Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump hits the Hydroxy.”

Transcript

“Trump hits the Hydroxy.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to The Washington Post's Dave
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Weigel about the digital strategy shaping the Biden and Trump campaigns.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Before that, we'll talk about the results of a brand
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: new Michigan poll we conducted with Change Research as part
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of our Polar Coaster series and what the poll means
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: for the decision by Trump and the Republicans in Congress
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to put a hold on any additional economic relief. We'll
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: also talk about the president's favorite new drug and why
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is an asshole. But first, check out this
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: week's Pod Save the World where Tommy and Ben talk
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: about why the media is barely covering the news that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Al-Qaeda pulled off its first successful terrorist attack in the U.S.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: since 9-11, and the many ways that Mike Pompeo is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: corrupting the State Department. Also, Annamarie Cox is back with
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a very cool new season of With Friends Like These.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: This season is focused exclusively on converts, people who have
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: changed their minds and views and beliefs in very big ways,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and she's going to explore why that happens by talking
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to some converts themselves. It's great. Go listen, subscribe. With
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: friends like these, wherever you get your podcasts. And one
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: quick note from us, because of Memorial Day, we will
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: be releasing the next episode of Pod Save America first
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: thing on Tuesday morning. Big Memorial Day weekend, Dan. A
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: lot of plans, right?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to have a big barbecue with the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: three of us. It is, I will say. Kyla's birthday
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: on Saturday, she will be two. And if you thought
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: trying to convince the American people that spending a bunch
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of money on healthcare actually reduced the deficit, try convincing
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a two-year-old that it is more fun to have your
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: birthday on a computer than with your friends at your house.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Every bit of communication skill and trick I have, like
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: message repetition, spin, everything.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Someday she'll be able to. Laugh at what happened on
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: her second birthday.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. Won't we all? Someday.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the news. So we have a lot
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of important stuff to talk about, but I do think
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning that right after we finish Monday's recording,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: our favorite salesman announced that he's been using his own
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: snake oil. Dan, the president of the United States tells
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: us that in order to prevent COVID-19, he's been hitting
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the hydroxychloroquine pretty hard. A drug that the medical establishment
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: says is ineffective at best and deadly at worst. So
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I guess my question to you is, why is the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign trying to make this election about which candidate
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is mentally fit for the presidency?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I have to say, I'm quite impressed. Did you write
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: all of those jokes yourself? That's good.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Cause I wrote, you know, you're sitting around on a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night trying to prepare for the pod. There's not much.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was great. And if I was, if
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I was Travis, I'd be quite nervous, but Travis doesn't
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: write my jokes. Oh, that's the other John. I'm sorry.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Cause I wrote in the outline, make joke about Trump
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: drinking his own bleach. And I never got far enough
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: to make a joke. So I appreciate you doing all
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: of those. I mean, it, it, it actually like we're
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: joking about it and we're laughing because that's better than crying.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: But is it really that funny?
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, it happened on Monday, right? As we write
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: as of course, right after the pod went out and like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I was reading it on Twitter in the office. I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: hear Emily like scream about it because she was watching
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: TV and we're just both sitting there like, is this
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: fucking serious right now? Like what?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, The president is taking a drug against the
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: recommendations of his own government to own the libs?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I was just about to say that. I almost wrote that, actually,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that he was taking the drug to own the libs.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, we don't know if he's taking
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: it because we don't believe him. And we don't even
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: believe his doctor, who sent a very vaguely worded note
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: and So it's like kind of everything. It is a
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: fair explanation of why we're in a giant mess in
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the middle of this pandemic that the president's a liar.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: He thinks it's the best thing to do, the thing
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: in his interest, the thing he decided to do in
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the moment is to tell people that he's taken an
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: unproven drug for a disease he doesn't have.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the reason it is not entirely funny
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: at all is like, I don't give a shit. Trump
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: can take whatever he wants. I don't care what happens
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to him. But, you know, the first time he brought
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: up hydroxychloroquine a bunch of people did try to take
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: it on their own. They asked their doctors for it.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: That's dangerous to the people who could possibly be taking it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's also, there's a lot of people with conditions who
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: actually need hydroxychloroquine, and there was a shortage of it
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: because of Donald Trump. And it also just fits, like
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you said, with his general demeanor throughout this entire crisis,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that there is some Magical elixir, some easy solution to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: get out of all this. Like he cannot comprehend that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: we might be going through something that requires shared national
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: sacrifice that might take a long time that we're going
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to have to get through together. He is just searching
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: every single day for the magic potion that's going to
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: end this right away. And in doing that, he does
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: speak to a desire in all of us to, like,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: get the fuck out of our homes and, like, return
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to normal life, right? So that's why it's still dangerous
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people who are like, yeah,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I do want this magic drug. I do want this
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to be over early. But the danger is by constantly— I mean,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: he said here, you know, I listen to my gut
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: on this. Like, I've been receiving some very good news
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: about this, right? Like— Throughout the course of this pandemic,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: he has listened to Fox News hosts and his own
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: fucking gut over public health officials and experts. And that's why,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was a report in the New York
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Times last night, 36,000 lives could have been saved if
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the federal government had acted just one week earlier to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: impose social distancing measures. 36,000 lives. And we didn't because
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Trump thought it was all going to go away and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: he was worried about upsetting the stock market.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, don't we have warehouses full of hydroxychloroquine in
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: this country? Like, didn't we spend a ton of effort
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: trying to acquire all the worldwide doses of it just
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: in case it turned out to be right?
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now they're all for Trump, I guess.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, great.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Like Scrooge McDuck, he's just going to go diving into
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the vault of hydroxychloroquine.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Well, at least Jesse now has his guidance for what
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: the graphic for the pod should look like.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I just all I can tell you so far is
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I seem to be OK. That was his quote about it.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Well, they've taken the not believing in science thing really
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: one step too far.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredibly dangerous and it's indeed and it's it's
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: even more so because we are not out of like
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we're going to be dealing with this for a very
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: long time. And you shudder to think how he's going
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to treat this crisis now. particularly if there's a second
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: wave in the fall and we're even deeper into the election,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: what the things that he's going to say. It's very scary.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: All right. One more quick loop to close before we
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: move on to the real news. And it is, of course,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: related to the greatest crime in the history of crimes.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: This week, the Twitter troll who Trump installed to run
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: our intelligence agencies declassified an email where former National Security
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Advisor Susan Rice summarized an Oval Office meeting in January
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of 2017 between herself, Obama, Joe Biden, Jim Comey, and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Sally Yates, where the former president heard about Michael Flynn's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: secret conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Trump
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: pundits had long believed that Rice's email would prove Obama
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to be the criminal mastermind behind a coup attempt against
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And sure enough, Dan Rice was caught writing
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that Obama wanted to be sure that, quote, every aspect
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: enforcement communities by the book. They got him, Dan.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Isn't that exactly what you would write if you were
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: committing a crime?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: That I mean, people might hear you say that and laugh,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: but that is now the explanation by all of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Trump pundits. that of course Susan Rice would write an
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: email saying that Obama said to do it by the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: book because Susan Rice knew that years from now, Rick
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Grinnell would declassify the email and she wanted to keep
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the conspiracy going by letting everyone know that back in 2017,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: she wanted to make everyone believe that Barack Obama was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: doing things by the book. It all makes sense.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: It's also just worth noting that Barack Obama warned Donald
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Trump to not hire Michael Flynn, which would have been
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: a really dumb idea if your plan was to entrap
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump by sticking him with a compromised and investigated, uh,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: national security advisor. Yeah. No one read Obama into Obamagate.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: That is the problem. Yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Everyone forgets now because, you know, Trump is like screaming
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: about Obamagate and all that bullshit. When the two of
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: them met right after the election, um, Like, it was
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a fairly cordial meeting when Barack Obama was trying to
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: be as helpful as possible and said, by the way,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: you've got this guy, Mike Flynn. I had fired him.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: He's bad news. Get yourself a better national security advisor.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Why would he say that? Why would he say that
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: if he wanted to screw Trump over? I don't fucking understand.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and everyone agrees with the account of that meeting this
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: is the problem with this is you fucking go down
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a rabbit hole it makes you go down a rabbit
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: hole and then you end up sounding crazy because you're
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: talking about all these details of all these meetings that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: most people in the country probably don't know about and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: don't give a shit about this is the.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Problem Yeah, it is. There's a larger conversation about the
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: incentive structure within Republican politics in the Trump era that
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: would lead them down a path of focusing an enormous
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: amount of energy on a fake crime, which solves a
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: political problem they don't have, base excitement, and creates one
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: they don't need, which is injecting the much more popular
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: president into the election when that president is much more
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: popular with Trump with the very voters that Trump needs
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to persuade in order to win. How you get into
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: that position says so much about how conservatism is no
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: longer some sort of political philosophy or political movement other
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: than reflexive racism and general corporate greed. It's essentially an
