Latest / Pod Save America / “The Democratic National Couch-vention.”

Transcript

“The Democratic National Couch-vention.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, I talk to voting rights attorney Mark Elias,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the man who's leading the legal fight against Donald Trump's
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: effort to sabotage the election. Before that, we'll talk about
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the latest in the Republican war on the post office,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: how Democrats are fighting back, and what the party hopes
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to achieve at this week's national convention. But first, Lovett,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: happy birthday.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Happy birthday to you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Can we insert some music here?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Terrific yeah let's do that wonderful um.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: How was the show this week great.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Love it or leave it so shears and made a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: joint ben rhodes alissa master monaco wow great time we
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: had a great time.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: A little belarus on the show i heard.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah we talked a little belarus yeah yeah we got
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: our own you know trump's trump's watching lukashenko and just
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: sort of like taking taking notes and be like oh Ooh,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: good idea.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Not bad.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Throw the ballots out the window.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And then for my birthday, you know, the Democratic Party
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: got me a cameo from AOC.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Awesome.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I like that. That's good. Also, Lovett and I are
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: trying to be YouTube stars like Dan. We have a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: new series called Speechwriters React, and we have a few
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: episodes up where we break down past convention speeches from Obama, Hillary,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and Biden, talk about what works and what doesn't. Check
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it out at youtube.com.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: I can't believe Dan moved into that hype house in
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Bel Air. So I didn't see that one coming.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Here's the thing that sucks for Dan
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is it seems like a good idea, but if the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: sponsorship deals don't come in, you're owing a ton of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: rent on a big mansion.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. Well, you know, he's good on TikTok,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: so he'll probably be fine.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Congrats to Dan. And finally, the Democratic National Convention starts today.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: And we're streaming the whole thing live each night this
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: week on Crooked.com slash convention starting at 6 p.m. Pacific,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: 9 p.m.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Eastern.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: We'll be doing group threads to cover the big speeches
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: with some of the hosts and staff here at Crooked.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: And on Thursday, we have a special live Pod Save
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: America pre-show live. where we'll have some fun, take some questions,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and also host the world premiere of the documentary short
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Dress Rehearsal. It's about the progressive organizers who pulled off
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a stunning upset in this year's Wisconsin special election, even
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: as Republicans did everything they could to stop people from voting,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: just like now.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It's a deceptive title. It is not about a ragtag
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: group of high school kids putting on Brigadoon.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: But it should have been.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: But it should have been.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: It should have been.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: But it should have been.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You can find all the details at crooked.com slash convention.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: We will see you tonight and every night this week.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. Last week, the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: president of the United States said that he opposes funding
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the U.S. Postal Service because the money would go towards
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: making sure people can vote by mail during a pandemic
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: where crowding inside a polling place could literally kill you.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: In response to this and to increasing reports of mail
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: delays and disruptions, House Democrats announced on Sunday that they'll
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: be returning early from their summer recess to deal with
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: this looming crisis, which includes votes on legislation and an
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: emergency hearing at which Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will be
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: called to testify. And as of just now, he has agreed. Tommy,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: we found out over the weekend that the Postal Service
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: sent letters to all but four states warning them that
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: their current mail-in voting deadlines may not allow enough time
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: for the delivery and return of people's ballots online. And
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: so those votes may not be counted. Can you walk
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: us through some of the reasons the post office may
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: not be able to deliver these ballots?
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I would love nothing more, John. Thank you again to
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump for making us talk about the post office constantly.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: It's all we want to do here. Um, I think
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: the thing to know for people to know the background
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: is that the post office is in bad financial shape
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: and we can get into why in a minute, but
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: they need a big infusion of cash from Congress and
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: Republicans so far refused to do so. Um, Trump also
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: recently put a big donor named Louis DeJoy in charge
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: of the Postal Service. That guy's mission seems to be
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to just gut the place, a bunch of management changes.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: So specifically, DeJoy has limited overtime for postal workers. He's
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: told them they can't take extra trips to make sure
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: that everything gets delivered on time. So things are just
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: stacking up in these offices. And in a very subtle move,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: they removed 671 mail sorting machines from various facilities. He
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: also reassigned some top executives in Washington. So that's the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: reason for this more recent slowdown and the reason you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: seeing all these warnings that ballots might not arrive on
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: time to be counted. And like just stepping back, this
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: is a little silly if you think about it, because
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: if the post office can absorb the surge of mail
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: around Christmas, they should be able to do like one
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: ballot from each of us, but enough of that. So
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: these Republicans, they want to use this financial plight the
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: post office is in as an excuse to privatize the
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: whole system. They say, look, the post office, it's in
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: $ 160 billion of debt. It's a broken system. It can't work.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: What they don't tell you is it's their fault. In 2006,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Congress passed a law that requires the post office to
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: pre-fund the cost of its staff's health care benefits 75
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: years into the future. So that accounts for $ 120 billion
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: of their $ 160 billion debt. On top of that, Congress
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: sets their prices and metals in their operations. So it's
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: just a mess. So this all dovetails with the fact
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: that Trump hates vote by mail. And he said on
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the record, that if we don't give the post office
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: this funding, you can't have universal vote by mail. So
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Trump has married these two things, his hatred for the
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Postal Service, which is based on this inaccurate belief that
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: somehow Amazon is fleecing them, his hatred of democracy and
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: vote by mail, Republican efforts to privatize the system. He's
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: jammed them all together into this megatron of voter suppression.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And here we are.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: It's a toxic brew. Love it. The Wall Street Journal
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: editorial board wrote today that Democrats are culpable for spinning
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: post office conspiracies without evidence and that state election officials
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: should just change their deadlines. So you're seeing a lot
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: of this now that like these are unfounded conspiracies that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Trump is trying to sabotage the post office. Why is this?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Why is this bullshit here?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So on that line of reasoning, it actually reminds me
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the pandemic. Experts pointed out early
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: on in the pandemic that if you do the right thing,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: if you sound the alarm correctly and you achieve the
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: goal you want, right, whether it's stopping a pandemic or
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: preserving democracy, in hindsight, what you did looks like overkill.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Your warnings look like they went too far. So it's like, okay,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that you're sanguine about it, right-wing pundits. I
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: know that you don't care what happens either way. But
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: for those of us on the outside watching this, it's
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: a terrifying prospect that we'll discover on November 4th that
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: we didn't do enough on November 2nd. Now onto the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: actual facts of the matter, it is actually right now
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: hard to separate three distinct problems. One, it is Trump's
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: effort through DeJoy to purposefully attempt to subvert and delegitimize
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the election. Two, as Tommy points out, implementing a long-term
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: ideological plan to burden the post office, cost cut, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: kind of undermine the basic premise of a public good
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: through this service is And promoting privatization, right? That's also
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a long-term project. And then three, there is just generational
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: failures to invest in institutions, systems, infrastructure across our society.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: You know, one piece of news that came out over
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the past couple days is that some of the mail
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: sorting machine shutdowns may have at least been planned before
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: DeJoy took over. Now, does that tell you it should happen?
