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Full Episode - Promise Broken… The War In Iran Is Back On + Did The Democrats Screw Bernie Sanders? · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. Hello Aaron, Welcome to the
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Speaker 1: Thursday episode of the Chuck Podcast. Nice heah formias. You
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Speaker 1: can see I'm not in any of my normal studios.
1:55
Speaker 1: I've been traveling ahead. I just had the great privilege
1:59
Speaker 1: and some of you may be listening to my podcast
2:00
Speaker 1: from the first time after hearing me speak at the
2:03
Speaker 1: Chautauqua Institute. This is sort of an oasis on the
2:08
Speaker 1: Great Lakes in New York, about an hour and a
2:12
Speaker 1: half oh south southwest of Buffalo, meaning I flew into
2:18
Speaker 1: Buffalo and then you drove drove to this look. I
2:21
Speaker 1: had not been as familiar with the Chautauqua Institute before going.
2:26
Speaker 1: This is sort of it's like a it's it's like
2:33
Speaker 1: an artist colony meets an adult camp for the intellectually curious.
2:42
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to talk about it. It's
2:44
Speaker 1: an interesting little community you should take if you if
2:46
Speaker 1: you're not those of you its familiar with that, you'll
2:48
Speaker 1: be like, yes, I can't believe you didn't know about it.
2:51
Speaker 1: But I hadn't known about it. I had an incredible time,
2:55
Speaker 1: spoke about two or three thousand people. It was in
2:57
Speaker 1: their amphitheater. It was just terrific, and my topic was
3:01
Speaker 1: about sort of how did we get here, both in
3:04
Speaker 1: media and in politics. And much of it is stuff
3:08
Speaker 1: many of you have heard me say. But I can't
3:12
Speaker 1: endorse what the Chautago Institute does enough. I mean, it's
3:15
Speaker 1: just a wonderful community, a wonderful setup. I don't think
3:21
Speaker 1: I can do it justice In this description, I want
3:23
Speaker 1: to thank them for hosting me. I hope to be
3:26
Speaker 1: invited back again because this was this was I want
3:30
Speaker 1: to spend more time there. I want to and bring
3:34
Speaker 1: my wife with me. It is so check it out.
3:38
Speaker 1: It really is sort of a place to vacation, but
3:42
Speaker 1: stimulate the brain if you will stimulate your culture, your
3:47
Speaker 1: culture side on that front. So with that, anyway, the
3:52
Speaker 1: point is I've been traveling a lot. It is crazy
3:56
Speaker 1: busy right now, even though it's summer and it's quote
3:59
Speaker 1: unquote not supposed to be busy. Right Apparently we're back
4:02
Speaker 1: at war with Iron. We're going to get to that
4:04
Speaker 1: in this episode. The NATO meeting went well, it could
4:08
Speaker 1: have gone worse, but there's still incredibly suspicious behavior the
4:14
Speaker 1: way Trump just consistently tries to relieve pressure on Putin.
4:18
Speaker 1: But we will get to that. The Platner situation is
4:22
Speaker 1: getting messier and messier more as an ideological fight, and
4:26
Speaker 1: it really has exposed I think some real leadership vacuums
4:30
Speaker 1: in the progressive left, in particular Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
4:36
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to step up here and be an adult
4:38
Speaker 1: about this, because this factional fight will be destructive overall
4:46
Speaker 1: to the Democratic Party chances in general, and they could
4:49
Speaker 1: really sabotage this main seat because ironically, there is nobody
4:56
Speaker 1: more upset about the developments than grand Platta right now
4:58
Speaker 1: than Susan Collins, because Susan Collins suddenly has a viable
5:03
Speaker 1: path to win reelection if grand Platter's opponent, And you
5:07
Speaker 1: could argue in the way everything was developing, and you
5:09
Speaker 1: look at the national environment, I mean, this is just
5:12
Speaker 1: there were there there. There isn't a lot a generic
5:14
Speaker 1: Democrats going to defeat her. Graham Plattner was no longer
5:19
Speaker 1: a generic candidate. The fact that Democrats have a chance
5:24
Speaker 1: to essentially nominate generic here. If it's too messy, then
5:31
Speaker 1: it could become a problem. But anyway, we'll get to that.
5:35
Speaker 1: I'll have my new top five list that is all
5:38
Speaker 1: about the Senate if suddenly made is no longer in play,
5:43
Speaker 1: how much trickier is the path for the Democrats. Uh?
5:46
Speaker 1: And then I got a few thoughts on on Mitch
5:49
Speaker 1: McConnell as well. But anyway, so it's a little pot
5:52
Speaker 1: perish because we've had a lot going on. But I
5:56
Speaker 1: want to share with you everything I understand about what's
5:57
Speaker 1: going on. In Kentucky, everything that I think I understand
6:01
Speaker 1: about what's going on in Maine, and we'll go from there.
6:04
Speaker 1: My guest today is Tad Divine. Tad Divine was the
6:07
Speaker 1: chief strategist for Bernie Sanders's campaigns a couple of times,
6:14
Speaker 1: and he just out with the book How the Democrats
6:16
Speaker 1: Screwed Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen. And I'm not sure
6:21
Speaker 1: I fully accept the premise of his argument, and you'll
6:23
Speaker 1: hear our back and forth on that, but I think
6:25
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating conversation in it, and it certainly was
6:29
Speaker 1: a fork in the road moment for the Democrats in
6:31
Speaker 1: a variety of ways. So the more you dig in
6:35
Speaker 1: on twenty sixteen, I think there's always as one of
6:39
Speaker 1: my favorite all time TV shows used to say, there's
6:41
Speaker 1: always money in that banana stand. And of course I'll
6:44
Speaker 1: take some questions. But with that, let me start with
6:49
Speaker 1: what we're now in. What we're now in the middle
6:52
Speaker 1: of again, which is the war is back on, and
6:55
Speaker 1: so what does that mean at this point? Well, I
6:58
Speaker 1: think the biggest, most important development out of this is
7:05
Speaker 1: that it just it can whatever path to stabilizing the
7:12
Speaker 1: domestic and global economy that Donald Trump had been on
7:16
Speaker 1: and that we were on in this uncomfortable ceasefire and
7:20
Speaker 1: memo of understanding and this very slow reopening of the
7:25
Speaker 1: strait of Horrn moves, and you had the markets sort
7:29
Speaker 1: of almost a bit enthusiastic about everything opening up, and
7:37
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, rug's been pulled out from under
7:41
Speaker 1: the global economy, ironically, the worst back on. Just as
7:45
Speaker 1: the IMF comes out and said this is going to
7:47
Speaker 1: be the worst economic growth protections that they've for the
7:52
Speaker 1: projections for economic growth for the globe in twenty twenty
7:55
Speaker 1: six is now only getting lower and getting worse, and
7:57
Speaker 1: it's all due to this war of choice by President Trump.
8:01
Speaker 1: And in fact, look, the restart of hostilities is a reminder,
8:08
Speaker 1: frankly that if there was any question about whether who
8:13
Speaker 1: won this war or who won this conflict, the Iranians
8:17
Speaker 1: won this conflict. Yes they've been they had more damage,
8:20
Speaker 1: Yes there is more things they have to rebuild. All
8:23
Speaker 1: of those things are true. But who's got more leverage
8:28
Speaker 1: the Iranians? The Iranian Before this war started, Iran did
8:34
Speaker 1: not have the leverage that they've had over the global economy,
8:37
Speaker 1: and they are now taking full advantage of the additional
8:42
Speaker 1: leverage that Donald Trump allowed Iran to have. This war
8:46
Speaker 1: doesn't start if he fulfills a campaign promise. And by
8:48
Speaker 1: the way, I was, I've been trying to think about
8:54
Speaker 1: this when it comes to sort of a you know,
9:00
Speaker 1: there's always a little line going on with almost any
9:02
Speaker 1: politician during a campaign, right, and the question is what's
9:07
Speaker 1: the line between sort of campaign lies and real sort
9:12
Speaker 1: of break your promise lies. And you know, whenever you've
9:18
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about sort of the big
9:21
Speaker 1: stuff that presidents have been tagged with, you've got, you know,
9:27
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, you know I did not have sexual relations
9:30
Speaker 1: with that woman. You've got the WMDs. No WMDs with
9:35
Speaker 1: George W. Bush. You've got if you like your doctor,
9:38
Speaker 1: you can keep them, which was of course PolitiFact famously
9:41
Speaker 1: called that the lie of the year one time, but
9:44
Speaker 1: really the mother of all sort of broken promises and
9:47
Speaker 1: the modern campaign era, certainly in my professional career, has
9:53
Speaker 1: been the famous George HW convention speech, Read my lips,
9:58
Speaker 1: no new taxes. It's about as close to it. In
10:02
Speaker 1: case you're wondering, my George H. W. Bush is really
10:05
Speaker 1: an imitation of Dana Carvey doing George H. W. Bush.
10:07
Speaker 1: But I digress. It was a there was like, no,
10:15
Speaker 1: you know, that is a campaign promise. That was a
10:18
Speaker 1: line in that it was bright colors, right, bright lines.
10:21
Speaker 1: There was no equivocation, right, read my lips. So when
10:25
Speaker 1: he cut the nineteen ninety deal with the Democrats that
10:28
Speaker 1: did raise taxes, it absolutely right. It became the start
10:34
Speaker 1: of what was essentially a thirty year a thirty year
10:38
Speaker 1: campaign by the right to push out the establishment wing
10:42
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party. It took them twenty five years
10:47
Speaker 1: to get there, right, if you think about nineteen ninety
10:49
Speaker 1: to twenty fifteen, But that was the beginning of it. Well,
10:54
Speaker 1: let's if there was one promise that Donald Trump the
10:59
Speaker 1: candidate insistently made, and he didn't do a lot of
11:01
Speaker 1: things that was consistent, but there were a few things
11:05
Speaker 1: that were consistent. And the first campaign it was he
11:07
Speaker 1: was going to build the wall in Mexico, was going
11:08
Speaker 1: to pay for it, right, And it was probably at
11:13
Speaker 1: the time his most famous campaign promise that if you
11:17
Speaker 1: asked the average voter, what's one thing Donald Trump promised
11:20
Speaker 1: he was going to do in campaigning for president in
11:22
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, it would have been Bill biwall and make
11:26
Speaker 1: Mexico pay for him. The wall still not built in
11:29
Speaker 1: Mexico hasn't paid a dime, So that was a pretty
11:33
Speaker 1: big broken promise. Didn't seem to impact him because that
11:38
Speaker 1: was one of those promises that while he's technically broken it,
11:42
Speaker 1: his supporters and even those who see it, he certainly
11:47
Speaker 1: was pledging that he was going to be tougher on
11:49
Speaker 1: the border than the Democrats, and that has proven to
11:52
Speaker 1: be true. It's why I think that lie didn't have
11:56
Speaker 1: the impact on him. The other major prompt us that
12:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has made as a presidential candidate over a
12:03
Speaker 1: couple of campaigns, but it came up big time again
12:06
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, and in some ways he even
12:10
Speaker 1: reinforced the promise by picking the most dubbish national security
12:17
Speaker 1: credentialed the candidate he could find as a running name
12:20
Speaker 1: on the right in jd Vance is when he said
12:24
Speaker 1: you're not going to get any there's going to be
12:27
Speaker 1: no more war. There's certainly not going to be a
12:29
Speaker 1: war with a run. If you vote for the Democrats,
12:31
Speaker 1: it's going to be a war with a run. So
12:34
Speaker 1: to me, this might now be considering the absolute calamity,
12:43
Speaker 1: right of impact that this terrible decision has created. Right,
12:50
Speaker 1: he can't really put this genie back in the bottle.
12:54
Speaker 1: And the fact that the George W. H W. Bush
12:58
Speaker 1: famous Broken Promise Act led to a positive outcome. Right,
13:02
Speaker 1: this was a broken promise that irritated the base, but
13:07
Speaker 1: that actually improved the American economy and set us on
13:11
Speaker 1: a path of incredible peace and prosperity for the next
13:14
Speaker 1: ten years. Right. Bill Clinton became popular as a president.
13:19
Speaker 1: We're having a great economy in part thanks to that
13:22
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety tax deal at George W. H. W. Bush
13:24
Speaker 1: signed off. So, yes, he broke that promise, But he
13:27
Speaker 1: broke a promise that at least he can say, guess what,
13:30
Speaker 1: and I know he's not with us, but anybody went
13:32
Speaker 1: you can say, yeah, he broke a promise. But the
13:36
Speaker 1: impact was a net positive for America. Donald Trump has
13:42
Speaker 1: broken a promise about this about a war in the
13:44
Speaker 1: Middle East with a run, and he broke a promise,
13:48
Speaker 1: and it is and the irony is everything that essentially
13:53
Speaker 1: the fears he was playing on with voters who were
13:55
Speaker 1: exhausted from the forever wars, who saw that these wars
14:00
Speaker 1: did not exactly make us safer. In fact, in some
14:03
Speaker 1: ways these wars have made us more vulnerable. It's made right,
14:06
Speaker 1: and there's certainly this war of Iran has made us
14:09
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to sarist attacks, Americans more vulnerable overseas. Right,
14:12
Speaker 1: this has made us less safe. This broken promise is
14:18
Speaker 1: damaging the economy, making life more difficult for the very
14:23
Speaker 1: voters that Donald Trump was claiming he was looking out
14:26
Speaker 1: for and didn't want to send their sons and daughters
14:29
Speaker 1: to another war in the Middle East. So I do
14:33
Speaker 1: think we've because here we are back again. Right, he
14:37
Speaker 1: mismanaged this, he lost this war. By the way, it's
14:40
Speaker 1: always fascinating to me when things go completely south in Iran,
14:44
Speaker 1: and we've had these, you know, there have been brief
14:47
Speaker 1: lips where it looks like, Okay, everybody wants to stand
14:51
Speaker 1: down and maybe we're just going to muddle our way
14:54
Speaker 1: through through Iran. Here Marco Ruby completely disappears, right, completely disappears.
15:03
Speaker 1: And you know, I always say there's two types of
15:05
Speaker 1: news stories. Sometimes there's the news there's uh, there's news
15:10
Speaker 1: about what happened. But sometimes there's the stories that don't
15:14
Speaker 1: exist that actually are newsworthy. Huh, where's Marco Rubio. How
15:19
Speaker 1: come he's not involved in this, Right, He's never really
15:22
Speaker 1: been involved in the Iranian talks. Right, It's always been
15:25
Speaker 1: a JD. Van's project. But look, this is this, This
15:31
Speaker 1: is just a continuation and and there's a small part
15:35
Speaker 1: of me I'm gonna and you know this is as
15:39
Speaker 1: I've told you, you know, my goal with this podcast is, Hey,
15:42
Speaker 1: this is I'm trying to help you understand what is happening.
15:47
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I will give you my opinions, but I
15:49
Speaker 1: will try to let you know when this is just
15:52
Speaker 1: what I what is versus what should be. But I
15:59
Speaker 1: think it's prey clear now that this is going to
16:04
Speaker 1: historically be seen is probably the biggest campaign broken promise
16:10
Speaker 1: of the last forty years, and especially in its negative impact. Right,
16:17
Speaker 1: how breaking the promise had a negative impact because again
16:21
Speaker 1: I go back, Yes, read my lips, no new taxes.
16:24
Speaker 1: But what we never do well enough when we remind
16:27
Speaker 1: people about that broken promise is well, was it the
16:30
Speaker 1: right thing to do? Well? The outcome indicates it was
16:34
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. So George H. W. Bush
16:37
Speaker 1: was being a responsible leader of the United States in
16:41
Speaker 1: this case, Candidate Donald Trump was right. It would be
16:45
Speaker 1: completely irresponsible to start a war with the run. President
16:50
Speaker 1: Donald Trump irresponsibly started a war with the run with
16:53
Speaker 1: no endgame, no idea. And frankly, it's pretty clear that
16:59
Speaker 1: he didn't leave the straight of horn moves was. You know,
17:02
Speaker 1: either he dismissed it as a problem, that potential problem,
17:07
Speaker 1: or he's now surrounded by people who aren't telling him
17:10
Speaker 1: everything he needs to know because they don't want to
17:13
Speaker 1: tell him bad news. And I am more likely to
17:16
Speaker 1: believe that in this term, he is not getting them.
17:19
Speaker 1: He is not getting the full picture from some of
17:22
Speaker 1: his aides because he has surrounded himself with more sick
17:24
Speaker 1: of fans than ever. And it's and that's the thing
17:29
Speaker 1: that should be incredibly concerning to all of us. But
17:33
Speaker 1: the point is that we're back in the same in
17:35
Speaker 1: some ways. Like so, what is what should he do? Right? Well,
17:39
Speaker 1: number one, he never should have started the war in
17:40
Speaker 1: the first place. I mean, he it's this is the
17:45
Speaker 1: strategic you know, this is where he's got He's got
17:49
Speaker 1: either you know, there are there's no good path. One
17:53
Speaker 1: path is try to get back control of the straight
17:55
Speaker 1: of horm Moves using the military, which would involve ground troops.
18:00
Speaker 1: Maybe you could limit the ground troop involvement. But that's
18:04
Speaker 1: a commitment that is months, perhaps years, but it's certainly months,
18:10
Speaker 1: which of course would be politically a disaster for these midterms.
18:13
Speaker 1: But in some ways, right, I don't know how, you know,
18:16
Speaker 1: he had a small chance of at least mitigating the
18:19
Speaker 1: damage politically that Iran was doing to him. Now that
18:22
Speaker 1: the war is likely back on in some form like this,
18:25
Speaker 1: and it's hard to imagine what's the process that gets
18:30
Speaker 1: us back to a place of stability here, right, because
18:35
Speaker 1: remember Donald Trump told us that these new people he
18:38
Speaker 1: was dealing with, oh no, no, no, no, they're smart, they
18:41
Speaker 1: know what they're doing in Iran. Now he of course
18:43
Speaker 1: says they're crazy and they don't know what they're doing.
18:45
Speaker 1: So clearly the President doesn't have any idea who we're
18:49
Speaker 1: dealing with, and was There's a small part of me
18:54
Speaker 1: but it believes that perhaps we always knew we were
18:57
Speaker 1: going to go back to a hot war with Iran,
18:59
Speaker 1: but he wanted to. He wanted he was desperate to
19:02
Speaker 1: keep the lid on this war through the fourth of
19:05
Speaker 1: July so he could have his birthday party. And you know,
19:10
Speaker 1: this goes back to the you know it you know,
19:13
Speaker 1: because he was so determined to make the America's Birthday
19:18
Speaker 1: about himself and to try to you know, the last
19:21
Speaker 1: thing he needed was an active war in the middle
19:24
Speaker 1: of his birthday celebration. Remember it was the UFC event
19:28
Speaker 1: where he announced that the war with Iran was over
19:30
Speaker 1: and everybody was cheering and he got his you know,
19:33
Speaker 1: he sort of almost used the event there. Boy. Now,
19:36
Speaker 1: in hindsight, it certainly looks like he was just desperate
19:40
Speaker 1: to keep all of the celebrations on schedule, starting with
19:47
Speaker 1: his birthday, with his birthday bouncy house, UFC match bouncy
19:53
Speaker 1: house thing that he put on, the on the backyard
19:56
Speaker 1: of the White House, and the fourth and all of that,
19:59
Speaker 1: and here we are again. So I'm not I'm just
20:04
Speaker 1: saying there's a part of me that is now wondering
20:07
Speaker 1: how much was he motivated to essentially overlook anything around
20:12
Speaker 1: was doing to violate the ceasefire agreement simply because he
20:15
Speaker 1: didn't want to disrupt the schedule. And now now there's
20:20
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Speaker 1: That's qui Ncee dot com slash chuck for free shipping
22:01
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22:04
Speaker 1: com slash chuck. Obviously, all this has happened during NATO,
22:13
Speaker 1: a NATO meeting taking place in Turkey, a very let's
22:20
Speaker 1: just say, a complicated ally is Turkey. You know, I
22:26
Speaker 1: could do a deep dive on Turkey. It's a fascinating right,
22:29
Speaker 1: you know, Turkey is it the literal gateway between Europe
22:33
Speaker 1: and Asia, Europe in the Middle East. It's always been
22:37
Speaker 1: really important that a small D democratic Turkey be a
22:39
Speaker 1: part of NATO. Obviously, Air Towan is no small D democrat,
22:44
Speaker 1: borderline authoritarian, so it's not it's never shocked to me.
22:48
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at the NATO leaders,
22:50
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's favorite NATO leader is air to one. And
22:55
Speaker 1: in fact, if Turkey wasn't hosting, I don't think Trump
22:58
Speaker 1: goes to this NATO meeting. I think he only went
23:01
Speaker 1: to the NATO meeting because Airedwon was hosting and Awan's boy.
23:06
Speaker 1: And by the way, look it's just a pick video,
23:11
Speaker 1: but go look at the videotape of Airdowan and Trump
23:14
Speaker 1: arm in arm I look, I know Trump's health is
23:18
Speaker 1: getting up there. Airdwan looked looked like an elderly man.
23:23
Speaker 1: The way he was walking around his gate was very,
23:28
Speaker 1: very shaky, and it was unclear who was holding, who
23:32
Speaker 1: needed more, who needed to help more to walk a Trump.
23:37
Speaker 1: But it actually looked like Airdwan was having a harder
23:40
Speaker 1: time than than Trump there. But look, we've done this
23:46
Speaker 1: controversial deal with Turkey where we're gonna we you know,
23:49
Speaker 1: when when Turkey bought some military assets from Russia, we
23:54
Speaker 1: had said that we weren't going to sell them r
23:57
Speaker 1: F thirty five. That is what bipartisan members of the
24:06
Speaker 1: Senate have been supportive of. But not Donald Trump, right,
24:10
Speaker 1: because he's mister transaction and Erdowan plays by the rules
24:15
Speaker 1: of you know, of the transactional nature. Right, he plays
24:21
Speaker 1: by Trump's rules the rest of NATO plays by, you know,
24:25
Speaker 1: sort of normal rules, and aired one got what he
24:29
Speaker 1: wanted there. But I have to tell you once again,
24:31
Speaker 1: and we saw it again even with the Zelenski meeting. Yes,
24:34
Speaker 1: the good news is at the NATO meeting is that
24:36
Speaker 1: Trump essentially green finally, greenlit the ability of Ukraine to
24:42
Speaker 1: build their own patriots systems, to at least be able
24:45
Speaker 1: to manufacture it themselves. And that's going to be really important.
24:51
Speaker 1: But this is one of those cases, as I said earlier,
24:53
Speaker 1: sometimes what's not happening is the story, and the fact
24:57
Speaker 1: of the matter is Russia Putin and Russia hasn't been
25:00
Speaker 1: this week, probably ever since he's been president, since he's
25:06
Speaker 1: been the sort of the ruler of Russia, the elected
25:10
Speaker 1: czar if you will, or I guess kind of elected czar.
25:18
Speaker 1: He's incredibly bulmer. Ukraine's winning this war. People in Moscow
25:25
Speaker 1: and Saint Petersburg are scared because Ukraine can now reach
25:28
Speaker 1: in to Russia and inflict a lot of damage. And
25:35
Speaker 1: normally you would think, boy, Donald Trump loves winners and
25:37
Speaker 1: he hates losers. Right, if somebody's winning, he usually sidles
25:40
Speaker 1: up to a winner. Well, Zelenski's a winner, Putin's a loser.
25:46
Speaker 1: And what's Trump still pretending that he's Oh no, they're
25:50
Speaker 1: both just fighting on playgrounds or oh they you know,
25:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe we'll just let him keep fighting.
25:55
Speaker 1: And look, I'm not going to go down the conspiracy
25:59
Speaker 1: rabbit hole here with Trump and Russia. And I've always said,
26:03
Speaker 1: the strongest evidence about Trump and Russia is Trump's behavior, right,
26:08
Speaker 1: the weakest evidence has been everything else. And it's like,
26:12
Speaker 1: and this is why so many people end up going
26:14
Speaker 1: down this road, because the simplest explanation is that somehow,
26:20
Speaker 1: you know, he's you know, he's essentially pro Putin. The
26:23
Speaker 1: question is why is he just pro Putin because or
26:27
Speaker 1: is there a reason he's pro Putin? Right? Either way,
26:32
Speaker 1: he always is soft sort of soft selling, you know,
26:39
Speaker 1: soft selling, NATO soft selling. It's always the benefit of
26:43
Speaker 1: the doubt always goes to Putin, will matter the situation.
