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Gaetz Goes Down · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: On today's show, House Republicans spend a few days obsessing
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: over who gets to use which bathrooms on Capitol Hill.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: New election data gives us a clearer picture of what
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: really happened in the presidential race. And later, they've got MTG,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: we've got MGP. Congresswoman Marie.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Credit to read for that one. Congresswoman Marie Glussenkamp-Perez chats
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: with me about how she pulled off another win in
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: a pretty Trumpy district in rural Washington state. But first,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know what this country's coming to, Dan, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: apparently the woke mob has decided that you can't run
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: the Justice Department if that department has investigated you for
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: participating in multiple drug-fueled orgies where you paid for sex
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: with multiple women, at least one of whom was 17.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Are we America?
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: This is why Trump won, right here. This sort of censorship.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: That's right, Matt. Matt Gaetz announced in a tweet that
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: he has withdrawn from consideration to be the next attorney general,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: saying that he didn't want his sexual misconduct to be
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: a distraction for Donald Trump, who knows a thing or
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: two about sexual misconduct. The New York Times' Jonathan Swan
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: reports that Gaetz told people that there were at least
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: four Republican senators he believed would never vote for him
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: after conversations with their staffs, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: welcome to the resistance, And John Curtis of Utah. Who's
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: John Curtis of Utah, you might ask?
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Someone who I Googled when I saw that tweet.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: He's going to be taking Mitt Romney's seat now that
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Mitt Romney is retiring. What do you think, Dan? Anything
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: to glean from this episode about how Republicans in Congress
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: might handle Trump for the next four years? Or is
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: this mostly about who Matt Gaetz is and what he's
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: done and is alleged to have done?
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz has an amazing and possibly historic combination of
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: several qualities. One, Massively unqualified for the job. His legal
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: experience basically is a couple of years in a corporate
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: law firm. He is deeply unpopular with all the colleagues
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: who would vote for him. Members of the House and
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: Senate seem to hate him more than almost any other Republican.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: And as you pointed out, he is someone who would
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: be the first person in history, I assume, to go
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: from being the target of a Department of Justice investigation
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: to becoming the head of the Department of Justice. And
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that was probably a bridge too far for at least
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: four brave Republicans to one of whom we learned about
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: 35 seconds ago. I think what is more telling is
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: not that Matt Gaetz went down. It's that it appears
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: that about 90% of sitting Republican senators were prepared to
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: vote for him despite the fact that we have known
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: about these very credible allegations about Gaetz paying a minor
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: for sex for months now. That's the thing. They were
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: all going to vote for him. The fact that he
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: was going to get most votes is wild if you
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: step back. If you can detach your brain from our
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Trump mentality era, like that's insane. That is a completely
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: insane thing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we don't know how many votes he
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: would have gotten. Like we know that those four at
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: least felt, or at least their staffs felt comfortable enough
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: talking to Gates and JD Vance, who was walking him
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: around the Hill over the last couple of days. I
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: think this is where, you know, he started realizing that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: maybe he wasn't going to get confirmed. There could have
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: been a few more as well. Apparently it was Donald
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Trump who told Gates in a phone call, I don't
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: think the votes are there for you. And I don't
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: think they're going to be there for you. So that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: was that. Gates wanted to keep fighting. But it said
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: something to me that Trump didn't want to keep fighting
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: for the votes or didn't want to bully those senators
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: or didn't want to try the recess appointment thing. I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: don't think that says something good about Trump. I'm just
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: kind of interested in why he came to that conclusion.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: He doesn't like to lose fights. So he often quits
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: before it gets to that point.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Do you think that other nominees can go down here?
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Gates dropping out is bad news for
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr. Because there's obviously
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: this group of four people who voted against or were
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: possibly going to vote against Gates. You have some combination
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: of people like Mitch McConnell who are in the YOLO
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: phase of their careers, who Trump can't really do anything
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: to them per se. You have folks like Tom Tillis
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: who are up next time, who are thinking about, who
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: have to try to find this balance between, you don't
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: want to be a Trump toady, but you also don't
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: want to piss Trump off so much that you get
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: a primary challenge. And these folks can maybe vote against
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: one of Trump's nominees, but they can't vote against all
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of them. So the fact that Gates went down without
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: a vote means that a bunch of folks have a
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: free vote if they choose to use it against one
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: of these people they find unqualified. And the person who
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: probably is now at most risk is Pete Hegseth. He is,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: by traditional definitions at least, phenomenally unqualified to manage the Pentagon.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: But his, the horrific accounts of the sexual assault allegation
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: against him were not getting as much attention because of
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: the goat rodeo that was the Gates nomination. And that's
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: going to change now. And so he's going to get
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: a ton of scrutiny. He's going to have to start
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: having to answer some real questions about what happened with
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: that allegation, but also how he would run a Pentagon
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: when he thinks that women shouldn't serve in combat and
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: how he would manage millions of employees. And so I
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: think the spotlight goes to him and the spotlight's not
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: really where you want to be in this process. You
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: kind of want to draft behind someone else.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Chait, who's now at the Atlantic, his piece there
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: is about Hegseth and he read all of his books.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth apparently has three or four books that he's written.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I'll just read from the piece. The clearest through line
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: of all three books is the cross application of Hegseth's
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: wartime mentality to his struggle against domestic opponents. American Crusade,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: that's one of his books, calls for the categorical defeat
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: of the left with the goal of utter annihilation without
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: which America cannot and will not survive. And then here's
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: another quote. Our American Crusade is not about literal swords
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and our fight is not with guns yet. Emphasis his.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Like, just I know that the sexual assault allegations are
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: going to get rightfully a ton of focus. But like
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a guy in charge of our military whose loyalty is
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: only to Donald Trump and who despises Democrats so intensely
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: with a president who has talked about using the military
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: against his political opponents. Like, I really hope that's a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: big focus of the hearings. Because if anything should cause
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth to go down, it's that the guy running
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: the military hates half the country and thinks that we're
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: in a crusade that's not about guns yet.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I think Tommy made this point on the Tuesday pod
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: that I think for a lot of the public arguing
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: that someone who served like Pete Hegseth did, who has
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the accommodation that Pete Hegseth has, is not qualified to
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: run a Pentagon is not going to make sense to
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: a lot of people. Now, if you know a lot
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: about how the Pentagon runs and the massive management challenge
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: it is, the weekend anchor at Fox does not seem
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: like a compelling resume, but for the broader public, it's
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: not our best argument. But his views, I think, are
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: very much an important part of this. And you laid
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: out his sort of his loyalty to Trump, his approach
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: to anyone he disagrees with, his willingness to apparently use
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: the military, potentially weaponry, to win political disputes. Also, it's
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: just not for nothing. Someone who doesn't think women should
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: serve in combat running the Pentagon at a time when
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: a significant portion of our fighting force are women is
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: quite problematic and awkward and challenging. And he should be
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: forced to defend that and explain that point of view
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: in the hearings that he has if he makes it
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: that far.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: And by the way, not just problematic, also problematic for
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: our national security. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: For how you actually run a Pentagon... when you believe
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: such a thing, right? When so many of the people
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: who work under your employee are people you don't believe