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: Of course not.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: All that tells you is some of these problems, some
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: of these attempts to dismantle the post office precede Trump
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: and will follow Trump. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: to stop and we have to attack each of these
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: different problems, the long-term agenda, the short-term attempt at basically
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: a coup, and then the kind of generational failure to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: invest in our public goods.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like there's this debate, you know, is it Trump?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: trying to delegitimize the election? Well, yes, because that's what
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: he keeps saying. Or is it the long-running project of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: conservatives to completely delegitimize our institutions by starving them of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: funding so that they can't deliver services? Also true. Either way,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the effects are the same right now, which is there
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is a risk that ballots won't be counted in an
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: election where ballots need to be sent through the mail
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to keep people safe. That is the effect. So the intention,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: whether it's typical Republican bullshit or Donald Trump authoritarian bullshit,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the attention is almost beside the point at this point
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: because the results are the same.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And I just make two other points about this. One–
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: when the Pentagon spends a trillion dollars on an airplane
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: that can't fly in the rain, no one says, ah,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon's operating at a loss. And then two, the
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: focus on the post office and their desire to make
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: sure that it's on the hook for its pension and
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: retirement liabilities, the kind of scrutiny it is under, none
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: of that comes when it's time to bail out financial firms,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the loan program, when it comes
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: to a dozen other ways that we bail out corporations
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: all the time. The onus is only on the post
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: office because they hate the post office because it's a
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: public service and it is done by unions. And that
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: has been the agenda for a long time.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I will say the other very sinister effect of all
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: this is it is, and I think this could be
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Trump's intention here, is that it is freaking people out
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: about whether their votes are going to be counted. And
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: so it is instilling a fear in a lot of
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: voters that they maybe shouldn't even use mail-in voting at all. And,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you're seeing this on Twitter too, like people
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: are sending around pictures of Post office boxes locked up,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: freaking out about that. And it turns out that is
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a completely normal practice that they do to stop people
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: from stealing mail. And there's actually a mail slot in
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the back of those that you can put in mail, right?
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: But it's understandable that people are getting freaked out because
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is saying mail-in voting is fraud. And then
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: there are actual disruptions of service that are happening because
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: of what DeJoy has been doing at the post office.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And what this is doing is it is hurting people's
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: faith that the mail will actually work. And it's not
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: just ballots that may get delayed here. The New York
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Times reports that in rural Michigan, diabetes medicine that used
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to arrive in three days now takes almost two weeks.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: NBC reports that military veterans are waiting weeks for life-saving
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: medications from the VA. Americans generally love the post office. Tommy,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: do you think this can end up backfiring on Trump
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and the Republicans?
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it could. I think
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: it's going to take a lot of work because, you know,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: let's be honest, it's hard to drive post office concerns
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: to the front page of the newspaper. But I think
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: the press needs to view this as an attack on
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: voting rights and democracy itself and report on it accordingly.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: And it drives me insane that, you know, preventing black
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Americans from voting has been a core strategy of the
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: Republican Party for years in that, you know, the discourse
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: around these questions are still softened with these euphemisms and
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: like bullshit spin about voter integrity. And we just need
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: to call it for what it is. I do think
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: that Democrats need to do a lot more work to
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: sound the alarm about what's happening locally, right? So find
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: a bunch of veterans and seniors in your community who
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: are waiting for medications. Lift up their stories. Find service
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: members who serve in your district who are overseas and
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: are worried about their votes being counted. This is actually
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: another instance where the total lack of local news is
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: really bad, right? Like normally the local paper would be
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: highlighting exactly this kind of stuff. People would be reading it.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: You'd be hearing about a veteran not getting medication. Instead,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: we're waiting on these stories to get found and filter
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: up in national media outlets. And we're not hearing enough
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: about what these slowdowns view for these specific communities. So
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Democrats need to do all this work. We've got to
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: educate constituents about what's happening, why, and that this is
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: an urgent need. Because the post office is a bedrock
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: government function, right? I think it was the first real
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: core thing that the government did in some ways. There
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: was a while that I think a quarter of federal
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: workers were postal workers. So it's a big deal to
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: just kill it slowly and to try to do it
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: in the six months before the first ever election in
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: a pandemic. That seems obviously purposeful to me.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: A Pew poll from April showed that the post office
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: has a 91% approval rating, 91%. And you're right, Tommy,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that Democrats should be doing more of this. Liberal firebrand,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. was doing what you were talking about over
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the weekend, going to a post office, making videos about
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: how people's mails are getting delays. So this is something like,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and you know, there are reports that some Republicans, of course,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be named, or elected Republicans are
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: also concerned about this too, especially Republicans who represent rural areas.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Who is getting hurt by these post office delays when
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: they don't get their medications? Seniors, veterans, rural Americans, all
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: constituents of the Republican Party right now. And I did,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you know, Politico's playbook over the weekend had a roundup
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: of how this is breaking through in the local news,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the local news that still exists, as you point out,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: because there's not enough of it anymore. But it is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: like it is so important to sound the alarm because
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I think one of the most important things we can
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: get out of this is just awareness and education so
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: that and we'll talk about this so that people can
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: vote as early as possible to avoid this. House Democrats
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: are finally making moves. They're coming back from recess early
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: on Saturday to vote on a piece of legislation that
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that would prohibit the Postal Service from implementing any changes
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to operations or service that had already been in place
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of 2020. And then there's the hearing
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: with DeJoy on August 24th. Lovett, what can this vote
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and DeJoy's testimony actually accomplish? And how likely is it
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that Trump and Republicans will agree to fund the post office?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's good that they're
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: getting on their Canastoga wagons and having the horses slowly
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: take them back to the nation's capital. I think that
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that's terrific. Obviously, it's a harrowing journey. So I'm glad
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: that they're making it. It's good. Yeah, look, every once
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: in a while, Trump says something brazen, as he always does,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: and he's surprised to find out he shouldn't have. He's like,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: but I say the racist, demagogic, authoritarian part out loud
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: all the time. Why does this one bother you? And
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: he doesn't really understand it. But he's like had to
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: walk back a little bit of his his anti-mail rhetoric
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: because they want that to happen, but they don't want
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: to take credit for it. I believe Meadows and the
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: administration has signaled they'd be open to a bill just
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: about the post office. It seems like Republicans would be too.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: The thing about the mail is you don't have to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: pay attention to politics. It comes to your house or
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't come to your house. It affects everybody. It
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: affects people that don't pay attention. And when an issue
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: like this touches people that don't pay attention- It has
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: some more political power. But yeah, I feel that Democrats
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: need to get DeJoy to testify, pass a bill with
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: a bunch of money that has a bunch of restrictions.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So Trump can't hold up the money. DeJoy can't not
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: spend the money. They need to pass a bill that
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: tries to see around the corners to make sure that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: the money that Congress appropriates to the post office is
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: spent to make sure that services continue through November and
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: into next year and any delays, any cost-cutting measures, any
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: efforts to relocate mail sorting to central locations because it's
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: more cost-effective but takes longer. Any of those things that
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: DeJoy has been trying to implement should be paused in
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the law.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I feel pretty happy that he's going to testify. But Tommy,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: it made me think, I have a little bit of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: an impeachment feeling, impeachment hearing feeling, where it's like, at
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, we can get him to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: testify and I hope that it raises public awareness. But
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I think we're in the same spot we were. We're like,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Democrats have the House. We don't have the Senate. We
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: don't have the presidency. All we can do here is
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: really public pressure and public awareness.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Public pressure, public awareness. I would want to get him
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: on the record about why these mail delays are happening