26:47
Speaker 1: And this is I mean, any other American president right
26:50
Speaker 1: now would see this opportunity. But this is the most
26:54
Speaker 1: pro Russian president ever in the history of this country
26:58
Speaker 1: since the Soviet Union Game debate. George W. Bush may
27:06
Speaker 1: have seen into putin soul, but it's possible Donald Trump
27:10
Speaker 1: sold his And that's the thing that is just it's
27:16
Speaker 1: just so head scratching here. I mean, you're just sitting here.
27:21
Speaker 1: You've got I mean, think about it. All the problems
27:25
Speaker 1: the United States are dealing with right now, iron, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela.
27:29
Speaker 1: Who are those countries, chief illy Russia. It isn't our
27:33
Speaker 1: strategic interest to continue to weaken Russia and putin it
27:37
Speaker 1: would only make it easier to get a democratic uprising
27:40
Speaker 1: in Cuba, Only make it easier to isolate North Korea,
27:43
Speaker 1: only make it easier to get democracy back in Venezuela.
27:47
Speaker 1: Only make it easier to deal with the Iranians? Why
27:51
Speaker 1: does Donald Trump keep making this harder? So as much
27:55
Speaker 1: as I thought I was going to lead this podcast
27:57
Speaker 1: with Plattner and the fight inside the Democrat Party, which
28:00
Speaker 1: is a mess, and I have a lot to get
28:02
Speaker 1: to there and I want to get to that in
28:04
Speaker 1: a minute, I always feel like we've got to lead
28:09
Speaker 1: with our safety and security. And this is what's concerning
28:12
Speaker 1: is those of you who are not political fans of
28:15
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, you may be excited that he's blowing this
28:17
Speaker 1: up and he's screwing it up, and it's going to
28:19
Speaker 1: be politically disastrous. It is not you know, there's no
28:22
Speaker 1: defense of this, right but the real concern is we're
28:27
Speaker 1: less safe right now, Our allies like us less right now.
28:34
Speaker 1: All of that makes us less safe, and ultimately the
28:39
Speaker 1: number one thing that you know, voters need survive. Safety
28:44
Speaker 1: and security is always a top concern of voters whenever
28:48
Speaker 1: they feel like it's missing, whether it's domestic safety and
28:52
Speaker 1: security or international safety and security. And right now we
28:59
Speaker 1: are less safe because of Donald Trump's decision making and
29:03
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's mismanagement of the Ukraine and Russia war, and
29:09
Speaker 1: mismanagement of a run. All right, let's go to the
29:14
Speaker 1: main debacle. And I want to quote Matthew Iglesias, who
29:22
Speaker 1: writes The Slow Boring, And you know, I think Matthew
29:27
Speaker 1: Iglesias is somebody who has been sort of holding the flame,
29:31
Speaker 1: if you will, for the call it the pragmatic wing
29:34
Speaker 1: of the party. I mean, I think I've been following
29:37
Speaker 1: him for years. I think, you know, he's a mainstream
29:42
Speaker 1: liberal Democrat and certainly has and it's really low, you know,
29:47
Speaker 1: has it's much more interested in having policy debates and
29:53
Speaker 1: all of that. But he's been weighing in more and
29:59
Speaker 1: more on the on the sort of political side. And
30:03
Speaker 1: he just had a really smart framing that I wanted
30:06
Speaker 1: to share because some of you probably already seen it
30:10
Speaker 1: and good. But he did a riff about quoting the
30:17
Speaker 1: movie and the movie the TV show and or about politics,
30:21
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, there's a there's a line
30:24
Speaker 1: in the in the show about where the main character
30:27
Speaker 1: at one point says, do you want to fight or
30:29
Speaker 1: do you want to win? And the framing, right makes
30:33
Speaker 1: a lot of sense when you're thinking about this fight
30:34
Speaker 1: between the progressive left and essentially the the institution that
30:39
Speaker 1: is the Democratic Party and that is the main in
30:42
Speaker 1: this case being represented by the by the folks that
30:44
Speaker 1: run the main Democratic Party. And look in the wake
30:48
Speaker 1: of the Kamala Hiris loss and how frustrated many Democrats
30:52
Speaker 1: were that they didn't get a say and who the
30:54
Speaker 1: replacement nominee would be, right Maine is there's definitely an
30:58
Speaker 1: attempt to try to figure out Kenya. Can you at
31:01
Speaker 1: least open the process some right and right now Platner
31:08
Speaker 1: is the question is how much leverage does Platner have
31:12
Speaker 1: right He's on the ballot now and he has to
31:14
Speaker 1: he's the one that has to voluntarily get off, and
31:17
Speaker 1: it appears that either he wants this leverage or the
31:21
Speaker 1: people behind him want to try to use the leverage
31:23
Speaker 1: to at least guarantee that they get somebody from their
31:26
Speaker 1: faction as the nominee, which of course is what is
31:30
Speaker 1: why Iglesias is I think so frustrated and why he
31:33
Speaker 1: wanted to frame this is well, do you want to
31:36
Speaker 1: fight or you want to win? And it really jumped
31:38
Speaker 1: out of me because if you recall, you know, so
31:42
Speaker 1: my take on what happened in Colorado was less. This
31:44
Speaker 1: is not Democratic primary voters suddenly gravitating towards socialism. This
31:49
Speaker 1: is frustrated Democratic primary voters that want that are going
31:54
Speaker 1: to pick, you know, if the choice is between a
31:58
Speaker 1: fighter or unit, or they're going to take a fighter.
32:01
Speaker 1: They want a fighter right now, right, And you could
32:04
Speaker 1: argue in twenty twenty the Democrats the choice between fighter
32:06
Speaker 1: and United, they want a denier. That's how you can
32:10
Speaker 1: make that. And even in twenty eighteen in some of
32:13
Speaker 1: those primaries, right United slightly seemed to do better than
32:19
Speaker 1: those that were being on the fighting side. That has
32:21
Speaker 1: not been the case a cycle. Right, this this is
32:23
Speaker 1: what explains why so many Democratic incumbents, whether they've been
32:26
Speaker 1: running to be promoted like Michael Bennett, or they were
32:30
Speaker 1: trying to you know, push back against the primary challenge,
32:35
Speaker 1: have struggled.
32:36
Speaker 2: Right.
32:36
Speaker 1: It's the idea, well, you're if Trump came back and
32:39
Speaker 1: you were there, then somehow you failed. And so you know,
32:46
Speaker 1: I have used the metaphor. You know, there are times
32:47
Speaker 1: that I've been frustrated. In one of the times I
32:49
Speaker 1: remember being really upset those way back, I was during
32:55
Speaker 1: when my dad was still alive and there was health
32:57
Speaker 1: and I got so mad. I just punched a wall.
33:00
Speaker 1: It was dry wall, so I was able to put
33:02
Speaker 1: a hole for it, and I felt good for like
33:08
Speaker 1: two seconds punching that hole through the drive drive and
33:12
Speaker 1: then I realized, oh shit, my mom's gonna be pissed
33:15
Speaker 1: that I put a hole in the wall. And then
33:20
Speaker 1: suddenly I was you know, uh, the anger served no
33:25
Speaker 1: purpose and in any and in fact cost me money,
33:28
Speaker 1: cost me time, right, I had to go figure out
33:31
Speaker 1: how to patch this. I had to go data that too.
33:36
Speaker 1: It feels good for two seconds to have a fighter
33:39
Speaker 1: and to yell back and to tell a troll on
33:43
Speaker 1: social media to f off right, but it doesn't get
33:48
Speaker 1: you anything else. And the question is if you want
33:51
Speaker 1: to and I think this is going to be the fundamental,
33:54
Speaker 1: real debate. That's why I wanted to highlight. And you know,
33:58
Speaker 1: Glaciers gets all the credit here for for using this
34:01
Speaker 1: as the as the sort of organizing umbrella. It's it's
34:06
Speaker 1: you know, it's the fighters versus the winners. And if
34:10
Speaker 1: I were in the non progressive side of the Democratic Party,
34:14
Speaker 1: and I know many many of you on the right
34:16
Speaker 1: think I'm a Democrat, many of you and the left
34:18
Speaker 1: think I'm some closet Republican, the real answer is I
34:21
Speaker 1: really am an independent. I have no party registration and
34:24
Speaker 1: haven't been registered by party over thirty years, twenty five years,
34:29
Speaker 1: something like that. I have the luxury of living in
34:34
Speaker 1: the state of Virginia where you don't have to you know,
34:36
Speaker 1: you don't have to register by party. But if I
34:40
Speaker 1: were in the sort of the pragmatic wing of the party,
34:43
Speaker 1: I'd be making the winning case. Right. If you want
34:46
Speaker 1: to defeat MAGA and Trump is and you've got to
34:49
Speaker 1: start winning elections, and you've got to figure out how
34:53
Speaker 1: to win, and what is the best way to win
34:56
Speaker 1: in Maine. What is the best way to defeat Susan Collins,
34:59
Speaker 1: who is not mega right. There's plenty of reasons why
35:04
Speaker 1: the left is angry with her, Bret Kavanaugh being probably
35:06
Speaker 1: first and foremost over anything else, but she's no Maga
35:10
Speaker 1: Republican and if anything, you know, she's one of the
35:13
Speaker 1: few Republicans that occasionally does stand up to Trump, which
35:18
Speaker 1: means you need to be a bit more judicious on
35:25
Speaker 1: who you find to take her on. She has overperformed
35:30
Speaker 1: republic basically generic Republican in Maine for thirty years, so
35:39
Speaker 1: you got to be smart about it. Graham Platner made
35:43
Speaker 1: people feel good for the moment, right because he was fighting,
35:47
Speaker 1: he was saying all the right thing, but he was
35:50
Speaker 1: clearly the wrong candidate. Now let's get to the finger
35:54
Speaker 1: pointing here about you know what, and I think what
36:00
Speaker 1: deserves scrutiny here because you know, one of the things
36:02
Speaker 1: I want to push back on this narrative that somehow
36:08
Speaker 1: this is a case where the the mainstream press is
36:13
Speaker 1: why we know these things, right, the New York Times
36:16
Speaker 1: and Politico U that is these games. We can have
36:21
Speaker 1: a debate about how the Times handled this their initial
36:25
Speaker 1: story that that's a and it's it is troubling that
36:31
Speaker 1: because somebody was a member of the other party, that
36:33
Speaker 1: that somehow, that somehow lessened the impact of the allegation
36:41
Speaker 1: that was leveled at the time by by I believe
36:43
Speaker 1: her names Lindsay Fifel on this uh and the irony
36:48
Speaker 1: being that because of that essentially dismissive treatment of her
36:53
Speaker 1: in the Time story, it motivated Jenny Rascal on here
36:57
Speaker 1: to talk to Politico. It's you should take a look
37:00
Speaker 1: at the timeline here because the Graham Platner has been
37:05
Speaker 1: caught in a bald face line to potentially Elizabeth Warren
37:10
Speaker 1: and other Democratic senators. So recall when the Times piece hits,
37:15
Speaker 1: and this happens pre primary, the most detailed allegation came
37:20
Speaker 1: from that from the self described Republican and Jenny Rascal,
37:27
Speaker 1: who of course is the one who went public with
37:29
Speaker 1: more details of the sexual assault allegation to Politico earlier
37:33
Speaker 1: this week. She was in she's mentioned by name in
37:39
Speaker 1: the Time story. So why is that important? Because if
37:42
Speaker 1: you recall during the meeting that he came down to
37:47
Speaker 1: Washington to try to reassure Democratic senators that there was
37:50
Speaker 1: there were no more shoes to drop, and Sanders asked abroad,
37:56
Speaker 1: is there anything else? And a Warren apparently followed up
37:59
Speaker 1: specifically about sexual assault issues versus relationship issues, you know,
38:04
Speaker 1: the just wanting to distinction, like is there going to
38:07
Speaker 1: be a sexual assault like allegation coming, and he of
38:11
Speaker 1: course famously said no. He reassured them. We now know
38:17
Speaker 1: through through Jenny Rascin that she told Platner never just
38:28
Speaker 1: you know, when she found out she was not pregnant,
38:31
Speaker 1: that's when she broke it off for good from him
38:33
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I did not consent, and you know,
38:37
Speaker 1: made it clear he knew she believed that she was
38:45
Speaker 1: assaulted by him without consent, because he didn't take no
38:50
Speaker 1: for an answer. I'm being judicious here. I think rape
38:56
Speaker 1: is a is you know, it certainly feels like it
38:58
Speaker 1: meets the definition of right to me. But I'll let
39:02
Speaker 1: I'll let you know. She didn't she didn't go to
39:07
Speaker 1: police and all of that, so we'll stick to using
39:10
Speaker 1: the words accusation of sexual assault. Could argue there really
39:14
Speaker 1: isn't a distinction at this point. So he knew that
39:22
Speaker 1: she was talking to reporters and he knew what she believed.
39:27
Speaker 1: Perhaps he really doesn't remember. Perhaps he was that blacked
39:30
Speaker 1: out drunk when he did this, but he did know
39:36
Speaker 1: what she thought when Elizabeth Warren asked that question, and
39:43
Speaker 1: when Bernie Sanders asked that question. And here's what I
39:45
Speaker 1: don't get, and this is this gets it to me.
39:50
Speaker 1: How Look, if the progressive wing of the party, the
39:54
Speaker 1: DSA adjacent wing of the party, wants to be a
39:57
Speaker 1: sndant and wants to lead the Democratic Party basically take
40:00
Speaker 1: it over, which is pretty clear, right, And this isn't
40:03
Speaker 1: new Factions fight over who gets to be in charge
40:06
Speaker 1: of a party all the time, right, mega and Trump
40:09
Speaker 1: took over the Republican Party that was run by essentially
40:13
Speaker 1: the Bush wing for decades. I'm short handing it's more
40:18
Speaker 1: than just Bush. But you get my point, show some leadership. Here.
40:24
Speaker 1: Where's the outrage? Fowered Elizabeth Warren? I'd be really outraged
40:27
Speaker 1: right now. You lied, and the fact that he's still
40:30
Speaker 1: playing games about when is he going to It's clear
40:37
Speaker 1: that he lied directly to the face of these senators.
40:43
Speaker 1: And if you want to be the leader of the
40:45
Speaker 1: party going forward and the leader of this movement, have
40:52
Speaker 1: some high character purge out the bad guys, call out
40:54
Speaker 1: lies when you've been lied to, and it certainly seems
40:58
Speaker 1: to me it is every bit of evidence. Here follow
41:02
Speaker 1: the timeline. Her name was in that time story, so
41:09
Speaker 1: he knew her alegance. She was talking to reporters. Any
41:15
Speaker 1: lie that should be enough, right and yes they've all
41:22
Speaker 1: you know you're seeing this, but should be more than that.
41:29
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Speaker 1: I too, am a customer and find me. There's one
43:08
Speaker 1: more disturbing aspect about this, and this goes to a
43:12
Speaker 1: larger problem the Democratic parties had with essentially white men.
43:16
Speaker 1: Right This has been a you know, the Republican Party
43:21
Speaker 1: is a problem with white women and women in general.
43:24
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has a problem with white men and men
43:26
Speaker 1: in general. But it should bother a lot of people.
43:34
Speaker 1: It bothers me that there are people inside the party
43:39
Speaker 1: that think the best way to appeal to white guys,
43:44
Speaker 1: to working class white guys is to lean into misogyny,
43:50
Speaker 1: is to lean in to the stereotype that clearly the
43:57
Speaker 1: woke left had of white guys. You know, it's been
44:04
Speaker 1: something I've been, I've been, you know that I would
44:07
Speaker 1: warn you about. And why I'm a bit more of
44:09
Speaker 1: a Tallabrico sceptic for instance in Texas, is that I
44:13
Speaker 1: think he is a liberals version of what they think
44:21
Speaker 1: Christians want to hear in Texas, right, and Platner is
44:28
Speaker 1: a you know, a woke liberals version of what they
44:31
Speaker 1: think working class white guys are or something. I'm not
44:40
Speaker 1: going to crawl inside the head, but that's what this
44:42
Speaker 1: comes across. That it's pretty condescending and it's pretty insulting
44:47
Speaker 1: that you think the best way to somehow appeal to
44:50
Speaker 1: working class folks somehow you think they're they're they have
44:53
Speaker 1: low character. This is a reminder what's really disturbing in
44:59
Speaker 1: all this is at the progressive left in rallying around
45:02
Speaker 1: Platner despite all of the red flags that were playing
45:05
Speaker 1: to see for plenty of people if you wanted to
45:07
Speaker 1: see them, you know, you didn't need to, You didn't
45:11
Speaker 1: need to magnifying glass. Oh, you know, No, it was
45:14
Speaker 1: pretty out there. They let Donald Trump define character in
45:23
Speaker 1: American politics. Nobody in there. I I honestly believe pre Trump,
45:30
Speaker 1: there's there's no mainstream progressive would have thought Platner had
45:35
Speaker 1: the character to be to be uh a candidate for
45:40
Speaker 1: the USI but the but the progressives have let Donald
45:45
Speaker 1: Trump define what they think is the character bar really
45:54
Speaker 1: but uh huh. It's frustrating watching a lot of online
46:01
Speaker 1: lefties who got who went all in on Platiner because
46:06
Speaker 1: it was popular, right, They didn't want to lose audience.
46:11
Speaker 1: They wanted to You know, it's the thing that I
46:14
Speaker 1: worry the most about as I'm building what I'm building here,
46:17
Speaker 1: which is never to you know, I'm going to tell
46:21
Speaker 1: you what I think, whether I think you like it
46:23
Speaker 1: or not. I think I do it's a better service
46:27
Speaker 1: to tell you something that might be unpopular to what
46:31
Speaker 1: you believe if I think it's the right answer. And
46:37
Speaker 1: you know, I had plenty of people, good friends of mine,
46:41
Speaker 1: push them back on me a Platner, and I've had
46:44
Speaker 1: plenty of people in the last forty eight hours ago.
46:47
Speaker 1: You were right, it's Democrats should be thankful that this
46:52
Speaker 1: all happened while they still have a chance to fix it. Now,
46:56
Speaker 1: about that one, I do think the Main Democratic Party,
47:00
Speaker 1: I'm impressed quick so far with the leadership of the party,
47:04
Speaker 1: and they've sort of taken to control of the process
47:06
Speaker 1: and they're trying to push back. It is better for
47:09
Speaker 1: the party if the pushback on Platner and the Progressives
47:12
Speaker 1: comes from Main Democrats and not from Washington Democrats. That's one. Two.
47:19
Speaker 1: They are smart to try to figure out a process
47:21
Speaker 1: that allows some sort of you know, even if it's
47:25
Speaker 1: a even if it's the Main Democratic Central Committee hosting
47:29
Speaker 1: a candidate forum of some sort. Right, you know, if
47:35
Speaker 1: you really wanted to try to pay for a firehouse primary,
47:37
Speaker 1: I guess you could. You know, you could quickly set
47:39
Speaker 1: something up. It's up to the party, right, the party
47:42
Speaker 1: can do this if they choose to pay for it.
47:45
Speaker 1: And the irony here is that the opportunity now for
47:48
Speaker 1: Democrats to put the Main Senate see back in play
47:52
Speaker 1: and in fact in a better position than it has
47:55
Speaker 1: been is staring them in the face. Unless this thing
48:02
Speaker 1: gets botched, right, unless this completely implodes, I'm pretty confident.
48:09
Speaker 1: And this is where I think Bernie Sanders and or
48:12
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and oreoc right, whoever wants to be that,
48:15
Speaker 1: whoever views themselves as the leader of this movement or
48:18
Speaker 1: one of the leaders of this movement. You know, they
48:22
Speaker 1: can't just sort of retreat here. They need to take
48:25
Speaker 1: ownership of this and and he frankly just take the out.
48:32
Speaker 1: You know, look, Bernie Sanders' track record with state why
48:34
Speaker 1: Ken is not great. He's got a lot riding on
48:38
Speaker 1: abdul Lsied now in Michigan because if Democrats go on
48:44
Speaker 1: to you know, blow this chance that they have to
48:46
Speaker 1: pick up a main senenceee. This is now too high
48:49
Speaker 1: profile winnable races that Bernie Sanders has screwed up. Florida
48:56
Speaker 1: governor in twenty eighteen, Right, Glen Graham is governor in
49:00
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, if he doesn't intervene on behalf of Andrew
49:03
Speaker 1: Gillim with sorows money and they, you know, last minute
49:09
Speaker 1: try to they saw a chance to essentially grab and
49:12
Speaker 1: of course, sadly we saw that Gilliam got arrested again.
49:17
Speaker 1: It's very sad. He's an addict, but he was somebody
49:21
Speaker 1: that wasn't ready for this, hadn't been vetted. Right, it was.
49:26
Speaker 1: And you would think that the Gillam mistake that Sanders made,
49:30
Speaker 1: which by the way, right that the s word I
49:33
Speaker 1: mean it is, you know, the Gilliam has been such
49:38
Speaker 1: a disaster for the Florida Demo, I mean essentially right that.
49:42
Speaker 1: You know, the peak moment for Gilliam as leader of
49:44
Speaker 1: the Florida Democratic Party was his great line in that
49:47
Speaker 1: debate against Ron DeSantis. I'm not saying you're a racist.
49:49
Speaker 1: I'm saying racist. I think you're a racist. Right. It
49:53
Speaker 1: was one of those mic drop moments. It was a
49:55
Speaker 1: well crafted line. It was it was, it was you know,
49:58
Speaker 1: it went viral and he came within a hair's bread right,
50:03
Speaker 1: he did. He came within a hair's breadth. It was
50:05
Speaker 1: close in hindsight, right, if Gwen Graham is the nominee,
50:09
Speaker 1: race wouldn't have been that close. Right, It probably probably
50:13
Speaker 1: wins it by two or three points. Remember, Trump was
50:16
Speaker 1: unpopular in eighteen and Desantas was considered too close to Trump.
50:20
Speaker 1: But it became a battle of the extremes, a Maga
50:23
Speaker 1: Trump candidate, a Sanders progressive candidate, and we saw what
50:26
Speaker 1: that what that outcome at that point in time would
50:29
Speaker 1: be from Florida. Florida Democrats have yet to recover from it.
50:32
Speaker 1: We'll see what the jolly and yes, the same Gwen
50:34
Speaker 1: Graham who's now the running made for David Jolly, but
50:40
Speaker 1: main this time Florida Gov. Look, it's easy to back
50:45
Speaker 1: progressive primary winners in deep blue congressional districts, much harder
50:50
Speaker 1: to winnsday life. And you would think that there would
50:54
Speaker 1: have been a lesson learned from the debacle in Florida
50:58
Speaker 1: that might have been applied to how they handled how
51:00
Speaker 1: how name was handled. A lot of pressure now on
51:04
Speaker 1: abdu Ali for both the progressive movement and the belief
51:11
Speaker 1: can progressives who are DSA adjacent win state wide and
51:18
Speaker 1: battle cound states. Right. I happen to think I'd rather
51:22
Speaker 1: think I mean I I'd rather be abdu alsied in
51:26
Speaker 1: the primary. But I also think it means Mike Rodgers
51:31
Speaker 1: is a greater chance of winning them, not saying what. Look,
51:33
Speaker 1: I think the national environment's bad and that usually and
51:37
Speaker 1: I'd turn out wise, I'd certainly rather be a Democrat
51:42
Speaker 1: than a Republican going into this election season. But the
51:47
Speaker 1: real sort of question I have on on abdul candidacy
51:52
Speaker 1: is how well will he do with the African American vote.
51:54
Speaker 1: Right Socialists in general d SA adjacent candidates have struggled
51:58
Speaker 1: with African Americans and that's a key constituency m H
52:06
Speaker 1: in the state of Michigan. There So I'm very curious
52:11
Speaker 1: if if the if the Progressive Left wants to be
52:14
Speaker 1: the ascendant faction of the party, they didn't get their
52:18
Speaker 1: house in order because this has been that this they're
52:22
Speaker 1: they're accumulating their own set of baggage that will you
52:29
Speaker 1: know that you know? Are you again, to bring it
52:31
Speaker 1: back to where Matthew Glacier has framed it, are you
52:35
Speaker 1: are you proving you're a fighter or are you a winner?