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: should even be able to come to work that day.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: The military doesn't have too many people signing up right now.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: That's not the problem. We have a recruitment challenge in
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the U.S. military at a time of danger all around
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: the world. All right. Breaking news. Trump's got his next
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: attorney general, or at least what he hopes is the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: next attorney general, Pam Bondi, Dan. Remember Pam Bondi?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Barely. I just had to check. She'd be too. Pat Bondi.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: What did Pat Bondi do in the first Trump term?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Pam. Pam. Pam.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: Pam.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Pam Bondi.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like from the first season of Donald Trump.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: She was Attorney General of Florida. She has been a
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: long time. She's been close with Trump forever. I think
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: most recently she led the legal arm of the America
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: First Policy Institute, which is just a Trump nonprofit. And yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: There was a controversy over the fact that she was
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: supposed to investigate or she was charged with investigating Trump University,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: but Trump had given her a donation to her campaign
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: for Attorney General in Florida.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: I feel like I should shout out our producer Saul
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: for pointing that out.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Saul told us that. Saul reminded us of that. It
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: sounds like such a quaint scandal these days. Yes.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Just garden variety bribery.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Remember when that was a big deal? That was what
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: she tried to. She led the bunch of other Republican
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: attorney generals trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Didn't quite.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: figure that one out. Anyway, that's Pam Bondi. We'll have
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: more to say about her as the days go on here,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: but that's all we got for now. She's currently a
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: lobbyist for a Trump fundraiser. She lobbied for Amazon and
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: GM and Uber. So we have another lobbyist along with
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Susie Wiles, and that's that.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: I'd like to make a process point here, which is
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: usually the process for picking a cabinet nominee involves weeks
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: of rigorous vetting of their personal financial statements, public statements,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: voting record, an FBI background check. We are recording this
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: right now at 4 p.m. Pacific. Matt Gaetz dropped out
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: at 9 a.m. Pacific. So I'm going to just venture
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: a guess that they did not do thorough vetting on
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Pam Bondi, and we're going to learn some new things
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: as this process goes forward.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she wasn't on the shortlist when he
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: ended up choosing Matt Gaetz. It was just a bunch
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: of other dudes that he found boring. He called them
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: stiffs to Elon Musk, apparently. So she definitely just got
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: to be in the last couple of days. So we'll see.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Good luck, Pam Bondi. What happens to Matt Gaetz now?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Trump says he's excited to see what he does in
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the future. There was some speculation that perhaps Ron DeSantis
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: would appoint him to fill Marco Rubio's Senate seat when Rubio... Rubio,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: who looks like he's going to be cruising to confirmation.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Democrats are going to be standing over backwards to vote
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: for him.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And DeSantis apparently said no. His office said no, he's
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: not putting Matt Gaetz in that Senate seat.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Because he's reserving it for Laura Trump.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So there you go. And it
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like he's going to go back to Congress either.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: He could. I think that's notable. He could, but then
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: he has to deal with the House Ethics Committee again
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: if he goes back to Congress.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess he could go back because, just
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: so people understand, he resigned from this Congress, but he
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: was elected to the next Congress. He did put in
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: his letter that he was also not planning to fill
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: his seat the next Congress, but that's not legally binding,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: so he could still do it. And Governor DeSantis has
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: not yet called the special election for that seat. But
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: as you point out, he would have to deal with
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: the ethics report. And theoretically- although I find this hard
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: to imagine in this Congress, some sort of potential expulsion
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: resolution over the findings of that ethics report. And since
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: he dropped out with new allegations coming out, who knows
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: how bad that report is or what else could become
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: a part of it before this is over. The other
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: thing he could do is he could end up somewhere
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: in the Trump administration in a non-Senate confirmable job. He
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: could be a senior advisor in the White House. He
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: could be a senior advisor in some sort of nebulous
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: role at the Department of Justice. He could still end
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: up at DOJ doing all the things you just worried about.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Or the last option, I think probably the most likely
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: is he starts a podcast.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say runs for governor
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: of Florida when Santa's is up. I guess why choose?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Why would you do that when you can have some
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: real power, like a podcast?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: You know, there's someone by the name of Gavin Newsom
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: who has a big job as governor who... who hosts
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: a pod called Politicking. So, you know, it's happened before.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: So in case you were worried that we lost one
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: person accused of sexual misconduct from Trump's cabinet, he's looking
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to fill his cabinet with a couple more. You mentioned
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth. Health and Human Services Secretary nominee RFK Jr.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: has been accused of sexual assault by a former babysitter
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: for his kids. That person was speaking up this week.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Education secretary nominee Linda McMahon was sued for allegedly enabling
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: sexual abuse of children. He's really going for it, Donald Trump, right?
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: He's just like, I was found liable for sexual abuse,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: and I'm in the White House, so I guess I
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: can just nominate as many people as I want.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I think he legitimately finds kinship with other people accused
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: of the same things he was. I mean, the way
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: he's defended Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, other people accused of
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: similar things.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, crosses party lines for him. One reason Republican senators
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: may not find the courage to oppose other Trump nominees,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: threats from the White House. On Wednesday evening, John Carl
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: at ABC News tweeted out that a Trump advisor told
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: him on background, quote, there's votes coming. And if you
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: are on the wrong side of the vote, you're buying
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: yourself a primary. That is all. And there's a guy
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: named Elon Musk who's going to finance it. The president
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: gets to decide his cabinet. No one else. That's just
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the way it is. Is this what the people voted for, Dan?
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Trump's billionaire co-president funding primary challenges to knock off Republicans
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: who don't let Trump fill his cabinet with his preferred
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: collection of kooks and predators?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Not to be that guy, but that's not how it is.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: It's very explicitly not how it is that the president
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: gets to pick and no one else gets to have input.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: It is quite the opposite, in fact. But I think
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: let's just take a beat on the fact that you
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: have the world's richest man who spent reportedly over $ 100
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: million to help Donald Trump get elected. Musk has massive
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: financial interests in various decisions made by the Trump administration
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and Congress in terms of tax rates, space policy, defense contracts,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and he is dictating who gets to serve in the government,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: what laws get passed by potentially dumping unlimited amounts of
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: money into primary challenges. This is, to me, it is
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: just an epic combination of corruption and bribery, extortion, all
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: in one place. And I do think that this is,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: as Democrats sort of think about ways in which we
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: are going to mount our fight against Trump and the
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Republicans in the coming months and years, targeting this sort
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: of corruption is high on the list, because this is
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: what everyone hates about politics. It is huge, massive money
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: dictating what is in the interest of the rich and
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: the powerful. And if we can make that case and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: make it credibly, I think we have a very good
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: shot to win back a lot of the voters that
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: we lost in 2024. Yeah.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, Elon Musk is the richest man in the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: world and he's used his money now to buy access,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: buy power, and also be able to punish people who
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: don't do what he wants by dumping money into a
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: primary challenge, even Republicans. I mean, it's absurd. On that
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: note about democratic strategy, like, There's going to be a
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: lot of these nominees. It's going to be a bunch
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: of hearings. It's going to be a lot of noise
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: around these hearings. If you're, you know, like in Chuck
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Schumer's office or Democratic leadership in the Senate, like, what
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: do you think in terms of a sort of strategy
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: to figure out the best way to oppose these nominees
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: or pick which nominees to really have a fight over?