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: and then tell a story about who is getting harmed.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: You can also talk about how this guy's an unqualified
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: donor who has major, major financial conflicts of interest because
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: he has a huge financial stake and a competitor to
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: the post office. So that's going to piss people off.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: But then I think I would be specifically focused on
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Republicans who are up for reelection in rural places. So
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: tell a story about someone in Montana because that is
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: a top target and we might be able to get
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Steve Daines to fold. Tell a story about a constituent
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: or a veteran in Maine because Susan Collins is up
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: and she's floated the idea that she'd be willing to
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: pass some sort of bill, right? So I'm glad they're
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: doing this. I also like that they're trying to counter
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: program the Republican convention to the extent that one can
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: do that. So look, I respect the hustle. Good for
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: them for doing this. Brian Boitler will be at least
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: a little bit happy. Some good oversight.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: It is good oversight. I do think and, you know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with Elias about this in the interview,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: but I think ultimately the plan for us has to
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: be figure out how to get around all of this
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: shit and request ballots early, vote early, drop off ballots
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: as opposed to sending them through the mail early. massive
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: public education campaign on the part of Democrats and anyone
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: who cares about the mail and democracy and voting. And
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: what I think we have to avoid is to let
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump win by making us think it's just not
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: worth it to vote or making people think it's not
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: worth it to vote because it's going to be rigged anyway,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: because that is the ultimate plan, right? Everyone's confused. He's
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: throwing all this bullshit at the wall and people say,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I should put my ballot in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the mail. I don't know if I should vote at all.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It's probably not worth it. It's all rigged, you know?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And so I do think we have to get people
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to make a plan to vote despite whatever they may
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: throw at us.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's worth remembering that Donald Trump delegitimizing
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the election so that he can remain in office and
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump delegitimizing the election so he can leave while
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: preserving his ego sound the same on Twitter.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the week ahead. Today is
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the very first all virtual Democratic National Convention.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: The event comes on the heels of Joe Biden's selection
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of Kamala Harris as his running mate, along with a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: number of polls that show the ticket beating Trump by
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: an average of eight points and that most voters approve
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of Biden putting Harris on the ticket. It's almost been
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a week since the big VP decision. Haven't had you
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: guys' reaction yet to the pick and how it's played
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: so far. Tommy, what'd you think?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: So look, the rollout was excellent. Kamala Harris's speech was excellent, right?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And when you unpack it, like the resume, when you
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: lay it all out is so impressive. Her personal story
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: as the daughter of immigrants, I think resonated with tons
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: of people, especially first generation Americans. And she delivered the
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: hell out of it. She's just an incredibly talented speaker.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: And the other thing she does that I noticed is
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: that Obama was very good at responding to Republican attacks
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: with a joke, with a smile, with humor. It just
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: takes the edge off the response. Harris is extremely good
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: at this. She has lines in that speech where she
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: was just gutting Donald Trump, but she delivers it with
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: a smile. It lands well. It's very impressive. It's something, frankly,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I'd like to see Biden do a little bit more,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: use a little bit more humor when he's dealing with
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: this stuff. Look, the knock on Harris's presidential campaign was,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: you know, that it didn't seem like it always had
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: a clear message or direction. And I think they would
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: obviously admit that like dropping out before Iowa was not
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: the goal. That was not what success looks like. But
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: navigating that huge, unruly Democratic primary is very different than
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: prosecuting the case against Trump. And she is an expert
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: at prosecuting. a case, and we saw it already. So
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I was energized by it. I heard from a lot
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of people who said, I am surprised at how excited
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I am by this pick. It's wild that Biden raised
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: $ 48 million in two days after the speech. There's already
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: some polling. 54% of Americans like the pick. 64% of
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Democrats are strongly approving of the pick. And then, you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: like stepping back, because I'm being very tactical here, like
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: this is a historic pick for women, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, Jamaicans.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: It's also, you know, we're a party where a lot
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: of our leadership is pretty old. And Harris at 55
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: represents generational change. And it's exciting. And so, like, I
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: guess the last thing is there's probably listeners who wish
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: someone else had got it or they say, you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I have a problem with Harris's record or policy positions.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: And that is OK. We are not here to tell
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: you to get over it or like hold your nose.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: I just think you need to remember that politicians are humans.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: They change, they evolve. So, you know, make Harris and
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: make Biden account for their records, but know that they
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: are not bound by them. You can advocate and push
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: them to change. So it's gonna be really interesting to
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: see what the campaign does, how they deploy her, right?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Like they're gonna do this joint interview on ABC. She
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: gives a major speech at the DNC. Then there's the
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: VP debate. Those are the big moments, but it will be,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: interesting to see how they use her in between because
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: there's no stumping.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Love it. Now that it's been almost a week since
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the rollout, how do you think it's gone and what's
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: your reaction been?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Look, I agree with everything that Tommy just said. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: think what was striking to me is I had come
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: to know that Kamala Harris in key moments shines. In
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: that debate with Joe Biden, she sort of crushes. In
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: hearings where she really needs to have a moment and
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: step up, she can make those moments really count and
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: really go far. And it was striking to me just
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: how much that energy, that capability was needed in this campaign.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: We have four people running for president and vice president.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: She is not just the best messenger in that group.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: She is the best messenger by a mile. And just
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: seeing Biden and Harris together sitting at those two desks
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: side by side, getting briefings, seeing her go up and
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: give a speech, it creates such a contrast with Trump
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and Pence. And she's just so effective in those set pieces,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in those made for TV moments. And I think that that,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: especially given that there aren't crowds, I mean, she gave
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: an announcement speech with no crowd and she did it really,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: really well. And so the fact that she is so
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: adept at that, so effective in those moments, I think
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: is why she is going to be really valuable in
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: the big moments, but also in between.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So love it. Trump quickly went from calling her nasty
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to embracing his birther roots and saying that he heard
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: she doesn't meet the requirements to run. He just heard that,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting because then his campaign walked
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: it back over the weekend in favor of the argument
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that Kamala is just too liberal. Like Jason Miller and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: some of the other ones, they said, case closed for
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: us on this. And Why do you think they don't
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: see the birtherism as a winner this time around?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Well, look, let's see. I mean, they always play footsie
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: with this stuff, right? They throw it out there, then
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: they get it out there into the ether, and then
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: they walk it back. They've played that game a few times.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know that they're walking it back means that
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: they're not getting the mileage out of it that they want.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: It's obviously absurd. It's ridiculous, obviously. I mean, she's born
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: as absurd.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lie completely.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It's a lie. It's racist. was a conspiracy theory that
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: everybody was in cahoots to pretend he was eligible. The
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris conspiracy is actually just a kind of crackpot
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: reading that nobody takes. There's no actual missing information. Everybody
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: has the same set of facts. It's the same set
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: of facts that apply to six or so other American presidents,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: including Donald Trump's favorite because somebody told him once in
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a meeting that they were the same, Andrew Jackson. But
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I do think it speaks to the fact that like, look,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: You know, John, congratulations. Donald Trump retweeted something that mentioned you.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I'm sure your mentions were just.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Flowing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It was just a highlight of my whole fucking life.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Fun people.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, look, they, you know, she's an
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Antifa general and also a corporate cop. And they're going
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: to just throw both of them at us for a
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Well, you can see it. We talked about this a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: couple episodes ago, I think. on the new ad strategy, right?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Which is to still call Joe Biden liberal, but they've
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: sort of sanded the edges off the exaggerations that he's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: like Antifa general. And now it's just like, he raises
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: taxes a lot and he's super liberal. And sort of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the more traditional Republican consultants around Trump right now, to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the extent that there are some, really do want to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: just be, they think they need to run this campaign