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: attention economy, right? Where you Where the more shameless you are,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the more willing you are to say that the grass
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: is blue and the sky is green. That is seen
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: as your commitment to the cause, right? And that's exactly
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: where they took a– like they did– they're so dumb.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: They decided that they were going to titillate people with
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: this Susan Rice email that if only we could get
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: it declassified, that would spark– that would open up the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: doors to Obamagate. So Susan Rice was like, cool, declassify
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: my email. Let's do it. Do it right now. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: they're like, we got her. She must be bluffing. So
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: we're going to do it. And they do it. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: it says the exact opposite of what they think. So
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: one under our normal rational group of people would look
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: at it and say, well, maybe we'll move on to
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: another fake crime. But instead they take a piece of
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: clearly exculpatory evidence and treat it as evidence of the
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: crime that didn't happen. And like, They constantly get hoisted
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: on their own petard, but they don't care because they
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: have no shame.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: That's that's exactly right. And again, it's not just Trump.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It's not just like the craziest Trump pundits. It's like
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the broader Republican Party. Multiple senators are jumping on this
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Republican senator saying, oh, this proves somehow that because Obama
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: wanted to do it by the book, he's really a criminal.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Here's what Ted Cruz tweeted. quote, wow, ongoing spying from
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: an outgoing POTUS on the incoming POTUS directed by Obama
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: himself is unprecedented in the 243 years of our nation's history.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So Dan, I will admit that in a moment of weakness,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I replied to that tweet and I called Ted Cruz
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a fucking fraud. Tommy also replied, calling him a pathetic liar.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And then Ted Cruz did respond with, quote, Obama bros
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: are all simultaneously attacking this tweet. Using near identical language,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Vitor manages to avoid expletives, which is really the first
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: time someone has ever said that about Tommy. It's curious
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: running screaming away from the crime scene doesn't typically convey
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: calm or innocence. And that is reading Ted Cruz's tweet
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: about us. I was like, this is why it's not
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: worth it. Like, this is why it is just not
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: worth engaging with these people ever because they It's not
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: on the level. There's no kind of exculpatory evidence or
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: facts or anything to change their minds. They're never going
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to back down. They're never going to be caught in
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a lie. So like, there's no point.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: There's no point. There is no aha moment. You can't,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: like you said, they cannot be shamed and they actually
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: are quite good at weaponizing our outrage to further their goals, right?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Like Ted Cruz said, sent this absurd tweet he knew
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: it was absurd he's not a.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Stupid that's the thing no that well i always wonder
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: like do these people believe the bullshit that they're spewing
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: because they are so trapped in their information bubble and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they just they really do believe it and ted cruz
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: is smarter than that and so his tweets were proof
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to me oh this guy knows he's fucking lying he
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: knows it And he's just doing it anyway. He just
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't care.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right about Ted Cruz, just because
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: he believes in nothing, right?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Whatever- He's lying to Ted.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever the best thing for Ted Cruz in that
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: moment is what he will do. And his entire career
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: has been that, from going from George Bush's campaign attorney
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to a Tea Party populist from Harvard Law with a
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: wife who worked at Goldman Sachs, to giving a speech
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: about voting your conscience at the convention to- slovenly endorsing Trump.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: At any moment, he just goes for whatever's best for
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz. But I think your information bubble is exactly
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: right for the overwhelming majority, not Republican voters, but Republican
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: leaders from Trump on down. And we often think about
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Fox and sort of their affiliate Fox Juniors as this
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: one-way propaganda machine, right? Where it's like, And I think
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: that's how Roger Ailes thought of it, which is, I
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: know what's true and what's not. And I'm going to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: use this to weaponize the anger of Republican voters. I'm
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: going to give them a steady diet of things. It's
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: all part of my political strategy. But at some point,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the Republican propaganda machine became self-aware. And now they all
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: live inside the matrix. That is where they get all
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: their information. They believe these things. And they govern. You
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: don't really know where the propaganda ends and the policy
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: begins anymore. The The whole conversation we're going to have
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: later on about Republicans deciding not to do a bunch
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: of things to the economy that helped them to get
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: reelected is based entirely on the fact that they are
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: listening to a bunch of fake economists on Fox say
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: it's going to be a V-shaped recovery because saying it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: a V-shaped recovery makes Donald Trump happy, which then gives
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: them more ratings. And if you say the things Donald
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Trump– makes Donald Trump happy, then you're going to curry
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: favor with his base and you just– It just moves
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: on and on and on again. The Republicans have already
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: lost track with the reality a long time ago. I
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: think Ted Cruz is an attorney. He knows what that
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: email means. But he also knows that first he does
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: the shameless tweet. Then he gets the Donald Trump retweet.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And then he can find a liberal blue checkmark, in
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: this case you and Tommy, and claim victimization. And then
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people will say– Ted Cruz, own the
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Obama bros. Retweet. Hashtag MAGA. Hashtag no mask.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But also, how sad is that, that a U.S. senator
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: who ran for president is like spending his time. He
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: shouldn't even know who me and Tommy are. What is
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: he doing? We're in the middle of a fucking pandemic. Like,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you know, 90 plus thousand Americans have died. We've got
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: more than like almost 40 million people unemployed. And Ted
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Cruz is sitting there like Vitor avoided expletives. Like, what
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: are you fucking doing? Help the people of Texas do something, man.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: You're a fucking senator.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's how they see their job now.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It's also like you can tell that Ted Cruz was
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: smart enough to know how crazy his first tweet was
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: because there was a follow-up statement where the first tweet
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: was Obama directed spying on the incoming POTUS. Then his
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: follow-up statement was, well, the scandal is that Obama weighed
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: not telling the new administration certain counterintelligence info about Flynn
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: because they didn't trust that Flynn wasn't having some kind
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of connections with Obama. the government that just sabotaged our election,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: which seems completely understandable.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and was borne out to be a correct judgment
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: had they gone down that path because, like, three weeks later,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Trump invited that same Russian ambassador into the Oval Office
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: and divulged a classified operation with the Israelis. I forgot
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, this is the problem with, and,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you know, Rhodes said this the other day, but Rhodes, like,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: this is the other problem with... it's Mueller's fault too,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in a way. Like Mueller deciding not to reach a conclusion.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And yet still, like Mueller lays out all these contacts
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: between the Trump campaign and the Russians. And basically says,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I can't prove a conspiracy legally. But of course, there
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was all this collusion. And because of Bill Barr and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and everyone else Republican said, no collusion, the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: whole thing, Mueller thing was fake. And therefore, if the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: whole Mueller thing is fake, then anything that came out
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of it was also fake. And therefore it was a whole,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it was a, you know, it was a coup against
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and it was a phony investigation in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: first place, right? Like each conspiracy builds on the last.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And so in their minds, it makes sense to say, well,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: this was all the Obama campaign setting them up anyway,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: even though the investigation was more than well-deserved and bore
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of fruit.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And we also just have to say again, that the
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: entire idea of Democrats trying to steal the election was
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: a situation in which They got the FBI to investigate
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: both Hillary Clinton and Trump, inform the public before the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: election about the investigation of Hillary Clinton, and not tell
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: them about Trump, which was a very poorly executed plan
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to steal an election.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And then again, and then once they couldn't steal the election,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: tried to stage the coup by the former president warning
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the new president that his national security advisor could have
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Russian ties. Yes.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And they're very mad at Andrew McCabe, the FBI official
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: who worked on this, because he leaked- But we now
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: know that the leak he did was harmful to Hillary Clinton.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: It's so fucking stupid. I can't believe we just spent
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: time on this. But these are talking points for those
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: of you who have to do Zoom family reunions with
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: your MAGA uncles. So run with it, people.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Here's why. And here's partly why I wanted to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: do it. Fucking Joe Rogan on his podcast, which gets
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: millions and millions of people to listen, was out there
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the other day telling people, oh, Obama definitely spied on Trump.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: It was a crime, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of fucking people who listen to that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: who just are not going to know any better. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: now he's like off to fucking Spotify. So like these
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: things get filtered through very large channels and amplified. And
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: we can laugh at it all we want. But, you know,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: when I sat there with focus groups, And I was like,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: why didn't you vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016? And
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people didn't say, like, it was her
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: emails or it was this or it was that. But
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: they said, oh, well, I heard she had a kill
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: list of people. I heard she killed people. You're like, oh,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I wonder where that gets spread. I wonder where that
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: gets started. Well, this is how it gets started.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Let's get to our poll of Michigan that we conducted
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: with Change Research. Between May 11th and 17th, they surveyed 3,070
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: likely voters, big set, including a particularly large number of
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: persuadable swing voters, and found that after Donald Trump defeated
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 47.5% to 47.3% in 2016,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden now holds a 49 to 46% lead over
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Trump with 5% undecided. On the plus side... Uh, half
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of Biden's lead comes from people who voted third party
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: or not at all in 2016. Uh, he's got the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: support of 87% of Bernie Sanders voters, which is higher
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: than Hillary had. Um, and white women without a college degree, um,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: moved more towards Biden than any other demographic group. That's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: all on the plus side. Um, but Biden's also only
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: getting 30% of people who voted for Trump in 16
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and then the democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer in 18, 30%