52:40
Speaker 1: And right now the Democrats are desperately searching, you would
52:43
Speaker 1: think for more winners rather than more fighters. All Right,
52:52
Speaker 1: a few smaller stories that I want to get to
52:54
Speaker 1: before we get to my interview with Ted Divine, which
52:58
Speaker 1: again should make it I know I've been pretty tough
53:01
Speaker 1: on my friends and the progressive left. You will enjoy
53:03
Speaker 1: this conversation with Tad Divine who believes that the establishment
53:07
Speaker 1: wing of the Democratic Party screwed Bernie Sanders. And he
53:10
Speaker 1: has a fascinating what if scenario on essentially if Bernie is,
53:18
Speaker 1: he believes Bernie should be and I've been rightfully declared
53:20
Speaker 1: the winner of Iowa, and that if he does, it
53:23
Speaker 1: changes the entire dynamics of the entire first four and
53:26
Speaker 1: that obviously the big thing being that that they somehow
53:30
Speaker 1: could have He believes losing an Iowa cost him in
53:33
Speaker 1: South Carolina. That's essentially the you know, point A to
53:37
Speaker 1: point B that he thinks was disrupted there and right
53:41
Speaker 1: then that leads to the inevitable question Bernie versus Trump,
53:44
Speaker 1: Who to one on that front? Okay, a few more things,
53:51
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. I know all the conspiracy theories from Laura
53:56
Speaker 1: Loomers to the you know Lane challenge, all the stuff. Okay,
54:00
Speaker 1: I get it, you know, is he brained dead all
54:02
Speaker 1: this stuff? So let and then there's the oh, John
54:09
Speaker 1: Dune and John Barrasso and Scott Jennings have had you know,
54:11
Speaker 1: repeated the same conversation or whatever it was, and it
54:16
Speaker 1: is you know, it's really the first thing you're going
54:18
Speaker 1: to have first long conversation you're going to have is
54:20
Speaker 1: about the straight up hoorn moves with somebody who's been hospitalized,
54:23
Speaker 1: you know. So, I think the skepticism that everybody has
54:27
Speaker 1: right now about McConnell's warranted. Right. It's clear we're not
54:31
Speaker 1: getting the full story. And if he wanted to get
54:35
Speaker 1: rid of all of these conspiracy theories, it would be
54:37
Speaker 1: easy go have a phone call with Chuck Schumer, call
54:39
Speaker 1: a Democrat called Joe Manchin, right, you know, if they
54:44
Speaker 1: if so, if they want to put an end to
54:46
Speaker 1: these stories, there's some easy ways to do it. Now.
54:49
Speaker 1: I say this in that I'm a I'm always been
54:53
Speaker 1: an Ockhams Razor person. I believe it's really hard for
54:56
Speaker 1: anybody in government to keep a secret. I certainly believe
54:59
Speaker 1: somebody who's hospitalized if they was brain dead, And as
55:03
Speaker 1: Laura Lumer claims, But and by the way, who am
55:07
Speaker 1: I going to if you're asking me, who's got more credibility?
55:09
Speaker 1: Laura Lumer, John Thune. I'm gonna picked Thoon over Lumor
55:13
Speaker 1: all right on that front for what it's worth. But
55:20
Speaker 1: let's accept the premise that there's some conspiracy here and
55:24
Speaker 1: they don't you know, he's brain dead, he's a vegetable
55:27
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So what would be the motivation. Well,
55:31
Speaker 1: the first thing you might come to is, oh, the Senate. See,
55:35
Speaker 1: well he's retired. His seat is on the ballot this November.
55:41
Speaker 1: Andy Barr Charlie Booker, the Republican nominee, heavy favored. Andy
55:44
Speaker 1: Barr is Booker's run before and lost. And this isn't
55:50
Speaker 1: a race that the National Party is targeting, So it
55:55
Speaker 1: really doesn't you know, there's no if the seat were
56:00
Speaker 1: declared vacant right now, the soonest there could be a
56:05
Speaker 1: special election in Kentucky. If you followed the letter of
56:08
Speaker 1: the law, it is mid September, and then that special
56:11
Speaker 1: election would essentially fill the term through January second, and
56:17
Speaker 1: then whoever is elected in November would take the oath
56:20
Speaker 1: on January third. Perhaps that's a scenario that the Republicans
56:27
Speaker 1: are trying. I mean, they're worried about losing a vote
56:30
Speaker 1: now Kentucky. The Kentucky Legislature did change the law when
56:35
Speaker 1: Andybusheer became governor in order to try you know, essentially
56:39
Speaker 1: McConnell engineered it. This fear that if there were a
56:43
Speaker 1: vacancy that McConnell's seek would get filled by Basher's choice.
56:49
Speaker 1: So the legislature took the power away from the government.
56:54
Speaker 1: But there is a provision in the state constitution, as
56:57
Speaker 1: a law professor at the University of Kentucky has pointed
56:59
Speaker 1: out that says the governors shall appoint any baked any
57:04
Speaker 1: statewide vacancies. And the law that the state that the
57:08
Speaker 1: Kentucky legislature passed that essentially took the governor's rights of
57:12
Speaker 1: filling the appointment away has never been tested in the courts.
57:18
Speaker 1: Now we know Basher put out a letter asking for
57:19
Speaker 1: an explanation. This is again, this is another one. If
57:22
Speaker 1: McConnell can have a conversation with Dune and Barrasso and
57:25
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings, call p Governor Sheher or call up like
57:29
Speaker 1: I said, Colin Chuck schum Or called Joe Manchin, collp
57:31
Speaker 1: Tick Durbin. I'm you know senators who've been there a
57:34
Speaker 1: while that you know that I know he's got personal
57:36
Speaker 1: relationships with.
57:38
Speaker 2: So I.
57:41
Speaker 1: I will say this McConnell's office, and how this has
57:45
Speaker 1: been handled is it allows for the conspiracy theorists, whether
57:49
Speaker 1: they're on the left or the right. And this one. There,
57:51
Speaker 1: they're from all sides, right, McConnell's one of these unique
57:54
Speaker 1: figures that has a has haters on the left, haters
57:58
Speaker 1: on the right, and so there's there's a lot of
58:02
Speaker 1: people invested in his future, frankly clearly for negative reasons,
58:11
Speaker 1: which is just a little bit unseemly. Look, he's not well,
58:14
Speaker 1: he's not going to be here in four months. Just
58:16
Speaker 1: let the man be right. The point is is that
58:20
Speaker 1: if the simplest explanation can can be that Mitch McConnell
58:28
Speaker 1: doesn't want to tell people what's going on, a lot
58:31
Speaker 1: of people don't like to share news on their health. Now,
58:34
Speaker 1: you would say a public official, hey, you get when
58:37
Speaker 1: you decided to run for office, you gave up a
58:38
Speaker 1: level of your privacy. I agree with that. I do
58:40
Speaker 1: think they owe us an explanation, But I guess I'm like,
58:46
Speaker 1: I'm just say, look, there are weird things I find
58:50
Speaker 1: the Elaine Chow not being with her husband but being
58:52
Speaker 1: in China, the vice president. You know, that's weird. Like
58:56
Speaker 1: it they could be handling this that would shut down
59:01
Speaker 1: some of these conspiracy theories. They've not been very forthcoming.
59:06
Speaker 1: All those things are true, but the problem I have
59:11
Speaker 1: with all these conspiracies is like, Okay, I'll accept the premise.
59:15
Speaker 1: They're they're trying to cover this up. What is there
59:19
Speaker 1: to gain? And I can't find anything anything politically there
59:26
Speaker 1: is the gain. Look, he hasn't been a reliable vote
59:29
Speaker 1: for Trump's policies as it is. I look, one less
59:33
Speaker 1: vote is one less vote. But if he's in the hospital,
59:35
Speaker 1: he can't vote. And there's enough questions about whether Bashir
59:40
Speaker 1: has the legal authority to put appoint somebody that it
59:44
Speaker 1: will by the time the court sorted out, we're going
59:46
Speaker 1: to have the November election. So that's why I struggle
59:49
Speaker 1: to buy into the conspiracy theories, because when you start to,
59:53
Speaker 1: you know, you know that. To me, the best way
59:56
Speaker 1: to debunk a conspiracy theory is accept the premise and
59:58
Speaker 1: then ask yourself, Okay, let's say this is true. What's
1:00:02
Speaker 1: there to gain, right, what's the benefit? What's this right?
1:00:05
Speaker 1: And in this case, I'm struggling to see what that
1:00:08
Speaker 1: is all right. I was about to move on to
1:00:11
Speaker 1: one more thing on the Smithsonian report that the administration
1:00:15
Speaker 1: put out about the American History Museum, which I want
1:00:17
Speaker 1: to I want to get to because I think it hasn't.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: It actually deserves a little bit of coverage. But my producer,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: Lauren asked me to address one more theory as to
1:00:28
Speaker 1: why there might be this obsession of keeping of keeping
1:00:33
Speaker 1: the illusion of McConnell keeping this going. And it's the
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Supreme Court seat. The issue is whether so let's let's
1:00:45
Speaker 1: if he can't vote, you're down to a fifty to
1:00:49
Speaker 1: forty seven, right, because but Sheer's not going to be
1:00:51
Speaker 1: able to to get a replacement in there through all
1:00:57
Speaker 1: these court battles, I mean, and that's why I wanted
1:00:58
Speaker 1: to go through the Kentucky law because, look, do I
1:01:01
Speaker 1: think but Sheer has the stronger legal argument because of
1:01:03
Speaker 1: what's in the Constitution. I do, and you know it.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: And so but by the time you sort all that out,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's kind of moved. But look, there's
1:01:18
Speaker 1: there's a lot of rumors that we could have a
1:01:19
Speaker 1: Supreme Court vacancy, right, you know, there's you know, the
1:01:22
Speaker 1: the Alito rumors, right that the Trump White House might
1:01:27
Speaker 1: force Alito into retirement because they think this might be
1:01:29
Speaker 1: their last chance for the Republican Senate to get one
1:01:32
Speaker 1: more justice on the court. All right, So if you
1:01:38
Speaker 1: you know McConnell's if he's if he's braindead, like Laura
1:01:41
Speaker 1: Lumer claims, well nothing, how are you going to wheel
1:01:45
Speaker 1: him in to vote? Right, So let's go down. You're
1:01:47
Speaker 1: down to fifty two to forty seven. With Colin's running
1:01:51
Speaker 1: for re election. We know she's going to vote with
1:01:53
Speaker 1: the Democrats, so and we know Murkowski. Well, so now
1:01:55
Speaker 1: you're at fifty forty nine without McConnell's. If mcconnald's not
1:01:59
Speaker 1: there to it certainly makes the margin thin. But the
1:02:03
Speaker 1: margin was thin already. And even if let's say, let's
1:02:11
Speaker 1: say Baser magically was able to you know, put a
1:02:15
Speaker 1: an independent or den placeholder in there, then you're at
1:02:18
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty in vance could break the time as
1:02:21
Speaker 1: it is. So again, I this is why it's like,
1:02:26
Speaker 1: whatever path you go down to sort of what would
1:02:30
Speaker 1: be the reason to do a cover up as is
1:02:32
Speaker 1: being alleged on McConnell's health, I just don't. I can't
1:02:38
Speaker 1: find I can't find the payoff here. I can't find
1:02:40
Speaker 1: the logical the logical. Man. Before we get to the
1:02:44
Speaker 1: envy with cad demon, I want to address one other issue,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: and that is this quick the Smithsonian. Basically I read
1:02:56
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Report, the one hundred and sixty two page report,
1:03:00
Speaker 1: so you didn't have to, and it was specifically about
1:03:05
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Museum of American History. But what it's worth,
1:03:09
Speaker 1: that's my favorite one, right because it is the it is.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: I got to one time go into the bowels of
1:03:15
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian American History Museum because what they don't have
1:03:20
Speaker 1: on display is even is amazing, right they had. I
1:03:23
Speaker 1: was doing a story about the political conventions in twenty
1:03:26
Speaker 1: four it's on YouTube. You can check it out about
1:03:30
Speaker 1: the history of political conventions and all the different artifacts
1:03:32
Speaker 1: that the Smithsonian has. They put a few things out
1:03:37
Speaker 1: for public display, but there's all this cool stuff that
1:03:40
Speaker 1: they had that there was just you know, their America's basement,
1:03:46
Speaker 1: right or America's attic attic if you will, Right, they
1:03:49
Speaker 1: have all this cool stuff that the stuff that if
1:03:51
Speaker 1: you find if it were your grandfathers or your grandmother's,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: you'd be like, well, I can't throw that away. That's
1:03:56
Speaker 1: that's a that's too cool of a historical artifact. Well,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian has all answer. So American History easily my favorite.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: So that's why I dug into this thuff one hundred
1:04:08
Speaker 1: and six to two pages. There were five hundred and
1:04:10
Speaker 1: twenty two footnotes on this. But let me tell you
1:04:17
Speaker 1: what this thing is and what they had a couple
1:04:21
Speaker 1: of critiques that I think you can actually classify as
1:04:24
Speaker 1: fair critiques, but a lot of this isn't right. Let
1:04:28
Speaker 1: me tell you what this report was. It wasn't an
1:04:30
Speaker 1: oversight report. It was basically more like a prosecutorial brief.
1:04:35
Speaker 1: It was almost like they were trying to indict the
1:04:37
Speaker 1: museum of being biased and woke and all of this stuff.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: The problem is the evidence is thin. Okay, he signed
1:04:49
Speaker 1: this executive order. This is all a part of this
1:04:50
Speaker 1: executive order they signed, right, the Restoring Truth and Sanity.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: I think he called it stuck in my notes here
1:04:56
Speaker 1: to American history, and and the whole point of the
1:05:05
Speaker 1: order was to have you would have advanced the Vice
1:05:10
Speaker 1: President and in quoting the order, and they own b
1:05:11
Speaker 1: would be directed to strip quote improper ideology and defund
1:05:16
Speaker 1: whatever doesn't comply inside the Smithsonians. And so the document
1:05:23
Speaker 1: exists in order to justify this action that they already
1:05:26
Speaker 1: were planning to do. So it's sort of like they
1:05:29
Speaker 1: wanted to do this, so they wanted to come up
1:05:31
Speaker 1: with a report that gave you, that gave them quote
1:05:34
Speaker 1: unquote ammunition. But look, parts of it do land fairly right.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: And this is like typical of most Trump critiques. There's
1:05:46
Speaker 1: always there's always a thread of truth to what he's alleging.
1:05:53
Speaker 1: And it's because of the museum's own leadership, right, they
1:05:56
Speaker 1: handed him ammunition. The director of the museum, her name's
1:06:00
Speaker 1: Anthea Hartig, is on video and this report gives you
1:06:05
Speaker 1: the time stamps. I mean, they get very thorough on
1:06:08
Speaker 1: this video. And in the video she says quote that
1:06:15
Speaker 1: history is quote a prime tool of social justice. She
1:06:18
Speaker 1: says her job includes connecting scholarship to activism and advocacy.
1:06:23
Speaker 1: She said, the museum profession needs to figure out how
1:06:26
Speaker 1: to quote problematize and that was her word the two
1:06:30
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and
1:06:34
Speaker 1: under her leadership, the museum did rewrite its mission statement
1:06:37
Speaker 1: and literally remove the phrase American history from the mission.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: So you this isn't made up by the Trump administration
1:06:44
Speaker 1: in this report. And here's one fact pattern that should
1:06:49
Speaker 1: bother folks. And again where the critique, well, the one
1:06:52
Speaker 1: place the critique was fair. It is the two hundred
1:06:57
Speaker 1: fifieth anniversary. We're in the middle of it right now,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: right and according to this report, America's flagship History Museum
1:07:05
Speaker 1: had no new exhibit exhibits on the founding at all.
1:07:08
Speaker 1: There was no exhibit on Washington, not on Jefferson, the
1:07:11
Speaker 1: Continental Congress, the Revolution. It's big two hundred and fiftieth
1:07:16
Speaker 1: offering was to put stickers on saying two fifty existing
1:07:20
Speaker 1: on existing display cases and they called that an exhibition.
1:07:25
Speaker 1: There was no special program. So and they used to
1:07:34
Speaker 1: do a flag folding ceremony and they got rid of
1:07:35
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty. So, yeah, that's something that you know,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: you can see that that that bothers folks like, wait
1:07:45
Speaker 1: a minute, you know, we're what what I think many
1:07:52
Speaker 1: of Trump supporters were frustrated. It's like, wait a minute,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: that's just one one perspective. So that's look, that's the
1:07:58
Speaker 1: concession I want to give this report. Now, the report
1:08:02
Speaker 1: takes what is that defensible criticism of the leadership of
1:08:08
Speaker 1: the museum that there was activist leadership and they kind
1:08:12
Speaker 1: of blew the anniversary, and then they stretch it into
1:08:15
Speaker 1: claims that they that this that the report itself doesn't
1:08:19
Speaker 1: support one. It treats asking questions as subversive here right.
1:08:27
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a panel in the Democracy exhibit that
1:08:30
Speaker 1: simply asked, how should Americans remember their Revolution? Now, the report,
1:08:37
Speaker 1: the White House report, claims that's evidence that the museum
1:08:41
Speaker 1: somehow refuses to affirm the idea of America. No, that's
1:08:46
Speaker 1: what history museums should do everywhere. You know, how should
1:08:50
Speaker 1: Americans remember the Civil War? How shoulgar Americans remember War One?
1:08:53
Speaker 1: How should Americans remember the revel? How should the how
1:08:57
Speaker 1: should Americans handle the fact that our founders were slave holes?
1:09:01
Speaker 1: These are fair questions to ask. Now, what we're fighting
1:09:05
Speaker 1: over is how to answer those questions. But just simply
1:09:08
Speaker 1: asking the question is not proof of anything other than
1:09:12
Speaker 1: this is a museum being responsible and trying to help
1:09:16
Speaker 1: people think critically. Okay, presenting a debate is not some
1:09:21
Speaker 1: sort of sabotage. The second part that is really bizarre
1:09:28
Speaker 1: here is, on one hand, the document is demanding that
1:09:36
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian d you know, sort of dewokeify or don't
1:09:41
Speaker 1: have any ideology on how you interpret American history. But
1:09:49
Speaker 1: what is their prescription? Their prescription is to have an
1:09:54
Speaker 1: ideological bent to how everything's presented at the museum. So yeah,
1:10:00
Speaker 1: I mean this has been the problem with the entire
1:10:04
Speaker 1: fairness and bias argument that has taken place between left
1:10:07
Speaker 1: and right for frankly decades. Right. You know, I've always said,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: most people that accuse me of bias are don't want
1:10:18
Speaker 1: me to be unbiased. They want me to be biased
1:10:20
Speaker 1: in their direction. Right, I'm biased towards the truth and reality,
1:10:26
Speaker 1: And when people accuse me of bias, what they really
1:10:29
Speaker 1: want is me to be biased on their point of view,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: which isn't necessarily a mainstream point of view, or isn't
1:10:35
Speaker 1: necessarily the truth of reality. And that's essentially what this
1:10:40
Speaker 1: report is asking. We don't like this left wing bias.
1:10:44
Speaker 1: We think there's been a left wing bias, and here's
1:10:46
Speaker 1: our proof that the Okay, you've made the case that
1:10:49
Speaker 1: the director of the museum absolutely is a bit has
1:10:54
Speaker 1: got a bias towards social justice. Okay, But the solution
1:11:02
Speaker 1: is to be biased towards an interpretation of history that
1:11:08
Speaker 1: many in the center and left wos whoa whoa whoa
1:11:11
Speaker 1: That is diluting, that is watering down anyway. And then
1:11:19
Speaker 1: there's the sourcing. The other part is the sourcing in
1:11:22
Speaker 1: this report outside of the one hard piece of evidence
1:11:26
Speaker 1: they have about the ideology of the director of the SMITHSONI,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: all the other sourcing is just garbage. Right, they have
1:11:34
Speaker 1: one concrete piece of Look, and this is sort of
1:11:37
Speaker 1: typical of when Trump takes takes something and sort of
1:11:41
Speaker 1: runs too far with it, right they have you know,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: if they just focused on her and the lack of
1:11:51
Speaker 1: two fifty exhibits, my guess is even Alani bunchher have said, yeah,
1:11:56
Speaker 1: you got a point. So the White House is complaining
1:12:03
Speaker 1: that the Smithsonian isn't doing a good job of telling
1:12:05
Speaker 1: America's story. But the White House basically they want to
1:12:10
Speaker 1: tell their version of the story. They don't want an
1:12:14
Speaker 1: honest version in anything that isn't the version that they want.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: So anyway, I hope this doesn't lead to, you know,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: destroying the institution that is a Smithsonians I. You know,
1:12:30
Speaker 1: like I said, American history is my favorite. So really
1:12:34
Speaker 1: it hurts that this is the one that they're picking
1:12:36
Speaker 1: on the most here. But like I said, they had
1:12:44
Speaker 1: they had one thing that was fair in their critique,
1:12:47
Speaker 1: and there was a lot more sort of over the top,
1:12:50
Speaker 1: over exaggerated bs and their basic prescription is instead of
1:12:55
Speaker 1: a bias to the left, we want a bias to
1:12:57
Speaker 1: the right. Well, how about we present all of it? Okay,
1:13:03
Speaker 1: the fact is, all of it's subjective, all of it's
1:13:06
Speaker 1: open to interpretation. Let's present the facts and let's let
1:13:11
Speaker 1: hey guess what. Some people look at it this way.
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Some people look at it this way. What do you think?
1:13:19
Speaker 1: You know what That's called teaching. That's what the Smithsonian
1:13:26
Speaker 1: does pretty well, it's not what this White House report
1:13:30
Speaker 1: is advocating. And I do with the Smithsonian ought to
1:13:34
Speaker 1: do a better job of presenting various interpretations, and most
1:13:38
Speaker 1: of the time they do. All right, let's take a break,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: and when we come back, my conversation with Tad Devine
1:13:49
Speaker 1: in his book leveling the claim that the Democratic Party
1:13:52
Speaker 1: screwed Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen. This episode of the
1:13:59
Speaker 1: chart Oncast is brought to you by Incognit. You know,
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Speaker 1: use the code get the discount. Well, joining me now
1:16:25
Speaker 1: is somebody I have known thirty years at least. Tad Divine,
1:16:31
Speaker 1: longtime Democratic consultant, has been an insider and an outsider,
1:16:36
Speaker 1: which is what's going to make I think this conversation
1:16:40
Speaker 1: so fascinating. He's got a book out and it's a
1:16:42
Speaker 1: pretty simple title right now, Democrat Screwed Bernie. It's a
1:16:46
Speaker 1: lot about twenty sixteen. But in some ways it's written
1:16:50
Speaker 1: I think with a little bit of an eye towards
1:16:52
Speaker 1: twenty eight and the author being Tad divine is fascinating
1:16:56
Speaker 1: to me because Dad, you work for the ultimate insiders,
1:17:00
Speaker 1: A sitting vice president John Kerry's campaign benefited from an insight,
1:17:05
Speaker 1: and so I do think it makes you maybe the
1:17:07
Speaker 1: best eyewitness to decide of what's what's fair, you know,
1:17:12
Speaker 1: in the famous Carvel and Madeline book All's Fair in
1:17:15
Speaker 1: Love and Politics? Right? What is fair here and what isn't? So, man,
1:17:21
Speaker 1: I can't wait to have this conversation. So Democrats screwed, Bernie.
1:17:24
Speaker 2: You were there, that was the I was there and
1:17:27
Speaker 2: I got to witness it, you know, from in the
1:17:29
Speaker 2: front row. And although as I talk about the acknowledgments,
1:17:35
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't really have a plan to write
1:17:37
Speaker 2: a book, Chuck, and it just so happened. I got
1:17:39
Speaker 2: an email from some guy. He said he was an
1:17:41
Speaker 2: editor at Simon and Schuster, and honestly I thought it
1:17:44
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, this is a hustle.