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and just say that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden is
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: too liberal. And so when I said last week on
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the pod that, Kamala Harris has, in fact, embraced progressive
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: policies in the Senate. She's for the Green New Deal.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: She signed on to Bernie's Medicare for All bill. Somehow,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: they all sent around my comments all week as some
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: big gotcha on Kamala Harris. It's like, I'm sure she
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: would admit that she is for those policies still. She's
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: proudly for them. They're popular.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: It's so annoying when... Republicans like play act these these
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: revelations and the media repeats them. It's like, oh, no,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: we said facts out loud as if that sort of changes.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: You could Google this. But like stepping back to the
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: birtherism thing for a minute, like, first of all, I
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: didn't know I needed another reason to not read Newsweek
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: because they wrote this big piece, this birther piece. But
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: right on the heels of their Jared Kushner puff piece
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: about the pandemic response. So, you know, I look forward
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: to never seeing it in print again, I guess.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: But like, I'm not convinced the Republicans have abandoned birtherism.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: similar to what Lovett said, because the thing to know
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: about birtherism is that it is not and has never
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: been about eligibility or the constitution. It was a way
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: to launder racist attacks about Obama through the media. It
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: allowed them to say Obama was other, he was foreign.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Fox News claimed he was educated in a madrasa and
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: that spilled out in so many different ways. Marco Rubio,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: his spokesman said Obama was intentionally trying to destroy America
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: and Rubio himself said Obama deliberately weakened America. So it
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: was just part of this otherness strategy. So I'm waiting
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: for a version of this to come back because Trump
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: always gets back to these fissures around race and now
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: around gender. I do hope that the press has come
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: a long way on this subject because in 2011 through 16,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: they were a disaster. Trump was repeatedly welcomed on mainstream
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: news shows to spread this lie. He was on the
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: Today Show, The View, ABC News, CNN. It was like
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: a core part of his message saying, They would cursorily
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: fact check, but it really just spreaded this birther bullshit
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: everywhere until Trump finally walked it back in the summer
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: of 2016, and we were all supposed to act grateful
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: for it. So, you know, look, hopefully it'll be ineffective.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Hopefully the press will shut it down. I expect it
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: to come back.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true and unfortunate. All right, let's talk
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: about what to expect from the convention itself. There will
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: be no big speeches and stages and crowds in Milwaukee. Instead...
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post reports that it will involve, quote, a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: behind-the-scenes crew of about 400 with operations centers in New York, Milwaukee,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and Wilmington, Delaware, with, quote, plans to broadcast
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to the nation hundreds of live video feeds from living rooms,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: national monuments, and stages around the country. Homebound delegates will
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: be dialed into quick feeds of the live speeches so
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: their real-time actions can be broadcast to the country as
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: if they were in the same room as the speakers.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Here's the only thing, Chris, before we get to the analysis.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: They need to make... a graphic of Joe Biden holding
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a electric wire in his mouth like a dog that says,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: we'll be right back, technical difficulties, just in case. They
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: just need something to throw up in case one of these.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Things doesn't work. I'm scared for them too.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: So they said in that story, love it, that like
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: we have, they're like, you know, Not everything. In fact,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: most things in the convention, most pieces of the convention
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: haven't been prerecorded and we haven't tested all this. So
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: like a lot of this is live and a lot
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of this, we're just going to like see how it goes. Exciting.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Any tech person, any tech person, anyone involved in this logistics,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: the advanced people, anyone involved in planning this, we're thinking
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: of you. We know how big this job is. Oh,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: my God, we're hoping for you. We will not do
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: your best. Do your best, junior people involved in putting
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: this on. We're on your side.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: On your side.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So stepping back from that, I mean, the three of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: us have now been through four conventions, right? Four, eight, 12, 16.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: We've each been to a couple in person. What do
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: parties typically hope to get out of a convention week?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: And what are some of the ways this year might
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: be different?
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, a big room filled
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: with people celebrating the anointing of a nominee. Look, it's
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: been now a long time since a nomination was truly
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: in doubt, right? It's been a long time since we
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: had a real floor fight. I mean, you know, we
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: had that moment in 2008 where Hillary Clinton called off
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the stop your counting, stop your counting. It's Barack Obama's
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and everybody was very excited. And, you know, you know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Linda Rothschild finally gave up her foolhardy effort.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: That's a great deep cut.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: But so it's really become kind of an opportunity to
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: sort of craft a story about the race and building
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: up to the. nomination of the vice president and the
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: nomination of the president on the ticket. And, you know,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I would say it has been a place where you've
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: seen like real rising stars kind of emerge as the
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: leaders of the party, like Barack Obama in 2008. It's
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: also been places where people really shit the bed. So
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: it's a mix. But, you know, I do think the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: one big moment that has been deprived of Joe Biden
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: is this is an opportunity to be on the same
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: stage as a president, to have a big crowd in
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a big arena talking about big things before the has
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: been taken away. And I think that that matters more
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: for a challenger than it does for the incumbent because
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has all the trappings of the White House.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: But other than that, I think it's about figuring out
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: how to tell that story in a way that's compelling
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: without the trappings of a big convention floor.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Tommy, everyone's always looking for a bounce, the bounce out
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of the convention. What makes this year maybe a little
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: trickier for the bounce?
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, like these are such anachronistic events that maybe
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: we won't have conventions in the future. But I mean, look,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: you do two things, right? You want to fill in
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: everything you can about the biography of your nominee and
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: your vice president in the gauziest, most inspiring way possible.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: So there will be a beautifully produced video about Joe
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Biden's life, his loss, his time in the Senate, his
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: time as VP, about Dr. Biden, their family. There'll be
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: similar videos about Kamala Harris. And then core parts of
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: that story and that bio and those values will be
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: repeated in every major speech. So by the end of it,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: you can't help but understand who Joe Biden is, right?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Obama's 2004 convention speech, We remember it as this coming
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: up party about him. We remember red states and blue states.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: But in the middle of that speech, there was a tight,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: really compelling argument for John Kerry and John Edwards and
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: what they would do for the country. In 2012, the
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: DNC played this like seven minute, like mini biopic about
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Obama's first term that was about the financial crisis, the
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: bin Laden operation. It was narrated by Biden, Michelle Obama,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: and Bill Clinton to contextualize and tell that story. Associated
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: with that story is just going to be and a
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: stained salt on Donald Trump and his record, which is
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: why tonight's agenda is three crises, pandemic, economic downturn, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: racial justice. And you'll hear that message from politicians, but
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: then also these stories from real people who have been
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: impacted by the policies. Like I think those could even
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: be more impressive than the political, the politician speeches. So
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: this is weird. It's all digital. It's all remote. I
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: suspect we'll see all kinds of calls to action for
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: like digital organizing events or fundraising. But Stephanie Cutter was
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: quoted saying, this year's convention is 16 hours shorter than
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: a typical convention. So in some ways, maybe that will
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: make all the cable booking and spin and conversations around
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: the convention even more important.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll see. You're welcome, America.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no kidding.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: 16 hours shorter. So, no, I mean, campaigns spend hundreds
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: of millions of dollars on advertising.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Billions.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: These conventions are free infomercials. They... From 9 to 11
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: at night, usually they're longer than that. The cable networks
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: will probably take them. The networks, the broadcast networks will
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: only take them from 10 to 11 each night. So
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: you get one hour. So the only people that... So
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the question about these conventions is like, who are they for, right?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: They are not for us. Like if you are voting
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden, if you are voting for Donald Trump already,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: this convention is not really for you. We're going to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: watch it. We're hopefully going to be entertained by it.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about it a lot. To
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the extent, Tommy, that you just mentioned, they can be
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: an organizing tool. They are, you know, they are for
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: people who are already made up their minds because hopefully...