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of those people. Um, We also found in the poll
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that Democratic Senator Gary Peters leads Republican John James 48
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to 43 percent in what it is a competitive Senate
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: race that we don't talk about nearly enough. Dan, I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: will stop there. You wrote an outstanding memo based on
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: this poll with some message advice for Democrats, which we'll
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: get to in a second. But what were some of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the other most interesting takeaways for you from this poll? Sure.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, the main takeaway is that the only thing
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: holding Donald Trump up in Michigan and I would assume
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: in battleground states across the country is He still is
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: outperforming reality on the economy. On every other issue, voters
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: have soured on him. They do not like him personally.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: They think he is doing a bad job on coronavirus.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: They don't trust him to handle healthcare, reopening the country,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: just about any other issue. Voters are very skeptical of him.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: But he has economic strength, and we will talk about
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: how to undermine that. I thought there was some very
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: good news for Biden in this poll. One, he's winning.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: That's good. And that really matters because Joe Biden has
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to win Michigan. There is no path to 270 without
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: winning Michigan for Joe Biden. No credible path. I mean,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: you could put together some, it's just hard to imagine
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: a scenario where he loses Michigan, but wins Wisconsin or
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: loses Michigan and then wins like North Carolina and Georgia.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: It's just typically not how these things work. So it's
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: very important to be winning there. Second, there are 5%
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: undecided voters in this race. And what is very good
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: news for Joe Biden there is. While they don't know
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: a lot about Biden yet and don't have really– those
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: voters haven't made firm opinions on him, they have assessed
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and they do not like him. Donald Trump's
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: favorability ratings among the 5% of undecided voters is 2763.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is abysmal. And so, you know, some
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: more research needs to be done to identify exactly who
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: those voters are. But Um, you, you can assume from
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: those numbers that there are some, a decent portion of
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: that are people who fit into that 13% of Bernie
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: voters who had not yet committed to Biden. Um, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: so like, that is very, that's a very, that's a great,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: if you were winning and the undecided voters favor you, uh,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: that's a good position to be in the, the second
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: piece that I thought was a warning sign for Biden is.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Voters are– there's an enthusiasm challenge for Biden among Michigan voters.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I don't mean that in the sense of like are
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: they committed to voting or not. I mean that in
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Biden's favorable ratings, which are 39-42, which is low certainly
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: and lower than Trump's, he has a 43% very unfavorable number.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and only a 21% very favorable. So Republicans have decided
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to hate Biden before Democrats have decided to fall in
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: love with him. And he's got a lot of work
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to do there to define himself with those voters. You
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: do not want your very favorable number to be essentially twice.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, you don't want your very unfave number to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: be essentially twice your very fave number.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: The reaction I got from a lot of people when
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I tweeted this poll this morning both privately and on Twitter,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: were just like, oh, this is much closer than I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: thought it would be in Michigan. Like, I almost wonder
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if expectations because of some of these national polls, there
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: was a Quinnipiac poll out yesterday that has Biden in
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the lead by 11 nationally, 50-39, which seems crazy to me.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, Donald Trump only won by what,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a couple, you know, 0.5 percentage points, Michigan in 2016.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Like three points, I don't know I mean, look, I
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: know Gretchen Whitmer won by 10 points in 2018, but
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think I think there's no universe that Biden
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: wins by Whitmer's margin 10 points. Did you find three
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: points like about right? Maybe a little on the low side.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I also thought we should mention, by the way, you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Trump's approval rating here is much higher than it is
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the country. It was like forty
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: eight fifty two, which is a little little too high
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for me. His job approval rating, his favorability is much
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: worse than that. It's a forty three. I thought Whitmer's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: approval rating was lower in our poll than it has
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: been in some of the other polls that we've seen.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And although she's above water, you know, she's much she's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: doing better than Trump, but it's still like I think
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: it was like 52 or 53. So in general, this
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: poll just seemed a little bit closer than I think
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: some people thought Michigan is right now. Did you think
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that or what was your opinion?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Well, as you know, I tend to dance on the
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: dark side of these things. And so I've always.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I know, that's why, exactly.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: So if Joe Biden wins Michigan by three points, then
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: that is a very strong result. And I think what
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: it says is.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's a result that is consistent with
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: him also winning Wisconsin, since Wisconsin is usually closer than Michigan?
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with a very narrow victory in Wisconsin. And for
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: all of these, always the... Caveat the last few months
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: is that we're presuming some form of normal-ish turnout with
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: normal-ish voting opportunities.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: That's the big question.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Voting opportunities, right? We're looking at a situation where you
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: have the normal– you have enough voting access that people
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: have a chance to vote and you're not doing what
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: they did in Wisconsin where you're putting five voting locations
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: in Milwaukee, right? As Mark Elias said in one of
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: his podcasts the other day, if you have five voting
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: locations in Milwaukee, you're not winning Wisconsin. And so presuming that,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I think a three-point win in Michigan seems something like
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: a one-point win in Wisconsin. And I've always been under
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the assumption that the sort of order of the blue
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: wall states, just based on demographics and partisan history, is
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that Pennsylvania will be the easiest one for Biden to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: flip in part because of his ties there, spent his
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: whole life in the Philadelphia media market. Michigan second and
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin the hardest. And that just has to do with
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: the percentage of the vote that is non-college white voters,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: which is Trump's base.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: We also tested a few different running mates to see
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: how much the potential candidates might affect the race between
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Trump and Biden. And it turns out they didn't have
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a statistically significant effect Either way, any of them. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: we tested Gretchen Whitmer, too, and she's governor there. What
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: did you think of that, the VP thing?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's super surprising. Whitmer has only been
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: governor for a little over a year now, so it's
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: not like she is an incredibly well-known figure with a
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: long history in the state. And so it's not surprising.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: And just generally, there hasn't always been enough a huge
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: home state effect in picking folks. I think it, I
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: think we'll have to, the more research will have to
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: be done on this, both in battleground states and nationally
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: to get a sense is if there is a real
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: political imperative behind one pick or the other. But right
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: now it sort of seems like a tie, at least
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: in Michigan among all of them. And then Biden has
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: some room to pick among the people that we presume
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: to be on a short list without tipping the race
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: in the wrong direction.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: So there are also a series of questions about the pandemic.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Trump's coronavirus approval is lower than his job approval. Voters
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: are slightly more worried about opening up too soon than
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: waiting too long, 48-43. 41% say we should take all
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: possible precautions regardless of what it means for the economy.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: 32% say we should go back to living normally and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: that people are making too much of the virus, with
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: 27% sort of in the middle saying we should stay
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: closed for a little while longer and then start opening up.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And voters are slightly opposed to the protests at the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Michigan state capitol, but only slightly. Before we get to
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the economic stuff, how much do you think COVID has
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: changed the political environment from this poll?
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Not much.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: To your credit, you said that at the beginning of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. You were like, partisan polarization, I don't know,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: even if this is a disaster, how much it's actually
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: going to change things.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it definitely, there is a, you know,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: you talked about the persuadable voter universe. We talked about
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Trump's numbers among the undecideds. It has definitely made Trump's
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: task of winning this election harder. I think it has
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: shifted the I think if we had proceeded on the
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: normal course where we were still dealing with, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: 4% unemployment, no pandemic, people could leave their homes, I
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: would have said Trump was a slight favorite to win re-election, right?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Lose a popular vote, win re-election, a narrow electoral college
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: fiscal year like 2016. As we sit here today, I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: would say that Biden is a strong favorite to win
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: the popular vote and a slight, slight favorite to win
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the presidency despite what national polls say. And that is
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: certainly in some measure because Of the tremendous attention that's
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: been on Trump for the last 60 days where he
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: has performed miserably, right? In every element of the job,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: whether it's taking unregulated drugs, focusing on absurd issues like Obamacare,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: and just doing a terrible job at managing the pandemic,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: that has hurt him. But it's on the margins. Everything
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: is going to happen on the margins. I do not
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: believe that Trump's coronavirus numbers can get much lower than
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: they are. No matter what happens.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I noticed this in the last two
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: weeks and a lot of the other national polls. He
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is like he is back down in the low 40s nationally,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: both his approval rating and his coronavirus numbers. And we
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: should say, of course, this poll was May 11th to
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the 17th. But I think there's even been more erosion
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: since the 17th from on Trump's numbers. You're seeing, you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: there's he's now in the 40 or low 40s, which is,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: you know, he's been there before in his presidency. It's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: not like a new low. But I do think there's
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a big difference if we get into November with Trump
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: in the low 40s versus Trump in the mid 40s,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: which he was at the beginning of the crisis. So,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: you know, you said this at the beginning, but on
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: just about every issue and attribute we tested, voters in
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Michigan trust Biden over Trump, except for two. One was
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: managing the economic recovery where they trust Trump more and
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: undecided voters trust him a lot more and helping small
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: businesses recover. So what is your advice on how Democrats
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: can change these numbers and win the economic argument?
