Latest / Pod Save America / “Get it together.”

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“Get it together.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: But first... We'll talk about the results of the Iowa caucus,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: which we almost completely have three days later. We'll also
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: talk about where the race goes from here, the end
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of Trump's impeachment trial, which he is currently celebrating on
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: television as we are recording this. And we'll also talk
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: about the State of the Union that he delivered on Tuesday.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Few housekeeping notes on this week's Pod Save the World.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben talked about what happens in the UK
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: now that Brexit is real, the expansion of Trump's Muslim ban,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and why Jared Kushner still sucks, even if Bibi Netanyahu's
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: mad at him right now over settlements. Also, the pre-New
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Hampshire primary debate is Friday night, which is the night
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that you really want to have a debate because people
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: really love to stay home and watch. As always, we'll
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: be doing our group thread. with live commentary from Cricket HQ.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You can find us at cricket.com slash group thread or
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: on the Cricket Media YouTube channel starting at 8 p.m.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific. Dan, I also believe you
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: have something to say about your book.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I do. First, I want to just thank everyone. Last week,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I put out a pretty plaintive appeal for people to
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: buy the book because I feel really passionate about it
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and people very generously did. And so I'm just very
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: grateful for how nice and supportive our fans are. And
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I hope people continue to do so because we have
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: less than two weeks to go. We also have an
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: important announcement, which is my first book event is on
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: February 19th in New York City at the 92nd Street Y.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: And we finally have a moderator and we have the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: best possible moderator that anyone could ask for. Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: We'll be in conversation together. So that will be a
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: lot of fun. And if you are in New York City,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: come check us out on February 19th at the 92nd
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Street Y. And you can get information on how to
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: get tickets at untrummingamerica.com. We are making progress on the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: bet with the publisher. We've got work to do. We've
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: got a ways to go to catch up to Donald
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Trump Jr., so we'll leave you all with that parting thought.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about Iowa one last time, maybe ever,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: where there was one more twist as the results kept
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: coming in on Wednesday night. With about 97% of precincts reporting,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg has 26.2% of state delegate equivalents. And Bernie
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Sanders has 26.1%. Elizabeth Warren has 18.2%. Joe Biden's at 15.8%.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And Amy Klobuchar is at 12.2%. So Bernie leads in
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the actual vote total in both the first alignment and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: final alignment. And the New York Times projects he'll most
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: likely remain the leader in votes when the rest of
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the precincts come in. But after a bunch of really
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: good results for Bernie from the satellite caucuses that came
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: in last night, The New York Times now projects that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: based on the remaining precincts, Bernie is also a slight
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: favorite to eke out a win among state delegate equivalents
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: as well. In terms of pledged delegates to the convention,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: as we always say, this is a race for delegates.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: The Times estimates that Bernie could end up with 13.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Pete could also end up with 13. Warren would get eight.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Biden would get six. And Klobuchar would get one. So
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we're waiting for results from one remaining satellite caucus for
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: people who don't know. These are caucuses that were held
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in non-traditional locations like overseas or in a nursing home.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: They were developed this year in order to increase accessibility
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: for people because caucuses aren't always accessible to everyone. The
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Sanders campaign did a lot of really good work organizing
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: these satellite caucuses. And the one that's still out there
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: is likely to be really good for Bernie. And then
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the other regular precincts out there are still likely to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be good for Pete. But Anyway, the Times right now
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: at least thinks that Bernie might end up with the edge.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Either way, Dan, doesn't it seem like it was definitely
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: too early for Pete to declare victory on Monday night?
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, he took a gamble, and that gamble may
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: turn out to be wrong. I'm hesitant. I trust Nate
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Cohn as much as I trust any other data expert, Nate,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: of which we have multiple choices. But yes, it was
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: technically too early. I think his data told him he
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: was going to win. That may not be the case.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: But he, by all definitions, achieved everything he needed to achieve.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: And I think he's going to have to answer some
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: questions over the next few days if it turns out,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: as The New York Times and others are predicting, that
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Sanders is going to win on all three measures of
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: potential victory in this state. on the most important measure,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: which is pledge delegates, which is separate and apart from
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the three counts that we're talking about, they're going to tie.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: And so they're both now tied in the delegate count
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you need, but it turns out that maybe Bernie Sanders
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: won the state.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, this is maybe it's a small thing,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: but this is what I was saying last time we recorded. Like,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I just think it would have been so much better
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: for Pete to sort of declare, you know, we don't
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: have all the results yet, but we know that we
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: did way better than expected. And we, you know, we're
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: in the lead or we're close to the lead or
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: something a little more hedged probably, um, would have been better,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: especially if it turns out that Bernie wins on all
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: three counts, which like you said, we don't, we don't
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: know yet though. We do know probably in the vote count,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it's almost certain that Bernie wins. Um, but yeah, I think, uh,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just, it does get you and, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: we'll get him if it turns out Bernie wins probably
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a bunch of criticism for, uh, for declaring it a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: little too early.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's probably going to be inconsequential in all ways,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: because even if Sanders comes out a little bit ahead,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know that any real voter is going to
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: care whether Pete did that or not.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Well, like you said, they split the delegates even at
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the end of the day anyway. So all of this
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: clusterfuck was so that the two of them could get
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the same number of pledged delegates to the convention.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think this is going to be a
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: bone of contention for the other campaigns. And I think
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: that's something Pete is going to have to answer for
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: in some way, shape, or form. But I'm just not
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: sure it's going to really matter that much in the end.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I think Pete and Bernie are the big winners of
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the Iowa caucus. Both of them probably suffered the most
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: from the clusterfuck that was the counting because they didn't
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: get their full moment in full prime time with millions
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: of people watching to declare their victory, co-victory, strong support.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: But they both were far and away the leaders. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: we're already seeing some movement for both of them in
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire polls and national polls after that.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So whether he ends up first or second, clearly Pete had,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: like you said, a very strong performance in Iowa. What
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: do we know about why he did well?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: He definitely had a much stronger organization in the state
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: than I think people realize. I don't think there are
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: any questions about whether it was good, but the fact
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that he lost alignment one, lost alignment two, and either
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: came very close on state delegate equivalents or one state
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: delegate equivalents means he had a widespread and deep organization
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that was helping him in some of these smaller areas
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: where you get a disproportionate amount of delegates for winning
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: those caucuses with smaller groups of people. So that's the
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: positive sign. It also shows that he has real appeal.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Here is both the negative and the positive of it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: The short-term challenge for him is he clearly benefited mightily
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: from Biden being much weaker than anyone imagined.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Like there was an assumption that Biden was going to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: reach viability in a whole bunch of places.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: By the way, an assumption, it was an assumption because
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: his campaign, his campaign manager said that, said, you know,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: we believe he's going to be viable in like 90,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: 95% of precincts, which was very, very far from the truth.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: And because he was not, Pete benefited from Biden not
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: being viable and Klobuchar, who was viable in more places
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: than people thought, but not everywhere. He actually benefited mightily
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: from Klobuchar surging from 3% to 12% or whatever. So
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: there were more Klobuchar supporters who were able to come
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: to him. The challenge for him in the short term
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: is Biden and Klobuchar are still on the ballot in
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire. And so he's not going to get their
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: votes if they don't do well. The good news for
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: him is it's an indication that he has the ability
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: to consolidate those voters going forward if either of them
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: were to fall off or drop out. And so he's
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: got a real claim to being the alternative to Bernie.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just and some forecasters and election folks
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: have already done some initial analysis of, you know, the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: actual results by precinct and turnout and all that. It
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: seems that Pete was strong in the suburbs and but
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: also had a decent showing in both urban and rural areas.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: He was strong with college-educated white voters, strong with Hillary
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Clinton voters, strong with women, middle-aged voters, second to Bernie