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: I think it's worth just remembering that no Democratic senator
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: has an obligation to vote for any of these people.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: You don't have to do it out of comedy or
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: sticking to norms or bipartisanship. Just because you're like, I'm
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: going to vote against Gabbard, Hegseth, McMahon, that I therefore
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: have to vote for Elise Stefanik and Marco Rubio, or
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: because I run on the treadmill next to Marco Rubio,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: I have to vote for him. I don't really care
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: if they do or they don't, but there is no
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: reason that you have to do it. It's also worth
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: remembering that we have pretty limited control over whether the
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: most egregious Trump nominees pass or not, right? We don't
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: have the Senate. We can't, we should do our best
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: job in our hearings to bring out, make the arguments
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: against them, bring out the information that everyone should have,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: but it's going to be come down to four Republican
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: senators every single time. And I do think that just
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: like screaming from the rooftops that all of them are
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: the worst gets lost and will not matter to people.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And I think what really matters is, and I think there,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: cause there are sort of two strategies. There's how you
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: defeat them And then there's how you use them to
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: make a case to the broader electorate that we need
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to change who controls Congress in 2026. And the way
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: to do that is you have to stitch together a
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: narrative about who these people are and what it says
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: about the Republican Party. And it really is, in my mind,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: cronyism and corruption. It's a bunch of rich people who
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: are serving their own interest and serving Donald Trump's interest
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: at the expense of the American people's interest. And that's
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: the thread between all of these folks.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they are a bunch of sort of extreme...
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: corrupt cronies and that's not what people i i think
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: you gotta keep going back to like what people voted
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: for a government to like help them afford basic necessities
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: and to improve their lives and they didn't vote for
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: a bunch of fucking kooks or someone who wants to
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: like turn the military against american citizens right all right
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: so that's the senate over in the house They are
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: focused like a laser on bringing down costs by keeping
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: a close eye on who's using which bathroom. On Monday,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to ban trans women
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: from using the women's restrooms and locker rooms on the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: House side of the U.S. Capitol. A resolution she said
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: was specifically targeted at incoming Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware. Mace,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: who just three years ago said that no one should
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: be discriminated against and that she supported LGBTQ rights and
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: equality in part because She's been around friends and family
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: who are gay, lesbian and transgender. Those exact words were
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: on her website. Mace has now apparently decided that it's
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: easier to get media attention and raise money by obsessing
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: over where everyone pees. She succeeded at getting Speaker Mike
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Johnson to put out a statement saying that single sex
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: facilities on Capitol grounds are, quote, reserved for individuals of
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: that biological sex, that members have their own private bathrooms
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: and that there are unisex public bathrooms in the buildings.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: The 34-year-old McBride, who never asked to be the center
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of a debate over people's rights, put out a statement
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: that reads in part, quote, She goes on to say
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: that every and to bring down costs facing families. Like
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them. She goes
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: on to say that every member of Congress was elected
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: because voters see something in them that they value, that
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: she has loved seeing those qualities in all her future colleagues,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and she hopes they will do the same for her.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Sarah's been on the show before. She'll be on again soon.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: We did check in with her on Thursday. She said
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: she is mostly focused on getting ready for the job,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: at-house orientation, she's hiring staff. She also said that obviously
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: she's human and this would be hard on anyone, but
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: that she's really heartened by the support she's received from
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the Democratic caucus and even in private from some Republican
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: members and their staff. What did you think of Sarah's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: statement and just this whole fucking mess?
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: The other statement was beautifully written and very powerful. And
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's worth just stepping back from the politics-
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: for a second, just thinking about this on a human level, right?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: I know Sarah a little bit. She's from my hometown.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: She's an incredibly impressive person, but just imagine she accomplishes
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: her dream of getting elected to Congress. And she goes
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: there and on your first day of work, no matter
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: where it is, right? When you walked into that new office,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: it's incredibly nerve wracking. Now imagine that new office is
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Congress and imagine that you are the first transgender person
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: to go there. And the first thing Congress does is
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: target you personally and just in the cruelest, most pointless way,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: just to score political points. And imagine like that, how
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: that makes you feel as a person and how to
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: do that. And I think just whatever people think about
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: her approach and her strategy to this, just, I think
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: she deserves a lot of grace. She deserves as much
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: grace as she has given everyone else in that statement
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: of hers. Just an incredibly, just incredibly brave way to,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: to respond to something that's absolutely disgusting.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's incredibly difficult to deal
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: with what she had to deal with on her first
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: day on the job from her colleagues, from someone like
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Nancy Mace, who clearly is not doing it out of
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: some deep-seated belief that she has, as we can tell,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: because she had just the opposite kind of language on
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: her website a couple years ago, but she's just doing
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: it to get attention for herself, because that's what Nancy
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Mace does. And Dealing with that is hard enough. Like
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: finding the courage and the discipline and the grace to
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: respond the way that she did. Like, I don't know
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: how many people in politics would do that, especially in
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: today's political environment. And so I was just, you know,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I was blown away by her statement and how she's
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: handled this. And it's hard to believe that she was
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: able to do that. It's also, I think, very compelling
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: and politically compelling. Like, I think her strategy is just
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: what she really believes, which is and she said this before.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: She's like, I'm not here as a spokesperson for an
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: entire cause. I am here to represent the people of
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Delaware and to do work. And I don't think she
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: wants to be entirely defined by her gender identity. She
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: just doesn't.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: And.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: You know, other people may feel differently, but she wants
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: to go to Congress to do work. I think focusing
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: on that is going to be difficult when she's targeted
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: like this. But it's just, you know, thank God we
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: have people like her who are there and are going
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: to approach it this way. And I know that after
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: she did this, there were some trans rights activists who've
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: been saying that they are disappointed in Sarah McBride for
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: giving in on the issue. And that's the polite phrasing
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: instead of fighting it. And I would just say, like,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I get the frustration and everyone is entitled to their
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: feelings and their beliefs and that are based on their
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: own experiences and their own life journeys. But if Sarah
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: McBride decided to respond by what fighting, putting up a
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: fight on this, like she's not going to change Mike
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Johnson's mind. Democrats don't have power in the house. They
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: don't get to set the rules. And so any fight
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: that she put up may make activists feel better. Maybe
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: it even makes her feel better. Maybe it even makes
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: other Democrats feel better, but it doesn't do anything. It
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: doesn't advance the cause. And whether you agree with her
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: strategy or not, it's a strategy that like she deeply
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: believes in. And I do think she has earned the
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: right as someone who has won the seat of and
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: is going to Congress to do this the way that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: she wants to do it. And I think that accusations
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: that she is somehow abandoning trans activists or the community
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: or whatever else, like if you were in that position,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: what would you do knowing that you have limited power,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that you're there to do a job and that you
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: are trying to build support, not only for transgender Americans,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: but for the policies and beliefs and proposals that you
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: came to Congress to enact so you could help people.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: And so I would just ask everyone to please give
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: her some grace on this issue.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I'm certainly not the right person to say who's right
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: and who's wrong here to say that the people who
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: have a different view than her approach are wrong for
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: feeling that way. Of course not. I think from her perspective, she, one,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: understood this was a fight she could not win, just
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: absolutely none. There's not a single Republican. If there was
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: ever a vote, there's nothing Republicans would like more than
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: to have this specific vote. And if you had it,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: no Republicans voting with her. And for reasons that are
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: not particularly admirable, a lot of her Democratic colleagues would
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: love to vote the other way, or would love to
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: avoid the vote at all costs. And having that vote
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: probably sets the cause back in a lot of ways.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: And I think she is playing the long game in
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: two ways. One is she understands that and more Democrats
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: need to understand this, that outrage is the coin of
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: the realm in right-wing politics. And what Nancy Mace wants
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: more than anything else is for her to respond with outrage.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: She can then weaponize that outrage on her behalf for
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: more attention, more money. And she's denying Nancy Mace and
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Mike Johnson what they want most. And that's almost always
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: a good strategy. And then second, for her and the
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: long-term cause here, her view is to do the best
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: job she can. And she's going to have the best
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: chance to do that job By exactly what she said
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: in her statement, it's by doing the work she was
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: elected to do, focusing on that, doing a good job,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: being a good colleague, building consensus so she can pass
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: more bills to that and to be there for a
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: long time and achieve a lot of things because that
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: will be what is remembered, right? That is how minds
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: can be changed.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: And I think she also recognizes, and it's something that
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I think Democrats are trying to recognize right now, the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: country is not where we want it to be right
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: now on accepting transgender Americans and standing up for their
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: rights and their dignity. And we want to get the
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: country there, most of the country there. And figuring out
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: how to do that is very difficult. And I don't
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: pretend that like anyone has the right answer or the
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: wrong answer, but she has a theory of how to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: get the country there. Right. And I think like, giving
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: her the chance to play that out, I think she
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: deserves that chance. I think she deserves that chance. And,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't think this means that Democrats can't
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: pick fights over this. For example, AOC offered a very
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: different response than Sarah McBride, but one that I also
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: thought was quite effective. Here's AOC.