1:17:45
Speaker 1: Now there.
1:17:47
Speaker 2: A lot writing books for a big publisher. I I
1:17:49
Speaker 2: really I was a but I happened to be in
1:17:52
Speaker 2: New York.
1:17:53
Speaker 1: You know.
1:17:53
Speaker 2: It was my very close friend who I grew up with,
1:17:55
Speaker 2: Tom Donolin. We went to high school together, you know,
1:17:58
Speaker 2: we old old friends. Is other was my business partner
1:18:01
Speaker 2: for many years. It was his seventieth birthday. So my
1:18:03
Speaker 2: wife and I happened to be in Manhattan, where he
1:18:05
Speaker 2: and Kathy Russell, his wife lived, you know, part of
1:18:08
Speaker 2: the time. And so I saw this email and I
1:18:10
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I don't see any links. I
1:18:12
Speaker 2: think I'll answer it, you know, and said, oh, well,
1:18:14
Speaker 2: you know, listen, I'm very interested in talking to you
1:18:17
Speaker 2: about that. As a matter of fact, I have to
1:18:18
Speaker 2: be in New York. You want to get together tomorrow morning,
1:18:20
Speaker 2: I'm available, you know, because I just I was more
1:18:22
Speaker 2: curious as what would happened. And sure enough, it was
1:18:24
Speaker 2: a real thing. And I did have breakfast, and one
1:18:26
Speaker 2: thing led to another and next thing. You know, I'm
1:18:28
Speaker 2: writing a book, and you know, and I started that
1:18:31
Speaker 2: process and I described it in the book. I wanted
1:18:34
Speaker 2: to get into detail here. But you know, as I
1:18:36
Speaker 2: wrote the book, I began to get very upset about
1:18:40
Speaker 2: what happened ten years ago.
1:18:42
Speaker 1: You know, got more agitated than you had been. He did.
1:18:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't like I had the motivation to go
1:18:46
Speaker 2: write the book. It was like the book came to me,
1:18:48
Speaker 2: and then I went to it and we found each
1:18:50
Speaker 2: other and I said, you know what, I'm just I'm
1:18:53
Speaker 2: going to lay it out there like I see it
1:18:55
Speaker 2: as it happened, and let the chips fall where they may.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: And that's what the book is, you know, twenty sixteen.
1:19:01
Speaker 1: You know, it's so funny You've been involved in two
1:19:04
Speaker 1: elections that in the run up to those elections, what
1:19:09
Speaker 1: the consequences were going to be were never really framed
1:19:13
Speaker 1: very well. Two thousand I've always said that's the we
1:19:16
Speaker 1: didn't realize how important that election was until after the fact, right,
1:19:19
Speaker 1: And I think twenty sixteen has that same feeling. They
1:19:22
Speaker 1: were both weirdly kind of low turnout, low energy elections. Yeah,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: Trump gave it a weird energy, but it wasn't sort
1:19:29
Speaker 1: of right, there was something And so look, I'm glad
1:19:34
Speaker 1: you wrote this book because I think twenty sixteen is
1:19:36
Speaker 1: a year we're going to keep coming back to right
1:19:38
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. I've had my own thesis
1:19:42
Speaker 1: on this, you know, I always look, I look at
1:19:44
Speaker 1: Sanders's candidacy and let's start from the beginning so you'll
1:19:51
Speaker 1: enjoy this. I took over Meet the Press in September
1:19:53
Speaker 1: of twenty fourteen. Within the first two months, I booked
1:19:56
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. And you know what Bernie Sanders said to me,
1:20:00
Speaker 1: He goes, thank you, And I said, why, He goes,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: You're the first Sunday show ever to book me. Yeah,
1:20:04
Speaker 1: I believe that. Yeah, And I said, are you serious? Yeah,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: I mean I just was sort of you know, I
1:20:14
Speaker 1: know if I was shocked, because you know, I'm surprised
1:20:18
Speaker 1: Tim didn't have him on in the nineties. And why
1:20:19
Speaker 1: do I say that, Because Tim was always intrigued with,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: oh look, well we've got a socialist. Let's see what
1:20:24
Speaker 1: they have to say, right right, That's how I believed
1:20:27
Speaker 1: in Meet the Press. I wanted, you know, I want
1:20:29
Speaker 1: Jim to men. I wanted Bernie Sanders. I want you know,
1:20:32
Speaker 1: you know this is what the conversation is like, Yeah, well,
1:20:36
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, Chuck. I can believe that because when
1:20:38
Speaker 1: Bernie was a senator, you know, I was talking one
1:20:40
Speaker 1: day and I think I wrote this in the book,
1:20:43
Speaker 1: and he said to me, you know, Ted, you are
1:20:44
Speaker 1: my link to the establishment. And I said, Bernie, you're
1:20:46
Speaker 1: a United States senator. That is the establishment. Okay, right,
1:20:49
Speaker 1: how is it that you were the link and that
1:20:52
Speaker 1: the senator? Right?
1:20:53
Speaker 2: I know. And it's a crazy thing because he never
1:20:57
Speaker 2: viewed himself like that, you know, I I he he
1:21:00
Speaker 2: always saw himself as an outsider, and he was for
1:21:03
Speaker 2: so long in his career.
1:21:04
Speaker 1: Well, I there was a part there's a part of
1:21:06
Speaker 1: me that believes he prefers it. Well. In fact, look
1:21:11
Speaker 1: there's a part of me that wonders, could he what
1:21:13
Speaker 1: he does? He really want to manage a bureaucracy? Now
1:21:16
Speaker 1: I say that he did a great mayor of Burlington.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: He proved he could manage a bureaucracy. He didn't want
1:21:21
Speaker 1: to say he can't.
1:21:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't think it's it's it's
1:21:25
Speaker 2: a matter of preference as much as it is a
1:21:28
Speaker 2: matter of who he is. It's really you know, that's
1:21:30
Speaker 2: sort of his nature.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: You know.
1:21:31
Speaker 2: And when I you know, when I when I wrote
1:21:33
Speaker 2: the script for the first ad in the presidential election,
1:21:37
Speaker 2: you know, it was began the Statue of Liberty, you know,
1:21:40
Speaker 2: because I was I was determined we were not going
1:21:42
Speaker 2: to give up America. Okay, The flag, the symbols of
1:21:46
Speaker 2: America to the other side, particularly if he happened to succeed,
1:21:48
Speaker 2: and we were up against the Republicans because all they
1:21:50
Speaker 2: were going to do is socialism. So, you know, and
1:21:52
Speaker 2: the and the ad start and said, a son of
1:21:55
Speaker 2: a Polish immigrant who grew up in a Brooklyn tenement,
1:21:58
Speaker 2: he went to public school and college where the work
1:22:00
Speaker 2: of his life began, fighting injustice and inequality, speaking truth
1:22:03
Speaker 2: to power. Now, so in the first eight seconds, that's
1:22:06
Speaker 2: the story. That's the whole story. You know, that I
1:22:08
Speaker 2: wanted people to know about him, and I think they
1:22:11
Speaker 2: came to understand that story and that residual strength that
1:22:15
Speaker 2: he has continues on with voter today.
1:22:18
Speaker 1: So one of the what ifs on sixteen that I
1:22:21
Speaker 1: constantly go through, you know, because I think it's easy
1:22:24
Speaker 1: to see in hindsight. And the biggest one to me was.
1:22:29
Speaker 2: Barack.
1:22:29
Speaker 1: You know, if I were to say, what's the biggest
1:22:31
Speaker 1: mistake that Obama made, and it was endorsing Hillary, and
1:22:34
Speaker 1: I say this, this is not meant to be an
1:22:36
Speaker 1: attack on Clinton. It is more of Barack Obama. And
1:22:41
Speaker 1: by the way, why it didn't work. It was one
1:22:44
Speaker 1: of those half of Obama's supporters and were ended up
1:22:50
Speaker 1: going to Bernie with that moment. I mean, he I've
1:22:54
Speaker 1: always said he failed to understand why he won in
1:22:56
Speaker 1: O eight if he thought endorsing Hillary Clinton was the
1:23:00
Speaker 1: answer in twenty sixteen.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you know, I'm not very critical. I'm a
1:23:04
Speaker 2: critical of a lot of people in the book, but
1:23:06
Speaker 2: you know, President Obama's not one of them. I guess
1:23:08
Speaker 2: because we all feel when the library opened, when you
1:23:11
Speaker 2: saw the speeches, and you're reminded of the emotional and I.
1:23:15
Speaker 1: Look and there's no doubt my criticism is just easy
1:23:18
Speaker 1: to see now at the moment. Yeah, I've always said
1:23:22
Speaker 1: I respected the decision he made. I understood it is
1:23:25
Speaker 1: it was good old fashioned politics. The Clintons were there
1:23:27
Speaker 1: for him in twelve when he needed them, and he
1:23:30
Speaker 1: thought she was the best qualified. He didn't think Biden
1:23:33
Speaker 1: was running. It was not an unnatural thing for him
1:23:36
Speaker 1: to do. But when you look at twenty sixteen through
1:23:40
Speaker 1: the prison of twenty oh eight, the rise of Bernie
1:23:43
Speaker 1: was quite predictable.
1:23:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, as you know, And if I were
1:23:47
Speaker 2: to talk about this now from my perspective of having
1:23:50
Speaker 2: written this thing, I would say that President Obama did
1:23:53
Speaker 2: not learn the most fundamental lesson of his own campaign,
1:23:57
Speaker 2: which is, we much have a process that allows votevoters
1:24:00
Speaker 2: to determine the outcome, okay, And that's really was the
1:24:02
Speaker 2: big takeaway from me in two thousand and eight. You know, Yes,
1:24:05
Speaker 2: there was a different process, and there were super delegates,
1:24:08
Speaker 2: and they felt the fort the inside game, and they
1:24:09
Speaker 2: fought the outside game. But really, in the end, he
1:24:12
Speaker 2: prevailed because he moved voters beginning in Iowa, and you know,
1:24:16
Speaker 2: and when he moved to Iowa, suddenly South Carolina, which
1:24:19
Speaker 2: he was losing at the time, it almost immediately began
1:24:22
Speaker 2: to flip to him, you know. And it was the
1:24:24
Speaker 2: voters who provided that energy and enthusiasm, not just on
1:24:27
Speaker 2: the ground and Iowa, in New Hampshire, but elsewhere. And
1:24:29
Speaker 2: by the way, the voters in two thousand and eight
1:24:32
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire basically felt and I think New Hampshire
1:24:35
Speaker 2: is a great place in a great early event, and
1:24:37
Speaker 2: I hope they bring it back as such. But you know,
1:24:39
Speaker 2: I think they just felt, listen, we got to put
1:24:42
Speaker 2: the brakes on this thing. It's moving too fast, okay.
1:24:44
Speaker 2: And happened in New Hampshire.
1:24:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's fair point going back in
1:24:49
Speaker 1: a wait. But the reason I'm doing this setup on
1:24:53
Speaker 1: sixteen a little bit is, if memory serves, Bernie only
1:24:57
Speaker 1: ran because nobody else would in his mind. And I
1:25:00
Speaker 1: say this with no disrespect to Jim Webb, Martin O'Malley,
1:25:04
Speaker 1: and there was somebody else who campaign governor of Ye.
1:25:10
Speaker 2: After he left the Republican Party. I worked against him
1:25:13
Speaker 2: when he was running to run against Sheldon white House, Okay,
1:25:15
Speaker 2: Mike and I but I joined the other side when
1:25:18
Speaker 2: he left.
1:25:18
Speaker 1: So had had Obama not endorsed Clinton and it said
1:25:24
Speaker 1: it endorsed and opened like saying, you know what, I'm
1:25:27
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do this. I didn't like it
1:25:29
Speaker 1: when other people, so I'm going to I'm going to
1:25:32
Speaker 1: keep this wide open. I've always wondered, does Bernie still
1:25:37
Speaker 1: fill that same vacuum or would somebody else had filled
1:25:40
Speaker 1: that vacuum.
1:25:42
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard to know, you know that, But I
1:25:44
Speaker 2: do know this that the system that was in place
1:25:46
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen was, as Bernie would say, rigged, okay,
1:25:50
Speaker 2: and it was the political nominating system in the Democratic Party.
1:25:55
Speaker 2: You know, you cannot have a campaign controlled the apparatus
1:25:59
Speaker 2: of the Democrat Party, and that's what happened in twenty sixteen.
1:26:02
Speaker 2: The Clinton campaign, many of them by very good.
1:26:04
Speaker 1: For presidential that way. By the way, yeah, well.
1:26:08
Speaker 2: The president, that's different, I would argue. And by the way,
1:26:10
Speaker 2: the rules of the Democratic National Committee provide for it
1:26:14
Speaker 2: to be different. They explicitly say that if there's an
1:26:16
Speaker 2: incumbent president, the incumbent president must be treated differently than
1:26:20
Speaker 2: someone who is a challenger. Okay, so I mean that's
1:26:22
Speaker 2: at least there's notice of that on the front end.
1:26:25
Speaker 2: There was no notice that said somebody who is the
1:26:28
Speaker 2: preferred candidate of the establishment, who has not won a
1:26:31
Speaker 2: single vote in the primary process, they will get to
1:26:34
Speaker 2: control the party and everything it does. That's wrong.
1:26:38
Speaker 1: Compare your experience in two thousand with Gore versus Bradley
1:26:42
Speaker 1: and the DNC versus twenty sixteen, because you're literally on
1:26:46
Speaker 1: the other side of that equation.
1:26:47
Speaker 2: Sure, in two thousand, without Gore as the incumbent Vice
1:26:51
Speaker 2: president of the United States, we did not control the
1:26:54
Speaker 2: Democratic Party until he became the putative nominee.
1:26:58
Speaker 1: Okay, feel like you I had a little bit of
1:27:01
Speaker 1: insider access. Did you feel like you had an advantage
1:27:05
Speaker 1: that the DANS. You had more allies within the DNC.
1:27:09
Speaker 2: Yes, we had more support and we had more allies,
1:27:12
Speaker 2: but what we didn't have was control. We did not
1:27:14
Speaker 2: control the you know, we responded to them, they set
1:27:18
Speaker 2: up things. We played by the rules as the rules
1:27:21
Speaker 2: were laid out, you know, But it's very different when
1:27:24
Speaker 2: you actually control. I mean, I remember the day I
1:27:27
Speaker 2: was notified of the debate schedule, for example, and I
1:27:30
Speaker 2: received a call from very top person at the DNC
1:27:32
Speaker 2: who said, oh, we're going to have four debates and
1:27:35
Speaker 2: things like that. And I was like, really, that's what's
1:27:37
Speaker 2: going to happen when you go announce that? She said
1:27:38
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, and so that was so I hung on.
1:27:41
Speaker 2: I said, okay, I know what the you know, this
1:27:43
Speaker 2: is obviously a setup. Ten minutes after it was announced,
1:27:47
Speaker 2: when I saw Twitter and Hillary Clinton saying I accept
1:27:50
Speaker 2: the invitation for debates, I mean, it's such a total
1:27:53
Speaker 2: set up, then, I mean, it's ridiculous.
1:27:55
Speaker 1: Well, the good news was, I believe we did a
1:27:58
Speaker 1: gorilla debate and we ended up I think creating a
1:28:02
Speaker 1: debate of just Clinton versus Sanders that we had to
1:28:05
Speaker 1: go around the d n C to do. When I
1:28:07
Speaker 1: was over at NBC.
1:28:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean after a little while, you know,
1:28:11
Speaker 2: we got more standing, we were able to do things.
1:28:13
Speaker 2: But at the beginning, I mean, if we said no
1:28:15
Speaker 2: to the debate schedules, he never would have made it
1:28:16
Speaker 2: onto the stage in Las Vegas, you know. And at
1:28:19
Speaker 2: that time he was he's completely unknown, you know. And
1:28:22
Speaker 2: and and they've been avery. They went on TV in
1:28:24
Speaker 2: August in Iowa, New Hampshire, and we didn't go on
1:28:27
Speaker 2: until November, Okay, so that was a very fragile period
1:28:31
Speaker 2: for us. We could have been blown out.
1:28:33
Speaker 1: So I'm very empathetic of your argument on almost every level.
1:28:37
Speaker 1: But I have one issue that I that it's something
1:28:43
Speaker 1: my wife, who was very empathetic of the Bernie argument. Sure,
1:28:48
Speaker 1: she said, you know, Bernie has one negative that he's
1:28:52
Speaker 1: still that that is that is an easy retort for
1:28:55
Speaker 1: the DNC on this one is you're not even a
1:28:58
Speaker 1: member of the Democratic Party.
1:29:00
Speaker 2: Shouldn't we all right?
1:29:01
Speaker 1: Right? I mean that that is why shouldn't we play
1:29:04
Speaker 1: favorites with somebody who is a member who has raised
1:29:07
Speaker 1: money for the party for decades, Hillary Clinton, versus somebody
1:29:11
Speaker 1: who won't even register as a member of our organization.
1:29:16
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I wish I could argue that with you. Okay,
1:29:20
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not.
1:29:21
Speaker 1: That's the weakest part of the argument, right.
1:29:23
Speaker 2: One of the good one of the good things about
1:29:25
Speaker 2: me doing the book for myself and not on behalf
1:29:27
Speaker 2: of anybody is I can say whatever I want. And
1:29:29
Speaker 2: usually I'm here, I'm talking to you, and I'm gonna
1:29:31
Speaker 2: do you know, I know what. The time you're representing somebody,
1:29:33
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do yeah, somebody else. But in this instance,
1:29:36
Speaker 2: I want to tell you, you know, uh, Bernie just
1:29:38
Speaker 2: could never bring himself to do that. And when I
1:29:40
Speaker 2: saw Mendami after he got elected and he was doing
1:29:42
Speaker 2: an interview and they said, well, you know, are you
1:29:45
Speaker 2: a Democrat? He said, yes, I'm the nominee of the
1:29:47
Speaker 2: Democratic Party for mayor of New York and I'm running
1:29:49
Speaker 2: as a Democrat. And I was like, oh my god,
1:29:50
Speaker 2: these are words we could never get out of Bernie's
1:29:53
Speaker 2: pub And by the way, the day we had to
1:29:55
Speaker 2: file okay, so the day he announced, file a form. Okay,
1:29:58
Speaker 2: this is a legal document. The lawyers are involved, the
1:30:01
Speaker 2: Federal Election Commission, and so and Jane, who was very
1:30:05
Speaker 2: protective of Bernie's status as an independent basically Jane Bernie's wife,
1:30:09
Speaker 2: Jane Bernie's wife, Jane. He basically says, because you have
1:30:12
Speaker 2: a line that says party affiliation, So we wrote in Democrat. Okay.
1:30:16
Speaker 2: It was like no, absolutely under I was like, well,
1:30:18
Speaker 2: you know, we gotta you know, you know, And this
1:30:22
Speaker 2: led to like about a three hour debate okay, that
1:30:24
Speaker 2: went back and forth and around the corner and the
1:30:26
Speaker 2: lawyers of this, and finally we came to Democrat party okay,
1:30:32
Speaker 2: that we somehow were able to agree that we we
1:30:35
Speaker 2: couldn't say Democrat, but we could say Democrat party because
1:30:38
Speaker 2: we have to file this form and we can't leave
1:30:40
Speaker 2: a blank, you know what I mean, because otherwise the
1:30:42
Speaker 2: Federal Election Commission is not going to let you run
1:30:44
Speaker 2: for president. So so you know, and I was always
1:30:47
Speaker 2: sort of waiting like, oh God, who's going to see this,
1:30:49
Speaker 2: Who's going to call up? You know? And he really
1:30:52
Speaker 2: and not Democratic Party, by the way, Democrat party, okay,
1:30:56
Speaker 2: And there it is. It's just always of course nobody, sorry,
1:30:59
Speaker 2: it goes in there and now you know that next thing,
1:31:01
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, John Kerry's medical records from Vietnam, Okay,
1:31:05
Speaker 2: nobody you know, you got to go in and take
1:31:07
Speaker 2: a look at everyim and they come out and then
1:31:09
Speaker 2: they're like, okay, well that's all done. You know, let's
1:31:11
Speaker 2: do the next one.
1:31:12
Speaker 1: So you know that.
1:31:13
Speaker 2: But but I always wanted him to be more of
1:31:16
Speaker 2: a Democrat. And and you listen, and now, in defensive Jane,
1:31:20
Speaker 2: I have to say, the truth is that in the
1:31:22
Speaker 2: primary process where Independence could participate, participate in places like Wisconsin,
1:31:26
Speaker 2: in Michigan, beginning in New Hampshire, you know where he
1:31:29
Speaker 2: won more votes one hundred and fifty thousand votes than
1:31:31
Speaker 2: anyone had ever won up until that point in time.
1:31:33
Speaker 2: In the New Hampshire primary, it was the Independence in
1:31:35
Speaker 2: their presence, along with young people and other parts of
1:31:38
Speaker 2: our coalition who powered the campaign. So, you know, I
1:31:41
Speaker 2: couldn't be mad about what he was doing as an Independent,
1:31:45
Speaker 2: but I wanted him to become a part of the
1:31:48
Speaker 2: Democratic Party. And I'll just add to this, touch Chuck,
1:31:50
Speaker 2: one more thing. Another thing I pushed Bernie on. And
1:31:53
Speaker 2: we had a lot of pushing and shoving in the campaign.
1:31:55
Speaker 2: I mean we were really you know, you know, I mean,
1:31:58
Speaker 2: you know, I pushed him on the the Democratic Socialist
1:32:01
Speaker 2: speech which he gave at Georgetown University. I pushed him
1:32:03
Speaker 2: in part because he said he would publicly do it
1:32:05
Speaker 2: by it, you know. And I said, Bernie, you said
1:32:07
Speaker 2: you were going to do it. Either're asking me about it.
1:32:09
Speaker 2: You got to go do it. So he gives a speech,
1:32:11
Speaker 2: and if you read that speech, you will, at least
1:32:13
Speaker 2: when I read it, this is what I saw. I mean,
1:32:15
Speaker 2: I wrote some lines. He used hardly any of them.
1:32:17
Speaker 2: But I will say the one part I gave him,
1:32:20
Speaker 2: which actually believe or not, This is first time the
1:32:22
Speaker 2: world will hear this. Shrum helped me, okay, from a
1:32:25
Speaker 2: cab on his way to do a thing. I'm like,
1:32:26
Speaker 2: I'm doing this. He's like, I've just some great lines.
1:32:28
Speaker 2: Let me editing you, you know. So you know that
1:32:30
Speaker 2: was the only thing that got quoted from the speech.
1:32:32
Speaker 1: You know. Oh and I'm sure Shrumm he's holding that
1:32:35
Speaker 1: over your head forever.
1:32:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course he is.
1:32:37
Speaker 1: Of course he is.
1:32:38
Speaker 2: And by the way, you know, but Bernie said in
1:32:40
Speaker 2: that speech at Georgetown was his idea of democratic socialism
1:32:46
Speaker 2: was the unfinished agenda of Franklin Roosevelt. Okay, the Second
1:32:50
Speaker 2: Bill of Rights that Roosevelt advocated for before he died
1:32:53
Speaker 2: that workers needed a bill of rights, and that's what
1:32:56
Speaker 2: Bernie based his whole sort of scheme on and what
1:32:59
Speaker 2: he wanted to do. So it's and I argue in
1:33:01
Speaker 2: the book that look, his socialism is as American as
1:33:04
Speaker 2: apple pie. And it's four bearers are Martin Luther King Jr. Okay,
1:33:08
Speaker 2: who said, you know, we we've got you know, capitalism
1:33:12
Speaker 2: for for the poor and socialism for the rich in
1:33:14
Speaker 2: America okay. And Franklin Delan Roosevelt, who laid out an
1:33:18
Speaker 2: agenda that Bernie embraced and wanted to build it.