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, that's what it comes down to. The only
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: thing keeping Trump in this race is his economic approval rating.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: And that comes from a couple of things. One is,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: and we have to remind ourselves of this all the time,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: which is Trump's history as a business person from outside
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: of politics gives him an aura of economic credibility among
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: a larger segment of voters than most Democratic pundits and
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: strategists are willing to admit, which is why- It's.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Not just the MAGA people.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they trust him after everything he has done
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: wrong to manage economic recovery better than Biden. And that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: is concerning. And voters have not yet connected, although it
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: can still happen, Trump's failure to prepare for and respond
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: to the pandemic with the economic devastation we are now feeling.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: They're still being treated like the American people blame someone
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: other than– I would say this, not the American people.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: The persuadable group within this electorate, which is a small group,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: mind you, blames someone or something other than Trump for
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the economic mess that we are currently in and are
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: likely to be in through the fall. And so the
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: job number one, the most important thing that Democrats can
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: do is take down Trump on the economy. And There
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: are a series of messages that we tested in this
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: poll about how to do that. The first and most
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: important one, which I will read to you. Joe Biden
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: says that Donald Trump's response to the pandemic is more
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: focused on helping big corporations and wealthy investors and small
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: businesses and American families. The Trump administration has given hundreds
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: of millions of dollars in loans to huge corporations and
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: professional sports teams, while thousands of family owned businesses got
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: shut out. You'll notice I got an LA Lakers shot
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: in there, which I could do because I wrote the question.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: That poll, undecided voters agreed, a net of 32% of
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: undecided voters agreed with that statement. Huge numbers.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Huge number. The best of anything we tested.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is tied with a Trump message we'll talk
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: about in a second, but certainly the best message for Biden.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And there is ample opportunity to do that. As the
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Paycheck Protection Program loans are given out, And you have
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: a situation where tens of thousands of small businesses have
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: been shut out. So basically what I'm arguing for– and
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: this isn't like– I'm not following this under the category
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: of unsolicited advice for Joe Biden, which is an actual
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: segment on the NewYorkTimes.net page right now. But we did
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: this poll for the purpose of providing guidance not just
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: to– campaigns running nationally or in Michigan or political groups
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: doing advertising, but also for all of our listeners and
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: activists who are talking to voters all the time, right?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Either as part of some sort of organizing program or
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: just in their day-to-day quarantine life where they're talking to,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: they're trying to convince their friends to get involved, trying
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to convince, persuade their uncles and aunts or parents about
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: who to vote for. So think of this as free,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: definitely unsolicited, but message guidance for everyone who's talking about politics.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: And so an economic message that focuses on how Donald
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Trump is putting corporations and wealthy people over the interests
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: of middle and working class people is an incredibly powerful message.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: People should do that. And there are a couple of
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: ways to make that point. We tested the Mitch McConnell,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump proposal to ensure that corporations cannot be sued
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: if their workers get sick or die from coronavirus after
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: they return to work. Only 37% of voters support that position.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And 42% strongly oppose it. It is incredibly unpopular, and
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Democrats should hammer Republicans every day for that. And then
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: we should not forget the most important and effective political
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: weapon we have had, which is both Donald Trump passing
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a huge, massive tax cut for corporations of the wealthy
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and paying for it by wanting to cut Medicare and
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: kick people off their health insurance. You know, I sort
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: of thought about, like, what is the manifestation of this?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: And I think it is important. I think this is
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: a really important point to tie– economic response to the coronavirus,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: so we don't treat them as two separate things. And
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: so you can see a series of ads of, in
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: this case, Michigan small business owners who were unable to
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: get PPP loans, while all these corporations who donate to
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Republicans are friends of Trump's got them. And so seeing
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: who has been helped and who has been hurt by
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: the Trump economic recovery is is a huge strategic imperative
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: for Democrats because if they can knock Trump's economic approval
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: rating underwater, he will lose this election and he will
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: lose it big.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: The other two messages that sort of were as effective
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: for Biden as the one that you just read was
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden says that President Trump should stop blocking aid
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that would help cities and states protect the jobs of teachers, firefighters, cops,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and other essential workers. So this sort of federal aid
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that has become a political issue because Trump has made
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it one because he makes everything political. Um, and Joe
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Biden says that after a month in which we sacrificed
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: by staying home and keeping businesses closed, Trump wasted all
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: that time by failing to provide enough testing and protective
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: gear that would allow us to safely leave our homes
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and go back to work. That was specifically effective among
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: undecided voters. And it is to me, I added that
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: statement in there because I was trying to think about
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: how Democrats could be on the side of reopening, but
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: reopening safely and and point to Trump and say, the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: reason that we're still stuck in our homes is because
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: he hasn't figured out a fucking plan to get us
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: out of our homes in a safe way. He just
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: wants everyone to like, go run free and let the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: virus run loose. And so I think you're right, though,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that people, we've somehow got to tie the economic case
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: against Trump to his failures on managing the pandemic, since
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that's sort of pushing on an open door. I think
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: that the challenge is, and I'm glad you say this,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: this isn't just advice for the Biden campaign, it's advice for.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: All of us.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Like, Trump says something racist. Trump says something xenophobic, authoritarian.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: He talks about drinking bleach, downing hydroxychloroquine. It goes viral.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Everyone talks about it. It's easy to get reporters to care.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: People on Twitter are tweeting about it. It gets shared,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. All of these sort of
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: economic arguments, Trump and Republicans proposing all of these policies
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: that help corporations at the expense of average people, it
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: is so hard to to get them covered, to get
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: people to care about it, to get people to share it.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And like, I'm going to just say this now every
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: fucking podcast that we do. It is so important that
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: this gets through because we'll all remember that after 2016,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: we sat around being like, why didn't Hillary Clinton have
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a better economic argument? Why couldn't her economic argument break through?