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: You know, even if you're voting for Joe Biden, if
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: there's a call to organize or get friends to register
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to vote at these conventions, you go do that. So
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I fully believe they should be an organizing tool. But
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: really what I think both parties are hoping for is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that in the 10 o'clock hour, when people tune in
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: on broadcast television who are not like political news junkies,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: like the people who watch cable news, there's basically two
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: types of voters. There's swing voters who haven't decided who
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: they're voting for yet, Trump or Biden. And then there's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: people who haven't decided if they're going to vote at all,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: who tend to be younger, who tend to be people
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: of color, who tend to be more cynical about the process.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And I think from the Democrats' perspective, we both need
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to reach voters who are swing voters who are going
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: between Biden and Trump. And we especially need to reach
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: voters who may not vote at all because they are
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: tired of the system and very cynical. And so those,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I think, are the two audiences that to have in
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: mind as we see all this, because a lot of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: it is not for partisans.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: For me, that's how I'm going to watch each of
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: these conventions. I think it's going to be different. I
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: think for the Democratic convention, it's something, John, we talked
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: about in our YouTube video, that Joe Biden has to
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: both reassure people who are looking for normalcy and reach
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: people for whom normal was a crisis for a very
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: long time. And I think the big challenge for this
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: convention is how you kind of tell that story. And
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: then on the Republican side, You know, Pence gave a speech,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I think like over the weekend or the last couple
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: of days. And he, apropos of nothing, he's like, hey,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: and by the way, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, they're
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: going to take away your red meat. They're coming to
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: your house and they're going to take your burgers out
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: of your house.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: That was crazy.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And it is crazy. You know, when Sean Hannity asked Trump, like,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: what's your second term agenda? And he just like didn't
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: have an answer. You know, it used to be that
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: on the Republican side, the kind of.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: The right wing populism was the icing on a kind
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: of like corporate country club Republican cake. Right. Like Paul
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Ryan's agenda, never going to be popular. So they do
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: all this other all this other stuff, you know, from
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Reagan to Bush to Trump. They're all doing it to
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: kind of like stir up their base and stir up
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: the grievances to get out the vote so they can
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: kind of push through the program, the cake. And with
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Trump right now and Pence, like it's just the icing.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: It's just the fear mongering. It's just the grievance. There's
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: no actual program. And so I think that like what
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be watching is are they going to
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: have a program? Are they going to have a positive
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: case for a second term?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: So tonight's primetime lineup is Monday. Former Republican Governor John Kasich,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Senator Bernie Sanders and former First Lady Michelle Obama. What
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a crew. What a crew. I will say that in
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the 10 to 11 hour, I think it's only Bernie
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and Michelle, but Kasich somewhere in the prime time. Tommy,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: what do you think was the strategy behind that lineup?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And do you think the big tent is too big there?
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, am I a big Kasich fan? No.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: He's sort of well known.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: You've said that for years.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: He's like kind of well known for being an asshole.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: And his politics are obviously way more conservative than mine.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: But Look, he did a pretty good job in 2016
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: of rebranding himself as this sort of softer alternative to Trump.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people came away from
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: that cycle liking him. And I think the goal this
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: year is not to say Kasich is a Democrat. It's
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: to say this is a year unlike any other. Joe
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Biden's candidacy is a place you can go if you're
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: a Democratic socialist, a moderate or a Republican who just
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: can't stomach Trump for a variety of reasons. And like
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: if we can reach and turn out all of those people.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: That is a very effective message. That's a lot of
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: the country. And so, you know, are Kasich and other
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: former GOP electeds the best way to sell it?
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Like, they'll get attention because they have name ID, they
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: have profiles. And any time someone from the other party
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: speaks at a convention and makes news, we all recall
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: in 2004 when a Georgia Democrat named Zell Miller made
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: a fool out of himself at the convention, in part
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: because he challenged Chris Matthews to a duel, which was weird.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: But before that, you know, he gave this speech just
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: destroying John Kerry and it was treated as big news.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: And so people, I think, you know, Stephanie Cutter and
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: the folks running this convention are hoping to get the
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: same treatment. I think longer term, you know, the videos
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: you see coming from Republican voters against Trump are more effective.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Like average people voted for Trump, maybe, uh, largely voted
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Republican in their lives explaining why this time they just can't.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: And I think those messengers are really powerful. And I
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: think you'll see those types of people in, um, tape
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: pieces and speeches from just sort of average citizens, and
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: that might be more effective. But, you know, the big
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: names are getting the attention right now. Love it.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: There's been some consternation that AOC only has a minute
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: to speak on Tuesday night, whereas Kasich, I guess, is
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: going to get five tonight. Most of the speeches are
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: very short. I think some of the keynotes are like
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: 10 to 15, or the final primetime ones. What do
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: you think about this whole debate?
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think AOC should have had more time. I
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: think it's less important to make the comparison and more
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to attack this question as to whether someone like John
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Kasich should speak at the convention. I think one point
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that the activists on the left have made for a
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: long time is Democrats have been too focused on symbols
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: and not enough on actual substance, too much on performance
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and not enough about the undergirding policies. In this case,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: John Kasich speaking at the Democratic Convention is a symbol.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: A symbol of what? Well, I think it's, for the
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: most part, a symbol about how uniquely dangerous Trump is.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: If it was also a symbol that Joe Biden is
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: moderating his policy views, shifting toward the center to get
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: at the kind of people that agree with John Kasich,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: I would have a bigger problem with that. But I
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: think what we are seeing is that sort of two
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: things can be true. One is that progressives and the
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: left have successfully pulled the Democratic Party, and as a result,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: their consensus pick, Joe Biden, to the left. His policies
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: have shifted to the left. He has embraced the Green
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: New Deal. He has embraced a host of Democratic reforms,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: economic policies that bring him to the left of Hillary
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Clinton in 2016, and certainly to the left of Barack
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Obama in 2008 and 2012. At the same time, they're
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: trying to build a case that Trump is a unique danger.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: And again, what I said before, I think applies, right?