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: among young voters, and second to Bernie among non-white voters,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: which was interesting, even though there aren't many in Iowa.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: And Nate Cohn also pointed out that turnout, in his
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: analysis of the precincts that are in, turnout tended to
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: increase more in Buttigieg precincts, which were well educated suburban precincts.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And we should say that that sort of matches with
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: what we saw in 2018 in the midterms all over
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the country is that where there was a turnout surge
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: for Democrats, it was not necessarily in more working class
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: sort of Obama-Trump districts. It was in the suburbs, in well-educated,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: college-educated districts around the country. We talk about this in
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the wilderness as well. And so that's something to note
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: going forward and what kind of coalition you put together.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Of course, again, one of the big challenges for Pete
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: going forward is when you move to a place like
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Nevada with a heavy Latino population, when you then move
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to a place like South Carolina with obviously a very
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: heavy black population, Pete has not shown in the polls
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: yet that he can sort of attract much support from
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: people of color, though I guess in the initial estimates,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: 15% to Bernie's 40-something percent in Iowa, you know, I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: guess is a start, but he certainly seems like he
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: has to build on that and build with young people
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Bernie, who will almost certainly win the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: most votes and is leading in the polls in New
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Hampshire right now. What did you see as the strengths
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: for Bernie in the results in Iowa, and what do
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you think his challenges are going forward?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Well, his strengths certainly were that he got the most votes.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: The most caucus girls came out for him. And I
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: was very impressed by the strategy his campaign brought to organizing.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: If he wins a state delegate equivalency, he's ultimately going
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to do it because they very cleverly organized pockets of
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: voters in the satellite caucuses. And I remember getting a
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: call from a Wall Street Journal reporter a couple weeks
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: out from the caucus asking me about... They had just
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: talked to the Sanders campaign about their strategy. And she
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: was telling me that their campaign had spent a special
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: amount of effort organizing these different pockets of voters who
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: live close to each other and therefore have a disproportionate
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: impact in certain precincts. You saw this in one of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the satellite caucuses. Well, I think it was the first
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: satellite caucus in Iowa that was near a, I think
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: it was a meatpacking plant, uh, where people were going
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: to have to work at night. And there were only
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: 15 people showed up. Uh, 13 of them were people
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: of Ethiopian descent who were working in that plant. And
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Bernie got, I think 13 of the 15, uh, caucus goers,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: and that's worth delegates. And you heard the same things
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: where the Spanish language caucus, Bernie's campaign crushed. In other
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: parts where there were pockets like that, Bernie did very well.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So that's a sign of a very well-organized campaign. The
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: hard part for Sanders in this, and I should admit
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: for both Bernie and Pete, we are looking for dark
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: linings and very silver clouds. They both did incredibly well
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: in Iowa. Pete beat all expectations. Bernie went in with
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: expectations to win, and certainly got the most caucus scores.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: So they both should feel incredible at how they did.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: The hard part for Sanders is his argument, and especially
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: if you listen to his campaign, you listen to his
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: campaign manager on David Plouffe's podcast, they talked about the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: need for high turnout, how their campaign was banking on
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: high turnout. And their formula for success was getting new
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: caucus goers there, people who only Sanders could attract to politics.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And on that measure, they did not succeed. As of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: right now with... 97% of precincts reporting there are a
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: total of 172,000 caucus goers, which is almost exactly the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: same as it was in 2016, which compares very poorly
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to 2008, which was 240,000 caucus goers. And so that
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: is a potential blow to Sanders' electability argument going forward,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: because that's his claim. I can bring people into the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: political process that others cannot. He did not succeed doing
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: that in Iowa. I will say with one caveat in
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: his defense here is he probably brought a lot of
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: those people into the process last time.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that relative to the
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: other candidates in the primary, Bernie led on first-time caucus
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: goers and led on young caucus goers. And in many instances,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: first-time caucus goers were young. And so in comparison to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the other Democratic candidates, he did great. But part of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Bernie's challenge in this race is going to be if
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: he ends up not being as strong with, um, some
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: more moderate suburban formerly Republican voters that, you know, we,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: we do need that. We won in 2018. And one
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why we were in the house in 2018,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: he will need to make up for those voters by
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: expanding the electorate, by adding more young people to the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: democratic coalition, by adding more voters in general to the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: democratic coalition and, in order to make up for some
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: more moderate people who might not go for him. And
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I should say, by the way, moderates are different from independents,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: which he does win. But independents are sometimes ideologically all
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: over the place. Anyway, so he might have to make
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: up for some of these voters. And he so far
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: has not shown with his coalition that he can do
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that yet. He did not show that in Iowa. I
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: am very interested to see what happens in a primary
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: electorate where everyone votes as opposed to these fucking crazy
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: caucuses in New Hampshire and South Carolina and places like that.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: But you're right. I think that's a big challenge. You
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: noted this at the beginning of your answer. It has
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: been said many times that Iowa is not a diverse state,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: but to the extent that there are communities of color
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, which there are, Bernie did much, much better
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: than any other campaign in organizing and turning out communities
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of color, which I also think is not just a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: strength for him, but also a comment on Biden, who
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: up until now and in the polls has shown such
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: strength with black voters, at least. So let's talk about
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren. who came in a solid third. She was
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a few points ahead of Biden, but several points behind
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Sanders and Buttigieg. What does Warren need to do in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire? What does her path forward look like?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Look, she is in a tough position because the story
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: is rapidly becoming Sanders versus Buttigieg, with Biden looming in
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: South Carolina and Bloomberg looming after that. And she has
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: to be in that story. Because when you fall out
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: of the certainly campaign donations, but also you may lose
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: some of your voters who start consolidating towards the candidates
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: where they feel like they can have the greatest impact
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: on the nomination. Now, the good news for her in
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: that is that she has very passionate supporters. So she
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: may be less vulnerable to that than some other candidates.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: But I think this debate on Friday night is huge
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: for her. She has to change the trajectory whereby I
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: think she is coming in second in New Hampshire. And
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: that's going to be challenging, but she's certainly got to
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: beat Biden. And if she can beat Buttigieg in New
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Hampshire and it can be Sanders-Warren, then she's got an
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: argument to be the alternative to Sanders, who I still
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: think is the head and shoulders favorite to be the
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: nominee right now.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Sanders, you said?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sanders is. And so we're sort of competing to
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: see who can be the alternative to Sanders in New Hampshire,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I think is, I don't want to say it's Warren's
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: last chance, but it's her best chance to put herself
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: in that position. And If she does poorly there, it's
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: hard to explain because the largest media market in New
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Hampshire is Boston, her home state.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I wonder, I was thinking like what you do if
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you're Warren at this debate, because I think a strong
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: message from her that she had in the closing weeks
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of Iowa is that she positioned herself as this unity candidate,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that if there's a fight between sort of the Biden
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and Bernie wings of the party, she can sort of
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: draw voters from both from both sides, that she can
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: bring in Hillary Clinton voters and Bernie Sanders voters together.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: The challenge is, if that's your message, then you're not
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: going to really be drawing many contrasts with yourself and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the other candidates on stage, which is often how you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: get back into the story, is to mix it up
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit. What would you be telling her ahead
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of New Hampshire? What's her best bet on how to
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: stand out in that debate?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I think this is really hard and I wish, uh,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: there's not an obvious answer, right? Like all these people,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: she has a very smart campaign. And if there was
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: an obvious answer, you would see it. I, at the
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: time agreed with that unity message. I thought it could be,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: it is her, I think her best electability message, which
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: is on the candidate who can, as you said, get
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters. And cause we need a
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: United party. Now that message for whatever reason did not
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: propel her in Iowa. Now it came late. It came
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: very late. Um, And there is, I guess, a question