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And we like blame the Clinton campaign. And sure, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Clinton campaign has some responsibility for that. But it's also,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it's all of our responsibility at this point to get
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that message out there when we're talking to friends when
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: we're talking to persuadable voters when we're doing phone banking
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: when we're doing digital organizing whatever we may do like
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: we have to make the economic argument we have to
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: get it out there because like you said that is
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the only thing only thing that's keeping Trump's approval ratings up.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And by the way, as we get deeper into the fall,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: more people, I think, are going to be focused on
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the economy because the economic pain is going to continue
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and there's going to be a lot of people out
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: of work and people are going to be wondering, you know,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: how do we improve the situation right now? You know,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: who's going to lead us out of this? And the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: answer has to be Joe Biden.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: So do you want to talk about, you want to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: talk about Trump's best message and sort of what to
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: do there? Sure.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So the second in the memo, the first one is
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: defining who Trump is fighting for and who Biden is
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: fighting for. And I will say one of the most
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: alarming results in the poll was that Joe Biden and
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump are tied on the question of who do
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: you trust to fight for someone like you? The person
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: who wins that question almost always wins the election. And
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's history, his policies, suggests that he should win
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: on that question going away. And he is not doing
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that yet. Now it is early and we should just stipulate.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Another reason that Biden should feel good about this is
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: he has never campaigned in Michigan. They didn't really run
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: ads there. He, this is a state that came after
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: super Tuesday. And so, um, it, it's like he is
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: in a very strong position without having to have spent
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: any money or go there. And so that's always a
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: good place to be. Um, So the second strategic imperative
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: is we have to neutralize the China issue. Trump's best
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: message is about how China is responsible for the virus.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Trump took the quote unquote bold step of banning travel
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: from China and that Joe Biden called him xenophobic for
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: doing it. And this is a subject of tens of
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars of ads happening right now on your television,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: on your screens, if you live in a battleground state.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: And Trump is doing the China thing not just to
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: shirk blame, not just out of reflexive racism, but because
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: it is a message that works for him. It is
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: as powerful in this poll as the populist message that
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: we just read from Biden. And so Democrats have to
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: neutralize it. And we tested two messages that are successful
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: in that. One is one that undermines Trump's response to
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: the coronavirus with China by talking about all the times
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: he took China's word and praised them for their response.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: That message tested very well. But we also tested a
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: message that spoke to the cozy financial relationships between Trump
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: and the Chinese government, specifically around the trademarks that the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Chinese government has granted Ivanka Trump while she's serving in
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the White House, from which she has earned millions of dollars.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: That message also tested incredibly well. And Some people may say, well,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: isn't that leading with your chin? Because the Trump campaign
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: and others have tried to make a real issue of
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden's ties to China. We also tested the Hunter
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Biden message that Trump has been putting forward, and that
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: message tested very poorly. So you can take away from
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: that that as of at least right now, before the
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Trump campaign has dumped millions of dollars on Biden's head
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to define him, voters are instinctively more willing to believe
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: that Trump and his family are corrupt and in it
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: for themselves than they are Biden's. And so if you
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: can neutralize the China issue it is going to hurt
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Trump on a host of vectors. One, it's going to
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: further undermine whatever remaining strength he has on his coronavirus response. Two,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: it undermines his America First message, which is at its
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: core an economic message for some segment of voters at least.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And it helps neutralize the attack on Biden that he
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: has soft on China. So that is a big strategic
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: imperative for Democrats. And that matters for everyone because in
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: a presidential election year, what happens at the top of
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: the ticket And then the third strategic imperative is we
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: found a very large and growing concern about the national debt.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: It was the issue that people were more concerned about,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: including more concerned about the national debt than their own health.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Which is wild in this poll. That was the finding
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: that I was most confused about and also a little
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: nervous about.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Well, so a couple of things about that. One, we
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: need to see it in other polls, right? This needs
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: to be validated. It's one poll. Intuitively, it makes a
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: little bit of sense. There has been a ton of
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: coverage of trillions upon trillions of dollars being spent over
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: the last two months. It's just like the combination of
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the trillions from Congress, the trillions from the Fed, it
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: seems like a lot of money is going. We also
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: know that concerns about national debt are not really about
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: balancing the budget for the United States or the books
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: or the long-term growth of entitlements. It's often about it
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: flows from this idea that comes in tough economic times
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: where someone else is getting help and I am not, right?
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: And that someone else can be someone above you, like
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: banks being bailed out, or it can be, and it's
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: often in a way that is weaponized by Republicans, others, immigrants,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: people of color, the poor, all the, you know, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: this is a play Republicans have run for a very
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: long time. It is Ronald Reagan's racist welfare creed idea.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: It is Paul Ryan's more subtle but also racist maker's
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: taker's idea. All of this is a Republican play. Now,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Democrats have to be wary of this because Republicans have
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: a natural advantage on these deficit issues, even though history
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: is very clear that Democrats bring the deficit down and
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Republicans exploit it with tax cuts and unpaid for wars.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: So how should Democrats navigate this? One, do not default
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: to the language of austerity and start talking about Curbing
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: the spending of Medicare or Social Security, that is a
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: political mistake and it is a fatal governing mistake because
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: if we win, we are going to be heading into
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: an economy where we need to spend money to help
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: the American people get out of it and grow the economy.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: And so if we lock ourselves in with austerity language,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: it would be a fatal error. Second, let's have a
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: big debate about who has a better plan to deal
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: with the deficit over the long term. Trump has explicitly
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: and repeatedly said he wants to cut Medicare and Social
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Security to do that. while refusing to raise taxes one
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: penny on the rich in corporations. Democrats want to protect
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Social Security and Medicare and ask the wealthy in the
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: corporations to pay more in taxes. That is a battle
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: that we can win. It is the battle that we
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: won in 2012 when Mitt Romney made the incredibly foolish
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: decision to put Mr. Privatized Medicare on his ticket. And
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: then the third thing is we should also– it's an
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: opportunity to go back and remind people about the tax
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: cut because trillions of dollars were spent to give a
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: huge tax cut to corporations and the wealthy. And we
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: should remind people of that. And the last thing that
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I think is really important is policy wonks, reporters, to
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: think about deficits and spending separately. Deficits are these big
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: things that come from the state of the economy, the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: growth in Medicare and Social Security. They happen over the
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: long term. And discretionary spending, the spending that Congress votes on,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: is a tiny fraction of that, right? But voters don't
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: think that. And when they care about the deficit, what
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: they really care about is spending. And so attacks on
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Trump for being an unwise steward of taxpayer dollars will
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: potentially have much more impact in the situation. So you
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: can see attacks that we've tested previously, which do quite
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: well in battleground states, at least pre-pandemic, on millions of
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: taxpayer dollars going into Trump's pocket through his hotels and
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: resorts being even more powerful. Just evocative examples of bad spending.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: The one I think of recently is the report that
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: the U S federal government is going to spend $ 500
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: million to paint Trump's wall black for no ostensible purpose.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: And so those like, that's the kind of stuff that's
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: just that, that will, that will go viral.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you can hold them like any misuse of
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: economic recovery dollars, whether it is loans to companies who
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: don't need them, um, checks that went to people who
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have gotten them, all of those things, if you
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: hold Trump accountable for that, that is our way to
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: fight deficits. It's not to adopt vaguely sounding Republican talking points.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: No, and this is important also because I think a
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: lot of progressives and sort of liberal-leaning media types believe
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that in the Obama years, we, you know, focused on
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: deficits and budget deals because, you know, some like neoliberal
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: think tank in DC told us to, or because we wanted,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: we thought we could get Republican votes and we thought
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: we could reach out to Republican politicians. And really at
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the core of this is anyone who sat in a
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: focus group with voters or looked at polls knows that
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: The concern about the government spending too much money comes
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: up all the time for the reasons that you pointed out.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: People say, I'm living within my budget. Why can't the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: government live within its budget? And that's as far as
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the understanding usually goes. People aren't sitting there worried about
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: hyperinflation or, you know, the debt to GDP ratio. No
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: one knows about any of that shit. They just hear
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that the government's spending money that it doesn't have. in
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: their minds. They know that they try to live within
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a budget, and they also know that nothing the government
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: has done has made any improvement on their own lives,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: at least that they can perceive. So they're like, why
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: are my tax dollars getting spent on a bunch of
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: shit that I don't end up seeing? And now we
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: have this deficit? I'm just saying that's their mindset. And
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: like you said, the answer is not to say, okay, well,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: then I'm going to talk about austerity like Republicans. The
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: answer is to say these fuckers want to give tax
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: breaks to big companies and fucking billionaires and run up
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the deficit and to pay for it they're going to
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: cut your health care, your Medicare, your Social Security. That's
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: how they're running up the deficits. And you're not getting
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: anything from it. That is a winning message. It was
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: a winning message in 2012 against Romney and Paul Ryan.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: And Democrats have to deliver that message now because otherwise
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: you're going to get Donald Trump saying, Democrats just want to,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to want to
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: spend more money on people who aren't you. That's their plan.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Like, just because I will spend my life trying to
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: correct the record on the summer of 2011, the, I
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: think we and Barack Obama himself has stipulated that there's
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: certainly some things we would have done differently. I think
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: some of the language we used around some of the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: deficit issues bought into the premise that we didn't need
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: to do so. Yeah, we made mistakes. We definitely made mistakes. But,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: I should just be very clear on one important fucking point,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: which is the deal that we were trying to do
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: with John Boehner and the Republicans was not cutting deficits
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: for deficits' sake. American families and workers were hurting, and
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: we were trying to trade short-term aid to families and workers,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: infrastructure spending, payroll tax cut, those sorts of things, in
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: exchange for long-term deficit reduction. There are things that were
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: in various versions of the deal that in hindsight should
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: not have been in there. But ultimately, Barack Obama was
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: trying to do what he can to help workers in
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: a suboptimal situation where a bunch of lunatic Tea Party
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: members controlled one half of one branch of Congress.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the biggest portion of what we
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: hope to achieve for deficit reduction long term was higher
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: taxes on the wealthy.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Tax reform that raised taxes on the wealthy and corporations,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: just so people know. OK, so- I think the most
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: immediate example of how Democrats can start hammering the economic
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: message we've been talking about from this poll is the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: fight over the next economic relief package. We have well
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: over 30 million people out of work climbing to 40 million.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Businesses closing all over the country. Expanded unemployment insurance is
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: due to expire in July. The Paycheck Protection Program is
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: due to run out around August. Chairman of the Fed,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Jerome Powell, said that unemployment could hit 25% and that
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: if Congress doesn't do more, the economy could be, quote,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: permanently damaged. But here's what Mitch McConnell said about Congress
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: doing more, quote, I don't think we have yet felt
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the urgency of acting immediately. And here's House Minority Leader
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, quote, I don't see the need right now
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: for another stimulus package. And here's White House Economic Advisor
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Kevin Hassett, who said that Trump is going to, quote,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: wait and see. Um, Do you think that they know
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that they're sabotaging the economy in a year where a
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Republican president is running for reelection? Like, what are they
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: doing here?