1:33:30
Speaker 1: You're somebody who understands mac because in politics you have
1:33:34
Speaker 1: to the the S word in the Sun Belt versus
1:33:39
Speaker 1: the F word. S word in New England or the
1:33:41
Speaker 1: Midwest is seen differently and is heard differently. Did you
1:33:48
Speaker 1: ever have that discussion with him, because I look, I
1:33:50
Speaker 1: grew up in Miami, and I can just tell you
1:33:52
Speaker 1: it just is impossible to fix the word. Okay, I
1:33:56
Speaker 1: defer to you on Miami. I I mean, I'm never
1:33:59
Speaker 1: going to fix the word. That doesn't mean people don't
1:34:02
Speaker 1: want universal health care. It doesn't mean people don't want
1:34:06
Speaker 1: universal childcare. It doesn't mean that they want to see
1:34:09
Speaker 1: government should be more involved with creating a better safety net,
1:34:13
Speaker 1: a bigger safety net, all of those things. It is
1:34:16
Speaker 1: literally the word because for many Hispanic Americans, first, second,
1:34:21
Speaker 1: third generation, you can keep going, it has been what
1:34:24
Speaker 1: the word has been weaponized in a different way. And
1:34:26
Speaker 1: by the way, the Latino vote in America is America
1:34:29
Speaker 1: swing vote. Now, I really think you're seeing this more
1:34:31
Speaker 1: and more. Did he does he does he get that
1:34:38
Speaker 1: argument that the understand that issue.
1:34:40
Speaker 2: Well, I think he understands it, but he doesn't care
1:34:41
Speaker 2: about it. Okay, I mean, you know, he doesn't care
1:34:45
Speaker 2: in his own way, you know, and and and you
1:34:48
Speaker 2: know I understood, and I thought a lot about the
1:34:52
Speaker 2: repercussions I had this. I remember having this discussion with
1:34:55
Speaker 2: Ben Jellis when we were my partners, and I were
1:34:57
Speaker 2: pitching him to do his governor's RaSE in Maryland.
1:35:00
Speaker 1: And look, I think, I be honest. I use his
1:35:05
Speaker 1: the blowout there as a reminder this is really hard
1:35:08
Speaker 1: to sell even in blue Maryland.
1:35:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Well, I think what killed us? And
1:35:12
Speaker 2: I mean here was a guy. Ben started off in
1:35:14
Speaker 2: fourth place. He won the primary by double digits, and
1:35:16
Speaker 2: I think he had a great message to win that primary,
1:35:19
Speaker 2: and then he had an incumbent governor who was very popular,
1:35:21
Speaker 2: with fifteen million bucks in the bank, and we were broke. Okay,
1:35:23
Speaker 2: so that's what killed him. Okay, you know. But in
1:35:26
Speaker 2: the socialism thing, you know, I was really determined that
1:35:31
Speaker 2: should we be successful, and knowing that what the Republicans
1:35:34
Speaker 2: would do, it was going to be a socialism campaign completely,
1:35:37
Speaker 2: and you know, and I just said, listen, we don't
1:35:39
Speaker 2: have to retreat from it. We have to explain it.
1:35:41
Speaker 2: And that's what the Georgetown speech was all about. It
1:35:43
Speaker 2: was about, you know, but we also have to embrace
1:35:45
Speaker 2: the symbols of America. And if you look at, for example,
1:35:48
Speaker 2: the America at everybody loved the America at well. Paul
1:35:50
Speaker 2: Simon gives you a song, it's going to be good. Okay,
1:35:52
Speaker 2: I can tell you, you know, but you know, if
1:35:54
Speaker 2: you look closely at it. I mean, I think the
1:35:56
Speaker 2: add is sixty seconds long. In this sixteen scenes that
1:36:01
Speaker 2: have some symbol of the American flag in it. Okay,
1:36:04
Speaker 2: some of it is very subtle. And if you ever
1:36:06
Speaker 2: counted that there's scenes where we put hundreds of people
1:36:09
Speaker 2: on this you know, screen together. If you went into
1:36:11
Speaker 2: that you'd probably find one hundred American flag scenes, Okay,
1:36:15
Speaker 2: And that's what it was really there because I felt
1:36:18
Speaker 2: we needed to embrace it, that we were not going
1:36:20
Speaker 2: to run away from America, the tapestry of America. And
1:36:23
Speaker 2: when we had that fight with him, Bernie was going
1:36:26
Speaker 2: to make the fight on the base of policy, and
1:36:28
Speaker 2: Trump could make the fight on the basis of rhetoric,
1:36:30
Speaker 2: and we were willing to live with that battle.
1:36:33
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the tactics. Do you believe if
1:36:39
Speaker 1: if you were declared the winner of Iowa on caucus
1:36:42
Speaker 1: night that basically the southern states go differently?
1:36:48
Speaker 2: No, But I do think what would have happened if
1:36:51
Speaker 2: you know, it was forty nine to nine to forty
1:36:53
Speaker 2: nine six, okay, was after all the coin flips in Iowa, Okay,
1:36:57
Speaker 2: And the Clinton campaign then declared as though it were
1:37:01
Speaker 2: you know, like World War two had just ended and
1:37:03
Speaker 2: they're on the you know, aircraft carrier and the harbor.
1:37:07
Speaker 2: It's all over.
1:37:08
Speaker 1: You know.
1:37:08
Speaker 2: That's and you know, but I think if it had
1:37:11
Speaker 2: been us, you know, a couple of point or two ahead,
1:37:14
Speaker 2: you know, and by the way we started Iowa, if
1:37:17
Speaker 2: you look at and I did this, you know the
1:37:20
Speaker 2: day he announced, which was you know, April thirtieth, twenty fifteen,
1:37:24
Speaker 2: and you look at real clear politics, you say, okay,
1:37:26
Speaker 2: where was the race on that day? Well, in Iowa
1:37:28
Speaker 2: we were fifty points behind, five zero okay, five zero
1:37:32
Speaker 2: behind nationally forty behind in New Hampshire on the same
1:37:35
Speaker 2: date as well. And you have a campaign which you know,
1:37:38
Speaker 2: gave its opponent three months of TV you know, August,
1:37:42
Speaker 2: you know, September, October before we joined them in Iowa,
1:37:45
Speaker 2: New Hampshire and wound up closing that thing too, as
1:37:48
Speaker 2: Bernie named it, a virtual tie, you know. And if
1:37:52
Speaker 2: you you know, the story of that is we won, okay,
1:37:54
Speaker 2: but there was but the story the Clinton campaign put out,
1:37:57
Speaker 2: which is day one by three tenths of one percent
1:37:59
Speaker 2: of to get equivalency, he wasn't even percent. They would
1:38:02
Speaker 2: not put out the results of how many people caucused
1:38:04
Speaker 2: on both sides in Iowa. Okay.
1:38:06
Speaker 1: When I talk about the establishment, believe to this day
1:38:09
Speaker 1: you had a lot more wrong. You better believe we
1:38:12
Speaker 1: did a number of oh, without a doubt, without a doubt.
1:38:14
Speaker 2: I mean some of these places was discree, you know,
1:38:16
Speaker 2: college towns and things like that. There were so many
1:38:19
Speaker 2: people coming in if we had a count, but they
1:38:22
Speaker 2: would they refuse to put out the numbers in the count.
1:38:24
Speaker 2: And it's all part of the same system, okay, of
1:38:26
Speaker 2: trying to suppress this thing. I think if we had
1:38:28
Speaker 2: somehow got another point out, I squeezed another point out
1:38:32
Speaker 2: of Iowa at the end, I think, and then came
1:38:35
Speaker 2: to New Hampshire and had a big blowout. I think that,
1:38:38
Speaker 2: you know, really the odds for us would have improved immeasurably,
1:38:43
Speaker 2: particularly if we could have then come in and finished
1:38:45
Speaker 2: the job in Nevada. But listen, I told Bernie ear
1:38:49
Speaker 2: Bernie early on, I said, listen, Bernie, you know this
1:38:51
Speaker 2: is when he and Jane and I spent the weekend
1:38:53
Speaker 2: together at their house in April twenty fifteen. And I'm
1:38:56
Speaker 2: and I'm really pushed because I didn't think. He said, Bernie,
1:38:58
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for a long time. I'm really
1:39:00
Speaker 2: into the super delegates, proportional representation, I'm getting into all this.
1:39:03
Speaker 2: And I said, you cannot win the system. Tell me
1:39:06
Speaker 2: why you're running. And he told me why he was
1:39:07
Speaker 2: running a very callful language that I didn't want to
1:39:09
Speaker 2: be a badventure and you know, and I said, okay, well,
1:39:12
Speaker 2: I understand this now, and you know, but I told
1:39:15
Speaker 2: him at that time, I said, listen, you need to
1:39:17
Speaker 2: understand that if we to win, you have to win Iowa,
1:39:20
Speaker 2: you have to win New Hampshire, you have to win Nevada,
1:39:22
Speaker 2: and through that we have to somehow figure out how
1:39:24
Speaker 2: to win South Carolina, which was going to be very difficult.
1:39:27
Speaker 2: Not so much because and everybody says, oh, because there's
1:39:29
Speaker 2: so many African American voters there, that's why you can't win.
1:39:32
Speaker 1: No, it was not just that.
1:39:33
Speaker 2: It was that the South Carolina primary was on a
1:39:35
Speaker 2: different day for Republicans and Democrats, so we didn't have
1:39:38
Speaker 2: the same audience we had in New Hampshire or would
1:39:41
Speaker 2: later have in Michigan or Wisconsin because that audience of
1:39:45
Speaker 2: independent voters were cross pressured. And if the Republican primary
1:39:49
Speaker 2: is on the same day, a lot of those independents
1:39:50
Speaker 2: who three weeks earlier decided to go vote for Trump,
1:39:53
Speaker 2: they I believe they would have come in and voted
1:39:55
Speaker 2: for Bernie, just like they would have been November. Okay,
1:39:57
Speaker 2: And you know, and that's part of the reason I
1:39:59
Speaker 2: feel Ernie would have won the race, because the best
1:40:03
Speaker 2: measure of support is what happened in those open primaries,
1:40:06
Speaker 2: in the in the primary process.
1:40:08
Speaker 1: You know, that is a pulse. It's interesting you bring
1:40:13
Speaker 1: up the Trump factor, and I had not. I think
1:40:18
Speaker 1: that that The South Carolina example you just gave is
1:40:21
Speaker 1: an interesting one that Trump basically ate into burn. How
1:40:26
Speaker 1: and how many states do you believe Trump ate into
1:40:28
Speaker 1: Bernie's support during that primary?
1:40:31
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think in a few. I mean,
1:40:32
Speaker 2: for example, in New Hampshire, instead of getting one hundred
1:40:35
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand volks, I think it was get one
1:40:36
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy thousand votes, Okay, And I don't think
1:40:39
Speaker 2: she would have got a lot more, to be honest
1:40:41
Speaker 2: with it would have so instead of winning. I remember
1:40:43
Speaker 2: the night of the you know, in primary, and I
1:40:46
Speaker 2: finished an interview with you. We were sitting on the
1:40:48
Speaker 2: set at MSNBC and the exit cloltes came out and
1:40:51
Speaker 2: when you were done with the interview, you had a
1:40:53
Speaker 2: little thing. You took it out and it was like
1:40:55
Speaker 2: fifty eight thirty eight, Okay, it was that, you know,
1:40:57
Speaker 2: what was that? You know? You know that was the
1:40:59
Speaker 2: exit and you know, I mean basically the voting everything
1:41:02
Speaker 2: was over by then. But I you know, I was like, okay,
1:41:05
Speaker 2: this this is a real blowout. But you know, we
1:41:08
Speaker 2: you know so, but you know, we would have needed
1:41:11
Speaker 2: to win those events, and I told Bernie we gotta win.
1:41:14
Speaker 2: I would win New Hampshire, you know, win South Carolina.
1:41:17
Speaker 2: You know, somehow figure out how to win that, and
1:41:20
Speaker 2: then we will face a second front from the entire
1:41:23
Speaker 2: establishment of the Democratic Party. They weren't just going to
1:41:25
Speaker 2: roll over. I mean with with Gore, with Carrie, you know,
1:41:28
Speaker 2: we did. We finish it off and it's all over,
1:41:31
Speaker 2: and you know, the thing is ended. That was not
1:41:33
Speaker 2: gonna happen.
1:41:34
Speaker 1: With Bernie.
1:41:34
Speaker 2: We were gonna have a it's gonna be brought me
1:41:36
Speaker 2: back to my day's work for Mondale. You know, when
1:41:38
Speaker 2: you have a part of the party who won't go
1:41:41
Speaker 2: to the events that the nominee has, who's a former
1:41:44
Speaker 2: vice president by the way, you know, they wouldn't even
1:41:46
Speaker 2: show up for him. So with Bernie, we were gonna
1:41:48
Speaker 2: be out. And the only way to get him in
1:41:50
Speaker 2: was to go right to the grassroots to people, overwhelm
1:41:53
Speaker 2: everybody with voters, and that's how we take things over.
1:41:57
Speaker 1: What's the why was the Bernie Why did Bernie feel
1:42:04
Speaker 1: more comfortable standing down with Biden than he did with Clinton.
1:42:08
Speaker 2: You know, I think in large measure is because they
1:42:11
Speaker 2: had an excellent personal relationship. And I remember, you know,
1:42:14
Speaker 2: Bernie going over to meet the Vice president the Vice
1:42:16
Speaker 2: President's residence towards the end of the campaign and had
1:42:19
Speaker 2: private meeting with him, and when he came back, he
1:42:21
Speaker 2: was really maybe gushing is the wrong word, but Biden
1:42:25
Speaker 2: really connected with him. And I think a lot of
1:42:27
Speaker 2: it had to do with, you know, the circumstances they
1:42:29
Speaker 2: grow up in, you know, I mean, you know, they
1:42:32
Speaker 2: came from the sort of same kind.
1:42:34
Speaker 1: Version of Biden was always good at this, at that.
1:42:37
Speaker 2: Part of he was at it, and I and I
1:42:40
Speaker 2: think that's that's why he made a connection with him.
1:42:43
Speaker 2: And the second thing was, you know that Biden was
1:42:46
Speaker 2: willing to go there when it came to policy, you know,
1:42:49
Speaker 2: I mean, when Bernie, for example, proposed.
1:42:51
Speaker 1: And seemed to give him a piece of the agenda.
1:42:53
Speaker 1: And and oh, I will argue that it was good
1:42:55
Speaker 1: or bad, but there's no doubt the first two years
1:42:58
Speaker 1: of Biden's presidency was probably very similar to what Sanders
1:43:01
Speaker 1: would have done.
1:43:02
Speaker 2: Right when Bernie talked about a trillion dollar infrastructure program.
1:43:06
Speaker 2: People were rolling their eyes. It's saying, you've got to
1:43:08
Speaker 2: be kindding, this is ridiculous. Well, Biden led it into law. Okay.
1:43:11
Speaker 2: So so I think it was substantive in part, but
1:43:13
Speaker 2: I think it was mostly personal. They just connected on
1:43:16
Speaker 2: that level.
1:43:19
Speaker 1: What do you remember of the Clinton outreaches to Bernie?
1:43:21
Speaker 1: Was there anything that almost worn't? It? Was Bill Clinton
1:43:26
Speaker 1: better at it? And did he try?
1:43:29
Speaker 2: You know, honestly, I wish, I wish I could tell
1:43:32
Speaker 2: you that I was very involved in any of that,
1:43:35
Speaker 2: and I was not. And you know, by that point you.
1:43:39
Speaker 1: Would have been among the conduits. You know, well I
1:43:43
Speaker 1: could have been.
1:43:43
Speaker 2: But by that point in the campaign, when we got
1:43:46
Speaker 2: to the end game, I basically I sort of split.
1:43:49
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons that the book begins with
1:43:52
Speaker 2: me leaving the campaign basically after after California, you know,
1:43:56
Speaker 2: because Bernie and I would just irreconcilable at that points.
1:44:00
Speaker 1: Not made what made it irreconcilable was he just because Look,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: I will tell you my impression of Bernie's campaigns, and
1:44:08
Speaker 1: I've just gotten a lot of glimpses of him from
1:44:10
Speaker 1: different perspectives, probably more than most reporters. I still think
1:44:15
Speaker 1: he was running to make a point less than he
1:44:17
Speaker 1: was running to hold an office. Well, I need to
1:44:20
Speaker 1: make an argument, less than he was to win a campaign.
1:44:23
Speaker 2: Well, I think. I think at the beginning, when he
1:44:27
Speaker 2: made the decision and when I really pushed him to
1:44:29
Speaker 2: tell me why he was running, because I wanted to
1:44:30
Speaker 2: know if I'm going to get into this thing, what's upbout?
1:44:33
Speaker 2: And it turns out, you know, he was sick and
1:44:34
Speaker 2: tired of being a backbench at Fine and so, you know,
1:44:37
Speaker 2: but as we got into it, you know, when you
1:44:40
Speaker 2: get into it and you move Iowa fifty points and
1:44:44
Speaker 2: you moved New Hampshire sixty points, you know, you know
1:44:48
Speaker 2: you suddenly see that there may be a path here
1:44:50
Speaker 2: from me, you know, because you feel it. You know,
1:44:52
Speaker 2: we walk into these gigantic events. He goes to the
1:44:55
Speaker 2: West Coast and twenty five thousand of Seattle, twenty five
1:44:57
Speaker 2: thousand important, twenty seven thousand moss ages. You know, people
1:45:01
Speaker 2: are coming in like this. When that starts happening, and
1:45:03
Speaker 2: it's real, it's organic, it's not we're not paying people
1:45:06
Speaker 2: to go to our events, you know. You know, then
1:45:09
Speaker 2: you start to see a way forward. And I think
1:45:12
Speaker 2: That's what happened in the campaign. We began with like, Okay,
1:45:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to make a point, and then we got
1:45:16
Speaker 2: to a point where we said, Okay, let's try to
1:45:18
Speaker 2: get this done. Okay, let's really try to win. And
1:45:21
Speaker 2: we did try to win, and you know, we didn't
1:45:23
Speaker 2: in the end. But you know, but I mean, my
1:45:27
Speaker 2: whole thing with the book, as I wrote it, I
1:45:29
Speaker 2: began to understand more about what I was doing. I
1:45:31
Speaker 2: really wanted to make the point that we have to
1:45:33
Speaker 2: have a nominating process that gives voters a much louder
1:45:36
Speaker 2: voice than they had in twenty sixty.
1:45:39
Speaker 1: So this gets it to the question of whether you
1:45:42
Speaker 1: know how much you know a political It's up to
1:45:45
Speaker 1: the political party how much how much of the of
1:45:48
Speaker 1: the voter of voters they want to have involved in
1:45:52
Speaker 1: this right. You mean, look, you and I are growing up,
1:45:56
Speaker 1: and it grew up and at a time that was
1:45:58
Speaker 1: actually new to presidential pics. Right, the voters actually had
1:46:01
Speaker 1: to say right.
1:46:02
Speaker 2: Right.
1:46:02
Speaker 1: For arguably for almost two hundred years, voters didn't really
1:46:06
Speaker 1: have a say on this stuff. Right. It was it
1:46:09
Speaker 1: was party brokers, it was donors and all of that.
1:46:12
Speaker 1: And I guess you could argue what sixty You could
1:46:16
Speaker 1: argue that sixty four on the Republican side and seventy
1:46:19
Speaker 1: two on the Democratic side were the first times that
1:46:21
Speaker 1: the establishment didn't get to decide, right I think so yeah.
1:46:25
Speaker 2: And and on the Democratic side, I don't know a
1:46:27
Speaker 2: lot about the Republicans. Just watching the Democratic side. We
1:46:31
Speaker 2: thought we had reformed the party in our rules in
1:46:34
Speaker 2: the way that the misgovery reforms of seventy two. Right,
1:46:37
Speaker 2: that was all commissions after commission, you know, you know,
1:46:41
Speaker 2: year after year after election after election, and we re
1:46:44
Speaker 2: formed this way. Then we were from then hunt commission
1:46:46
Speaker 2: would come along say well, no, no, we've got to
1:46:48
Speaker 2: give more power back to you know, elected leaders and
1:46:50
Speaker 2: parties officials.
1:46:50
Speaker 1: The government was the Southerners, right, yeah.
1:46:53
Speaker 2: We designed a system that had that, and then that
1:46:55
Speaker 2: system got blown up from within. You know, the original
1:46:58
Speaker 2: system had you know, some members of Congress, not all Democrats,
1:47:02
Speaker 2: the governors, they basically were the super delegates that then
1:47:05
Speaker 2: expanded into the d n C. So now there's four
1:47:07
Speaker 2: hundred and more you know, suddenly appear. You know, in
1:47:09
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight, I was I was in the
1:47:11
Speaker 2: middle of this on behalf of governor du caucus. We
1:47:13
Speaker 2: changed the rules we adopted said sixty eight even better
1:47:17
Speaker 2: at No. Eighty eight and I was graduating from college.
1:47:21
Speaker 2: But by eighty eight I was, you know, running the
1:47:23
Speaker 2: rules committee for a ducaucus and you know, and and
1:47:27
Speaker 2: Mike do caucus when you know it's it's it's a
1:47:30
Speaker 2: funny thing. I wrote about this, but a lot of
1:47:31
Speaker 2: stuff I wrote didn't make it into the book. But
1:47:32
Speaker 2: now I can say what I want, right, you know.
1:47:34
Speaker 1: So I was Nick.
1:47:36
Speaker 2: Metropolis, unfortunately we lost last year. Is a great friend,
1:47:39
Speaker 2: you know.
1:47:40
Speaker 1: You know.
1:47:40
Speaker 2: He used to take a day off once a month
1:47:43
Speaker 2: traveling with Mike because he was kind of the body guy.
1:47:44
Speaker 2: And he always say to me, will you go? I said, great,
1:47:46
Speaker 2: I'd love to travel. So we he and I the governor.
1:47:48
Speaker 2: I flew out to Salt Lake City together in the
1:47:50
Speaker 2: little plane and I said, Governor, I need to talk
1:47:53
Speaker 2: to you about the rules committee and how it's going
1:47:56
Speaker 2: to play out and get your approval on these things.
1:47:58
Speaker 2: And so you know, I'm going through this a super dell.
1:48:00
Speaker 2: He was like, I get rid of them all. We
1:48:01
Speaker 2: shouldn't have any super deals as well. You know, if
1:48:03
Speaker 2: you're gonna be the president, maybe we should keep the Congress. Okay,
1:48:06
Speaker 2: but we get rid of the DNC. And that's what
1:48:08
Speaker 2: that happened. We don't get he said, okay, well that
1:48:10
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense. And he's like, I was like,
1:48:12
Speaker 2: what they want proportional representation. He's like, absolutely one percent
1:48:15
Speaker 2: support because the Liberals in Massachusetts had proportional representation. That
1:48:19
Speaker 2: was the And I said, oh that's great. I said,
1:48:21
Speaker 2: but can we agree? You don't tell anybody that's your position,
1:48:24
Speaker 2: because I'm going to hold out till the end in
1:48:26
Speaker 2: the negotiations to get proportional representation. So so, sure enough,
1:48:29
Speaker 2: we go to the negotiations, we negotiate a new system.
1:48:32
Speaker 2: We get rid of all the DNC delegates. Yeah, super delegates.
1:48:36
Speaker 2: We you know, we get proportional representation. And of course
1:48:39
Speaker 2: then Ron Brown, who was a great you know, great
1:48:41
Speaker 2: guy and a friend of mine. Loved Ron and so terrible,
1:48:44
Speaker 2: you know, his death, what a tragedy. You know, he comes,
1:48:48
Speaker 2: he runs for DNC. Rom's a good politician, and he decides,
1:48:51
Speaker 2: when the universe of voters is the Democratic National Committee,
1:48:54
Speaker 2: I think I'll be for restoring.
1:48:56
Speaker 1: Their status of super delegates.