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: He is trying to tell a story about going back
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: to normal while also telling a story about how normal
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: was horrible for a lot of people. I think you
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: can do that and have John Kasich and Bernie Sanders
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: speak on the same night. So I don't have a
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: problem with it.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, if it were up to me
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I love hearing AOC speak. I take AOC every night
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: of the convention, right? She's a fantastic speaker. I think
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: she's a rising star in the party. Like, yeah, again,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: this is not for me, right? But like, and I also,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: by the way, think that AOC could do more in
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: a minute than most of the speakers this week will
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: be able to do in 20 minutes. I just, that's,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you know, that's who she is. As for John Kasich, right?
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: John Kasich, as many people have pointed out, is anti-choice, right?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And he has a whole bunch of other pretty conservative
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: people Republican positions, but especially anti-choice. We're not being asked
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to vote for John Kasich or for John Kasich to
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: implement any of his policies. In fact, the opposite is true.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: John Kasich is saying, I am anti-choice, but I am
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: going to, in this election, vote for a ticket that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: is pro-choice, that is probably going to install Supreme Court
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: judges that protect the rights to choose and pass laws
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that protect the right to choose for the next four
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: years and possibly justices for a generation. And I'm going
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to do that even though I don't agree with it
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: because Donald Trump is so fucking dangerous. So all you
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: other Republicans who might feel strongly about certain positions like
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: choice and stuff like that, I'm telling you, put that
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: aside because our democracy is in danger because Donald Trump
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: is president right now. So let's vote for Joe Biden.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: And Will that be effective? Who the fuck knows? Is
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: it worth a try? Yeah, probably. It probably is. Because again,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: we need two types of voters. We need people who
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: voted for Trump and are now going to vote for
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, who voted Republican in the past, are now
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: going to vote Democrat. And we need people who feel
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that the system isn't working for them and they might
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: not even vote. And those are the people that Bernie
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Sanders and AOC can sometimes reach. And if we didn't
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: have Bernie Sanders in AOC, then shame on us because
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: we would reach those people. And if we don't have
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the John Kasichs of the world trying to reach the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: other swing voters, then shame on us there, too. You
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: got to do both.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I just think on the AOC thing, like when people
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: first started talking about her when she won the primary,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: I thought this must be a little bit overhyped just
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: because it was so effusive, the praise. And then I
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: saw her speak at this Bernie rally in Iowa and
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: I got it right. And it was because she told
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: a story about needing to get a blood test and
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: she couldn't afford it. And then she had to go
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: to a free clinic and wait hours and hours to
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: get the test that way. This happened when she was
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: running for Congress, right? If you watch the Netflix documentary
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: about her campaign to bring down the House, you see
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: her scooping ice when she's working at a bar. Like,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: I've had that job. You've had that job. Billions of
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: people have had that job. So you see her and
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: you think, OK, she gets my value. She gets working people.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: They need to make sure that they are programming enough
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: speakers that are talking about the working class, that are talking,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: forging that connection with voters, right? And so what's specific
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: to AOC, like on top of that really, truly authentic connection,
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: she's just an unbelievably talented speaker, right? Ted Yoho learned
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: that the hard way. So it doesn't make a lot
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: of sense to give her one minute. I don't think
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: we need to talk about it like Twitter has in
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: terms of the zero sum choice between AOC and Kasich,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: because I could make an argument for both of them.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: And I could make an argument for a lot of
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: kind of milquetoast, boring Democrats not speaking. And then you
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: give those minutes back to AOC. But these tend to
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: be political decisions that go through lots of annoying screens
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: that probably don't lead to the best product always. But
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: check all the right boxes.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: To that point, Tommy, like the speakers I'm looking forward
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to are they announced at the keynote. addresses, instead of
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: one person, it's going to be 17 people, it's gonna
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: be Stacey Abrams and 16 sort of up and coming Democrats,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: very young, progressive, diverse, democratic electeds, some people who just
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: ran for office the first time a couple years ago.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And I do think you're absolutely right that showcasing Democrats
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: who can say, I was just like you, like last year,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I was I was I a working class person. I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: had never thought about politics before. I was disenchanted with
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: politics myself and I decided to run for the first
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: time because I was disenchanted with politics and do something
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: about it. That's AOC's story. That's like Jamal Bowman's story, right?
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Like showcasing these politicians, I think is actually very useful,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: more useful than a lot of sort of the older
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: politicians that have been around for a long time.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Can I ask you guys, how do you make a
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: 17 person keynote? How does that work?
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I do not know how this is going to,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I do not know.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, you put up, you know, four soprano,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: four alto, four baritone, five bass, maybe, I don't know, bass, bass, bass.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: My other question for you guys is what does an
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: applause line look like at an all remote, all zoom
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: convention where there's no one, like, do you have your
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: family applauded for you? Do you hopefully skip them? There's
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: going to be some clunkers.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Look, we all know a lot of the speech writers
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: who are working on these speeches and, um, Many of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: them are friends. Many of them are fucking fantastic. The
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: best there is. So I have faith that they will
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: not be writing out. Like, I don't think you write
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: out applause lines. I think you write speeches without applause
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: lines in if unless I mean, reading that Washington Post
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: story was kind of confusing because they said that there
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: would be real time reaction from some people who are getting.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: The speeches beamed live into their homes. So maybe you'll
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: be able to hear some applause. But if I was
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the writer or the speaker working on the speech, I
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: would not be counting on any applause. So I would
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: be writing a speech that is very conversational, almost like
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you're doing a direct-to-camera kind of thing and not that
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: you're trying to go for the typical applause, which won't
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: give it the power of a typical convention speech at all,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: but I think is better than landing some fucking clunker
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: that someone thought was a good applause line and then
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: no one does anything.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been thinking about this too. I think not
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: all applause lines are created equal. And there are kind
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: of jokey speech applause lines that are either snarky or
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: cutesy that will not work, like will just crumble, just terrible.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: But I still think that there is power in like
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: kind of the fury of this moment. And if there
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: is one advantage to the fact that there are no
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: audiences right now is it lends like a real seriousness
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: to this moment. It really highlights how sad and broken
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: a time it is. And that creates an opportunity, I think,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: for like, in a speech, they would get applause. They're
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: not applause lines. They are people speaking from places of emotional,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: personal fury. And I think if they can bring that home,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: if they can do that, be really personal in their
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: sort of righteous anger and sadness, like they would get applause.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: If there were applause, there isn't, but it'll still work.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: That's maybe too specific.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: No, but I think about Ann Richards, right? Talking about
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: how poor George Bush, he was born with a silver
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: foot in his mouth. Imagine delivering that to Zoom in
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: your living room. It's one of the most famous DNC
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: quotes of all time.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: How does it work?
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Sarah Palin, hockey mom, lipstick, dead silence.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Or even Obama's 2004 convention speech. The first time he
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: practiced it, it was bad because he didn't figure out
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: how to ride the applause and keep it going in
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: the right moments. And then it was exceptional because you
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: could feel the momentum swelling underneath it. even if he
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: couldn't even hear himself delivering it, right? What does that
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: speech become this year?
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Well, but I was just going to say, Tommy, that
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: speech to me is an example of what Lovett was
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: talking about, which is the difference between sort of the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: classic applause line that you write that can be cheap
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: and funny versus an applause line that you get because
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you built to it. And what was so brave about
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: his writing of the beginning of that speech is that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: you didn't get applause. You didn't land in a place
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: that you got applause until he got through the whole bio,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: his whole bio at the beginning of that speech. And
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: then it finally lands on this big applause line, which
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: now seems normal at the time. But at the time,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that wasn't normal at all. You immediately start a convention speech,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: like big applause, like I'm John Kerry reporting for duty, right?
