.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, absolutely. And there was also kind of also a confrontation in the Senate between two Republican senators you know this
Marisa Lagos: And a Republican senator threatening a union boss, both of them saying they’re going to fight.
Scott Shafer: Calm down, deep breath.
Marisa Lagos: Back to the top of the show, yeah, everybody deep breath, it’s politics not MMA. All right, we’ll keep an eye on that. You know, McCarthy, there’s a thought he may not run again, so we’ll have to see.
Scott Shafer: Gotta right wing challenger.
Marisa Lagos: All right. Thanks, Guy. Thanks so much for coming in.
Guy Marzorati: My pleasure.
Scott Shafer: Have fun in Sacramento weekend.
Marisa Lagos: That is going to do it for this edition of Political Breakdown. We are a production of KQED Public Radio.
Scott Shafer: Our engineer today is Jim Bennett, our producers Guy Marzorati and Izzy Bloom. I’m Scott Shafer.
Marisa Lagos: I’m Marisa Lagos. Happy Thanksgiving. We will have a show on Thanksgiving. So hope to see you then. If not, have a great week.