1:48:57
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, which is what he immediately did, even
1:49:00
Speaker 2: though he negotiated through Harold Dickey's who I was dealing with,
1:49:03
Speaker 2: you know, locked in a room with Harrold for a week. Okay,
1:49:06
Speaker 2: I needed to go on vacation, so you know, so
1:49:09
Speaker 2: you know, but they did that because it was, you know, politically,
1:49:12
Speaker 2: it was the right thing to do, but it built
1:49:14
Speaker 2: a structure around the nominating process which gave true much
1:49:18
Speaker 2: weight to insiders. By the time we got to twenty sixteen,
1:49:20
Speaker 2: eight hundred, almost eight hundred of the super delegates were
1:49:24
Speaker 2: the number of super delegates eight hundred. That's but you
1:49:27
Speaker 2: only need have to win, okay, So that means, you know,
1:49:30
Speaker 2: you've got twenty percent of what you need to win
1:49:31
Speaker 2: out of this one group of people. And I told Bertie,
1:49:33
Speaker 2: you weren't going to get any of them. We got
1:49:35
Speaker 2: a handful of them, but hardly any so so it
1:49:38
Speaker 2: had to be changed. They changed it a little, but
1:49:40
Speaker 2: they haven't changed it enough and they haven't recognized and
1:49:43
Speaker 2: by the way, it's not just the DNC. I also
1:49:46
Speaker 2: talk about the press too a little bit. In the
1:49:48
Speaker 2: press I think needs to recognize that when you have
1:49:52
Speaker 2: somebody win a place like New Hampshire, it counts more
1:49:55
Speaker 2: in terms of how they're going to do in November
1:49:57
Speaker 2: than if they win a place like the old Iowa
1:49:59
Speaker 2: car or something like that. You know, it really is
1:50:02
Speaker 2: a test of strength for the general election.
1:50:05
Speaker 1: Look, I am one of these sad sacks that actually
1:50:08
Speaker 1: defends the old primary calendar.
1:50:10
Speaker 2: I think that.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the idea of learning how to
1:50:15
Speaker 1: organize on the ground in Iowa, learning how to talk
1:50:18
Speaker 1: to independence in New Hampshire, learning how to talk to
1:50:20
Speaker 1: your base voter in South Carolina, learning how to talk
1:50:24
Speaker 1: to Latino voters in Nevada. Isn't that part of the
1:50:27
Speaker 1: obstacle course here that you're trying to trying to do
1:50:30
Speaker 1: to get your to find out who your party leader
1:50:33
Speaker 1: ought to be.
1:50:34
Speaker 2: Listen, I think the calendar, which is one of the
1:50:36
Speaker 2: most important strategic aspects of the nominating process, is well
1:50:40
Speaker 2: suited to have those four states up front.
1:50:42
Speaker 1: And I I mean, I know everybody's pissed off at Iowa,
1:50:47
Speaker 1: right because well, that's the problem, Okay, And that's the problem,
1:50:51
Speaker 1: there's no doubt I understand that. But I also think
1:50:55
Speaker 1: the retreat from Iowa has also gutted what was what
1:50:59
Speaker 1: was an important swing state. And I think Democrats are
1:51:03
Speaker 1: not being in rural Iowa. Where else are they going
1:51:05
Speaker 1: to learn how to talk to role voters?
1:51:07
Speaker 2: That's right, I agree. I mean, the only change I
1:51:10
Speaker 2: would make is to try to get the Republican and
1:51:12
Speaker 2: Democratic primary on the same day in South Carolina and
1:51:14
Speaker 2: if that would the dominating process Iowa caucus. But you know,
1:51:18
Speaker 2: and Independence can participate if they want to. It's a
1:51:21
Speaker 2: little hard, but they can voter registration. Yeah, anybody could
1:51:24
Speaker 2: show up. So New Hampshire, I think, in many ways
1:51:26
Speaker 2: is the perfect primary, you know, because everybody's used to
1:51:29
Speaker 2: it there, and the voters in New Hampshire really deserve
1:51:32
Speaker 2: credit because.
1:51:33
Speaker 1: Well that's why caucuses, because I feel like the Iowa
1:51:36
Speaker 1: voters are very similar to the New Hampshire voters. I agree. Yeah,
1:51:40
Speaker 1: look at it this way, Tad if I demographically, neither
1:51:44
Speaker 1: Iowa new Hampshire should be swing states. I actually think
1:51:48
Speaker 1: because they take the presidential stuff so seriously, they're just
1:51:53
Speaker 1: more I'm sorry, I think there are best voters.
1:51:56
Speaker 2: I agree, and I wish we could restore the process
1:51:59
Speaker 2: to that and then fix it in other ways, you know.
1:52:02
Speaker 2: And one of the great fixes that I'm in favor
1:52:05
Speaker 2: of is trying to do what my home state of
1:52:07
Speaker 2: Rhode Island does, which is to allow independence to participate
1:52:10
Speaker 2: in the Democratic or Republican primary, which both held on
1:52:13
Speaker 2: the same day, you know. And then in twenty sixteen,
1:52:15
Speaker 2: Rhode Island was the only state that Bernie won. All
1:52:18
Speaker 2: the other states were closed primaries and we lost, okay,
1:52:20
Speaker 2: And part of the reason we won too is I
1:52:22
Speaker 2: pushed Weaver, and I was like, listen, you know. At
1:52:25
Speaker 2: first I pushed him on Massachusetts, which everybody time were
1:52:30
Speaker 2: right as his campaign manager, and he was sort of
1:52:32
Speaker 2: in control of what we're doing, and I was like, listen,
1:52:34
Speaker 2: I think we can make around at in Massachusetts, and
1:52:36
Speaker 2: like really sure, there was we don't have a single
1:52:39
Speaker 2: elected official in the state endorsing us. And I was like, well,
1:52:41
Speaker 2: if we go on, we got to go on in Providence,
1:52:43
Speaker 2: and we got to go on in Springfield. Okay, you know,
1:52:45
Speaker 2: but by going on in Providence to try to get Massachusetts,
1:52:48
Speaker 2: we had built a foundation in Rhode Island, you know.
1:52:50
Speaker 2: And then when we came back in I actually made
1:52:52
Speaker 2: I actually made ten versions of the America AD that
1:52:56
Speaker 2: would sort of fit into different places, and there was
1:52:58
Speaker 2: a Rhode Island version with Roger way, he's got a
1:53:00
Speaker 2: statue holding his hand out like this, Roger Williams over
1:53:03
Speaker 2: Providence is part of the America at okay, because we
1:53:05
Speaker 2: really tried to win, now us what we did helped
1:53:07
Speaker 2: us to win. But the biggest thing that helped us
1:53:09
Speaker 2: to win was allowing independence to vote in either primary,
1:53:12
Speaker 2: the Democrat or Republican. And by then Trump wasn't pulling
1:53:15
Speaker 2: people in like it was at the beginning, and they
1:53:16
Speaker 2: all came over us.
1:53:26
Speaker 1: You know. The irony of this is on open primaries
1:53:30
Speaker 1: is that now it is now it is now the center,
1:53:34
Speaker 1: the centrist, the establishment types that are want more open
1:53:39
Speaker 1: primaries because it's the closed primaries where the progressives and
1:53:42
Speaker 1: the socialists have had more success.
1:53:44
Speaker 2: Just look at New York City. Yeah yeah, well, I
1:53:47
Speaker 2: you know, I listen to New York is an example
1:53:52
Speaker 2: of how bad the system was in twenty sixteen because
1:53:56
Speaker 2: you had, you know, if you were if you were
1:53:58
Speaker 2: not registered to vote as a Democrat. I mean, I
1:54:00
Speaker 2: think you had to get yourself into the Democratic Party
1:54:03
Speaker 2: in the fall of twenty fifteen. Okay, that was the
1:54:06
Speaker 2: deadline to participate. New York is the New York has
1:54:10
Speaker 2: some really undemocratic voting laws right, absolutely, you better believe it.
1:54:14
Speaker 2: And it's very tough to get on the ballot. I
1:54:15
Speaker 2: remember Chuck in nineteen eighty four. I was sort of
1:54:19
Speaker 2: the debut Lane Kmark was the director. I was a
1:54:21
Speaker 2: deputy director. And you know, we got the signatures in
1:54:25
Speaker 2: Gary Hart signatus came in and there were ten thousand,
1:54:27
Speaker 2: five hundred or no, it's fifteen thousand signatures and he
1:54:30
Speaker 2: had fifteen thousand, five hundred and stuff. It was like
1:54:32
Speaker 2: five hundred more than he needed. And they got very
1:54:33
Speaker 2: tough laws in the New York it's hard getting the
1:54:35
Speaker 2: signatures group. And so David Ipschin, who was the general
1:54:38
Speaker 2: counsel of the campaign running in the Johnson and everything
1:54:41
Speaker 2: that I got hauled into this meeting. They're like, we
1:54:43
Speaker 2: can knock you off the ballot. Well, knock them off
1:54:45
Speaker 2: the ballot. And you know, in those days and we
1:54:46
Speaker 2: were just trying to win by the skin of our jap.
1:54:48
Speaker 2: We had no money. And I will say in Jim Johnson,
1:54:50
Speaker 2: who's gone now, But I defensive Jim. You know, Jim
1:54:54
Speaker 2: made the right call. He said, listen, we can knock
1:54:56
Speaker 2: them off the ballot. We can get the delegates. We
1:54:58
Speaker 2: got to go beat them and if we don't beat
1:55:00
Speaker 2: them in New York and that was the right New
1:55:02
Speaker 2: York call. Yeah, New York has such weird Remember.
1:55:05
Speaker 1: You would get you would qualify in some congressional districts,
1:55:09
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't make it on others. Like it such
1:55:12
Speaker 1: it was crazy. It wasn't even a decision that was
1:55:15
Speaker 1: made at the state level. It would literally be made
1:55:18
Speaker 1: to CongressI I was.
1:55:20
Speaker 2: I was in charge of overseeing the petition campaigns in
1:55:23
Speaker 2: every state. Okay. I was like, oh my god, this
1:55:25
Speaker 2: is so hard.
1:55:26
Speaker 1: Do you I mean, it sounds like you're would you
1:55:28
Speaker 1: make an advocate? Look, I think one of our polarization
1:55:31
Speaker 1: problems in this country and I frankly think taxpayer funded
1:55:35
Speaker 1: partisan primaries, I would argue that exclude people might be
1:55:40
Speaker 1: a violation of equal protection. Absolutely sounds like you're for
1:55:45
Speaker 1: all four open primaries until primary.
1:55:47
Speaker 2: Or I'm for reform. And one and one of the
1:55:51
Speaker 2: big things in the book is recognizing the core message
1:55:54
Speaker 2: of Bernie's campaign in twenty sixteen was that America had
1:55:57
Speaker 2: a rigged economy held in place by corrupt system of
1:56:00
Speaker 2: campaign finance. Right, excuse me, no, take a chab And
1:56:05
Speaker 2: I think that's the fact right now, and that's what's
1:56:09
Speaker 2: happening in America. And until we deal with that, when
1:56:13
Speaker 2: we're going to have this polarization of politics. And I
1:56:16
Speaker 2: also speculate, and I'm not an investigative reporter. I wasn't
1:56:20
Speaker 2: in a room. I don't have witnesses to tell me this,
1:56:22
Speaker 2: but I believe in my heart and in my soul
1:56:25
Speaker 2: that after the two thousand and eight election, the Republicans
1:56:28
Speaker 2: got together and said, we've got to change the system
1:56:30
Speaker 2: because this young black candidate just outraised John McCain two
1:56:34
Speaker 2: to one, Okay, because Obama had the ability to go
1:56:37
Speaker 2: to traditional fundraising sources and also raise at the grass roots,
1:56:41
Speaker 2: and it was terrifying for these guys. I mean, they
1:56:43
Speaker 2: picked Sarah Palin and I know this for a fact
1:56:45
Speaker 2: because I dealt with a lot of these guys, you know,
1:56:46
Speaker 2: in terms of other stuff I did outside. They picked
1:56:49
Speaker 2: her because they needed money in the Republican National Committee
1:56:53
Speaker 2: that they were not raising, and she was the one
1:56:55
Speaker 2: who they thought could bring the money into the organization. No, absolutely, totally.
1:57:00
Speaker 1: And McCain was terrible for the McCain was not a
1:57:03
Speaker 1: grassroots conservative. He just was.
1:57:05
Speaker 2: And what happened after that camp, after Obama won, was
1:57:08
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court got the note okay, and the Supreme
1:57:11
Speaker 2: Court then moved very quickly and decisively to allow the
1:57:14
Speaker 2: flood of money into politics. And that's what's destroying America
1:57:17
Speaker 2: today more than anything else.
1:57:18
Speaker 1: Well, and it's funny, we just were talking on the
1:57:20
Speaker 1: day that we just got a you know, it's not
1:57:23
Speaker 1: a shock to me that. You know. What I'll say
1:57:25
Speaker 1: about this court is it's a conservative court. It's not
1:57:28
Speaker 1: a Trump court. If we're a Trump court, there would
1:57:30
Speaker 1: have been a lot more worse decisions that would have really,
1:57:33
Speaker 1: you know, but there is one consistency with this Roberts
1:57:36
Speaker 1: Court is that he has decided that money and speech
1:57:38
Speaker 1: are the same. That's right. And so the question is
1:57:43
Speaker 1: could we can fight it? And you can hope twenty
1:57:46
Speaker 1: five years later you'll get judges that show up and
1:57:48
Speaker 1: may reinterpret things differently. You do a constitutional amendment or
1:57:53
Speaker 1: you pass along in Congress that sort of accepts the
1:57:55
Speaker 1: premise of okay, we'll go unlimited, but at certain limits.
1:58:00
Speaker 1: You have to do certain things. You have to name
1:58:02
Speaker 1: your advertiser, you've got to you know, put the brand
1:58:05
Speaker 1: of the corporate logo on your plane or whatever it is.
1:58:08
Speaker 1: That the sort of the NASCAR answer. I mean, I
1:58:11
Speaker 1: wish there were some more creative campaign finance answers given
1:58:15
Speaker 1: the current legal structure we have. I wish we were
1:58:18
Speaker 1: in a different one. But sometimes you've got to fight
1:58:21
Speaker 1: within the structure that you have, not the one that
1:58:23
Speaker 1: you want.
1:58:23
Speaker 2: Well, I agree with that, and fighting within the structure
1:58:26
Speaker 2: means taking steps which are available to you in the
1:58:29
Speaker 2: short term. So, for example, one of the reasons in
1:58:32
Speaker 2: my view that Mandammie was able to succeed in New
1:58:34
Speaker 2: York is that New York has a generous system of
1:58:36
Speaker 2: campaign finance, and you know, I think it's like a
1:58:40
Speaker 2: five to one match, okay, So he was able to
1:58:42
Speaker 2: He couldn't spend as much as the super packs with
1:58:45
Speaker 2: the Wall Street guys who are trying to kill him with, okay,
1:58:47
Speaker 2: but he could spend enough to achieve a floor level
1:58:50
Speaker 2: of communication of his message and to get through to
1:58:53
Speaker 2: people with it, including television advertising and other ways of communicating.
1:58:57
Speaker 2: That's one measure that if we can move right now,
1:59:00
Speaker 2: a lot of people can get into the system and
1:59:02
Speaker 2: can win election through doing that. But the real answer
1:59:05
Speaker 2: is we must amend the Constitution of the United States
1:59:07
Speaker 2: in a way that the Court cannot move away from it.
1:59:10
Speaker 2: And I think it can be done. And here's why,
1:59:12
Speaker 2: because about eighty percent of Republicans, Independence and Democrats are
1:59:16
Speaker 2: for doing it.
1:59:16
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:59:17
Speaker 2: The hard part of this business is convincing people to
1:59:20
Speaker 2: do something, okay, to be for an issue, to do something.
1:59:23
Speaker 2: They're already there. What we've got to do right now
1:59:25
Speaker 2: is we got to you know, organize it, and we've
1:59:28
Speaker 2: got to make it happen. And I believe if it's
1:59:29
Speaker 2: done in the right way, it will happen.
1:59:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, and I understand that the neither party
1:59:35
Speaker 1: is going to accept the perception that one of them
1:59:37
Speaker 1: loses during a reform effort. Right right, This has been
1:59:41
Speaker 1: the This is to me, the mistake that was made
1:59:44
Speaker 1: on the redistricting front. Right, And this is where I
1:59:47
Speaker 1: think that Democrats are in the wrong. You know, first
1:59:50
Speaker 1: they were the Party of fairness, and then now they're
1:59:52
Speaker 1: in the party of Well, if they're not going to
1:59:54
Speaker 1: play fair, then we're not going to play fair. I
1:59:56
Speaker 1: think that's a bad that becomes that's an erosion of brand,
2:00:00
Speaker 1: and you're going to regret down the road.
2:00:01
Speaker 2: Well, here's the problem. We're in an existential crisis in America.
2:00:05
Speaker 1: I understand. I get the counter argument. I accept the
2:00:09
Speaker 1: premise of that argument. But it's a death spiral if
2:00:12
Speaker 1: we keep going down this road.
2:00:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, I believe that, and I think we can
2:00:16
Speaker 2: get to that place, and we need leaders to help
2:00:19
Speaker 2: us to get there. But the voters are already there.
2:00:22
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the whole thing about this.
2:00:23
Speaker 1: Now. The voters are ready for reform. Yeah, the question
2:00:26
Speaker 1: is the leaders meet them. Yeah.
2:00:28
Speaker 2: Right. The more time I spent writing in the book,
2:00:30
Speaker 2: the more I realized what the book was about. It
2:00:32
Speaker 2: was about empowering voters to solve the problems of America.
2:00:35
Speaker 2: That's you know, if we do that, we're going to
2:00:38
Speaker 2: be able to get these things done. I believe, Tad.
2:00:40
Speaker 1: I am like I'm obsessed with the period between eighteen
2:00:44
Speaker 1: eighty and about in nineteen thirty two. Right, this this
2:00:47
Speaker 1: period where we did, where we went through the we
2:00:50
Speaker 1: went through this transition a grarianto industrial we're in the
2:00:53
Speaker 1: middle of it now. We had a Gilded Age. We
2:00:56
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of industrialists who wanted to lock
2:00:58
Speaker 1: in their well rather than accept the premise that they
2:01:02
Speaker 1: couldn't have done it without America right that this was
2:01:06
Speaker 1: and and we had a leader that met the moment
2:01:09
Speaker 1: and Teddy and we made a lot of Look, we
2:01:14
Speaker 1: made huge direct election as senators, women suffrage, the the
2:01:19
Speaker 1: Constitutional Amendment on taxing, which people don't realize how important
2:01:23
Speaker 1: that was. We have property taxes out of it. Yes,
2:01:27
Speaker 1: So I guess the question is how do we get
2:01:30
Speaker 1: the leaders that will will will actually let the reform happen,
2:01:33
Speaker 1: because we don't have Congress.
2:01:34
Speaker 2: That will do this well. The way we do it
2:01:37
Speaker 2: is by having people win elections on that basis. Okay,
2:01:41
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, the only hope for the Democrat.
2:01:43
Speaker 1: But as you know, it's a lot it's harder to
2:01:45
Speaker 1: win on reform. It's easier to win on pocketbook.
2:01:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I listen. I wouldn't advise people to go
2:01:51
Speaker 2: out and say, listen to my central message. Let's make
2:01:54
Speaker 2: TV ads about constitutional amendment. No, let's make TV ads
2:01:58
Speaker 2: about housing and how too high. Let's make them at
2:02:01
Speaker 2: about groceries, about you know, let's talk to people. But
2:02:04
Speaker 2: these are people who when they get into there, they
2:02:07
Speaker 2: have to fight. I mean, at the end of the book,
2:02:09
Speaker 2: I have you know, you know, I basically quote church Hill.
2:02:12
Speaker 2: You know, we will fight them in the fields, we
2:02:15
Speaker 2: will fight them in the we will fight them. We
2:02:17
Speaker 2: will never surrender, you know. I mean that's really where
2:02:19
Speaker 2: we are right now. We're kind of in that moment
2:02:22
Speaker 2: and we have to engage in the fight. But we
2:02:25
Speaker 2: have to understand what victory is too. Victory is not oh,
2:02:28
Speaker 2: you know, we won the White House, and well you know,
2:02:30
Speaker 2: now we'll take care of our guys on Wall Street
2:02:32
Speaker 2: instead of the other ones. You no, no, we're going
2:02:35
Speaker 2: to end it. We're going to change it. We're going
2:02:37
Speaker 2: to a new future, and we will not burden our
2:02:39
Speaker 2: children and our grandchildren with the debt of this nation,
2:02:42
Speaker 2: which is what's happening today.
2:02:44
Speaker 1: So what is the party now? What is the Democratic Party?
2:02:47
Speaker 1: Is it's supposed to be a coalition of three or
2:02:51
Speaker 1: four different factions? Is it a party in and of itself?
2:02:56
Speaker 1: Should we have a narrower definition of what is a democrat?
2:02:59
Speaker 1: A broader You know, people say big ted when they
2:03:02
Speaker 1: want when they hope that not everybody has to agree
2:03:05
Speaker 1: on everything, and then others will argue no, there needs
2:03:08
Speaker 1: to be a real distinction between Team R and Team D.
2:03:13
Speaker 1: What's the what's the answer here, Well.
2:03:16
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope it's that we're a very big
2:03:19
Speaker 2: party that encompasses a lot of different groups who may
2:03:22
Speaker 2: not agree on everything, but agree on some very big things.
2:03:25
Speaker 2: I mean, that's where we have to go. We have
2:03:26
Speaker 2: to rebuild a coalition. The Democrats had an electoral coalition
2:03:29
Speaker 2: when Franklin Roosevelt was elected and re elected, and I
2:03:32
Speaker 2: think they achieved briefly a coalition again when Barack Obama
2:03:36
Speaker 2: was elected the first time and was able to be
2:03:38
Speaker 2: re elected. I mean, he was the only Democratic president
2:03:40
Speaker 2: who was elected and re elected with the majority of
2:03:42
Speaker 2: votes since Roosevelts. Okay, right, you know, and so so
2:03:47
Speaker 2: now the Obama coalition was different than the rose I mean,
2:03:49
Speaker 2: the Roosevelt had the solidself and he had you know,
2:03:53
Speaker 2: farmers and workers, and he had you know, immigrants, you
2:03:56
Speaker 2: know in part. And he had a black vote which
2:03:57
Speaker 2: was a smaller vote because it couldn't vote, and a
2:03:59
Speaker 2: lot of players, you know, but you know, and Obama
2:04:02
Speaker 2: built this thing powered by young people in many ways.
2:04:04
Speaker 2: I mean, the phenomenon of young people in two thousand
2:04:07
Speaker 2: and eight is something that is still I find so remarkable.
2:04:11
Speaker 2: You know that he could go into you know, Indiana,
2:04:14
Speaker 2: and he could go into North Carolina, and he could
2:04:16
Speaker 2: win both states that Democrats couldn't touch for generations and
2:04:19
Speaker 2: only win eighteen to twenty nine year olds one age
2:04:22
Speaker 2: cohort that was the only age codehort he won. And
2:04:25
Speaker 2: yet he won these states. And you know, and I
2:04:27
Speaker 2: think I believe Bernie had the potential to do I'm
2:04:30
Speaker 2: not saying we would have won Indiana or North Carolina
2:04:33
Speaker 2: made about others, Yeah, but I think we might have
2:04:35
Speaker 2: surprised people and a lot of other states by his
2:04:37
Speaker 2: ability to go in and build a winning coalition.
2:04:40
Speaker 1: So I have I have flip flopped myself on this
2:04:44
Speaker 1: answer about whether it could Burnie a beaten Trump, And
2:04:49
Speaker 1: I was a no for a long time, and I'm
2:04:53
Speaker 1: not a no anymore. I think that when you a
2:04:55
Speaker 1: lot of it would have depended on how Obama endorsmal
2:05:00
Speaker 1: I really believe that would have mattered. He would have
2:05:05
Speaker 1: done it right, How would he have done it? How
2:05:08
Speaker 1: is he going to put his arm around him? Was
2:05:11
Speaker 1: Bernie going to go with somebody to his right as
2:05:15
Speaker 1: his running mate? Right? There's a few curiosities I have
2:05:18
Speaker 1: of what the ticket might have looked like, but I
2:05:21
Speaker 1: do think he was speaking to an anger on the
2:05:27
Speaker 1: economic front. But I don't know right if he had
2:05:30
Speaker 1: been too closely tied to Obama, would that have been
2:05:32
Speaker 1: a problem.
2:05:33
Speaker 2: I don't know what the.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: Red answer would have been had he been the nominating.