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: would be, is that message too insidery process-oriented? Is that
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: not a thing that most voters think about? Certainly, some,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: like the Iowa caucus goers, there was a thought to me,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: because these are very intensely politically engaged people who would
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: go stand in a gym, ballroom, whatever, for three hours
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: on a Monday night to caucus. When you get to
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire, that may be less viable. I think it
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: has to be There's also a very hard message, but
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I think your best argument is I am electable Sanders. Basically,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: you can have everything you like about Bernie Sanders and
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: everything you like about Pete Buttigieg in one person.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: You can imagine at least– one or two candidates in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire sort of going after Bernie a little bit
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: more than anyone has in previous debates, probably on that
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: notion on electability.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: We think that, but maybe Biden will, but we've thought
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: that in every debate for two months and no one
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: has done it. And it's very reminiscent of how about 2016,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: the Republicans, which is to my point, everyone wants to
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: be the alternative to Bernie. So it's like Warren, if
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: she wants to be alternative to Bernie, has to take
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: out Pete and Biden, right? And if Biden wants to
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: be alternative to Bernie's got to take out Pete and Warren.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And by the time everyone gets to the place where
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: they get to take on Bernie, he has a head
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: of steam and is headed towards the nomination.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: No, I agree. All right. Let's talk about Joe Biden,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: who finished a distant fourth place and then said on Wednesday, quote,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We took a gut
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: punch in Iowa. He then hit Sanders for being a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: socialist and said of Buttigieg that it's a risk to, quote,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: nominate someone who's never held an office higher than a
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: mayor of a town of 100000 people in Indiana. He
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: also asked what Pete didn't like about the Obama administration,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the Obama-Biden administration, you know, since Pete has criticized Biden's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: record in the past. How weak was Biden's performance in Iowa?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And what do you think of his strategy now? Can
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: he afford a second or third place finish in New Hampshire?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, his performance was disastrous in Iowa. He's the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: former vice president of the United States with 100% name ID.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: who is now run in Iowa three times, and he
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: failed to reach viability in large portions of the state.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And it would be one thing if his campaign knew
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: that was going to happen, right? Because this is demographically
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: a terrible state for Biden. Everyone has done that from
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: the very beginning, but I think they actually had the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: wrong information. And that's really scary. That is a campaign failure.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: That's a data failure. That's an organizational failure. And even
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: though there have been quote unquote heads rolling from his
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Iowa team, which I think is probably obviously had a,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it was a poor performance, but I don't think that's
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: an Iowa specific problem.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Anyone could have looked at this. We have talked about
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: it and said, this was a very tough state for
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: him and he had very limited resources and he spent
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of that money, although not as much as
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: some of the other candidates, but on a percentage basis
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: of his overall money, a lot of money on a
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: state where he came in a distant fourth. And that's
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: very problematic. Now, As long as he maintains huge support
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: among African-American voters, he is still in a very strong
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: position to have a shutout the nomination. The question we'll
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: see over time is if he continues to struggle in
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the next two contests, whether that is still true in
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: South Carolina next month.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: The risk for Biden was always that if he was
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: going to base his entire rationale on electability and that
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that electability argument was purely based on what the polls showed,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of who has the best chance of defeating Trump, which
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: in Biden's defense, most of the polls to this day
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: still show when you do general election matchups, Biden does
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: best against Trump, although Sanders is close behind him. The
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: risk of basing your entire argument on that and most
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of your candidacy is that when the first votes start
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: coming in or when you have the first caucus, if
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you don't perform well, your electability argument, which was the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: central argument of your campaign, is destroyed, or at least
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: takes a big hit. And so, you know, my question is,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: as he goes to New Hampshire, you know, he's sort of,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: he also hit Pete for not being able to get
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: much support among communities of color. And, you know, he's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: going after Bernie. I'm just wondering if electability based on polls,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and I'm the best one to take on Trump, is
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: still a message that's going to resonate after people just
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: saw him finish so poorly in Iowa, or he has
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to sort of rely on some other message?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, we don't know. We really will
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: have to see. The Iowa thing was such a mess
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that the truth is, as we were saying, Bernie and
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Pete suffered the most from the Iowa Democratic Party's rank
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: and competence. Biden probably benefited the most because- There was
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that one hour where we were driving back from Ankeny
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: after we visited our caucus site, and Twitter and cable
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: were just a disaster for Biden. What a disaster. I mean, overreaction,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: for sure, but was like, he's coming in fourth. Should
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: he drop out? What does this mean? And the narrative
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: of the night would have been Bernie and Pete did great,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and Biden did miserably. And that has been sort of
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: confused and moved on. And so he has not suffered
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: from that as much as he might. And I think
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that voters around the country probably have not consumed that
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: in the way they would had it been a barely
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: functional caucus system, which it was not.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And look, I think we all know New Hampshire likes
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a comeback. New Hampshire likes to sometimes do the opposite
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of what Iowa does. If I were Biden, there was
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a series of town halls in CNN last night you know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: he gave one answer about how he overcame stuttering again.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: And it sort of ends with this call to, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: he says, we just have to reach out a little
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: more for people. We don't do it enough. We have
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: to heal this country. It was a very powerful answer.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: He had people in the audience crying. He's, you know,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about this before, but there is the,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you know, Joe Biden, the happy warrior who really can
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: connect with people on an emotional level that if he
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: brings that Joe Biden message, to New Hampshire and is
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: very sharp and is sharper in this debate, then, you know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I think that is his sort of one last hope here,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: because I do think we've seen this with campaigns, you know,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for a very long time, many different kinds of campaigns
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that when you plan on, OK, we're going to lose
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the first state or we're going to lose the first
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: couple of states. But don't worry, we have the strong
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: state down the road where we're going to come back.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: In Biden's case, that's South Carolina. It sounds good in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: theory when you plan it, but dealing with a media
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: narrative after you've just lost is really tough. It's tougher
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: than you think it's going to be when you start
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: putting these plans together on a campaign. And it's tough
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: enough that he had to deal with one after Iowa, which,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: as you said, was obscured by the clusterfuck in Iowa.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But if he has to deal with another one in
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire and potentially another one after Nevada, then I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: think he's in real, real trouble.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: If the Biden campaign asked for my advice, what I
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: would say is you have to take your foot off
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: the brake. They have been playing not to lose from
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: the very beginning. They have limited access to Biden. They
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: have tried to run essentially a Rose garden or front
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: runner campaign. They are not the front runner right now.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders is the front runner and Biden has a
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: set of challenges. So this is not a pitch from
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the Dupont state of America, although he is welcome, but
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: he should be out there all the time. doing interviews,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: talking to people, doing long town halls, holding press conferences.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: And there was 100% risk in that because he has
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: made gaffes in his life and on this campaign trail.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: But it is clear that what he is currently doing
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: is not working. So you have to try something else.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: And a scrappy underdog Biden is, I think, a more appealing,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: potentially more successful candidate than the cloistered front runner candidate
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: that we saw throughout Iowa.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. I think that I agree with that. Dan,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: before we move on to Trump, do you have any
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: other thoughts on what seems like it could be the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: very last Iowa caucus? Most likely, I think, now to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: be the very last Iowa caucus. As we were about
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to start recording this, Tom Perez sent out a tweet.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: in order to assure public confidence in the results, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a re-canvas. Jesus. Yeah.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: We may never get results from this. Look, this is
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: an absolute clusterfuck from top to bottom. And it's deeply
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: concerning that the Iowa Democratic Party is so messed up
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: because we need to win a Senate seat there. We
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: have to defend congressional seats there. There are opportunities to
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: pick up state legislative seats there. And everything that could