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: What Nancy Mays and what Speaker Johnson are doing are
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: endangering all women and girls. Because if you ask them,
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: what is your plan on how to enforce this, they
• 27:48
  Speaker 6: won't come up with an answer. And what it inevitably
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: results in are women and girls who are primed for
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: assault because people are going to want to check their
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: private parts in suspecting who is trans and who is
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: cis and who's doing what. People have a right to
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: express themselves, to dress how they want, and to be
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: who they are. And if a woman doesn't look woman
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: enough to a Republican, they want to be able to
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: inspect her genitals to use a bathroom. It's disgusting. And everybody,
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: no matter how you feel on this issue, should reject
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: it completely. What are they doing? They're doing this so
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: that Nancy Mace can make a buck and send a
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: text and fundraise off an email.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: What'd you think of that?
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Love it. Just going on offense in the right way.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: And like playing, this is one of the things that
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: has been effective in some of the other battles against
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: these really gross bathroom bills in other states and some
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: of the bans on sports participation is playing out exactly
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: how it's going to work, right? And laying out in
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: detail and forcing them to defend what may sound appealing
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: to some group of people on the surface or sound
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: common sense on the surface when you get to the
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: reality of it, it falls apart. And so I fully
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: applaud what AOC said there.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I also think that she... put that response in a
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: frame that we have seen work well against these Republican-led
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: intrusions into people's private lives. And after Dobbs, I think
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: we saw in even deep red areas of this country
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: that when you talk about government should not be involved
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: in people's private lives, you know, that should not come
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: between someone and their doctor. It should not be in
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: people's bedrooms and it should not be in people's bathrooms, right?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And what AOC was trying to say there is wherever
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: you are in this issue, whatever you think about this issue,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: like just leave us the fuck alone. Right. And like
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the government shouldn't, and members of Congress shouldn't be like
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: spending their time obsessing over who goes to what bathroom
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: when we are like, sent to Congress to try to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: make people's lives better. How is that making anyone's lives better?
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Nancy Mays getting a fundraising email out there and getting
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: more attention in the Republican caucus so she can get
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: a few more fucking Fox News hits. Like, that's not
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: making people's lives better. Like, just leave people alone. Leave
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: people alone. So I think it was like a really
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: effective way to frame the issue that reminded me of
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: how Democrats very successfully framed abortion in the post-Obs era. Well,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: all these other fights are going on. We are quietly
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: getting more data about who voted in the election, in
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: what numbers, and where. Navigator Research just released a post-election
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: survey of 5,000 voters and swing voters. We've also got
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: most of the complete county-by-county results in most states and
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: most states that are done counting. California, we're still counting here.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Never going to stop.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Never going to stop. And a few of the other
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: states have not just finished all the tabulating. But anyway,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the county by county results can help us make an
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: educated guess about how changes in turnout affected the race.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the navigator research. Anything jump out at
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: you from that? Sure.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: What was interesting about the navigator poll is that they
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: identified a group of quote unquote swing voters. These are
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: people who considered both candidates over a fairly recent period.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: And Trump won those voters by eight points. Now, winning
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: candidate wins swing voters is not a particularly groundbreaking insight.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: But what is interesting in it is who those swing
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: voters were. And it does confirm some of what we
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: believed from the pre-election polling and then from the exit polls.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: These voters were more likely to be young, more likely
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: to be male, and more likely to be diverse than
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the overall electorate.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And less college educated.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: And less college educated.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: They're more likely to not have a college degree. So
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: people think of young people as college students. But it's
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: important to think that there's a lot of young people
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: who didn't go to college and this is a big
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: cohort that Donald Trump made inroads with.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: And that is a scary prospect for Democrats because this
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: used to be our base, right? And Donald Trump has
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: made very real gains with them. There was a ton
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: of debate about the polling and the unskewing of the
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: crosstabs and all of that about what gains Donald Trump
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: was making. But he made those gains and they were
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: real and they are why he won the election. The
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: second piece I think is interesting is And just puts
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: into perspective just how big the challenge was for Kamala
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Harris and the Democrats in this election is that Harris
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: and Trump had similar personal favorability ratings, but a majority
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: of 2024 voters had a positive approval of Donald Trump's
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: first term in office. And among swing voters, it was 59-37.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: And so that is also, once again, alarming because it
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: means that we lost a messaging war over the course
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: of time, that we allowed Donald Trump's presidency to become
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: more popular over the course of the four years. That's
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: not all a messaging failure on the Democrats' part. A
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: lot of that is inflation and nostalgia for lower prices,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: for sure. But I also think that in some ways
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: you can look at that and find some glimmers of
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: both those pieces of data and find some glimmers of hope.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: What it tells me is that Donald Trump's winning coalition
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: is much more fragile than people assume. These are voters
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: who don't have a history of voting for candidates like him,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: who disagree with him on a lot of issues, and
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: have pretty high expectations for what he's going to deliver.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Because what that tells me, if you don't really like
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump that much, you don't really agree with him
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: that much, but you voted for him because you thought
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: his last presidency was good, means you expect lower prices,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: less chaos, more stability this time around. If he doesn't
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: deliver that, we have a very good shot at winning
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: those voters back.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought there's a few other really interesting pieces
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: of data here. I mean, to your point, retroactive approval
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: of Trump's presidency is very interesting to me because there's
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: this debate like, were we too focused on Donald Trump?