2:05:35
Speaker 2: Well, well, I have no doubt that Obama would have
2:05:38
Speaker 2: done the right thing, and he would have done it
2:05:40
Speaker 2: in a way that was enormously powerful. I mean he
2:05:42
Speaker 2: and Michelle, I mean the speeches. It would have been
2:05:46
Speaker 2: unbelievable if he had stepped into that breach. And I
2:05:49
Speaker 2: think Bernie would have benefited. Now, as to the question
2:05:51
Speaker 2: of who would have won, you know, and I write
2:05:53
Speaker 2: about this book, I completely believe in my heart and
2:05:57
Speaker 2: soul that Bernie would have beaten Trump, you know, and
2:06:00
Speaker 2: for a lot of reasons. Basically, it was because it
2:06:02
Speaker 2: was a change election, and that's why Hillary couldn't win,
2:06:05
Speaker 2: because she could never be the change candidate and Trump
2:06:07
Speaker 2: was the obvious change candidate, you know. But the but
2:06:09
Speaker 2: the best evidence of this, you know, I think the
2:06:12
Speaker 2: the open primary is a great evidence. The polling where
2:06:15
Speaker 2: Bernie was always better as great evidence. But for me,
2:06:17
Speaker 2: the Trump card, no pun intended that I throw down
2:06:21
Speaker 2: to the end is Tony Fabrizio at the Harvard post
2:06:24
Speaker 2: election seminar, And when the leader of the discussion said,
2:06:27
Speaker 2: well if yeah, and everybody who knows Tony and I haven't,
2:06:30
Speaker 2: I know Tony a little bit, you know, and worked
2:06:32
Speaker 2: with him on other stuff not in US politic, you know,
2:06:35
Speaker 2: and you know, Freizio just says what he wants to say.
2:06:38
Speaker 2: And I remember I remember going to that Harvard thing myself, okay,
2:06:41
Speaker 2: after one of the I think it was after carry
2:06:43
Speaker 2: and we were all we were battling the Bush guys
2:06:45
Speaker 2: back and forth, and I said, and I'm said, they
2:06:47
Speaker 2: were shrum and we're really going at him. And I said,
2:06:49
Speaker 2: you know, I had this rule. We called it the
2:06:51
Speaker 2: to Tony rule, and the too Tony rose this that
2:06:53
Speaker 2: if Tony Kualo was quoted on the front page of
2:06:56
Speaker 2: the New York Times the Washing Post, or if Tony
2:06:58
Speaker 2: Fabrizio was quoted on the front page, it was Quello
2:07:00
Speaker 2: we had a bad day, and Fabrizio, you guys had
2:07:03
Speaker 2: a bad day. And everybody started laughing because Arasio would
2:07:06
Speaker 2: just tell it like it is. So when he was
2:07:07
Speaker 2: at the Post Trump too, that was sixteen, the guy said, well,
2:07:11
Speaker 2: if it had been Sanders, who would have won. He said, well, yeah,
2:07:14
Speaker 2: it would have been Sanders, okay, because the white working
2:07:16
Speaker 2: class vote that made the difference to us would not
2:07:18
Speaker 2: be available and Bertie would have gotten it. Again, that's
2:07:21
Speaker 2: the entire thing right there.
2:07:22
Speaker 1: Well, when you look at the mask, right, if it
2:07:25
Speaker 1: really was a three state election, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Uh, and
2:07:32
Speaker 1: and uh Michigan, Michigan and frankly, boy, I would have
2:07:37
Speaker 1: you know, I know, one state have been a lot closer,
2:07:39
Speaker 1: and I'd have been Ohio, right like that's and and
2:07:42
Speaker 1: who knows about Iowa on those two fronts, you know,
2:07:46
Speaker 1: she was you know, I don't think I've always said
2:07:49
Speaker 1: she was uniquely hard to sell in Iowa. Some of
2:07:54
Speaker 1: it's not fair. There's still some built in sexism issues
2:07:56
Speaker 1: that you know, I know they're there. And she was
2:08:00
Speaker 1: just uniquely hard to sell in Iowa and Ohio, I think.
2:08:04
Speaker 1: But those three states that the so called blue wall
2:08:07
Speaker 1: he had a connection to, there was an enthusiasm amongst
2:08:11
Speaker 1: the labor union vote that he created that you hadn't
2:08:15
Speaker 1: seen in the blue collar trades in a long time,
2:08:17
Speaker 1: for a time.
2:08:17
Speaker 2: I agree, and and and you say, you know, in
2:08:19
Speaker 2: terms of vice president I have. I never had this
2:08:21
Speaker 2: conversation with Bernie now, but I was in the room
2:08:24
Speaker 2: with him a lot. I listened to him a lot.
2:08:25
Speaker 2: I saw the way he talked about people and everything.
2:08:27
Speaker 2: And I believe should he had been successful, I think
2:08:30
Speaker 2: he would ask Shared Brown to run out it.
2:08:31
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, don't say it, let me guess.
2:08:34
Speaker 1: I said it was Sharon Brown.
2:08:36
Speaker 2: You know, Tad, I'll tell you that working people of Ohio,
2:08:39
Speaker 2: the working people of.
2:08:40
Speaker 1: Vermont, they understand each other.
2:08:43
Speaker 2: Now, I've always thought I could I could have. I
2:08:46
Speaker 2: could have worked on that impression as much as I
2:08:48
Speaker 2: do Bernie. Okay, so I I.
2:08:51
Speaker 1: Really was hoping. I really thought Shared Brown was the
2:08:55
Speaker 1: perfect potential nominee for the Democrats in twenty that I
2:08:58
Speaker 1: think forget you know everything else. Right, A little bit
2:09:01
Speaker 1: younger than Biden and Bernie, but he had he truly
2:09:04
Speaker 1: had one foot in both places. The establishment didn't fear him,
2:09:08
Speaker 1: but the but the working class pace trusted him. I mean,
2:09:12
Speaker 1: that's a that's a unique skill set and it is Look,
2:09:16
Speaker 1: he chose to stand down because Biden decided to run,
2:09:18
Speaker 1: and he knew that Biden is gonna nobble up that territory.
2:09:22
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, that's a what. But I just think
2:09:26
Speaker 2: they would have been really strong together, talk about stronger together.
2:09:29
Speaker 1: That was it?
2:09:30
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sorry.
2:09:32
Speaker 1: Would Bernie have said yes to it? Clinton running me?
2:09:36
Speaker 2: You know, we never really thought it was going to happen,
2:09:41
Speaker 2: And you know, I you know, I don't see why not.
2:09:45
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it would certainly be a it's
2:09:48
Speaker 2: a big house, you know, to live in it, you know,
2:09:51
Speaker 2: forty No, it is, it is. And I think he
2:09:53
Speaker 2: would have I think I think he would have gone
2:09:55
Speaker 2: in and I'll do this, but you know, I hate
2:09:58
Speaker 2: it if you support X, Y and Z, which would
2:10:01
Speaker 2: evolve in policy, would have been a complete policy thing
2:10:04
Speaker 2: for him, I think. You know, so can you imagine
2:10:06
Speaker 2: that wasn't going to happen? I mean he asked me,
2:10:08
Speaker 2: and I read about this book and the last night,
2:10:10
Speaker 2: you know, he says, who do you think the big
2:10:12
Speaker 2: vice president? I said, well, probably you know Tim Kane.
2:10:14
Speaker 2: I think he was like really and it wasn't like
2:10:16
Speaker 2: he didn't like Tim Kane or respect him or think
2:10:18
Speaker 2: he was a good guy or any a good senator.
2:10:20
Speaker 2: It's because it's like why, you know, And I was
2:10:22
Speaker 2: like well, they have a different view of the election, perttiy.
2:10:24
Speaker 2: They think it's all about going to the middle and again,
2:10:26
Speaker 2: and you know, it expanded the electorate and bringing all
2:10:30
Speaker 2: these people in that we're deb before. I mean, we
2:10:32
Speaker 2: had the Trump view. You know, he just had a
2:10:34
Speaker 2: different group of people than we had. So you know,
2:10:36
Speaker 2: but that but that's you know, I really think we
2:10:40
Speaker 2: could have had a very powerful record. And I also
2:10:44
Speaker 2: think that, you know, and I talked about this in
2:10:46
Speaker 2: the book too, that in twenty twenty four it would
2:10:49
Speaker 2: have been much better for the Democratic Party not to
2:10:52
Speaker 2: say we're all jumping behind the vice president that's it,
2:10:55
Speaker 2: which is basically what happened in sixty eight. Okay, I
2:10:57
Speaker 2: mean Tom Free suddenly is to nominate. You know, it
2:11:00
Speaker 2: would have been better to say, listen, those people got
2:11:02
Speaker 2: elected to be delegates, they're all released from you know,
2:11:05
Speaker 2: they can vote for whoever they want. We're going to
2:11:07
Speaker 2: have a contest for these four thousand representatives of voters
2:11:10
Speaker 2: at the convention itself, and instead of everybody going to
2:11:12
Speaker 2: Trump's trials all the time, they would have come to
2:11:14
Speaker 2: our convention.
2:11:15
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, this gets you know, this gets at the
2:11:18
Speaker 1: attention economy, the Democratic Party is afraid of being on
2:11:22
Speaker 1: center stage. Donald Trump's like, I don't care what the
2:11:27
Speaker 1: stage is. If it's a courtroom, if it's a prison cell,
2:11:31
Speaker 1: if it's a UFC cage match. As long as the
2:11:33
Speaker 1: spotlight works, let's go. I completely agree. Make it an event.
2:11:39
Speaker 1: You want to talk about ratings, right, you have been
2:11:41
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five million Americans tuning into that.
2:11:44
Speaker 2: I know would have been like the super Bowl, so
2:11:47
Speaker 2: you know, and it would have.
2:11:48
Speaker 1: Been worthy of an audience. I know, when you're deciding
2:11:51
Speaker 1: who one of the two people to run for bread,
2:11:54
Speaker 1: maybe that ought to be a super Bowl sized audience.
2:11:56
Speaker 1: You see.
2:11:57
Speaker 2: The problem is that the establishment is risk adverse and
2:12:01
Speaker 2: politics is a risk business. Okay, you know that's.
2:12:05
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy? The d n C. It's funny and
2:12:08
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just going to turn into a DNC bashing section,
2:12:11
Speaker 1: But what you just said just now, the DNC has
2:12:14
Speaker 1: been the most risk averse organization frankly, for my entire
2:12:18
Speaker 1: professional career. They've always been afraid of voters, afraid of attention,
2:12:25
Speaker 1: afraid of the press, of you know, whatever it is,
2:12:29
Speaker 1: there is always a reason to say no. They never
2:12:32
Speaker 1: look for a reason to say yes. Yeah, Well they
2:12:35
Speaker 1: need they need a reason to say yes. You know,
2:12:37
Speaker 1: I remember reading about when you know John Lennon was
2:12:40
Speaker 1: first interested in Yoko Ono. She's had an art display,
2:12:44
Speaker 1: and you know he went to the art displane and
2:12:46
Speaker 1: he went up to the top of the art display
2:12:47
Speaker 1: and pulled on a little lever and inside it said yes, okay.
2:12:51
Speaker 2: And you know that's what the Democratic Party needs to do.
2:12:53
Speaker 2: Climb up Yoko's ladder and see what it says okay,
2:12:57
Speaker 2: because that's where you need to go.
2:13:00
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see. Do you think Bernie, even if he
2:13:04
Speaker 1: doesn't run in twenty eight, that he'll win the primary
2:13:06
Speaker 1: in twenty eight? You get my Do you feel like
2:13:08
Speaker 1: that he'll finally Well, I listen to know that everything
2:13:12
Speaker 1: he did in sixteen and twenty leads to him leading
2:13:16
Speaker 1: essentially being the godfather of whoever it is that wins
2:13:18
Speaker 1: in twenty eight.
2:13:19
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think he should run in twenty eight, Okay.
2:13:22
Speaker 2: I think he's too old to run, and I think
2:13:24
Speaker 2: he knows that. I have no idea. I haven't talked
2:13:27
Speaker 2: to him in a long time, and I mean, I
2:13:28
Speaker 2: love Bernie on a certain level, and Bernie and I
2:13:30
Speaker 2: banged heads on a certain level, you know, but I
2:13:33
Speaker 2: think that would be a big mistake and I don't
2:13:35
Speaker 2: think he would do that. I really don't think. Yeah,
2:13:37
Speaker 2: you know, he's got a recognize.
2:13:39
Speaker 1: And really I watch him with AOC in a way
2:13:43
Speaker 1: I've seen him campaign with rope Conna and some others
2:13:45
Speaker 1: that want to be the heir apparent. I feel like
2:13:49
Speaker 1: he only seems to see AOC is the most worthy
2:13:52
Speaker 1: so far.
2:13:53
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about I mean, I listen. Again,
2:13:55
Speaker 2: I'm not inside that tent at the moment, but I
2:13:57
Speaker 2: will say this, when I see him with Mendami, it's
2:14:01
Speaker 2: I feel like he's his son, you know.
2:14:03
Speaker 1: What I mean. I can't run. Yeah, well you.
2:14:07
Speaker 2: Know, you know, but but but I just feel like,
2:14:09
Speaker 2: who's the who's he's closest to. That's the close AOC,
2:14:13
Speaker 2: you know.
2:14:13
Speaker 1: I listen.
2:14:13
Speaker 2: I think AOC is an incredible politician and I have
2:14:16
Speaker 2: a lot of respect for her, and I write about
2:14:18
Speaker 2: that in the book. But I also think if she
2:14:20
Speaker 2: wanted my advice, my advice would be, Okay, there's a
2:14:23
Speaker 2: Senate seat open in your state against somebody really big,
2:14:26
Speaker 2: and if you want to show people how you can win,
2:14:28
Speaker 2: the presidency, that's a hell, I'm a good way to
2:14:29
Speaker 2: do it, you know what I mean.
2:14:31
Speaker 1: And also and once you get in there, just like
2:14:33
Speaker 1: there are another argument though for her running for president,
2:14:35
Speaker 1: which is never bide your time if somebody you know,
2:14:39
Speaker 1: meaning if you're if you're moments there, you better take it.
2:14:42
Speaker 1: It could be that there's never a moment that will
2:14:44
Speaker 1: be better for her style of politics, even if maybe
2:14:47
Speaker 1: she's not quite ready to do it.
2:14:50
Speaker 2: And I understand that, and I do think you have
2:14:52
Speaker 2: to take your opportunities in politics. But I also think
2:14:54
Speaker 2: this that the threshold of credibility for the presidency is
2:14:57
Speaker 2: the single highest threshold in all of policy. Okay, that
2:15:01
Speaker 2: people have to feel that you are credible and can
2:15:03
Speaker 2: do the job as president. And I think for someone
2:15:06
Speaker 2: like her, who is she's young, and I do think
2:15:08
Speaker 2: there's a lot of misogyny out there in politics that
2:15:11
Speaker 2: women have to overcome in skins, I do not share
2:15:14
Speaker 2: the view that a woman cannot be elected as president.
2:15:16
Speaker 2: I do not believe in that. Too many campaigns for
2:15:18
Speaker 2: people who you know, people said, you know, this guy,
2:15:21
Speaker 2: he's black, can't win the election for sheriff in Jacksonville.
2:15:24
Speaker 2: Well he did win it, okay, because we had the
2:15:26
Speaker 2: right candidate with the right message, and I think that
2:15:28
Speaker 2: will happen. But I think when you're going for president,
2:15:30
Speaker 2: you have to recognize that high threshold. And if you
2:15:32
Speaker 2: satisfy it by doing something like Obama did, which is
2:15:35
Speaker 2: going from state senator to United States senator, Okay, then
2:15:39
Speaker 2: you can start running the day you get elected.
2:15:41
Speaker 1: Okay.
2:15:41
Speaker 2: And you know, and I think that's the right path.
2:15:44
Speaker 2: You gotta make your moment, but you've got to understand,
2:15:46
Speaker 2: think you're coming around the turn, that's when you make
2:15:49
Speaker 2: the move with the horse, okay, not you know, you know,
2:15:52
Speaker 2: at the first turn. Okay. So so I just think
2:15:54
Speaker 2: that that would make a lot of sense.
2:15:56
Speaker 1: So well, then who is it? Who? Who's your Who's
2:16:00
Speaker 1: going to be the primary for Birdie's affection? Is it Rocanna?
2:16:04
Speaker 2: Listen, bro I know I know Roe of all the people,
2:16:07
Speaker 2: and I like Roe a lot. I mean, he's really smart, okay,
2:16:10
Speaker 2: and he also he has an understanding of what it
2:16:16
Speaker 2: is to be a candidate who leads a multi racial
2:16:18
Speaker 2: coalition in America. Okay, that's Obama really understood.
2:16:22
Speaker 1: He's been I know him a little bit too, and
2:16:24
Speaker 1: he is very actually very forward leaning on the following.
2:16:27
Speaker 1: He's been thinking about this a very long time. Sure, yeah,
2:16:31
Speaker 1: he's been think you know, it's like Bill Clinton the
2:16:32
Speaker 1: Boys date. He's been thinking about this a while. I know.
2:16:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he's he's quite capable, and I think if
2:16:38
Speaker 2: he runs, he could be formidable. But you know, we
2:16:40
Speaker 2: don't really know that the voters will know what they
2:16:43
Speaker 2: want and what they're looking for, and so listen. And
2:16:45
Speaker 2: the way it is with the voters is and I
2:16:47
Speaker 2: remember Paul Tully used to say this, you know, we'd
2:16:49
Speaker 2: like lose. I think it was the night we lost
2:16:51
Speaker 2: to Gary Hart and Ohio and I'm sitting there with
2:16:53
Speaker 2: Tully a like eleven thirty trying to do all the
2:16:55
Speaker 2: delegate stuff, and I was like, what do you think happened?
2:16:57
Speaker 2: He said, sometimes the dogs don't like the dog food,
2:17:00
Speaker 2: you know what I know. And that's just the way
2:17:02
Speaker 2: it is the politics you go to. Okay, now let's
2:17:04
Speaker 2: move down with.
2:17:05
Speaker 1: The Janet Mills. That's what we learned in Maine. It
2:17:07
Speaker 1: didn't matter what Janet Mills said, it did. I mean it.
2:17:10
Speaker 1: You know, they got to want what you're selling, even
2:17:13
Speaker 1: if they even if they may agree with you, that
2:17:17
Speaker 1: the other product's not very good? What about your product?
2:17:20
Speaker 2: And you know, and as a candidate, you have to
2:17:23
Speaker 2: connect with voters. That connection is so vital to be
2:17:28
Speaker 2: able to win.
2:17:29
Speaker 1: This easy thing to say, and it's really hard to
2:17:31
Speaker 1: find it.
2:17:31
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's no magic way to get there except trying
2:17:34
Speaker 2: to understand them and trying to understand how we could
2:17:37
Speaker 2: lead them.
2:17:37
Speaker 1: To be honest, if I showed you the Bernie Sanders
2:17:41
Speaker 1: talking points and floor speeches from c Span in two thousand,
2:17:45
Speaker 1: spy from the house floor, and I said to you,
2:17:47
Speaker 1: this man's going to lead a movement in this country
2:17:50
Speaker 1: and this will be really effective advertising in twenty sixteen,
2:17:53
Speaker 1: would you have agreed with me?
2:17:56
Speaker 2: Well, no, I mean.
2:17:59
Speaker 1: Sometimes we don't know if life for him.
2:18:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But I want to tell you, and that's
2:18:02
Speaker 2: a good example because if you get back to that,
2:18:04
Speaker 2: all those afternoons that he go down on the floor
2:18:07
Speaker 2: and give those floor speeches from the house years him.
2:18:10
Speaker 1: And Ron Paul right, the only two guys on the
2:18:12
Speaker 1: house floor back.
2:18:13
Speaker 2: They're going okay, So now you fast forward from that.
2:18:16
Speaker 2: Now it's you know, two thousand and the beginning of
2:18:19
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, we're sitting around Bill press's living room having
2:18:22
Speaker 2: some discussions, and one of the people there was had
2:18:25
Speaker 2: worked for Obama, and you know, and I was, I
2:18:28
Speaker 2: was sort of asking questions at that point, and I said, listen,
2:18:30
Speaker 2: how many email addresses did Obama have when you set
2:18:33
Speaker 2: up the headquarters of Chicago? Said all, we had about
2:18:35
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand email addresses. So then I was Phil Fermonte,
2:18:38
Speaker 2: is there, you know, one of Bernie's guys, And I said,
2:18:40
Speaker 2: how many email addresses had you guys have right now?
2:18:43
Speaker 2: He said four hundred thousand. Okay, you know. And so
2:18:46
Speaker 2: to think of that was all those speeches from Bernie
2:18:49
Speaker 2: all those years.
2:18:50
Speaker 1: It's a movement that took, you know, decades to build
2:18:53
Speaker 1: that we don't fully appreciate.
2:18:54
Speaker 2: And he built it brick by brick, and he sent
2:18:57
Speaker 2: these people these four page long, single space fundraising letters
2:19:01
Speaker 2: about what all the things we need to do, and
2:19:03
Speaker 2: those people were there. And then when the campaign started,
2:19:06
Speaker 2: we and you know, and then we started filling up
2:19:08
Speaker 2: these auditoriums, and now we got twenty five thousand more emails,
2:19:11
Speaker 2: which you know, suddenly we can talk to people.
2:19:15
Speaker 1: Look, look, I love a good war story book, and
2:19:18
Speaker 1: I am so glad you wrote because a lot of
2:19:19
Speaker 1: guys in your position don't like to write books because
2:19:22
Speaker 1: I feel like you're you know, it's hard to write everything,
2:19:27
Speaker 1: you know, because you might violate a some sort of
2:19:31
Speaker 1: private thing there, right, and I may have.
2:19:33
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of stuff I didn't put
2:19:35
Speaker 2: in the book, you know, because I just couldn't. You know,
2:19:37
Speaker 2: it's bah, I feel like you did it.
2:19:39
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I didn't sound like you violated anybody,
2:19:42
Speaker 1: but it is. I'm glad to get your view, and
2:19:46
Speaker 1: I like, I want to sell this. You've seen it
2:19:49
Speaker 1: from both seats. You've been on the insider seat and
2:19:51
Speaker 1: the outsider seat, so you certainly have more credibility to
2:19:54
Speaker 1: identify them, I hope. So.
2:19:56
Speaker 2: I mean, I tried to write an honest book, and frankly, Chuck,
2:19:59
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have written if a major publisher hadn't rolled
2:20:02
Speaker 2: out the red copper.
2:20:03
Speaker 1: To me and said, could you write a book? Okay?
2:20:04
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, it's an off the air.
2:20:06
Speaker 2: I'm not that busy.
2:20:07
Speaker 1: A lot of a lot of my listeners are gonna
2:20:09
Speaker 1: be like, hey, can I get that email? I want
2:20:11
Speaker 1: that email for you for responding to it. Tad it's
2:20:14
Speaker 1: great to catch up.
2:20:16
Speaker 2: To see you. Luck with everything, Thank you very much.
2:20:27
Speaker 1: Well, I will say this, I've known Tad Devine a
2:20:30
Speaker 1: long time. It's a fascinating argument and it's certainly it's
2:20:36
Speaker 1: certainly worth a read. So if you're curious, I do
2:20:39
Speaker 1: think that Unpacking All Things twenty sixteen is going to
2:20:42
Speaker 1: continue to be a treasure trove of stories, because there's
2:20:46
Speaker 1: no doubt the enormity of the twenty sixteen campaign only
2:20:53
Speaker 1: grows with every new controversy that now shows up here.
2:20:59
Speaker 1: All right, let me do the top five list, top five, top, topest,
2:21:06
Speaker 1: top In this case, I think I hitted at it before.
2:21:10
Speaker 1: My top five this week is going to going back
2:21:12
Speaker 1: to just the Senate right one. Are the five most
2:21:15
Speaker 1: and this is a my top five list if Maine
2:21:18
Speaker 1: is off the board. All right, this is if the
2:21:22
Speaker 1: Democrats just can't get it together and it can't come
2:21:25
Speaker 1: to an agreement on who they're now many to be
2:21:27
Speaker 1: and they blow this opportunity. So what does that mean, Well,
2:21:33
Speaker 1: this is how I would change my top five lists.