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: You get applause line, applause line, applause line. Barack Obama
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: just told this story about his life and then he
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: lands there. So just a harder thing to do.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: And it's just like the last point, that to me,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: It speaks to like, okay, we're talking about the process.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: There's no audience, two hours. It's going to be case.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: It's going to be AOC. Like anybody involved in this,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: everybody involved in this does also need to step back
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: and just sort of appreciate the scale of the moment.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Just like take a moment and remember how serious this
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: crisis is, how broken our society is right now, how
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: much pain there is out there. And if that motivates
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: what people say, I think the logistics, all of that
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: melt away.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Well, We will be on group thread making fun of
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: the Chewbacca lines.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I may have written some.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Not how everybody envisioned covering this convention a year ago, but,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: you know, I guess there's snacks in my house. It's
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: easy to get to the bathroom.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I saw our Vote Save America team sent out that
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: email this morning to get everyone ready for the convention,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and they wrote in the email, when we started planning
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the convention, one of the notes taken was, Party bus Milwaukee?
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: That was our initial plan. Listen, a couple hours from now,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I should be getting my classic late night in-room Caesar salad.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: That's like all I, you know, you land, you order
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: the Caesar. It doesn't matter where you are, taken.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't get to go to the convention in 2008
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: because someone who I won't name, name rhymes with Rand Pfeiffer,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: wouldn't let me go because they want some rapid response
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: team at the office. But in 2004, I got to
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: go and I was a last minute addition. Like Gibbs
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: was like, hey, you want to go? And I figured
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: it all out. I ended up sitting next to this guy.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: who was so friendly, so engaging, was asking me about
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: myself the entire time, why I was going there. And
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: at the very end, after blabbing at this dude for
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: two hours from Chicago to Boston, I was like, I'm sorry,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: why are you going to the convention? He's like, oh,
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: my dad is speaking. It was Hunter Biden. He was
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: just like, couldn't have been nicer. Just listened to me
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: bullshit the whole time. This overexcited 23-year-old, whatever. Super nice guy.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: That's funny. I was at 2004 also, Tommy, but I
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: was on a documentary crew carrying a boom mic behind
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Amy Goodman. And so I, who does Democracy Now, but
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: I was not working for Democracy Now, I was doing
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: a documentary about Democracy Now, but it ended up with
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: me chasing Madeleine Albright with a boom mic, trying to
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: get her on the record for war crimes. I don't
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: know if I got her.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I almost couldn't get in to see, I think it
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: was Edwards or Kerry's speech, because they start like closing
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: off all the doors. So I'm with a friend of mine.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: We're like sprinting around, like trying to find an entrance
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: that's still open. And I see a bunch of people
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: going through this one, you know, area to get to
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: the lodge, to get down to the floor, whatever the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: hell it was. And I finally run up to it
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: and they're like, are you with them? And I'm like, yes,
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: I'm with them. And I need him and her. And
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, right now we get up and we realize
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: somehow we just talked our way into being with the
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: road crew for the black eyed peas. And then we
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: just escaped from there and went to the floor and watched.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Very fun.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Well, Tonight, we'll all be on our couches.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Do you remember? I'm not done. Do you remember trading
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: badges to get further and further in?
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. You get the yellow badge to the blue badge
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: to the purple badge. I finally got the right badge
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: so that I could see Obama in 04.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: All right, guys.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Well, pandemic.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Back to first principles.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Right. The moment.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: The moment. Pandemic.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: The moment. Well, I'm looking forward to it. It should
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: be interesting to see how they're going to pull this
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: one off. When we come back, I will be talking
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: to Democratic election attorney Mark Elias. I am now joined
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: by attorney Mark Elias, the leader of the group Democracy Docket. Mark,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Between Trump in the post office and Republican officials all
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: over the country, There's a lot of election shenanigans going on,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: to put it mildly, sometimes too many to keep track of.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: What are you most worried about, which is how I
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: know what we should be most worried about?
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: So I'm most worried that we are going to have
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: a situation in the fall where people are not going
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: to be able to vote easily. So I'm worried about
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: poll consolidation and poll closing that will lead to long
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: lines and confusions. And that's not something people are talking
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: a lot about, but I think we're gonna hear more
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: about that. Remember in the primaries, we saw long lines
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: everywhere as we saw COVID preventing polls from being open.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: And then I'm worried about the postal service and the
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: problems that we're seeing in the delays in absentee ballot
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: applications going out, in absentee ballots typically going out and
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: absentee ballots coming back.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: So let's start with the poll closings first then. Um,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: what is sort of your strategy, legal strategy, um, in
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: regards to handling that?
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So, you know, a lot of attention has been
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: focused on the litigation that I and the Democracy Docket
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: are sponsoring around, um, around vote by mail. And we
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: have litigation in 17 states trying to make sure that
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: there's adequate, uh, in, uh, adequate vote by mail. But
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: at the same time that's been going on, we're also litigating, uh,
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: around in-person, uh, voting opportunities as well. We're suing Georgia
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: over long lines to prevent that from happening again. We're
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: suing North Carolina to ensure that there is more adequate
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: in-person voting. So we've been attentive to this, but I
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: expect that the Republican shenanigans, as you say, will creep up,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: as we've seen them even when the sun is shining
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: and skies are blue and everyone's healthy in past years.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: So your legal strategy is focused on what you've called
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: the four pillars to safeguard vote by mail. What are
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: those four pillars?
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: So the four pillars are, number one, that the state
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: should pay postage so that voters don't have to. It
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: turns out that requiring voters to pay postage has a
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: really negative impact on return rates, particularly among young voters
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: and voters of color. Number two is ensuring that all
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: ballots that are postmarked by Election Day count, even if
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: they're received a few days after. You know, one of
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: the ways to combat a slow post office is to
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: simply abide by the same rule that most people experience
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: in their daily lives, which is if something is due
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: on election day, as long as it's postmarked by election day,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: it counts. And even if it comes in a day
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: or two later, it still gets counted. And a number
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: of the states require ballots to be received by election day.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: And that really disenfranchises lots of voters. And it allows
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: for the kinds of of politicization of the postal service
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: that we see the Trump administration involved in. The third
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: is to make sure that signature matching laws. These are
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: the laws that when absentee ballots come in, they compare
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: the signature on the envelope with the signature on file,
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: making sure that those signature matching laws are applied in
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: a uniform and fair manner so that we don't have
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: a circumstance in which black and brown voters and young
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: voters face higher rates of rejections than older voters and
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: white voters. and also that anyone whose ballot is rejected
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: has an opportunity to be notified and contested and say, hey,
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: that was my signature, or to cure it and prove
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: that it was their signature. And then the last one
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: is to allow third party groups, community organizations to collect
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: and deliver voted sealed ballots. We know that in many
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: parts of the country, for example, on Native American reservations,
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: there is not regular mail service. So the ability of
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: groups to collect voted sealed ballots and drive them to
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: the local post office or drive them to the county
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: election office is critically important.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: So are you currently in legal battles to sort of
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: make sure that all four of those pillars are upheld?