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Were we not focused enough on Donald Trump? Did we
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: attack him too much? Did we not attack him too much?
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: This suggests that it really wasn't about attack. It wasn't
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: as simple as attacking him or not. It was like
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: how to attack Donald Trump. And I don't think this
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: is necessarily just like the Kamala Harris campaign's fault, but
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump gives you, we've said this a million times,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: he gives you so many targets. And I think like,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: it's just hard to go after his character or go
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: after things about Donald Trump that people already know about him.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: And it was much more difficult also to go after
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: new information about Donald Trump, which is what he proposed
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: to do in the future. But it was like, it
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: was harder in the end to get people to believe
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that the Donald Trump they had already seen through four
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: years in office would carry out all these extreme 25
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: agenda things. I don't know how you would have fixed that.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And maybe that's just a problem that's unique to Donald
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Trump because he's a candidate who ran, who had been
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: president before, which is very unusual. But I thought that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: was notable. If you look at the top reasons to
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: support Trump from new Trump voters, so these were people
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: who voted for Trump this time who either didn't vote
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: before or voted for Biden before. Number one, we'll secure
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: border and fight illegal immigration, 48%. Number two, fix our
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: economy and get things back to the way they were
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: when he was president, 44%. Those are the two top reasons.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: The other reasons are all in the, the other three
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: of the top five are in the 20s, low 20s,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: strong leader, cut taxes, including tips, social security and overtime pay,
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: and then won't let our children be endangered or confused
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: by transgender ideology. It was 22%, right? But so the big,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: big ones, like double the support for those bottom three,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: immigration and fixing the economy back to where it was
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: when he was president. And on that economic point, they
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: had a bunch of reasons listed and they said, is
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: this more of a reason to support Kamala Harris or
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: more a reason to support Donald Trump? On the economy,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: she won on fighting for the middle class, taxing the rich,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: access to affordable healthcare. Those were all given as like
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: top reasons to vote for her over Donald Trump. But
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Trump won on state of the economy and level of inflation,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: which also goes to show the challenge because her ads,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: her message about what she was going to do in
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the economy, like it broke through to people, but it
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: just wasn't enough to overcome people's nostalgia about Trump's management
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: of the economy when he was president and and their
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: frustration over inflation when Biden and Harris were in office,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: which just like, I don't know what you do about that.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, like that, that seems to me like there's
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: plenty of things for the democratic party to do and
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: improve as we go forward. I think that, you know,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: part of this is not just figuring out how to
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: win an election. That's a coin toss against a, an,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: authoritarian like Donald Trump, but to actually build a majority,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: which means not just winning the presidency, but winning the
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Senate too. So I think there's a whole bunch of
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: other things that Democrats need to do to compete better.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: But some of what was specific to this election is like,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know what she could have done. And I
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: don't know what Biden could have done if he had
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: been able to run a race like he did in 2020.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: There was significant dissatisfaction with the status quo. and Donald
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Trump was able to be the change candidate, right? And
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: we can have 75 different podcasts talking about what it
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: could have, should have, to change that. Most of those
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: decisions would probably would have had to been made prior
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: to the 109 days that Kamala Harris was the nominee.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a brutal political environment for Democrats.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: And even then, it ended up being quite close.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: They also asked a question that was, are you more
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: concerned that Kamala Harris would be a continuation of failed
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: economic policies from Biden or more concerned that she'll be
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: too liberal as president. And among swing voters, continuation of
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: the failed economic policy, like one by 10 points. So
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: they were much more concerned that she'd be a continuation
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: of Biden than she was too liberal. And then they
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: asked a similar set of two questions about Trump. Are
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you more concerned that he has an extreme agenda like
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Project 2025 and banning abortion? Or are you more concerned
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: that he would past economic policies that favor the rich.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: And the extreme agenda won on that one among swing
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: voters by four points. So it was much closer than
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: the common one, but it does tell me that as
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: we look forward in the next four years, the potential
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: extremism of the Republican agenda definitely does turn people off.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: And it's not just that they're going to help rich
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: people at the expense of everyone else. So it is like,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I never want to lose completely the Some of their
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: stuff is just really extreme part of it because it
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: does worry swing voters as much, if not more, as
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: his policies to help rich people.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was the strategy that won. For all
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: the talk about Dobbs and democracy and all that, what
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: the actual winning strategy in 2022 is to paint these
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Republicans as extremes. Abortion was the main reason they were
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: seen as extreme. It opened the door to a lot
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: of other arguments about their extreme views, but that was it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: And I just– one other thing that I just have
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: to remind myself all the time when I'm thinking about
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: this is we're never running against Donald Trump again.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: And so like a lot of the energy we are
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: using to talk about Donald Trump right now, we actually
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: have to resist and it has to be about the
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Republican Party. We have to brand the Republican Party in
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: a way that the Republican Party has branded Democrats in
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: the nine years that Trump's been on the stage.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Agreed.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: What about the county by county turnout numbers? And anything
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: there interesting to you? And can you remind people why
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: figuring out turnout effects on the outcome of the election
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: is trickier than it might seem?
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: I'll try to explain this in the shortest way possible.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: because this is a debate. I mean, you've basically done
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: four podcasts, four podcast series about this over the last decade,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: about turnout versus persuasion, what's more important, and the answer
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: is obviously both. But in looking at this data, just
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: the way, I think maybe the way to try to
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: understand why this is hard is, in most counties in
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: this country, Donald Trump got more votes in 2024 than
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: he got in 2020. And in those same counties, Kamala
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Harris got fewer votes than Joe Biden got in 2020.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: What we do not know is that in the votes
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: that Trump gained, did he gain those votes because people
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: who voted for Biden in 2020 voted for Trump in 2024,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: or are they new voters who did not vote before?