2:21:35
Speaker 1: So number one is still North Carolina. Nothing has changed there,
2:21:39
Speaker 1: you know. The only good news Michael Watley has gotten
2:21:42
Speaker 1: in the last month is the Supreme Court ruling that
2:21:44
Speaker 1: now means there could be campaign financial coordination. So in
2:21:48
Speaker 1: theory he should at least have a few more resources.
2:21:50
Speaker 1: But Roy Cooper is just raising an enormous amount of
2:21:53
Speaker 1: money and that lead has been sticking, and I think
2:21:55
Speaker 1: they're going to have a hard time sort of of
2:21:57
Speaker 1: pushing back against him. Two on my most likely to
2:22:01
Speaker 1: flip list is a Democratic healthsey now and it's uh,
2:22:04
Speaker 1: it's Michigan. The primary is going to be very divisive.
2:22:08
Speaker 1: Whoever wins. Hailey Stevens or Abduel said. I think the
2:22:11
Speaker 1: eventual nominee it's going to have repair work to do
2:22:14
Speaker 1: inside the party no matter what, and that does take time.
2:22:17
Speaker 1: So already I think this is this is going to
2:22:21
Speaker 1: put whoever the nominee is in a tougher spot against
2:22:25
Speaker 1: somebody who's not Maga. All right, He's trying trying to
2:22:29
Speaker 1: get just mega enough to get Trump to endorse him,
2:22:32
Speaker 1: Mike Rogers, but he's not He's not Maga, and you know, look,
2:22:37
Speaker 1: he's he's I think he's been a bit elusive and
2:22:41
Speaker 1: he's potentially vulnerable on you know who's he you know
2:22:44
Speaker 1: who who's he trying to be here. Is he coosing
2:22:46
Speaker 1: up to trump Ism or is he trying to be
2:22:48
Speaker 1: a more you know, mainstream Republican. You know, in theory,
2:22:54
Speaker 1: it should be a problem for him to deal with.
2:22:56
Speaker 1: But let's see, you know, what happens there. I will
2:23:01
Speaker 1: want to make one note of the debate between abdu
2:23:03
Speaker 1: al Saye and Hailey Stevens, their first one on one debate. Look,
2:23:10
Speaker 1: I do all I say. It's a very talented political athlete,
2:23:15
Speaker 1: and he was very shrewd. He came out for a
2:23:18
Speaker 1: the idea of sort of freezing property tax rates for seniors,
2:23:21
Speaker 1: which I don't know how he has any say whatsoever
2:23:24
Speaker 1: on that as a US senator, he doesn't. Property taxes
2:23:27
Speaker 1: are a state issue, in some cases a local issue.
2:23:32
Speaker 1: But it told me that he, you know, he is
2:23:36
Speaker 1: he does not want to get pigeonholed as a you know,
2:23:39
Speaker 1: tax and spent socialist or d SA adjacent. You know,
2:23:42
Speaker 1: he may be for Medicare for all and some of
2:23:43
Speaker 1: these other things, but he's he definitely doesn't want to.
2:23:47
Speaker 1: He wants to. At least it reminds me of of
2:23:50
Speaker 1: how Trump. No, no, I'm not touch as sold security
2:23:53
Speaker 1: right he was, He was almost trying to buy off
2:23:58
Speaker 1: the senior vote who were a little bit concerned about
2:24:00
Speaker 1: who he was. And this feels like I do alsa
2:24:03
Speaker 1: I trying to desperately trying to reassure seniors because frankly,
2:24:07
Speaker 1: you know, older voters are the most likely to vote.
2:24:11
Speaker 1: So I just found that to be an interesting. Look,
2:24:13
Speaker 1: it's a bad policy idea. We can go through that.
2:24:16
Speaker 1: But it does tell me he is not going to
2:24:20
Speaker 1: be a defiant progressive nominee here, right. He does strike
2:24:26
Speaker 1: me as somebody that's going to try to pivot enough
2:24:28
Speaker 1: to try to win. Now, we'll see, right if he can,
2:24:31
Speaker 1: if if somebody that far to the left and winnstay
2:24:35
Speaker 1: wide in Michigan. But I'm not underestimating him. I just
2:24:40
Speaker 1: know the race gets harder on that front. And I
2:24:43
Speaker 1: do think that fact that this is going to be
2:24:45
Speaker 1: a very naw I mean, I do think this is
2:24:47
Speaker 1: going to get negative pretty soon. It already has gotten
2:24:49
Speaker 1: negative sort of in social media circles and stuff like that,
2:24:52
Speaker 1: but you're going to start seeing the paid advertising. Steven's
2:24:55
Speaker 1: got really aggressive, and I'll do as Ed frankly was
2:24:58
Speaker 1: a I thought his initial statement on Platinum was weak.
2:25:02
Speaker 1: You know, it sort of said, well, you know it
2:25:08
Speaker 1: sort of it came across like he was equivocating a
2:25:11
Speaker 1: bit on the seriousness of the sexual assault charges. And
2:25:15
Speaker 1: I don't think he was, but the statement was poorly
2:25:18
Speaker 1: worthed in Hailey Stevens I think rightfully called him out
2:25:22
Speaker 1: of it on that. But that's now number two without Maine,
2:25:25
Speaker 1: and I would you know, number three and most likely
2:25:28
Speaker 1: to flip this Ohio And obviously we've seen polling there
2:25:31
Speaker 1: that I mean, that's just a fifty to fifty race,
2:25:33
Speaker 1: and if Maine is off the table, it's only you know,
2:25:37
Speaker 1: only makes Ohio that much more important to Democrats and
2:25:40
Speaker 1: shared Brown. Number four on the list is Alaska. I
2:25:43
Speaker 1: think we've seen that it does seem as if Patullo
2:25:48
Speaker 1: is is consistently able to hit you know, forty six
2:25:52
Speaker 1: forty seven percent in a rank choice environment, that's probably
2:25:57
Speaker 1: a winning number if you're running against them incumbent, right,
2:26:00
Speaker 1: because any vote that isn't for the incumbent usually goes
2:26:03
Speaker 1: to the challenger in this case, So you know, I
2:26:08
Speaker 1: think she's You could make an argument that maybe Potello
2:26:13
Speaker 1: has is in a slightly stronger position than Jared Brown
2:26:17
Speaker 1: at the moment. For now I'm not I'm going to
2:26:20
Speaker 1: keep Ohio more likely to flip in Alaska, but let
2:26:23
Speaker 1: me just tell you it's it's barely there. And then
2:26:25
Speaker 1: finally number five in the less be in Iowa. And
2:26:28
Speaker 1: then I want to draw a bright line here. Right,
2:26:30
Speaker 1: So of the my five most likely flips right, four
2:26:32
Speaker 1: d's one R. So let's assume I'm right and all
2:26:34
Speaker 1: five flip right. Well, the Democrats are net three and
2:26:39
Speaker 1: they'd be a seat short. So where do they find
2:26:43
Speaker 1: their fourth that mains off the table. Well, there's my
2:26:48
Speaker 1: one theory that Lisa Murkowski decides to just caucus with
2:26:53
Speaker 1: the Democrats does and switch parties. But she just sort
2:26:55
Speaker 1: of switches caucuses because she's an independent, I think, especially
2:27:00
Speaker 1: if Peltella wins, I think that's a that's a more
2:27:03
Speaker 1: that's more in play than I think people realize, especially
2:27:06
Speaker 1: with how aggressively negative Trump consistently gets in beating up Markowski.
2:27:10
Speaker 1: I think there's she is. I don't think she is
2:27:12
Speaker 1: any sort of fear or wanting. You know, she's more
2:27:19
Speaker 1: likely to basically give them the double shooters and organize
2:27:23
Speaker 1: with the Democrats than she is too acquius to please.
2:27:26
Speaker 1: From John Thunn and then there's sort of what I
2:27:30
Speaker 1: call the next five races that Democrats want to put
2:27:35
Speaker 1: in play. But there's a little bit of skepticism right
2:27:40
Speaker 1: the most you know, Nebraska, Dan Osborne, Mississippi. I thought
2:27:45
Speaker 1: Scott Callum, who's the Democratic nominee there, thought it was
2:27:48
Speaker 1: interesting he and Annie Andrews, who's the Democratic nominee in
2:27:51
Speaker 1: South Carolina, they sort of put out tweets during the
2:27:54
Speaker 1: whole Platinor controversy. Hey, I'm normal, I don't have any
2:28:01
Speaker 1: sexual assault charges against me. Give tom My candidacy. Essentially,
2:28:07
Speaker 1: it's almost like it was really sort of going, hey,
2:28:10
Speaker 1: Democratic National Committee d SEC, please come help me in
2:28:14
Speaker 1: my race. We're more competitive than you think, right. And
2:28:19
Speaker 1: then of course there's Texas, and yes, Ken Paxton is
2:28:24
Speaker 1: a walking disaster I think for the Republicans. But the
2:28:28
Speaker 1: amount of money Texas costs and the likelihood they still
2:28:31
Speaker 1: come up short, I really think is gonna it just
2:28:33
Speaker 1: makes Talleryco a very, very tough bet. He's more likely
2:28:38
Speaker 1: going to be more having to finish this on his own.
2:28:40
Speaker 1: And then one name to keep an eye on that
2:28:44
Speaker 1: I think is probably the perfect compromise choice for Democrats
2:28:47
Speaker 1: up there in name is Emily Kane. She ran a
2:28:49
Speaker 1: couple times before and narrowly lost that second congressional district
2:28:55
Speaker 1: before Jared Golden came along and won it. You know,
2:29:00
Speaker 1: she's She's essentially somewhere in between. You know where you
2:29:05
Speaker 1: might put Janet Mills and where you might put Platner.
2:29:08
Speaker 1: And most importantly, I I think that the Democrats have
2:29:16
Speaker 1: to nominate a woman in this case, given the reason
2:29:19
Speaker 1: why Platners out of this race. And so when you
2:29:24
Speaker 1: look at all the various options, keep an eye on
2:29:27
Speaker 1: Emily King. I think she's she could be the perfect
2:29:31
Speaker 1: sort of compromised choice. And you know, I'm a I'm
2:29:35
Speaker 1: a sucker for alliteration came from Maine, right. You can
2:29:38
Speaker 1: just see that it rolls off the tongue. But the
2:29:41
Speaker 1: more sort of I think generic you get there, frankly,
2:29:46
Speaker 1: the better off Democrats might be given the current circumstances there.
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Speaker 1: all right, we're just gonna do. I gave you a lot.
2:32:22
Speaker 1: This is a pretty sick podcast to do We're going
2:32:25
Speaker 1: to do three questions here. First one comes from Brad
2:32:29
Speaker 1: California thirty seven, although he said he sent it from
2:32:33
Speaker 1: Safari In Savvy sands, I love it the Chuck podcast
2:32:37
Speaker 1: being downloaded in the continent of Africa. That's very exciting today.
2:32:43
Speaker 1: And he asked, Hey, what's one widely believed political myth
2:32:46
Speaker 1: that isn't actually true? That's interesting? Thanks for everything you do.
2:32:50
Speaker 1: I believe this will make me a member of the
2:32:52
Speaker 1: illustrious five timers club. Best Brad in Californy thirty seven,
2:32:56
Speaker 1: although sent from Safari as I said, so, what's one
2:33:00
Speaker 1: widely believed political myth that isn't actually true? Well, I'll
2:33:08
Speaker 1: give you one that Lee Arvy. This is it that
2:33:17
Speaker 1: Leearvy Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. I firmly believe that the conspiracy.
2:33:23
Speaker 1: To me that the legitimate conspiracy and legitimate questions are
2:33:28
Speaker 1: why isn't the CIA more forthcoming about how it was
2:33:31
Speaker 1: surveilling Leearvy Oswald what it knew about Lee Arvy Oswald?
2:33:35
Speaker 1: How is it that a guy was able to renounce
2:33:38
Speaker 1: his US citizenship, move to move to Russia and then
2:33:41
Speaker 1: somehow renounces Soviet citizenship and come back right. So, but
2:33:46
Speaker 1: what seems to be there's just there, There's been all
2:33:51
Speaker 1: sorts of attempts. Right. The issue itself is did Oswald
2:33:55
Speaker 1: pull the trigger on the rifle that killed Kennedy? And
2:34:01
Speaker 1: there is just a preponderance of evidence that it is yes.
2:34:05
Speaker 1: To me, the conspiracy part is about what, what did
2:34:10
Speaker 1: the CIA know and when did they know it? About
2:34:12
Speaker 1: all things Lee Harvey right, That is to me the
2:34:15
Speaker 1: unanswered question. This is my belief of why the CI
2:34:17
Speaker 1: I think they. I think that they did have him
2:34:21
Speaker 1: as an asset and were petrified and were petrified that
2:34:29
Speaker 1: he couldn't that they would get blamed for it, which
2:34:34
Speaker 1: is why they wanted to have this little association. You know.
2:34:36
Speaker 1: They were trying desperately to sort of like you know, no, no, no, no,
2:34:39
Speaker 1: we didn't we didn't know he was but I'm not
2:34:40
Speaker 1: sure who he is, you know, type of thing, because
2:34:43
Speaker 1: I think they feared that nobody would believe that they
2:34:45
Speaker 1: didn't know that he was up to it. So it's
2:34:48
Speaker 1: one of those it was an impossible It's like proving
2:34:51
Speaker 1: a negative rights proving disproving a negative thing. The other
2:34:56
Speaker 1: widely held myth that an undecided voters are a moderate right,
2:35:01
Speaker 1: and the other one being that if registered independents are
2:35:04
Speaker 1: all centrists, right, that's probably if I were to truly
2:35:08
Speaker 1: answer your question about what's a widely held political myth,
2:35:13
Speaker 1: it is that independence are centrists. Independence are independents because
2:35:18
Speaker 1: they don't think the Republican Party of the Democratic Party
2:35:21
Speaker 1: speaks for them. Some of them are independent because they're
2:35:24
Speaker 1: to the left or to the right of where the
2:35:27
Speaker 1: middle of the two parties are. Some are independent because
2:35:32
Speaker 1: they share some conviction with the left and some conviction
2:35:36
Speaker 1: with the right and just don't feel comfortable, you know,
2:35:39
Speaker 1: being a full time member of either party. The point
2:35:42
Speaker 1: being is they're not centrists. Most independents are just simply pragmatists,
2:35:53
Speaker 1: and there is a huge difference between being a centrist
2:35:56
Speaker 1: and being between being a pregnancist. All right, So there
2:36:00
Speaker 1: were two there for you, Right, I did Bale Harvey.
2:36:02
Speaker 1: You know, my favorite thing is, you know, Kevin Costner
2:36:06
Speaker 1: in a Field of Dreams, and then there's Kevin Costner
2:36:09
Speaker 1: and JFK. Right, Kevin Costner and JFK is playing the
2:36:12
Speaker 1: biggest conspiracy theorist in the world about Lee Arvin. There's
2:36:14
Speaker 1: this line in the Field of dreams going where where
2:36:16
Speaker 1: Kevin Costern basically saying, and he's a He's just a
2:36:20
Speaker 1: you know, an average guy who you know believes his
2:36:22
Speaker 1: government when it comes to Lee Harvey Oswald or something
2:36:24
Speaker 1: like that. Anyway, But I digress, Randy and Buffalo. I
2:36:29
Speaker 1: was just in Buffalo. I just had a canceled flight
2:36:32
Speaker 1: out of Buffalo. Don't get me started, Randy and Buffalo,
2:36:36
Speaker 1: writes first time emailer here, aspiring five times. Bring it on, Randy,
2:36:40
Speaker 1: we watch it on an episode. You argue that Donald
2:36:42
Speaker 1: Trump had the single biggest negative impact on in East
2:36:45
Speaker 1: Coast City. But as a proud Buffalonian, I've always reserved
2:36:49
Speaker 1: that title for Robert Moses. Right, I was talking about
2:36:54
Speaker 1: Trump for Atlantic City versus rot I know where you're
2:36:56
Speaker 1: going here with Moses. How would you compare Trump's impact
2:36:58
Speaker 1: on Atlantic City with moses lifelegacy of reshaping and in
2:37:01
Speaker 1: many cases, tearing apart cities for highways and development. Appreciate
2:37:04
Speaker 1: your independent voice, enjoy the lighter July schedule, and go bills. Wait,
2:37:09
Speaker 1: I heard it was by My biggest applause line at
2:37:12
Speaker 1: the Chautago Institute was I'm a Packer fan, but let's
2:37:17
Speaker 1: go Bills, and I said Bills and Packer fans were
2:37:19
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, the same. The only difference is
2:37:21
Speaker 1: Packers win their Super Bowls. Thanks, I'm not teasing. It
2:37:25
Speaker 1: happens to be true. Yeah, but anyway, don't hate me, Randy,
2:37:30
Speaker 1: don't stop you knowing. It's a fair point on Moses,
2:37:36
Speaker 1: But I guess you could argue that everything he tried
2:37:41
Speaker 1: to do it didn't work, right, I mean, he has Look,
2:37:46
Speaker 1: it sucks to get out to JFK Airport. There's a
2:37:49
Speaker 1: lot of terrible ways that the suburb. I mean, you know,
2:37:52
Speaker 1: there's there's certainly plenty of ways that he screwed up
2:37:57
Speaker 1: the essentially navigating the city. Right, But what he's trying
2:38:04
Speaker 1: to do didn't have the long term impact, right. Atlantic
2:38:08
Speaker 1: City still hasn't recovered versus New York has sort of
2:38:13
Speaker 1: overcome what Moses did. So that would be my slight pushback,
2:38:19
Speaker 1: But frankly, it's a fair point. And given the amount
2:38:26
Speaker 1: of people impacted by what Moses did versus the amount
2:38:28
Speaker 1: of people impacted by Trump's destruction of Atlantic City, it's
2:38:33
Speaker 1: a fair argument that in some cases Moses was more impactful.
2:38:37
Speaker 1: But that's an interesting debate. By the way I thought
2:38:42
Speaker 1: you were going to bring up. You know, I'd love
2:38:44
Speaker 1: to know. Maybe for your second question, Randy, you can
2:38:48
Speaker 1: tell me how you would have handled Donald Trump being
2:38:50
Speaker 1: the owner of the Buffalo Bills. All right, final question
2:38:55
Speaker 1: for this episode Scott C. Turner from Oregon's sixth Congressional
2:38:58
Speaker 1: District rights. Hey, Chuck, which percentage? What percentage of Republican
2:39:02
Speaker 1: leaders do you think are so short sighted that they
2:39:04
Speaker 1: can't see how they continued expansion of presidential power could
2:39:07
Speaker 1: be used by a future Democratic president. Are they simply
2:39:10
Speaker 1: unaware of the precedent they're setting, or are they confident
2:39:12
Speaker 1: Republicans will control the White House for decades? Oh? By
2:39:15
Speaker 1: the way, go ducks with Dante more back. Fans are
2:39:17
Speaker 1: expecting big things. Hey man, I got a little side
2:39:22
Speaker 1: hustle on sports cards. I got a bunch of Dante
2:39:25
Speaker 1: more PSA tens. I am counting on Dante Moore doing
2:39:29
Speaker 1: really well, just not well enough to be to beat
2:39:33
Speaker 1: my Hurricanes of being in the playoffs. And by the way,
2:39:40
Speaker 1: i'm i'm I appreciate it. You didn't you know, we
2:39:43
Speaker 1: didn't we didn't do the Mario Crystobal organ MINDI beef
2:39:48
Speaker 1: on that one. It's not short sightedness. I actually think
2:39:55
Speaker 1: it's more of a The real lesson that I think
2:40:01
Speaker 1: many politicians have learned over the last thirty years is
2:40:07
Speaker 1: do what you can in the moment because you don't
2:40:09
Speaker 1: know if you're going to get another chance. I think
2:40:12
Speaker 1: that's what explains this. And I think there's another faction
2:40:16
Speaker 1: that says you go maximalist because they can't undo everything,
2:40:21
Speaker 1: so you do as much as you can. And this
2:40:23
Speaker 1: is why some on the left are so critical of
2:40:25
Speaker 1: Obama is that he wasn't as maximalist about trying to
2:40:28
Speaker 1: get as much done and maybe push the envelope a
2:40:31
Speaker 1: little bit now. He was thinking long term. He was
2:40:36
Speaker 1: trying to and perhaps in hindsight, Obama's never said this
2:40:39
Speaker 1: because he's I don't think he wants I don't think
2:40:42
Speaker 1: he believes it. But you could argue in hindsight that
2:40:47
Speaker 1: there were things he could have pushed harder. And yes,
2:40:51
Speaker 1: Republicans could have done a lot of it, but you
2:40:53
Speaker 1: can undo all of it, right, It's hard to undo
2:40:55
Speaker 1: all of it. And I think that's more of the
2:40:57
Speaker 1: philosophy that they're all taking, which is go for this maximus. Yeah,
2:41:01
Speaker 1: it may be that Democrats undo some of it, all
2:41:03
Speaker 1: of it. But you know the other part of it
2:41:09
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why Republicans in Congress go
2:41:16
Speaker 1: along with this is that they believe Democrats and Obama
2:41:20
Speaker 1: already did this. The facts show that they didn't, but
2:41:27
Speaker 1: the rhetoric that came from conservative media indicated that they
2:41:31
Speaker 1: did so. In their own head that they're just responding
2:41:34
Speaker 1: to what Obama already did. You know, it's I know,
2:41:38
Speaker 1: it's there's no logic to it. But as I said,
2:41:44
Speaker 1: I used to say all the time to my staff
2:41:46
Speaker 1: and staff meetings, we banned logic sometime in twenty sixteen,
2:41:49
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen because logic has not applied to American politics
2:41:54
Speaker 1: in at least a decade. So with that, I got
2:42:01
Speaker 1: one little World Cup hot take, and it really is
2:42:05
Speaker 1: just about Donald Trump has the current right now, Donald
2:42:10
Speaker 1: stay away from Donald Trump. He's got the cooties right.
2:42:12
Speaker 1: Whenever he touches goes south right. It's like the opposite
2:42:17
Speaker 1: of the Midas touch. He goes to. The one nixt
2:42:19
Speaker 1: game they lose is the one he shows up to.
2:42:22
Speaker 1: My beloved universe, remind me Hurricanes lose a game that
2:42:25
Speaker 1: he shows up to and roots for the Hurricanes over Indiana.
2:42:29
Speaker 1: He went to the Super Bowl right after he got
2:42:34
Speaker 1: inaugurated for a second term between the Eagles and the
2:42:37
Speaker 1: Chiefs and said he was pulling for the Chiefs because
2:42:39
Speaker 1: he was still angry at the owner of the Eagles
2:42:42
Speaker 1: for supporting supporting Democrats, and the Eagles win. He's just
2:42:52
Speaker 1: it is. And now he intervenes in the World Cup,
2:42:56
Speaker 1: and it clearly motivated the Belgium. Now, I think, as
2:43:01
Speaker 1: it turns out, we all it was the splash of
2:43:04
Speaker 1: cold water the US men's national team we found out. Yeah,
2:43:10
Speaker 1: the fact that Belgium's national team they didn't even start
2:43:14
Speaker 1: two of their best players because they were essentially saving
2:43:17
Speaker 1: them for Spain, tells you how far the American team
2:43:23
Speaker 1: has to go. But his intervention in there didn't work either.
2:43:27
Speaker 1: So anyway, and one final little World Cup note for me,
2:43:33
Speaker 1: memo to South, don't gamble on sports you don't know
2:43:37
Speaker 1: a lot about It is a sure buyer way to
2:43:40
Speaker 1: lose money. I did really well in the NBA playoffs.
2:43:47
Speaker 1: I gave them not all of it, but I gave
2:43:49
Speaker 1: a lot of it back in trying, in trying to
2:43:56
Speaker 1: in trying to enhance my enjoyment some of these World
2:44:00
Speaker 1: Cup matches. So let's just say that I am retired
2:44:06
Speaker 1: from betting on soccer forever anyway. With that, enjoy your weekend.
2:44:13
Speaker 1: I'll see you on the other side.