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: have gone wrong did go wrong. And now the people
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: who made the app deserve blame. but also the fact
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: that there was no backup plan for a malfunctioning app.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Every election day since the invention of the internet, some
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: portion of the election day technology has not worked. Some
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: volunteers have not figured out how to use it. There
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: have been lack of Wi-Fi. There have been bugs. And
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: every good campaign has a plan. And we know you
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: don't need an app to do this because in 2016, 2008,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: they phoned the results in. So the fact that there
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: was not capacity to do that while depending on an
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: app that required you to bypass the security settings to
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: put it on is insane. And the supporters of Bernie
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Sanders and Pete Buttigieg have every right to be furious
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: about this. I think it's important to recognize that they
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: should be furious at the incompetence, not some sort of
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: grand conspiracy to screw either of their candidates. But people
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: should be very mad, and the people in Iowa– from
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: the organizers to the volunteers to the caucus groups who
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: stood in line to the candidates should be furious. And
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I think that this is, I thought this was going
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: to be the last Iowa caucus, no matter what. I
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: think this is without a doubt cinches it that the
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: next Democratic primary process, which will hopefully start in 2028,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: will not start in Iowa.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, the opposite failure, the Iowa Democratic
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Party's handling of the caucus was a fucking epic disaster.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just like, Lack of training, lack of communication,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the failure to set up the phone lines, the failure
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to listen, this was reported the other day, to the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: DNC's cybersecurity chief, who reportedly urged them not to use
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the Shadow app. I mean, I don't know how Troy
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Price remains the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: this day. I mean, and like you said, when you
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: fuck things up this badly, people aren't going to trust
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you and they're going to get suspicious and it's going
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to breed conspiracy theories. And I agree. That doesn't mean
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that those conspiracy theories are correct or that you should
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: spread them around at all. And in fact, I think,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: like you said, there clearly couldn't have been a grand
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: plan to rig this thing because it didn't really go
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: well for anyone. And as we've said many times, the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: two people that were most hurt by all this were
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, because neither of them got
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the coverage about basically two people getting the most delegates
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: out of the state than they would have if they
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: hadn't been this fucking clusterfuck. So it's just a mess.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: It's just a mess. And it's good to see that
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Perez tweeted that out. I'm sure he's quite frustrated himself.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: You know, the tough part that a lot of people
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: don't know is that these state parties, they have most
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of the power, not the DNC, right? Like we have
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a decentralized system and some state parties are really well
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: run and very good and some are not. And clearly
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: this was a pretty massive failure on behalf of the IDP.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: And the deep concern as you head into election 2020
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: is the Iowa party is because of the caucus, one
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: of the absolute best funded and was thought to be
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: one of the best organized. And so it is concerning
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: in Iowa and also should cause folks around the country
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: to double down and see what they can do to
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: help and strengthen state parties, not just in the battleground states,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: but all across the country.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Let's move on to the grand finale of Donald Trump's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: impeachment trial, in which there was one last surprise. While
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: every single Democrat voted to convict the president, including those
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: who had at least been considering acquittal, like Joe Manchin
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and Kyrsten Sinema, and vulnerable Senate Democrats like Doug Jones,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: every single Republican voted to acquit except one, Senator Mitt
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Romney of Utah. Let's play a clip of his very
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: powerful speech.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer... is
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: whether the President committed an act so extreme and egregious
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: that it rises to the level of a high crime
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: and misdemeanor.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, he did.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: The President withheld vital military funds from that government to
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: press it to do so. The President delayed funds for
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: an American ally at war with Russian invaders. The President's
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: purpose was personal and political. Accordingly, the President is guilty
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: of an appalling abuse of public trust. What he did
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: was not perfect. No, it was a flagrant assault on
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: office that I can imagine.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: An appalling abuse of public trust, an assault on our
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: electoral rights. Pierre Delecto, welcome to The Resistance. I want
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to talk at all about Romney, but before we do, Dan,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: why do you think those three Democrats voted to convict,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: especially Doug Jones, who's in the reddest state of any
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Democrat running and up in 2020?
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Because Trump is a criminal who committed the highest and
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: most serious abuse of power in the history of the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: United States, exceeding even what Nixon did in Watergate. I mean,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I believe that. We should give people credit from Romney
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: to Joe Manchin to Doug Jones to Kyrsten Sinema or
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: anyone else who we thought might not vote who did
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the right thing. And so it's a credit to them.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: It's a credit to the case that Adam Schiff and
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the House managers put on. I also think if we
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: want to look at the politics of it, I think
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: they also made the right political move. And this is
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: obviously most relevant to Doug Jones because he's the most
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: endangered Democrat in the Senate, which is we live in
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: an incredibly polarized time. And if Doug Jones voted to
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: acquit Trump, he would deflate Democratic turnout in a state
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: where he needs sky-high African-American turnout to win. And the
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Republicans would just attack him the same way. There wouldn't
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: be one fewer dollar spent by the Koch brothers or
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Trump-affiliated organizations in the NRA. Their job is to take
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: him out because he's a Democrat. And so I think
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: doing the right thing that also happens to be the
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: thing that your voters, your base wants you to do
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: is better politics than looking like a weasel. Looking like
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: a weasel is never good politics. And it's taken a
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: lot of Democrats in red states a long time to
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: realize that. And I'm very excited to see that Doug
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Jones- did the right thing and did it proudly.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just, I was so proud of Doug Jones. And,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: you know, you could, you could sort of see this
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: coming in some of the questions he's asked and some
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of his public statements leading up to this. But, you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and this isn't just on impeachment. This is on a
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: number of issues. Doug Jones, I don't know if everyone
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: has the full, really understands how difficult a position Doug
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Jones is in, how, you know, close it was that
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he won the last election. and how difficult it's going
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to be to win reelection as a Democrat in Alabama
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of all states in 2020. And I think he has
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: said to himself, I mean, you had nailed all the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: politics of it, but I also think he has said
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to himself, you know, I have a couple of years
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: here and my first obligation is to do what I
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: believe is right on every single issue. And I think
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: he's done that. And I think that's, if we had
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: more Doug Joneses in politics, I think we'd be a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: lot better off. And so You know, if you if
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you want to contribute to his reelection campaign, I would
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: urge everyone to do that because he's going to have
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: a tough race. Also, same thing. You know, Joe Manchin
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: has pissed us off in the past. He did the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: right thing. Kyrsten Sinema has been very moderate, more moderate
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: than I think a lot of people thought on a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of issues. She did the right thing. And
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: so I'm really proud of every single Democrat in our
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: party from, you know, the Joe Manchin's To the Adam Schiff's,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to everyone else who participated in this process and did
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the right thing. I really am proud of the party.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Mitt Romney. Do you think he took
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: this vote, Dan, just to prove you wrong about him?
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I will say that there are there's a section in
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: my book which is going to. maybe not have aged
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: well now that he has done this. But good news
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: is there's two weeks before it comes out. And so
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: by the time the book comes out, I'm sure we'll
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: have done something that once again validates my view of him. Look,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: all credit to Mitt Romney. He did the right thing.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: It is not easy to stand alone in your party.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: And we should give him credit for it. He absolutely
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: did it. And it's significant because he became the first
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: senator- in American history to vote for removal of a
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: president of their own party. I mean, that's a big deal.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: That's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. I mean, look,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think, there's always this debate when this kind
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: of thing happens, right? When a Republican does something that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: we like, where, you know, everyone online is like, oh, well,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: you can't lionize him suddenly. Or everyone else is like, oh, well,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: you never liked him in the past. Why do you
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: like him now and all this bullshit? Look, people are
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: fucking complicated and nuanced and have different kinds of motivations.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: And like, I wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney today, right?