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: And same thing for Kamala Harris. Does she have fewer
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: voters because some Biden voters voted for Trump or because
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: a bunch of Biden voters stayed home? You can make
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: some guesses. The answer is obviously both happened. You can
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: really see that in some of the counties, particularly the
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: counties along the Rio Grande and other places that made
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: massive swings. It's obvious that there's a huge amount of
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: switching there. That's particularly true in some Latino precincts. But
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: we'll have a better idea of understanding how much was persuasion,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: how much was turnout when we get the catalyst data
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: in a few months. Just as an example of why
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: this is so confusing, one of the arguments you're hearing
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: from people who are on the left who are complaining
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: that Kamala Harris is had too moderate of a campaign,
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: she ran as Republican light, she hung out with the Cheneys,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: all of that, is they point to places like Milwaukee
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: and they say, there were fewer votes in the Democratic
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: stronghold of Milwaukee County in 2024 than 2020, which means
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: she failed to excite the base. Except when you dig
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: in there, the population of Milwaukee County has gone down
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: over the last four years. So turnout was actually up
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: as a percentage of the overall electorate. There are just
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: fewer people who live in the county. And so it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: all very confusing. And the people trying to weaponize this
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: on either side are oversimplifying what is a very dynamic process.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Carlos Odio, who we've all talked to a bunch on here,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: he did like an initial analysis of Latino vote based
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: on county by county results. And, you know, one thing
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: he mentioned, which is, it does seem obvious now that
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: I think about it. He's like, if you look at
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: the votes in a county, he's like, if, If Trump
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: added the same number or similar number of votes that
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris lost in a given county, that suggests that
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: it was a swing and it was persuasion, right? But
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: if Trump gained like double the number of votes that
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: she lost, well, then it seems like he might have
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: added some new voters. Or if she lost double the
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: number of votes that he gained, then maybe she lost
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: a bunch of voters who just stayed home, right? And
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: you can also start figuring this out based on the
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: split ticket stuff. So like where some Democratic Senate candidates
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: ran ahead of Kamala Harris or behind, that means that
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: some people either, you know, voted for Donald Trump and
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Ruben Gallego or voted for Donald Trump and left it
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: blank or vice versa, voted for Ruben Gallego and left
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the top of the ticket blank. Like people do all
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: kinds of weird things. And you're right. We need to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: get like the voter file data. I do think one,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: a couple like larger trends that you can spot right
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: now is in the battleground states, turn out, wasn't really
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: down that much at all. In some states, like Georgia,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it was higher, right? Like there was more votes. And
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: so it's hard to imagine it's much of a turnout
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: issue in those battleground states. There's probably some people who
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: stay at home. But in the non-battleground states, especially in
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: like big blue states around cities, turnout fell enough that,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: you know, you could see in those states that probably
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: there was a bit of a turnout challenge. Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: That obviously had some real consequences for the battle to
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: take the House, but in terms of the presidential, it
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: doesn't really matter as much. And just looking at, this
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: is related to the county, coming from the county data,
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: the folks at Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball did a map
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: of where Senate candidates outperformed Trump and Harris, and the
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: ways in which Democratic Senate candidates, particularly Ruben Gallego, Bob Casey,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: and Tammy Baldwin outperformed Kamala Harris, just basically across almost
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: in every county in the state. It's just very interesting. Now,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: by very small margins, to be clear, like less than
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: a point, maybe a point in some cases, more than
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: a point in Geico's case, most likely, but it was notable.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Has anything in the data that you've seen so far
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: changed your perception of what happened?
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does. And I think there are lots of
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: little specific things, but I think the bigger thing here
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: is we were so struck by how Trump won, right?
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: The gains he made, the fact that he was going
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: to win the popular vote, something that most people did
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: not think was going to happen, that he won all
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: seven battleground states, which even though we knew was the
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: most likely scenario in Nate Silver's model, it still felt
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: shocking that it happened. We still felt like we'll get
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: at least one or two of them even in a
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: lost scenario, right? But when you really dig in, what
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: it tells me is that Trump's win, when you look
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: at the county data, the Navigator polling, what Carlos did,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: a bunch of other people, What it tells me is
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: that Trump's win was wider but shallower than it seemed
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: on election night. He won in more places.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: He won.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: He made significant gains with people who have not traditionally
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: been part of the Republican coalition. He made huge gains
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: in parts of the country like Miami-Dade, Osceola County, Florida,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: even making some gains in places that we thought were
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: going to be growth areas for us. And that's very significant.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And the double-digit gains in places like New York and California. huge.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: But man, when you look at those margins in the
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: battleground states, you look at his popular vote margin, which
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: is now smaller than Hillary Clinton's margin when she lost
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: in 2016, the smallest margin in every election since Al
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Gore's popular vote win over George W. Bush in 2000.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It's on the razor's edge. And I think to have
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: that conversation, you have to be able to hold two
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: things in your mind at one time. Trump did not
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: win a landslide. He does not have a mandate for
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: all these fucking lunatics he wants to put in office
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: or do all these extreme policies. And the country is
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: going to recognize that and reject them if we can
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: make the case. But that is not an excuse, as
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: I've seen some people suggest online, that Democrats don't have
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: real work to do, that we shouldn't revisit, ask our
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: really hard questions of ourselves, of our policy agenda, our
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: communication strategy, how we campaign, how we govern, and really
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: revisit that. Because if these trends continue, we are fucked.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: but we have room right now to bring them back
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: as we did after Bush won in 04. And so
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say that Trump did not
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: win as big of a win as he wants you
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: to believe and the press wants you to believe, but
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: that we still have to do the work that is
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: consistent with a really tough loss.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: The data points that have not surprised me at all
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: are the effect of inflation, cost of living, the hangover
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: from the pandemic in terms of high prices and interest rates.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Our challenge as a party with people who don't have
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: a college degree going from just white voters to now
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Latino voters and some black voters and Asian voters as
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: well did not surprise me because I've seen that over
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the last several years. I've heard it in focus groups myself.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: I think what has surprised me is the extent of
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: the frustration, especially in cities and in blue states over immigration.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: It's not just about like what's happening down at the
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Mexican border. And it's not just about like, we don't
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: want immigrants here. It is about like, like, you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Greg Abbott starting to, you know, bus migrants to cities
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: and then other governors doing it. And then migrants just
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: coming to cities because there were just so many, like,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: I think that that led to a level of disorder
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: in the minds of, again, mostly working class voters, many
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: of them Latino themselves who, that I think sort of
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: combines with the economic angst over inflation and just sort
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: of amplifies it with people. Right. And there is this
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: like fundamental sense that things aren't fair.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: And and I'm struggling and I'm paying more and I'm
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: having trouble making ends meet. And then I'm seeing like
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going out on the street and I'm in like,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: you know, there's there's people who are homeless and then
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: there's Migrants here. And it's like, I don't figuring out
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: how to address that and differentiating ourselves from Trump and
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Republicans who are like, you know, the J.D. Vance's of
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: the world who want to attack the migrants in Springfield
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: who are here legally and trying to work hard and
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: make a living for themselves and their families, making sure
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: that we're different from that, but also like addressing and
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: recognizing that this is a real challenge for people. is
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I think a big part of what we need to
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: do going forward. And even for like all the talk
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: right now about cultural issues and transgender people playing sports
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and all this, like, again, I think that the, the
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: ad that everyone's talking about, about Kamala Harris was more about,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: you know, undocumented immigrants in prison getting benefits.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Tax benefits.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Then it is about trans people specifically. And I just,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: you know, it's, it's a, it's a notion of, People
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: want opportunity. They also want fairness. And I do think
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: we have to figure that out and take it head
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: on and not just dismiss it from people.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I think there's a huge opportunity for us to
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: fight back here, and it's coming up pretty soon. In
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: times of high inflation and high unemployment... you see backlash
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: against the welfare state. And that includes this idea that
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: undocumented folks are getting benefits when my family is struggling
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: to buy eggs and milk or whatever else. This is
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: the exact environment in which Ronald Reagan weaponized welfare queens
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: in the 80s. And the way– like our opportunity to
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: push back on that is, one, we should have a
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: better argument on immigration. We should have a more holistic
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: argument on immigration. We should go back to the Obama-era
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: arguments about securing the border but also solving the whole
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: problem and dealing with people who have been in this
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: country paying taxes and playing by the rules for a
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: long time. But also in this exact environment, Donald Trump
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: and the Republicans are going to get together to try
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: to give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: and the wealthy. And people– And.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Then Elon Musk is going to like try to cut
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: your healthcare.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: This was the battle of the, it is who is
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: getting what I'm not getting, right? Republicans want to make
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: you think that it is people depend on the welfare
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: state and immigrants and Democrats are correctly, substantively and morally
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: are pointing out that the people who are getting over
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: on you are the rich and the corporations. And now
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: we have a rich president with a cabinet full of
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: fucking billionaires and being advised by the world's richest man,
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: on a plan to cut taxes for themselves and their
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: fellow corporations. And that is a place where we can
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: win this argument. So I'm going to be talking about
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: this nonstop on this podcast for the next year.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Same. Okay, when we come back from the break, we're
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: going to talk to Congresswoman Glusenkamp-Perez. One quick thing before
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: we do that. This week on Assembly Required, Stacey breaks
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: down the potential impact of RFK Jr. as health secretary,
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: what it would mean for the FDA, the CDC, and
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: the future of public health in America. Then she sits
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: down with chef and activist Tom Colicchio. to talk about
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: why food insecurity remains such a massive issue in the U.S.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: and what steps we can take to fix it. Listen
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams now wherever you get
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: your podcasts, including YouTube. When we come back, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: Joining us today is one of the few Democrats who
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: won a tough rematch in a Washington district that Trump
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: also won. Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp-Perez is here. Welcome back to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: Hey, John. Thanks for having me.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: First off, rough election for Democrats, tense election for the country.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: How are you doing?