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I honestly have no idea. It makes zero sense. Nancy
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who are trying to do the
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: right thing for their constituents and the country they serve,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: are offering Republicans a lifeline. And they are like, Get
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: your lifeline away from me, you socialist liberals. I am
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: going to go down with the ship. In this case,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I think actually because– I mean.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Do they– but is it possible though that they sort
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: of just are ideological extremists and they really believe that
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: maybe they see those debt numbers too? People are worried
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: about too much spending and– They think the best thing
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: for the economy is just more tax cuts and cutting
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: regulation and all of this horrible government spending is going
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: to screw up the economy. Is it possible that they
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: actually believe that?
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, sure, they pretend like– they definitely believe
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: with all of their hearts that helping poor people is bad.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: But they don't believe– so that is true. they also
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: believe that helping corporations is good. That is the fundamental,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: like that, like everything in between that is pretty malleable.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I think a couple of things are happening here. One
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: is I do think it's a little bit of a
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: negotiating tactic from McConnell, which is he, Nancy Pelosi made
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: a move, which was to pass the heroes act. And
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: she did that in order to have that be the
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: text we started from. So McConnell is trying to create
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: some space between when that happened and when It goes
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: so that he retains control of the pen the next
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: time around. So I think that's part of it. I
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: do think that they are somewhat reflecting Trump, who also
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: always likes to convince himself that things are better than
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: they are. So people tell Trump, Trump will get like
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: 75 different economic forecasts, a range of things, CBO, OMB,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: his Yahoo economic advisors, his– Cable pundit turned NEC director,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Charles Kudlow. And he will always pick the one that's
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: most optimistic because that's just who he is. And so
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: they reflect that, right? So once again, they are governing
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: from a version of reality that does not exist. I
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: think their position could change mightily when the next jobs
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: numbers come out.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: You know, we once again today, another 2.4 million people
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: file for unemployment claims. We know given how shitty the
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: UI system in this country that the number is much
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: larger than that. So we are at 40 million Americans, essentially,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: over the last six weeks or whatever it is, who
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: have lost their jobs. That is a massive number. It's
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: going to have a massive impact on the economy. And
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: could they be shocked into action?
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Maybe.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: But they also think they are basically hurting themselves to
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: own the libs. I guess this is the policy equivalent
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: of drinking hydroxychloroquine. I don't know.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the next question is sort of
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: how do the Democrats sort of use this to their
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: political advantage and make the case that we'd start to
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: talk about with the Michigan poll? You know, in my view,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I would run around just saying like, here's the Republican
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: plan right now to fix the economy and put you
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: back to work. Number one, give companies the freedom to
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: force you back to work. And then if you get
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: sick or customers get sick, they are absolved of accountability
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: because there's no liability protections. So, Force people back to
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: work even if they get sick. That's number one. Number two,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: let insurance companies discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, which
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: will now include having the coronavirus. And number three, more
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: tax cuts for wealthy investors because they want a capital
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: gains tax cut. And that's it. That's their three-pronged plan
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: to fix the economy. And they don't want to do
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: anything else. Lindsey Graham the other day said that Donald
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Trump agrees with him that extending unemployment insurance to people
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: who have lost jobs through no fault of their own is, quote,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: hurting the recovery. It is hurting the recovery in Lindsey
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Graham and Donald Trump's estimation that we are making sure
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: that people who are stuck at home not working are
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: getting the salary that they had when they were working.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Through no fault of their own that this is somehow
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: hurting the economic recovery. If we can't prosecute this message, like,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: fucking give it up.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways, they're trying to rerun their
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: play of 2009, 2010. which is accuse Democrats of spending
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: too much money, running up deficits, accuse them of wanting
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: to help people who are other, if you will, sort
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: of in quotes, in whatever crypto and less crypto racist
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: way you approach that. But here's the problem. They're in
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: fucking charge now. They're in charge of that. White House
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: and the Senate. And I think they are struggling to, like,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: they're ultimately, The Republican Party since Barack Obama was elected
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: has been entirely an oppositional party. And even gaining political
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: power did not change that fact. They're still running against
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Obama three years after he left the office. And so
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: they don't have– like they're not a governing party. They
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: don't have capacity for governing. And that hurts them politically
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: because the solution to their political problem is a governing response.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: It's not a tweet. It's not more Fox News stories.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: It's not distraction. It is solving a problem. And that's
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: where they are absolutely fucking flummoxed.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: So we talked about what Democrats should do from a
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: message standpoint. I'm wondering what you think Pelosi and Schumer
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: and the Democrats in Congress should do, because there's one scenario,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: like you said, where this is a negotiating tactic and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: we get to a place where, you know, and you
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: already seen reporters talk about the outlines of this potential
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: compromise where Democrats get. And it's funny that Democrats should
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: get this like federal aid to states. And they get
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: an extension of unemployment insurance in exchange for some limited
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: protections for companies that are, quote unquote, doing the right
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: thing and making sure that their workplaces are safe. Pelosi
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to say that she was open to that, and
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: so did Hakeem Jeffries. And some kind of limited number
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: of tax cuts. Do you think Democrats should pursue a
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: deal like this? Or, I mean, because in my view...
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Anything that takes liability protection and tax cuts sort of
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: off the table as a sort of political message for
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the fall is a mistake. But at the same time,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: we want to be responsible. And when unemployment insurance runs out,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: we want to make sure that people who are struggling
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: have it. And we want to make sure that states
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: get the money they need to protect a lot of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: jobs that otherwise we lose.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, Republicans are trying to once again exploit
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: the inherent responsibility gene in Democratic leaders. which is if
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: you're Nancy Pelosi's from Nancy Pelosi, perspective, and frankly, of
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: her members, from AOC to the most endangered frontline member,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: is I have X number of people who lost their
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: jobs in my district, and if I can get them
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: extra money, I better fucking do that because that's what
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: they elected me to do. And even if I have
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: to swallow a bitter... political pill to do that. I'm
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: going to do that. And we're not going to change
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: that about Democrats. Like we should not, and frankly, cannot
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: devolve into cruel McConnell-esque nihilism. Like that is not a
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: tool that it will ever be in our toolbox, which
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: is why we belong in this party and not that one.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: But I think Democrats should, yeah, obviously you should be
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: willing to have conversations, but it better be a good
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: fucking deal. Right. And they do have leverage and they
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: should use it. And I think separate from that, and
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: they can increase their leverage by messaging on this. And
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: I think the way this can work is we have
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: now reached the point where we need a unified set
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: of five to seven economic priorities for the recovery that
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer agree on. It
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: is a unified front.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: And all the surrogates and everyone from Barack Obama to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren to Bernie Sanders is all out there talking about. Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: It's like, it sounds overly simple and I totally get that.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: And I apologize, but we are trying to communicate a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: complicated set of policies in a pandemic with an absolutely
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: fucked up media environment. So we're going to have to
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: oversimplify some complicated things, but we have those five things.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: I think the house should vote on those through whatever
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: remote or actual means they do on a regular basis
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: and send them over. And it'd be like, Democrats should
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: go to the floor of the Senate and demand this.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: And we should just really focus on– I think it's
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: easier to say here are the five things that we
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: want Republicans to do that they're refusing to do than
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: it is please pass the HEROES Act.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: The five things can be from the HEROES Act and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: that we should still treat that as the first piece
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: of the negotiating text. But from a messaging perspective, we
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: need five easily understood things that we can focus on
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: and can be part of both earned media strategy and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: paid digital campaign ads. These are the five things these
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Republican incumbents are refusing. And if you want to tie
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: that to they won't do these five things because they
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: want liability protection for corporations, you can do that. But
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: then you've got to play out where it's going to end.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Because if it's going to end with you accepting liability protection,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: you probably can't do that.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, to simplify it even more, our message
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: is just millions of people are out of work. Millions
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: of people are struggling. Like, why won't Donald Trump and
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: the Republicans in Congress do anything about it?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Do something. Do something. You're in charge. You know, like.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: You just you can see the graphic, right? You know,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: the Biden Democratic plan. Here are the five things. The
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Trump plan is nothing. Nothing. Their view is we have
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: 40 million Americans have lost their job. We should do
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: nothing else. zero. That is a message that I think
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: can be sold. And you can say that because they
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: already gave nearly a trillion dollars in loans to companies.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: And by the way, that is a message that fits
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: with everyone from Joe Biden to Joe Manchin to AOC
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and everyone in between. They can all say that, even
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: if the Democrats don't necessarily all agree on the policies
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: that we would implement if we were in charge, that's
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: okay too. Right now, Donald Trump runs the White House
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: and is in the White House and Republicans run the Senate.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: And we have to make the case that when the
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: country faced its greatest economic crisis since the depression, they
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: decided that the answer is to do nothing, to wait
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and see, to not act with urgency. This is what
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: they've all said. We have all their quotes. You can
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: put McConnell's quote and McCarthy's quote and Kevin Hassett's quote
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: all in an ad, and you can show the unemployment