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Still like, I don't agree with him on a whole
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: bunch of positions. I'm really glad we beat him in 2012, right?
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Like he's going to do a number of things that
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: really piss us off in the future. I get that.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: But someone can do a whole bunch of bad things,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of bad positions and still do
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a really good, courageous thing. And that's what he did.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: And I wouldn't underestimate the courage of what he did either.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Like I try to put myself, you know, in this
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: bizarro world, where we have this Democratic president who is
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: delivering on all these really important things that we care about,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: whether it's health care or raising wages or we like
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: their position on immigration or anything else. And yet they
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: turn out to be some kind of a criminal and
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: start breaking laws and trampling institutions, even as they start
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: delivering on liberal policy. And imagine every single person in
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the party saying, no, we're still with this president. And
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you're the lone person that says, no, I'm going to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: convict and remove that president from office. I would like
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to believe that I would do that, but that's a
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: hard thing. It's a really hard thing. And I think
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Romney deserves a lot of credit for it. It also was,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: by the way, going through this whole impeachment thing, Donald
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Trump can make you crazy, and the right-wing media machine
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: can make you think you're crazy. At some point, you're like,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I know he broke the law here. I know he's
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: a criminal. I know that Adam Schiff's case is right.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: But like, am I crazy that there's no other Republicans
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: in the country that can stand up and say that
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: this is wrong? And Mitt Romney going out there and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: just saying so calmly that, of course, this is an
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: appalling abuse of power. Of course, this is an assault
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: on our electoral rights. Of course, this person deserves to
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: be removed from office. And hearing that from the man
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: who was the leader of the Republican Party and their nominee,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: In 2012, say this about the current Republican president, it
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: was like a breath of fresh air and makes you
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: realize like, oh yeah, we're not fucking crazy and just
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: partisan hacks. Like, we're right about this. We're absolutely right
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: about this. And it's Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: the rest of them who are political cowards in this situation.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the political significance of Romney's decision?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I imagine the biggest effect it has is
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: not on Trump, but Collins himself. Corey Gardner, Martha McSally,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Tom Tillis, Joni Ernst, who decided to go the other
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: way and are up in 2020 in some pretty tough states.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Look, most of the people you just mentioned are going
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: to need the votes of people who pulled the lever
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: for Mitt Romney in 2012 and pulled it for Hillary
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Clinton in 2016 to win. And the fact that Mitt
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Romney just validated the concerns of the Democrats and made
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: them look like Trump flunkies is bad for them. Now,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: it'll be up to the Democratic Party, Democratic super PACs,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: and the candidates running in those races to weaponize this information.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: But it does really help. I think it also helps
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the vulnerable House Democrats who were elected in very purple
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: or red districts because now they can say that their
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: concerns were validated by the 2012 Republican nominee. And so
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: I think that is helpful in all ways. It's also
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: going to make Trump insane for the next nine months
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: to 100 years.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Which it already has. He's been tweeting about Mitt Romney.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Don Jr. is calling on him to be excommunicated from
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the party. It has clearly triggered all the Republicans in
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: all the ways that we could have predicted. No, look,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I think it is up to the voters that Susan
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Collins needs to win. And all these other people are
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: sort of the more college educated, moderate voters who don't
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: really like Trump, but are still sort of Republican in nature,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: at least pretty moderate, you know. And these are the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: voters that I talked to in Arizona in the wilderness.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: And one of their big problems, these Romney Clinton voters
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: that I talked to is and they kept saying this
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: to me, like, I just can't believe that there are
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: no Republicans that will stand up to this guy. You know,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: John McCain was our senator. He used to do it
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: once in a while. We like Kyrsten Sinema. We're pretty moderate.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: How are there no Republicans in the party that stand
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: up to this guy? And you start running ads in
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Arizona about Martha McSally, who's supposed to be more moderate.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and not standing up to Donald Trump while Mitt Romney,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: 2012 nominee, does, and you put that ad in Maine,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and you put that ad about Susan Collins, and you
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: keep running Mitt Romney's words in some of these ads,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: it's going to target those specific voters, and it could help.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And like you said, at the very least, the idea
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: that impeachment's going to hurt some of these vulnerable Democrats
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: becomes much less likely now that you have Mitt Romney
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: on board. So that's impeachment.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: One update here on impeachment. We started recording this podcast
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: at about 9 a.m. 15 Pacific time this morning, because
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: we watched the first 10 to 15 minutes of Trump's
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: insane victory celebration. And if I read my text correctly
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: at 10.20, it seems to still be going on. And
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: according to Tommy, he's reading the Lisa Page, Peter Strzok
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: text out loud to the members of Congress. So it
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: seems like he's taking the sort of post-State of the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Union victory lap that most presidents take.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: It's so funny looking at my phone, Tom. He's just like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: this is so crazy. He's still going. What a fucking nutcase. Okay.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: All right. Finally, Trump gave his third and hopefully last
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: State of the Union address on Tuesday night. It was
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: an hour and 15 minute speech that was light on
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: facts and heavy on pizzazz. Trump gave out a scholarship.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: He reunited a deployed soldier with his wife. He awarded
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom. and told people
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: that this is the greatest economy ever in the history
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: of the world. Let's play a clip.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: We are advancing with unbridled optimism and lifting our citizens
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: of every race, color, religion, and creed very, very high.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: 5 million more than government experts projected during the previous administration.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: And very incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my administration
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: is lower than any administration in the history.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Of our country.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: If we hadn't reversed the failed economic policies of the
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: previous administration, the world would not now be witnessing this
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: great economic success.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: So you and I were both on a flight home
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: from Iowa and missed the speech, but I finally read
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it last night, and I will say that it worried
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: me in this way. If he manages to shrink that
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: down to a stump speech and deliver the message consistently,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: which you know, with him as a gigantic if. I
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: think it could be very effective in the 2020 campaign
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: at doing the two things he needs to do. One,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: keep his base excited. And two, give permission to the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: voters who don't like him personally to vote for him
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: because they think he's taking the economy in the right direction.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: What did you think?
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: What did you watch instead? Or did you just look
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: at Twitter the whole time?