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so glad to be off of TV
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and like commercials.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: You have no idea. It's great.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: That's good. That's good. From your perspective as a Democratic
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: member of Congress who represents a Trump district, Do you
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: think this race was winnable for Kamala Harris?
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, clearly they thought it was or they wouldn't,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: you know, ran. I am not in those rooms.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: Like, I'm not like a pollster.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Was there a moment when you thought like, I'm not
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: sure this was the right decision or a moment you
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: were like, I don't know if she's going to be
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: able to do this or the campaign did something where
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: you thought it was wrong, anything like that?
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, my race was such a dogfight.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Like, I was very focused on this, but there's a
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: certain point when like you hear so many people confidently
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: saying like, of course that you want, you know, my
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: perspective is like very local.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: Like that's who I'm listening to, you know?
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: And, and so I was aware that like, you know,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: there's like selection bias in like my community.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: Like I, that's just not.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: What were people saying about the national race in your community?
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: You know, that's funny because they weren't like, people weren't
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: talking about it. Like I was on an RV tour
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: and nobody asked me, what, you know, about that. Like
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: we were talking about Spirit Lake. We were talking about
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: flooding in the Chalice River Valley. A lot about sea lions, wildfire,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: talking about Waukiakum County going down to a four-day school
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: week because of timber revenue shortfalls.
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: Talking about fentanyl is very horrific deaths. So that's what
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: people were talking about.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Now that everyone's had a few weeks to process the results,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: there has been no shortage of takes, postmortems, How do
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: you feel so far about the reaction from your fellow
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Democratic colleagues about where the party needs to go from here?
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Do people seem more willing to listen or rethink their approach?
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: I think it's difficult.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: It's always easier to find accountability somewhere else. It is
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: hard for anyone to say, have that lens.
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: But I also think there is work to do. There
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: are serious problems.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: And it's not the time to just be moping around
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: in a ditch somewhere.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: There's real work to do.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: What so far has concerned you the most about an
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: incoming second Trump administration and the nominations he's announced so far?
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of groups who are like, oh,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: they're trying to have contingency plans.
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: What do you do if X, then Y? And I
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: think that is.
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: This is not a predictable administration. We don't know what's
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: going to happen.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: To me, the point is go home and talk to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: your folks.
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: Figure out what they need.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And to the extent, flexing the muscle of what are
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the things that we agree on? Where are the constituent
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: parts we can make progress? And what are the non-political,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: non-partisan things that need.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: To be done?
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a really good book, The Art of
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Logic in an Illogical World. And she talks about how
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you kind of take these big culture war issues and
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you break them down into constituent parts. And you say, like,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: it's not about the thing. You know, delete the proper nouns. Like,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: for instance, like Hunter Biden's laptop. I got a ton
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: of emails about that and letters. And I think when
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: you lift the hood up on that and you think
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: about it, a lot of those people are talking about
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: their sense that there is a justice system that works
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: differently if you have good lawyers involved.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: Influence. And that's actually something that we agree on.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: We want real progress. We want a level playing field.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: So don't belittle people. Don't ridicule them. Figure out what
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it is in the argument that you agree on and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: just take the celebrities out.
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: Of the argument.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it does seem difficult for Democrats to ignore
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: culture wars when some Republicans seem pretty intent on starting them.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: One of your House colleagues, Nancy Mace, introduced a resolution
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to ban transgender women from using women's bathrooms at the
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Capitol that she said is specifically intended to target one
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: of your new colleagues, Sarah McBride. You know, Mace got
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: the media reaction she wanted. Mike Johnson just announced that
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: he's going to implement the policy. How do you think
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Democrats should handle shit like that?
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the points is, like, don't accept the framing.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: You know, like they're trying to fundraise off of being
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: mean to each other. Don't buy into it. You're creating
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: this feedback cycle when you're talking about this thing that's
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: just mean and thinking about how do we treat each
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: other like humans?
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: How are you a good neighbor?
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: How are you just like the same way that you
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: would take care of your neighbor at home? When somebody's hurting,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: leave them groceries. Be humans to each other first and
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: not getting into a camp on it. And, and that,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that is a way to overcome some of this incentive
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: structure for like, you know, attention seeking behavior.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I, I was struck by Congresswoman elect McBride's
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: like initial tweet about this after Nancy Mace did it,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: where she was like, you know what? A lot of
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: people come to Congress and they have different journeys and
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: different life experiences. And I just hope we can all
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: treat each other with respect and kindness. And that to me,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I was like, that's, that's probably, that's the right response.
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Like there's real, there is, there's serious work to be
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: done and it's not like picking on each other.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: So I feel like a lot of people in politics
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: and in DC talk about rural districts like yours as
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: if they're anthropologists trying to understand a foreign culture. What
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: do you think are the most important things the national
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: conversation misses about where you live and the people you represent?
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Well, like I think there's something very powerful and necessary.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Like I think when you have these big extract ideas like,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: you know, environmentalism, they're very amorphous.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: It means whatever that person thinks it means. You know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: but when.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: You talk about loyalty to the Chehalis River, when you
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: talk about loyalty to, like, loving, you know, Forlorn Lakes
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: or loving the Gifford Pinchot, like, that means something to people.
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: And it exists in the concrete.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: And, like, that is necessary to bring to the bigger
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: national conversation.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: Like, that specific loyalty aspect is.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Necessary for people to do from all over the country,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: from all different perspectives, all different kinds of communities. If
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: you want to arrive at something that is more universal
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: or that is like a national policy, you can't start
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: with the general and expect it to fit the specific.
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: Like you have to start from the specific.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: There's a school of thought from some progressive Democrats that
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: the key to winning back working class voters who might
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: be more moderate than the national party on issues like
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: immigration or crime or guns is is with a more
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: populist economic agenda. As someone who has broken with the
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: party on some of these issues, what do you think
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: about that?