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: rate go up and all the people losing their jobs.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: And these people are saying, do nothing. Pretty easy. Okay.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Dan's conversation with
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: Dave Weigel from The Washington Post.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: I'm Patrick Radden Keefe, a reporter at The New Yorker magazine.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: On my new podcast, Wind of Change, I investigate a
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: rumor I haven't been able to shake since I first
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: heard it years ago. It came from someone inside the CIA,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: and the story was that the agency had written one
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: of the best-selling rock songs of all time. a song
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: that changed the world. So that was the tip that
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: started me on this story, and it only got crazier
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: from there. Listen to all eight episodes of Wind of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: Change for free on Spotify, a new original series from
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: Pineapple Street Studios, Crooked Media, and Spotify.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: I'm joined now by Washington Post political correspondent and writer
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: of the political newsletter, The Trailer, Dave Weigel. Dave, welcome
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: back to Pod Save America. It's good to be back.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: You have more things in your role than I do.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: When quarantine started, there were no things on this wall.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: So we, we really, we live in fear of the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: room Raider account in this house. Um, I want to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: start with, you made a decision that I think was
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: your own to live within the Trump and Biden app
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: ecosystems for extended period of time. I'm going to start
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: by asking you why was quarantine going too well. What
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: led you to do this?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I, I realized that. So everything campaigns do is,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: is in some sense, uh, prefab and like meant to advertise.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: So even when I was going to rallies, I was
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: getting the, what the campaigns wanted, a presentation of what
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: they wanted me to think. Uh, the voters who were
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: there were the self-selected absolutely every election voters, awesome voters. Still,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: I was missing something cause I was not interacting with
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: anyone outside of phone calls. And I wondered how the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: campaigns were communicating to the, to the faithful. So I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: just said, let me, it wasn't like I consumed, I mean,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: some people have done watch nothing but Fox for a
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: week or, uh, take your every supplement sold by Alex
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: Jones' website. This was just, I subscribed to what would
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: be a normal amount of daily media and interruptions, which
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: wasn't that much. It was, first, I used both the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: Biden and Trump campaign apps, you know, just poked around
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: without actually pretending to be somebody else and creating a
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: fake event or something. Just as if I was a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: interested person who might support them enough to sign up
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: an app. And then I watched their broadcasts and got
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: all their text messages. And in every way, the campaigns
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: were just totally living up to the stereotype. The Trump
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: campaign had a ton of really in-your-face, aggressive advertising at
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: all times. The texts are all advertising a deal that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: you must join at this moment or you're going to
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: lose out on it, a gold club, a presidential club.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: The Biden ones are kind of long, lackadaisical, hey, champ,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: I'd love to see if you want to support this messages.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: And the Biden app is kind of directing you to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: go to the website to help. The Trump app has
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: a game, basically, where you get more points by getting
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: more people to sign up.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: And so people.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: Disagree on whether the Trump thing is as effective as
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: it is busy. But after actually kind of getting in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: the mindset and saying, OK, what if I'm a Trump fan?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: What if I'm a Biden fan?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: You definitely get more psyched up as a Trump fan
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: consuming that stuff. It's definitely much more interesting. After each
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: hour-long broadcast of a Trump thing, you understand why everything
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: is packaged as the media being unfair and lying. The
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Biden videos, I think, take place in basically the normal
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: CNN and NPR reality where things are tough and the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: campaign has some ideas, but not everything is a conspiracy
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: against Joe Biden, for example.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: Have you talked to since your piece, the Biden campaign,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: or maybe other Democrats about whether there's another version of
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: the Biden app coming or some of these features, obviously
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: not to the extent that Trump has them. Um, but
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: are there some new features coming that would sort of
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: amplify the experience?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they, they've added more events and more features. I don't, uh, if,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: if they're rolling a new version of the app, I
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: don't know yet. Uh, If all they did was basically
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: copy what I think the Obama campaign did in 12
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: and the Hillary campaign did in 16, that would not
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: be seen as bold and innovative, but it would give
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: you more of a one-stop shop for campaign volunteering. I
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: think that how far up is that on the agenda?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Because people can't actually go out and knock on doors
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: to volunteer right now. All you can do is donate
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: and make phone calls. So I have not heard whether
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: one is coming, but having gone... through both of them.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: A lot of the stuff being recommended was stuff you
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: can't even do until people are able to move around
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: semi-normally again.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: So I take it that you probably think that these
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: apps are probably even more important in sort of our
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: current environment where so much of politics is happening through
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: screens and online.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, that obviously, but also it's not just the app.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: It is the amount of, and the, the, the tone
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: of the stuff you get by watching their video content.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: So the Trump campaign will put out every week. I'll
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: kind of tell reporters first, but if you're a supporter,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: you get to learn to, uh, who is going to
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: be on their show every night of a nightly show.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: People got paid a little more attention this, this week,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: the one we're living in right now, because they rebranded
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: a kind of women for Trump show is the right
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: view as in the view of the TV show. Um,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: But that show had been going, and the tone was
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: very much the same. It was, there's a, we're here,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: we're having a great time, everything was going to come
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: back to normal soon, and aren't you guys sick of
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: the media pretending that Trump's doing a bad job? Or
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: aren't you sick of the media not covering this or
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: that Biden scandal? And the Biden content is much more
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: of a preview, I think, of what the Biden presidency
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: could be, which is, you know, fairly credentialed, familiar people
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: holding government jobs and thinking about ways to improve things,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: which is not as exciting, even if you're covering them.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I'm also kind of honest about what
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: is necessarily irrelevant to governing, but exciting for campaigning. And
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: they're just not doing much that's that hooky for campaigning.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: You have to be pretty motivated to pay full attention
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: to the Biden content.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: You know, it's sort of interesting, like there's always been
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: this talk that, You know, had Trump lost in 2016,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: he was going to start Trump TV and that this
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: was the future. And this is sort of what's happening
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: within the app. But it seems on one level, it's
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: like more, you know, from the perspective of Democrats like myself,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh, more Republican propaganda. But they also already
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: have Fox, which I know Trump is not happy with
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: all the time, but he gets all pretty good coverage there.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: And OAN and all these other networks. Like, what is
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: the purpose of the content on the app? Is it
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: to keep people there so that they can monetize your
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: presence there?
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, totally.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you're watching Fox or even OAN, you're
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: not being told in the same window that you're watching
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: that you can help give money. And I think there
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: is a limit. You can only give $ 2, 800, but you
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: can sign up for a monthly donation. There's just every
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: way that the campaign pulls you into being a supporter.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: And they can tell you pretty directly how to help.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: Although it's interesting what they do and don't focus on.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, there was not much Trump TV content, for example,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: even mentioning There'd be a special election in California last week. Uh,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of content just kind of going
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: through the, um, the various permutations of Obamagate, things like that.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: So it's not even saying here's the best thing you
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: can do right now to help reelect the president. It's
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: just kind of putting you in the mindset that may,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: that makes you want to volunteer more, uh, which I
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: think has been pretty, it's pretty effective. It's a, And
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: if you go if you're on the app, you have
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: a rundown of the various ways to help. And it's
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: it's everything from, you know, how to make calls to
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: how to become a mega bundler for the campaign. One
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: thing I had to is they also they have deliverables
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: that aren't really delivered. I think the Daily Beast read
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: about this months ago, but the Trump campaign has done
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: what Obama did, what Hillary did, what Elizabeth Warren did
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: and what Biden has done, which is if you donate
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: on this one particular fundraising drive, you have a chance
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: to have dinner with the candidate, in this case, the president.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: And Trump has not actually fulfilled that part of the bargain.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: The bees looked into this, and there have been events
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: where just there's somebody from the campaign and some free
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: food there, but there's not the president.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: People haven't really complained.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: So you do get the sense from absorbing all this
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: stuff that just you've got, and the polling backs it up,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: a base for Trump that is much more interested in
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: supporting him, even, even if things aren't going very well, uh,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: or even if they're not getting everything they were promised that, that,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: that just the, the power of being able to be
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: on the winning team, the one that makes liberals crazy
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: is really a good motivator in a way that there's
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: just not an equivalent for the Biden side. Uh, even
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: when they've had attempts, I mean, he just doesn't embrace
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: the same approach that you should be frustrated. And if you're, uh, and,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: and angry all the time, doesn't even kind of jump on, uh, some,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: some trees of, For example, the Trump people will jump
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: on any kind of Biden gaffer and gaff me to
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: find out to him just being about to say the
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: word coronavirus and stopping and saying it a different way
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: and then pretending he lost his mind. They'll raise money
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: quicker off that where the Biden campaign doesn't even push
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: for everything that is a national story that day about Trump.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: You know, Democrats do not have a fox, you know,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: for whatever else you want to say about MSNBC, the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: daytime is all hosted by either former Republican members of
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Congress who are targets of Trump's tweets and journalists like
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell. Like as you– you've talked
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: to a lot of activists. You travel the country all
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: the time. Do you think there could be an appetite
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: for a progressive democratic version of the sort of programming
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: that the Trump app is doing or is this just
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: very specific to the cult of personality of Trump?