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Well, we had no televisions on our, on our, no
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: screens on our flight. And so I, yes, I sat
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: there and scrolled through Twitter and followed the state of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the union that way. And, uh, that was it. That
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: was my, that was my life on the flight home
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: from Des Moines. I.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I watched the den of thieves, which is a very
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: rewatchable heat ripoff that was quite enjoyable and much better
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: than this. And also like Trump, very, uh, crime heavy.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: The heat, look, you're exactly right. Uh, And when you
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: suggest that maybe giving a speech about the economy is
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: more persuasive to all the voters you need than reading
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Lisa Page's text out loud, which is what he's doing today. Yeah, right.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I have since watched it and I have
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: since read it and it should scare the living shit
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: out of Democrats because right now, as we sit here
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: in the beginning of February 2020, Trump is winning the
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: economic messaging battle and the person who wins the economic
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: messaging battle will be the next president of the United States.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: And so we have a lot of work to do.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: to get a message delivered and persuade people about why
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Trump is wrong.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, there was a number of things
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: he did in that speech. You know, he is clearly
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: in his campaign has been telling reporters this. They're trying
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to reach out to black voters, which, you know, look,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: we all know that he's not going to have much
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: success with that. But some of it might not even
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: be getting black voters to support Trump this time, but
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: sort of showing some other voters that, um, look, he's trying,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you know, this was the whole purpose of the Superbowl
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: ad around criminal justice reform. Um, Trump was obviously populist
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: on economics as he often is as he's talking about
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the economy and he's talking about sort of the, the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: trade deals and manufacturing and all that. He made vague
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: promises on healthcare that were all bullshit, but he was
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: saying the right things, right? Even though he's lying. which
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: is always a danger because no one fucking fact checks
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: this guy anymore or people don't see the fact checks.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: He promised to, you know, protect Medicare and Social Security, which,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of course, as we know, he's got a plan to
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: cut Medicare and Social Security in the second term. But
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: he's going to lie about that. We saw a preview
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: of the socialism attack that he's going to level in
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the general election, no matter who the Democratic candidate is,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: no matter who the Democratic nominee is. He's talking about
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: how socialism, you know, he talked about Venezuela, how socialism is.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: destroys nations, you know, socialism will destroy your healthcare. Look,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: it was all there. The makings of a reelection message
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: for him that cobbled together just the right coalition that
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: he needs to eke out another victory. And, um, I
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: don't know, do you have thoughts on what the best
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: message is for Democrats in response to this kind of message?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I can tell you what I think the best message
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: is not, which is what so many Democrats did ourselves
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: included did on, uh, Tuesday night, which is he's just
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: taking credit for Obama's economy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: That is not a good message. We went through this
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: ourselves in the Obama first term because in the first
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: year or so when the economy was really bad and
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: we would ask people in polls who they blamed for
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: the state of the bad economy, it was overwhelmingly George W.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Bush and not Obama. Wall Street, George W. Bush, not Obama.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Because people understood he had just gotten there. But by
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the time we were running for re-election, that number had shifted.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: And so we are not going– even though Trump is
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: 100% doing the Trump thing of taking the work of
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: someone else and sticking his name on it, we're not
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: going to convince people this was Barack Obama's economy. In
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: part because everyone, ourselves included, were so alarmist about what
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Trump's impact would be on the economy by putting– it
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: actually is a great credit to Obama's economy that we
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: can put an incompetent lunatic in charge of it and
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: it is still fine. So kudos, Barack Obama. I think
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: instead we have to reframe this about what the measure
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: of success of the economy is. And it is not
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: the stock market. It is not corporate profits. It is
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: the economic security of individual people. And I've said this before,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: but the message that I think a Democrat needs to adopt,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: and not just a Democrat, every Democrat, is that under Trump,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: corporations have never made more money and they never paid
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: less in taxes. But average everyday Americans, their wages have...
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: barely budged, while the costs of healthcare, college, retirement, homes
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: have gone way up. And under Trump, you pay more
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: for your Amazon Prime subscription than Amazon pays in federal taxes.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: If that's the kind of economy you want, reelect Trump.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: If you want one where middle-class families have a chance
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: to succeed and where healthcare is more affordable and college
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: is more affordable, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, then
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: elect a Democrat.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: So I agree with all that. Here's the challenge. as
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I see it, and I think it was illustrated very
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: well on Tuesday night. So Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: of Michigan, delivered the State of the Union response. You
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: may not know this because it received almost zero coverage
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: in all the aftermath of the State of the Union
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in her speech, which was a very good speech and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: basically had a message that was very much in line
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: with what we've talked about. You know, she said, when
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the president says the economy is strong, my question is
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: strong for whom? Um, she said, listen to what people say,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: but watch what they do. She's basically trying to make
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the case that, yeah, he said a lot, but look
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: at his record. He has been an ineffective president. Um,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, so she sort of went through basically
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: examples of what happens when voters allow Democrats to govern
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: by highlighting a lot of the different democratic governors around
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the country and some of the great things they're doing,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: whether it's on infrastructure or minimum wage or healthcare, expanding healthcare.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: And so, um, you know her speech was right on target.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: The tough part is, and Matt Iglesias pointed this out
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: in a great piece at Vox after the speech, Gretchen
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Whitmer had a great message, and it's the message that
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: we probably want. It is very hard to get a
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: sort of meat and potatoes economic message covered when you
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: have things happen like Donald Trump put on the show
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: he put on in the State of the Union, and
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: then what's the biggest thing that gets covered from the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Democratic response is Nancy Pelosi ripping up the speech. And look,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I tweeted this right after she did it. I thought
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: it was successful in one important regard, which is the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: conversation after the speech was all about Nancy Pelosi ripping
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: up the speech and not about Donald Trump's economic message.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And so in a way, she, in a very Trumpian
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: way almost, in a good sense of the Trumpian way,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: she stole the spotlight away from Donald Trump. But you
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: just know we've already seen it. We've seen it after Iowa.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: We've seen it after the State of the Union that
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: like what gets covered and what people sort of consume
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: about politics and about the race is always the more,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump doing something offensive or, you know, whether
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: it's Nancy Pelosi ripping up a speech or something else.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: And the actual policy and the message never fucking gets
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: through to people. Now, I know that you can solve
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of that with paid advertising, but certainly not
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: all of it. And I just wonder, like, you know,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: at some point we have to figure out how to
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: be both on message and win the economic messaging war,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: but do so in a creative way that breaks through
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: the noise of politics. And also, I think that means
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: being incredibly disciplined as Democrats, not just our politicians, but
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: all of us in the message that we deliver every
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: single day.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is, I mean, do not get me wrong.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: This is a incredibly complicated challenge. Just winning the economic
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: argument is hard given that the measure of success that
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: the media has puts on the economy is the unemployment
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: rate and the Dow Jones average, both of which are
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: quite strong. And Trump, finding ways to get your message
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: out in the Trumpian media environment is very, very hard.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. Some of this is paid advertising.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Some of it is doing a jujitsu on what Trump
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: says and does. And we've talked about this before, but
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: you have to call out Trump's game about what he's
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: trying to distract you from. and get your message out there.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: It's really going to be, it's like your plan is
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: not going to get great coverage, but your critique of
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: Trump and why you would be better can if you take,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: instead of following Trump down the rabbit hole, you explain
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: why Trump is trying to take you down the rabbit hole.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: But it like, it's very hard. And that's why we're
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: going to need an incredibly adept candidate. We also are
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: going to need a candidate in a campaign who inspires
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: millions of people to carry that message forward themselves on
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: social media.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: In conversations as volunteers at the door, in conversations at
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: work by the water cooler or on the lunch table.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And right now, Trump has a massive platform advantage on
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: the primary conduits of online political conversation, Facebook and Twitter.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: The algorithms benefit him. His people have been more motivated
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: to share and create content there. And Democrats are going
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: to have to step up. And the thing we have
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: to think about, and David Plouffe has made this point
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: to us before, is In 2016, it was not hard
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: to get Democrats to share negative content about Trump. We
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: didn't do it on Earth, but people would do that.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: It was very hard to get people to share positive
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: content about the nominee, about Clinton. And we're going to
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: have to do both this time because we continually– we
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: chase Trump down these rabbit holes. Always. The last two
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: days are the perfect example where– I am 100% for
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi ripping up the speech. If Nancy Pelosi wanted
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: to turn the speech into an origami crane and throw
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: it into the audience, she could do that too. She
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: has earned that right. But now we're in this massive
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: civility debate about whether Nancy Pelosi did that or not.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: And that's not on Nancy Pelosi. No, it's predictable. And
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: you just knew it was going to happen, right? But
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: we engage in it, right? Like now we're mad about it.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: And then we are rightfully furious that Donald Trump is
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh and
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: people are yelling about it. convincing people that Trump did
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: a bad thing by doing that is not going to
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: win us one additional vote. So people should feel free
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: to yell about it. It is offensive. Rush Limbaugh, despite
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: his recent health news, has said horribly racist and misogynistic things.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, he has just been a horrendous person in
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: the public arena. But we have to make sure that
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: we are focusing our energy not just on that, but