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a political scientist, so people mean all
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: different things when they name any of these things. But
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: one thing that sort of grinds my gears is people
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: are like, we're for the little guy. I'm like, nobody
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: asked you to call.
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: Me the little guy. Nobody self-identified. That's not a helpful framing.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: It actually implies a hierarchy that I didn't ask to
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: be a part of. And so it starts from respect.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: It starts from curiosity.
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: And you know, specificity.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: So I think it's really important to bring that lens
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, when I was running the shop,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I remember, you know, having a fire inspector come and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: tell me that I couldn't have a water-based fire extinguisher
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: because they were worried I wouldn't know the difference between,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: you know, grease fire and electrical fire. And that means
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: they want me to be exposed to PFAPs every time
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: there's a fire.
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: You know, like, listen to us.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Like, assume that we know what we're talking about. and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: then figure out why the policy isn't matching what I'm
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: saying is going on as a business owner in the trades.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought about that, something you recently said, I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: think you were talking to Jake Tapper, about, you know,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I'll have Democrats say to me, why does someone in
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: rural America, thousands of miles away from Mexico, how could
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: they care so much about the border and immigration? And
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: hearing you talk about fentanyl, and how your constituents have
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: experienced fentanyl crisis, it's like, well, they're not, we have
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: to stop thinking that people are just sitting there saying, oh,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: the migrants are invading my town and I'm going to
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: be xenophobic and not something like fentanyl, which seems like
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: a real crisis in a lot of communities.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: So when I was like, you know, running the auto shop,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: you have to know to ask the right question to
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: get the right answer because people you cannot assume that
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: you are communicating with someone. Like, you have to ask
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the same question multiple ways to get to, like, who
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: changed the oil last?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: Like, why did they do it?
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: And it's a similar thing of, like, I have serious
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: questions about how polling has been done around this question.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Because are you asking about, you know, access to drug treatment?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Or are you talking about, you know, mental health? Because
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: I think you're going to draw different responses or presumptions.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: And so, like, the necessity of specific, like, cultural, like
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: cultural fluency with the community you're talking to really matters.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Because I think we would get to a much clearer
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: idea that people are tired of seeing their family members die.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: They are tired of seeing people throw their lives away.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, we have like a hard look
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: in the mirror and people say like, I'm so empathetic,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: you know, but like, are you holding empathy for the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: person who's lost two pregnancies from fentanyl? or somebody who's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: losing their child, somebody who's having their truck repossessed, losing
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: their business. Assume goodwill. Assume that people are good and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: try to understand what it is they're saying and what
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: they're going through.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: Curiosity.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: That seems like good advice. Tell me about the proposal
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: that you and Congressman Jared Golden just introduced to create
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: a select committee on electoral reform. I thought that was interesting.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Increasingly, the American public feels like Congress is not trustworthy.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of us believe that 90% of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Americans believe on 90% of the issues. So why are
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the 10 things like dividing and driving the car instead
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: of the things that we agree on and the things
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: that we all agree are our priorities and our values?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: So I think we need to have an electoral commission
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: to say, what are the paths to having a more
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: representative body? How do we deliver a body where there
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: are more people from the trades, more parents of young kids,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: more people who are not homeowners, like people who are
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in rural communities, people who don't.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: Have internet at home.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Like we should have the American experience reflected in the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: legislative body, whether that means, you know, something like open
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: primaries or proportional representation and having a bigger view of
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: not what is electorally useful to a district or a member,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: but the bigger scale, like how do we have more
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: of our values and priorities reflected in more of Congress?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: You've talked about how we need more normal people, quote unquote,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: normal people in politics, which I agree. What do you
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: think the big impediments are for like just someone who
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: is reflective of the face of America and the richness
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: of the American experiences and all different geographies and trades
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: and everything else? What are some of the biggest impediments
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: to that person running for office?
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, for one thing, it's like having the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: time and the support to do it is one thing.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: But it's also like when I first ran, I talked,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I remember talking to this political consultant and he literally
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: chortled when I told him that I had an eight
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: month old.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: He was like, hope you never want to see your
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: baby again.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: You know, and it's like being dismissed and made small
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and saying that your experience is not relevant.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: To legislating, that's patently false. I have passed the second.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Most number of amendments of anybody in my party in
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: my class. It's like having a different lens to view
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: things through is necessary, and it's productive to say, did
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: you think about the experience of a rural American when
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you're legislating about whatever? And so bringing more of the experience,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: that's necessary and productive. So it's not just having, it
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: can't just be about how much you can raise out
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: of your phone and your family, you know? And so
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: those are some really core things. Like it should not
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: be like, you know, candidly like having activists in the
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: largest big city nearby dictate who is a good fit
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: may not be a representative body.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Right. Last question. You've, you've talked about the need to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: de-industrialize politics. that candidates and elected officials should tailor their
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: message and their focus on their own communities, their own voters.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: You've certainly done that. It seems right for members of Congress.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: And I know you're not focused on national politics, but
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: one thing I think a lot about now is whether
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: with a polarized electorate and a very fractured media environment,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: it's still possible for a leader to speak to the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: whole country in the future in a way that resonates
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: with Americans from all walks of life. What do you think?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: Yes, hopefully.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: But I think it's also true that words have been so,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: like everything is so hot. Like you don't know what
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: somebody is hearing when you're talking to them about being,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you know, like environmentalism or stewardship or logging. Like you
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: don't know what that means to them. You don't know
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the cultural connotation of that word. And so when you
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: are talking in specifics, there's power there because there.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: Is something that we are all pointing to.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: And from that should be derived our national values or
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the national thing that we're talking about. But talking about
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: a specific experience, like in the granular level, like truth
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: is not black and white.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: It is three-dimensional.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: Like left versus right is not something that exists in nature.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Like I think if politics has a shape, it's probably
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: more like a nautilus or it is something different.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: And so.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: when you are introducing more nuance, there is power to
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: break the polarization. But you've got to get to an
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: issue before cable news does. You have to talk about
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: something before it's turned into.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: Cannon fodder.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: And it's probably, it's easy to say, we have so
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: much more in common than what divides us, which is
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: a political cliche that's been said over the years. I
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: do think there's something to even talking about your own
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: political experiences or your own life experiences in real specific
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: ways and saying, this may not be your life experience,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure we have similar values and that we
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: want similar things, even if I experienced life in rural
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: Washington and you experienced life somewhere else. There's a language,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: there's a political language that has been so sanded down
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: and repeated over the years that it sounds phony. even
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: if it wasn't intended to be phony. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess one example I'm thinking of is
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: like wildfire was the second largest emitter of CO2 in
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: my state last year. And meanwhile, one of my counties
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: has just gone down to a four-day school week because
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: of falling timber revenue.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: And so square that, right?
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: And say like when we stop using lumber and forest products, like.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: They are replaced with oil. You stop using paper cups,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: you start using plastic cups.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: And having that bigger picture that comes from honest dialogue,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: honest relationship, and lived experience in rural communities, and.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: That is the full spectrum. You need all of that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: to show up to have a productive dialogue.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman, thank you, as always, for joining Pod Save America
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: and for always giving us so much to think about.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Sven.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Big thanks, as always, to
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: the Congresswoman for stopping by, and we will be back
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.
• 1:08:56
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• 1:09:23
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• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.