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a good question because there is that kind
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: of programming, but not oriented towards Biden supporters. So if
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: you want to do, so let's say MSNBC doesn't do
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: it for you. You can watch The Young Turks. You
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: can watch The Hills Rising Show. You can watch Jimmy Dore.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: You can watch Secular Talk. There's actually a network of
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: this stuff. It just so happens that it's all oriented,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: and I think it was built quite a lot during
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders' campaign for president. And so it's just, it's
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: not very morally reinforcing if you're just a mainstream liberal
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: Democrat who voted for Biden in the primary. It does
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: not give you lots of reasons why you should be
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: supporting him. And I think this is a big psychological question, frankly,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: what motivates one group of voters over the other. We've
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: seen there's big differences in how, let's just stick to this,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: and how Democrats, Republicans.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: View the media.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: Even when the media 20 years ago, the stuff you mentioned,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: MSNBC was advocating for the Iraq war, liberal trust in
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: the media didn't dip as low as Republican trust for
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: the media is now just because it is not publishing
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: positive things.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: About the president.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: So I don't think people seek out information in the
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: same way. I think it's honestly Facebook groups that don't
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: have a ton of content, but have just kind of
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: positive reinforcement, chat rooms that are kind of walled off.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: I think that is the safest place for liberals at
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: the moment. I don't know if a A network that
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: was just let's go team would be seen as very
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: credible or succeed. It does on the left a bit,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: and that's just not where Biden is. That's not where
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: the party is. I mean, the party is not all
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: behind the agenda, overturning the governance of the country, replacing
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: it with something European style. I mean, it moved more
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: in that direction, but there's too much dissent in the party,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: where there's very little dissent in the Republican Party about
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: content that is Trump's fixing everything.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we, the progressives have done a pretty,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: very admirable job of building up a media infrastructure that's
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: just largely oppositional.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: It's inter-party warfare, not inter-party warfare. You wrote last week
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: about Never Trumpers wanting to have their own convention. Why
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: are they doing that? Is it just simply to go,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: or is it just to annoy Trump, trick him into tweeting? Like,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: what's the thinking there?
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think you mentioned two of the reasons.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: Another really is that we all, we don't actually know
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: what the world looks like in 2021 when, and the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: premise of this convention is that Donald Trump will lose.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: And so one thing that the Evan McMullins and Bill crystals,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: et cetera, want to do is get in the room
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: early to change the direction of the party. If Trump loses,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: I think there's a bit of less coherent planning for
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: if he wins another term. Uh, and because there's an
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: expectation by them that let's say he loses, let's leave
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: aside the chatter about what he really stepped down or not,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: that sort of thing. Um, he's going to be younger
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: than joe biden eligible to run for president again have
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: a big media network and a lot of supporters you
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: know even in a loss more votes that cast for
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: him than any republican in the country uh and so
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: i think what they're trying to do too is create
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: a beachhead so that if he loses there's a there's
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: people arguing okay we lost because for this reason i
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: mean in some ways doing what they were planning to
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: do in 2016 i mean i think you're aware of
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: Paul Ryan was completely ready once Trump lost to give
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: a speech denouncing what Trump stood for and reorienting the party.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: I think they're trying to do that from a position
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: of political weakness with a bit more influence in the,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: in the press. And yeah, they, they, they, I wrote
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: about it. I think there's interest in it. It's like
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: the convention itself. It's unclear how it will unfold if
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: the convention has to be forced virtually, but they're actually
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: in a better position because there's, going to be maybe
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: a few hundred, a few thousand people signing up for
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: this thing. And they'll come out with a message, you know,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: they'll have a document of principles, a poll on whether
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: they support one candidate, the people who identify as women,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: support Biden, how many support Trump, which would be interesting,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: how many are going to vote for a third party.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: They're giving us some stuff to cover, but I think
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: it's largely about intervening and winning the argument in nine months.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: I'm very curious and somewhat skeptical that the people who
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: put that convention together will be invited back in the
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: room post-Trump for figuring that out.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've seen what happens when people lose
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: an argument and then the party they were part of wins.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: And the answer is they're never invited back. And when
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: they lose, and actually 2017 was kind of unique because
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders lost the argument in the primary and had
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of influence in what the party stood for
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: after the election. I kind of refer to this all
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: the time because my own political memorandum kind of starts
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: and the stuff I lived through starts in 2003 and 2004.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: But it's very unusual that Democrats lose an election and
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: don't say, time to move to the center, time to
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: move to the right. And so they'd be in, I think,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: not a comparable position because, look, Bill Weld got 5%,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: 6% of the vote in the primary. Bernie Sanders got
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: 40-some percent. They wouldn't have the same I think they
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: but what's interesting about their politics is that the plan
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: is largely to get Trump out of office. but not
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: become Democrats, not begin supporting Joe Biden, not begin supporting
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: Democrats for Congress. The Tom Nichols, the kind of louder
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: voices in this world will say, just destroy even David Frum.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Every Republican should be defeated until the Trump legacy is destroyed.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: But the assumption being after that legacy is destroyed, we'll
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: want something back. And yeah, you're right. I'm not sure,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: even if it's a defeat bigger than the polls suggest
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: at this second, you're still going to have a Republican
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: president who got 95% support from his own party. I
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: think they'd face a real choice, but whether they should
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: try to influence... Again, I keep everything I'm saying is
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: in their scenario where Trump did get beaten pretty badly.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: Whether they want to influence the majority Democrats.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: or.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: Whether they try to, Bolton, I think it's actually more
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: of a question than they present it as. They might
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: be completely homeless around the Republican Party in 2021. Would
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: they then be kind of bizarro neocons? You know, the
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: neocons came out of the left and then became Republicans
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: in the 70s. Would they be doing the opposite? Would
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: they be trying to shape the Democratic Party, which even
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden has moved to the left since winning the nomination?
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: Would they be trying to correct that?
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: Interesting. Last question for you, Dave, you probably have more
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: frequent flyer miles than any political reporter out there. You
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: really specialize in being on the ground and talking to
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: voters and activists. We're in a situation where, like the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: rest of us, you've been trapped in your house for
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: a couple months now. How has that affected your reporting,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: and how are you thinking about this fall, where even
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: under the most optimistic scenarios, it's not going to be
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: back to normal?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: I'm taking it as it comes. I mean, I wrote
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: in the last week about a, you know, basically the
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: primaries coming up in house races, some in Senate races
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: and in normal circumstances, I'd go to those States and
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: write about them. I'm not quite sure what the situation
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: will be now. I mean, the story, you can't force
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: the old story in the place of a new one.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, the story now is basically about how the
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: elections conducted, how the parties adjust, not so much people be,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: you know, pounding the pavement. I mean, two, two years ago,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: not quite this month, maybe a couple of weeks later,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: I was with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York as she
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: was campaigning ahead of their primary, literally apartment building to
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: apartment building. And I can't do that now because she's even,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: she's not doing that. So I, I've, I, it's a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: reason I brought, I, I like many people have not
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: felt great is because there's no clear end point. And
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: then after the end point, it's not clear what, what
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: will replace this. So I'm not making any assumptions that, oh,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: the day will come again when I'm getting back into
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: my rental car and driving to campaign offices and talking
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: to people at a cafe. I'm not sure. Maybe that
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: happens in 2022, but it might not happen the rest
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: of this year.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: Dave, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: we will have you back on, hopefully from somewhere other
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: than your house as this campaign progresses. And talk to
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: you soon. Well, thanks a lot.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: Talk to you.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Dave Weigel for joining us today. And thanks
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: again to our friends at Change Research for conducting that
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: poll in Michigan with us. Everyone have a great Memorial
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Day weekend.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: every week.