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: on the set of things that matter to our voters,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: because a big fight over Rush Limbaugh actually helps Trump.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: It doesn't help us. We are playing his game. He
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: is pulling us onto the issues that matter to his
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: voters in a way for the issues that matter to
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: our voters. None of us have all the answers, but
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: we have to really be thinking and working on how
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: we get to tell the story of this campaign on
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: our terms, not his.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And meanwhile, you can see the vulnerabilities that Trump
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: has in that speech and where they know they have vulnerabilities.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: At one point, he talks about prescription drugs and He says,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: you know, Chuck Grassley's got some bill. Let's put it
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: on the floor for a vote. I'll sign it. We
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: know that's never going to happen because Mitch McConnell's never
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: going to let it happen because the Republicans don't want
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: to lower prescription drug prices. Trump knows intuitively he needs
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to do something about prescription drugs or at least look
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: like pretend he's doing something on prescription drugs. So let's
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: fucking hold him to it.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: The Democrats have a great bill on prescription drugs. Democratic
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: candidates should be doing things around prescription drugs. You talk
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to voters all around the country. all kinds of voters
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: from all different backgrounds. They will all tell you that
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: it is one of their chief concerns in their lives,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: no matter what the economy is doing, that they can't
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: fucking afford their medicine. We should be talking about that.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Talking about that is a hell of a lot more
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: valuable than yelling about a civility debate about a ripped
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: up speech or Rush Limbaugh or anything like that. It
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: is going to require discipline. And part of that discipline
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: is also making sure that we don't fucking rip each
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: other to shreds through this nomination battle. And again, I
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: will say that so far, The candidates and their immediate
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: campaigns have been doing a good job about this. Post-Iowa,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I have more concerns about watching everyone's fucking supporters online
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: go after each other. And we will lose. We will
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: lose if we tear each other apart. That is the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: fastest way for Trump to become president. The fastest way
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: if we start doing this. And so, you know, I just,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: this was a week where the end of this week,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: after watching that speech, after watching everything post-Iowa, I'm just like,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: We have to fucking get our shit together because this
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: guy is going to be tough to beat. And he
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: is beatable. He is fucking beatable. The votes are there.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: But it will not happen if we chase him down
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: rabbit holes or tear each other apart on the way
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: to November. And so we have to decide what is
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: most important here. And what I believe is most important
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: is getting this fucking guy out of office. And I
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: think most everyone who's listening does too. So now we
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: just need to work to make it happen.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: You know, we've been having this year-long debate about who's
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: the best candidate, who's the most electable, and obviously no
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: one knows the answer, and voters are very split on
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: it and sort of deeply uncertain about the answers that
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: they have come to. But I think one important thing
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: to remember is that however you rank those candidates in
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: your mind, the weakest of those candidates with a unified
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party has a better chance of beating Trump than
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: the strongest of those candidates with a divided Democratic Party.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: And so it is very important that we do not
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: lose this election this spring by tearing each other apart
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: in ways that cannot be put back together. And you're
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: exactly right. The candidates have done, to date, an excellent job.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: And I think particular credit goes to Bernie Sanders, who has,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I think, perhaps been the most explicit about his support
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: for the nominee if it is not himself. Now, he's
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: doing that in part because some of his surrogates have
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: raise some real concerns, but the candidates are doing a
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: good job and I hope that continues.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, every single last one of these
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: candidates needs part of the other candidates or at least
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: most of the other candidates coalition in order to win
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: this race. That is just the fucking math. You cannot
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: win it with your own supporters. Every single one of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: these democratic candidates has that challenge right now to expand
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: beyond your base of supporters in order to unify the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: when I say the Democratic Party, I don't mean the
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: fucking official establishment Democratic Party. I mean the coalition of
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: voters that are needed to defeat Donald Trump. Most will
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: be Democrats. Some will be independents. A few will be Republicans.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Many will be new voters who belong to no party.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: But that coalition, that has to... You know, you find
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: that coalition in the Sanders campaign, in the Warren campaign,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: in the Biden campaign, in the Buttigieg campaign. They are
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: scattered all to different candidates right now. We have to
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: all come together in the end here or else Donald
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Trump will win a second term. And everyone just has
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: to keep that in mind. All right. When we come back,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: we will have Dan's conversation with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: We are now pleased to be joined by former mayor
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: and Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Welcome back to Pod
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: Save America.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Good to be back with you.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: I want to start with asking you where you and
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: your campaign believe the race in Iowa stands. Senator Bernie
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Sanders declared victory earlier today. You declared essentially victory on
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Monday night. Do you believe you won Iowa?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Well, we're still, of course, waiting as we speak for
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: more information on the state delegate equivalents. But there is
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: no question that Monday was a huge win for this
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: campaign and for our vision. You know, just a year ago,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: we started with no national name recognition, no money, hadn't
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: run for president before, wasn't personally wealthy. We just had
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: this big idea and through the last year have been
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: working to earn support for it. And the other thing
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: we're so thrilled about is not just where we came
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: down on the on the top line. But the fact
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: that this came by way of folks in different kinds
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: of communities. We succeeded in Democratic counties, counties that flipped
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: from President Obama to Trump. We were in rural areas,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: suburban areas, urban areas. And that's how we're showing, not
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: just telling, our ability to bring together the majority that's
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: going to be needed to defeat Donald Trump in the fall.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Do you have a reaction to DNC Chairman Tom Perez's
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: request that the Iowa Democratic Party re-canvass the results? Does
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: that ultimately matter here?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: You know, I think we've come to the point now
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: where we'll continue to look for the verified numbers in Iowa,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: but I'm also in New Hampshire, knowing that New Hampshire
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: is a place that famously thinks for itself, and they're
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: not going to let Iowa or anybody else tell them
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: what to do. And so we're not.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: Resting on our laurels, even though we are thrilled by
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: what happened in Iowa for us, even as that process
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: plays out, our focus now has to be on the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: immediate future and the need to make sure that we
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: earn strong, strong support up here too.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: It certainly feels like the campaign is heating up, you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: at least in how the candidates are talking about each other.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Vice President Biden came out swinging in New Hampshire yesterday,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: taking on both you and Senator Sanders, among others. I
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: was interested by one thing that Vice President Biden said,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to it. The Vice
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: President took something you said about the Vice President being
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: part of a broken political system and an old way
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: of doing things. And he suggested that was a critique
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: of the Obama administration, considering that that's what he's been
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: doing for the last eight years. What is your reaction
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: to that? Was that your intention to wrap in Barack
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Obama into that broken politics?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: Of course not. I was a strong supporter of President
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: Obama and the extraordinary work that the White House and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: administration did. And at the same time, I think the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: achievements of the Obama administration mattered because of how they
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: met the moment. Now we are in this moment. And
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: the question is, who is going to be the president
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: who can lead us in the face of challenges, some
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: of which even a few years ago, we weren't thinking
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: about much from the kind of cybersecurity and election security
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: threats that we're facing to global health security issues, to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: the way that a gig economy and technological changes profoundly
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: shifting what it's like to be an American worker. We
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: need to be ready to look to the future now
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: more than ever. And that's both true of how we're
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: going to govern and how we're going to win. Because,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: you know, history has told us that when faced with
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: a new challenge in order to earn the White House,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: you have to be looking to the future. That is
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: always how Democrats have won and earned the White House.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: And it's the focus of our campaign, too.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Obviously, all of– or at least much of what this
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: campaign has been about is sort of– comes down to
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: the question that is very rightfully on voters' mind, which
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: is who is the best person to beat Trump and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: how do we actually get that done? Are you suggesting
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: in this that it is better to be an outsider
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: to have your chance to beat Trump? Is it better
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: to– like is Vice President Biden and maybe some of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: the other candidates too tied to the system? I'm trying
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: to get to what the specific weakness that you're highlighting
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: there is.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: Consider this. Every single time in the last 50 years
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: that the Democratic Party has won the White House, we've
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: had a candidate who was new in national politics, who
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: either did not have an office in Washington or hadn't
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: for very long, and who was opening the door to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: a new generation of leadership. That is how we win
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: every time. And at a moment like this with so
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: much on the line, I think the risk we can't
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: afford to take is to believe that we can go
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: up against someone like Donald Trump, who presents just a
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: fundamentally new kind of political challenge, and succeed by falling
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: back on the familiar.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: I know you're tired of answering this question, but, you know,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: the time is coming close here. You know, throughout this campaign,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: there's been this narrative and discussion about how you could
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: expand your appeal to communities of color. And I think
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: throughout the campaign, you've said that once they get to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: know you, you believe you have a good chance of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: doing better. You know, time is getting close. We are
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: two weeks away from the Nevada caucuses, less than a
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: month away from South Carolina. What specifically is your campaign
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: going to do to build on your success in Iowa
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: to expand your appeal?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: Well, right now we're getting a whole new look, especially
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: from voters around the country, but especially voters of color
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: who have shared with me the whole time that so
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: many folks' top priority is to make sure that we
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: beat Donald Trump. I mean, if you think about it, nobody...