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Can you like sue to make sure that states pay
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: for postage for Or do these have to be sort
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: of legislative strategies as well?
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: No, we believe that there is a constitutional right to
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: each of those four, which is why we identified them.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: And it's why we are right now suing in, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: we've sued in 17 states for four pillars cases. There's
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: actually a section on the Democracy Docket website, if you
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: want to see it, that's entitled Four Pillars Litigation, and
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: they can see what the four pillars are. They can
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: also look at their own state and see in their
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: state how many of the pillars their state meets But
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: we are litigating in all of the battleground states right
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: now to ensure that all four pillars are met.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about some of the recent wins you've
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: had lately?
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: So we've had a number of important wins. So just
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: on Thursday of last week, Pennsylvania agreed, litigated against us
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: on the election day cutoff, moving from a received by
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: to a postmarked by deadline. On Thursday, I was thrilled
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: to see that the state reversed course and has now
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: agreed with us on the postmark buy. This follows Pennsylvania
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: a few weeks earlier agreeing to do prepaid postage. So
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: that's victory for voters in Pennsylvania. In Minnesota, we were
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: able to sue successfully to allow third-party ballot collection to
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: strike down their state's witness requirement for November, which is
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: another barrier that voters face for absentee voting. They also,
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: as part of that lawsuit, we achieved a postmarked by
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: rather than a received by deadline. So that was a
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: win for voters in Minnesota. We won a case in
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: Montana on ballot collection because it's very, very important in
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: a rural state like Montana. You know, South Carolina, we
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: sued and they've agreed to prepaid postage. So, you know,
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: it's mix and match throughout the battleground states, but we've
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: been doing okay.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Do you have any lawsuits that are directly related to
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: some of the steps the post office has taken to
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: disrupt service, slow down service?
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: So we don't have any lawsuits against the postal service
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: or the Trump administration on the postal service. And, you know,
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: there will undoubtedly be others who bring those kinds of lawsuits.
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: I stick to the voting rights arena. And what I'd
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: say is that for my part, and it doesn't mean
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: it's the only part, but for my part, you know,
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: we are we are bringing cases that that are going
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: to help ameliorate that. For example, if you had a
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: rule that said that a ballot postmarked by election day
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: is gonna count, then the fact that the postal service
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: is delivering mail slower really doesn't affect whether that vote counts, right?
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: It may delay the results, but it's not gonna disenfranchise
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: the voter. If you prioritize allowing, requiring states to do
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: prepaid postage, you actually get people to vote their ballots
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: earlier because they don't sit on their ballots while they
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: go figure out where to get postage. And obviously allowing
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: third-party ballot collection is a way that voters can get
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: their ballots in without having to go through the mail necessarily.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: What can people do to make sure that they can
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: cast their ballots safely without having to rely on the U.S.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Postal Service?
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: So I recently posted an article on Democracy Docket that
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: listed four things that people can do if they want
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: to vote without the Postal Service. And let me first
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: say that there is some good information about this going around,
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: and there is some bad information about this going The
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: bad information is the information that suggests there is a
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: one size fits all solution. Different states are gonna have
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: different laws that are gonna allow some of these or
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: others of these. So for example, as you know, John,
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: from your background and our work together, early in person voting, right?
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: So like everyone who is in a state that has
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: early in person, no lines, lots of days, Take advantage
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: of it.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: And that's like 41 states at this point, right? Early
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: in-person voting.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: So like early in-person voting is like a super convenient
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: way to vote that doesn't require the postal service. The
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: second is many states have drop boxes, you know, where
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: the counties put out these steel boxes that allow people
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: to put their ballot in. And those don't go through
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: the postal service. They get directly picked up by the state.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: As I mentioned, in some states there are community organizations
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: that will come pick up your ballot and hand deliver it,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: that will do ballot collection. And that's a solution around this.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: And in some states you can go directly to the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: county or the polling site and hand in your absentee ballot. Again,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: not every state has all four of those. Some states
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: have one, some states have three. It's important to check
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: your state. If you look at the article we posted,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: it actually has links for each of those for you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: to confirm for your state what's allowed.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: What's the competitive swing state that you're most worried about
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: in terms of not having enough of those options for voters?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: So it depends on how you define it. I would
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: point you to two. North Carolina is probably the state
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: that I am most concerned about. because it has fairly
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: restrictive vote by mail rules. And as you know, there
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: is a very, very high reliance on early in-person voting,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: particularly among African-Americans. So if you asked, where do I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: worry about the rules? I worry about North Carolina because
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: we need to make sure that people are not being
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: disenfranchised in the vote by mail process and that there
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: is adequate in-person voting, which is part of why we
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: are suing for more in-person early voting And we are
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: also suing on the four pillars. If you look at
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan frame, I'd say that Michigan is
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: probably where I'm focused most of my attention. Pennsylvania has
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: made some strides on things as a result of our lawsuit.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: Wisconsin is being heavily litigated. But the other thing about
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Pennsylvania is that the Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: ban drop boxes, which is like, actually, if you think
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: about it for a second, it's kind of incredible. Like,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: who would be against drop boxes? Well, I tell you,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: the Trump campaign.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask you next. I mean,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Trump this morning, as you saw, I'm sure, tweeted about
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: ballot boxes, about drop boxes. How do we ensure that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: there are more ballot drop boxes? Is this a state
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: by state legal fight?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: So it's, you know, again, on the things that you
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: didn't have on your Trump crazy bingo card at the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: beginning of the year, you know, attacking the postal service
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: would have been one, but certainly going hard negative on
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: drop boxes would not have been something that you would
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: have singled out as something the president of the United
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: States would, would engage in.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Um, Mark, you've won so many of these lawsuits already.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I think people, not enough people know how hard you
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: guys work and how successful you are. What can people
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: do to support your legal work and everything else you're
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: doing to fight voter suppression in the upcoming election?
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so a few things. First of all, if you
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: go to our website, democracydocket.com, you can sign up and
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: be kept informed on what we're doing. There are links
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: to donate to 501c4, the Democracy Docket Action Fund that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: supports some of our litigation. Um, but, uh, but beyond,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: and hopefully you can get some really good information as well, uh, by,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: by being there, but beyond that, you know, particularly on
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: the postal service, as you know, John, the postal service
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: is quite popular throughout this country. It's popular in red
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: States and blue States popular in red districts and blue districts.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: In fact, it may be more popular in the redder
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: areas and the bluer areas. So this is one of
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: those places where really calling your member of Congress, um,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: calling your Senator may make a real difference. You know,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: sometimes we're, sometimes we're, um, We're jaded about that because
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: you figure, okay, well, you're not going to move a
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Republican to oppose the Trump administration. Boy, the Postal Service
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: is more popular than Donald Trump. The Postal Service is
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: a lifeline for veterans getting medicine. And so I'd urge
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: people to call their member of Congress and make sure
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: that they stand up for the Postal Service.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Mark Elias with Democracy Docket. Thank you for joining us
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: and keep up the good fight out there.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, John.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Mark for joining us today, and we'll see
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: you tonight on Group Thread. We'll see you Thursday for
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: another pod, Friday for another pod, Thursday night for our pre-show.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be seeing you a lot this week, guys. True.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: every week.