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: is feeling the pain of living under this president more
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: than Americans of color. And so I think there is
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: a very strong pragmatic focus in addition to what's in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: our plans, what's in our policies, and even how they
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: feel about us personally. A lot of it's just, can
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: you win? We have begun the process of proving that
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: in Iowa, and that continues as we go through New Hampshire.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: And I think that gets us a whole new look.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: As that takes place, it's my responsibility to make sure
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: that I'm communicating both the story of who I am
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: and what we've done in our city, making sure people
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: meet and see the African-American supporters and elected officials and
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: Latino supporters that we have from our community helping to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: tell our story, and continuing to make clear the plans
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: for what it is I believe we need to do
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: as a country to create a more inclusive reality, to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: create greater economic empowerment, to establish justice in everything from
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: health equity to policing. And will continue to be sharing
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: that message all the way through up until the votes.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: But I think there is a whole new opportunity to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: get that message out to voters who may have looked
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: favorably on things like the Douglas plan and what I've
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: had to say on policy issues, but were also skeptical
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: and had plenty of reasons to be skeptical about our
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: ability to put together the team and organization to beat
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, at least had reason to be skeptical until
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: we showed what we were able to show in Iowa
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: and plan to show right here in New Hampshire, too.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: You know, it's felt like in the party we've been
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: arguing about state delegate equivalents and Iowa Democratic Party rules
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: and apps and all these other things the last few days.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: And then I think Tuesday night we got a reminder
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: of what looms ahead of us in November. And whoever
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: the nominee is, whether it's you or someone else, is
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: going to have to take on Donald Trump. And Donald
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Trump stood on that stage from the State of the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Union and offered what was not particularly factual, but very
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: powerful argument for staying the course due to a very
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: strong economy. If you were the nominee, what is your
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: plan to take on the economic argument with Trump and
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: win it?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Well, part of why I'm ready to challenge this president
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: on the economy is that I come from the exact
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: kind of community that he's been targeting. I'm from a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: city that was an industrial community in the heart of
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: the so-called Rust Belt that is full of people who
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: are wondering when this Wall Street economy he's celebrating is
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: actually going to get to us. I live in a
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: middle-class neighborhood in the industrial Midwest. and can speak to
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: the experience of so many people who he is saying
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: ought to be celebrating, but are finding that they can't
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: get ahead, have to fight just to hold on to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: what they've got, because even when wages are growing to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: the extent that they are, and wage growth has been
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: remarkably slow, just as job growth, though the president won't
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: admit it, is slower than it's been in the Obama administration.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: It's not just that. It's that even when wages do
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: go up, they're not keeping pace with the cost of
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: health and the cost of long-term care and the cost
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: of saving for retirement, the cost of housing and education.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: And people know that. They're not going to be fooled
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: on that, especially when I'm up there standing right next
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: to him as not a millionaire but somebody who comes
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: from the middle class and can speak directly to the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: hypocrisy of this president.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: The first time you were on Pod Save America was
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: almost a year ago and very far from where you
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: are now. I don't think you– I think you were
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: pretty clearly probably at zero in the polls. And a
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: lot of this seemed theoretical. But now, obviously, thanks to
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: everything that's happened since then and, of course, your strong
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: showing on Monday night, you're now one of the frontrunners
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: or one of the top contenders for the nomination. I'm
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: wondering if you– and this may seem presumptuous, but I'm
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: wondering if you've thought about the kind of person– that
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: you would be looking for in a vice president where
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: you'd become the nominee?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: Well, we're not getting ahead of ourselves. But the thing
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: to think about, first of all, is that this is
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: the one decision you make as a candidate that's actually
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: a presidential decision. Because if you win, the entire country
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: lives with that choice that you made. And so the
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: most important consideration is, is this somebody who could do
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: a good job leading the country in the event that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: I were killed or unable to serve as president? Everything
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: else takes a backseat to that. Now, I will say
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: also that there are so many extraordinary leaders in our
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: party who I think can beat that bar. And the
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: other things I'm thinking about are balance, diversity, different experiences,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: the ability to have a shared worldview, but perhaps a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: different perspective that can help make clear why it is
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: that Americans from all walks of life stand to benefit
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: from turning the page on this presidency and building a
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: better future. And I'm looking forward to the process of
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: not only in terms of a running mate choice and
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: a future vice president, but if elected, building a cabinet
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: that will truly reflect the American experience and the different
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: voices of those who are impacted by the choices made
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: in our country's government.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Also, when you were on Pod Save America a year ago,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: we talked, it was right after you had come out
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: in support of potentially changing the composition of the Supreme Court,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: you'd come out for the abolition of the filibuster. And
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: a year later, I want to know whether you would
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: still commit to, where you become president, pushing Democrats in
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Congress to take on court reform and getting rid of
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: the filibuster. Absolutely.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: Look, those and other problems in our democracy, from the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: need for a 21st century Voting Rights Act to gerrymandering
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: to issues around the Electoral College itself, these issues don't
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: always sizzle because they sound like they're just about process.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: But democracy, is the issue of how we deal with
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: all our other issues. And when we see the situations
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: that we're in where the vast majority of Americans expect
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: certain things, from action on gun violence to making healthcare
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: available to everybody, and it still doesn't happen, it shows
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: you that our democracy has gotten to be so warped
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: that it's no longer responsive to the people. The filibuster
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: is part of that, and the politicization of the court,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: I think, is part of that, too. And so that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: remains something that having led the field in opening up
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: some of these topics for conversation will be a commitment
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: for me throughout the campaign and throughout my presidency.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: Were you surprised by Mitt Romney's decision to vote to
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: remove President Trump? Does that give you some hope that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: there might be opportunities of compromise with Republicans for you
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: to be president, or do you think he's an anomaly?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: I think it is striking. You can At least I
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: got the sense that this is a very sincere decision
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: that he made to follow his conscience rather than stay
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: in lockstep with his party. Now, I don't know whether
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: that means much changes policy-wise, and it's on policies that
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: I disagree with him almost all of the time. But
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: it is important to have some measure of goodwill on
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: the other side. And one of the reasons that I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: think we're in crisis is there is so little goodwill
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: or good faith in the Senate GOP today. He represents
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: perhaps an exception to that. But again, at the same time,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: you know, being able to stand up to your own
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: party in the face of these kinds of abuses should
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: be table stakes when it comes to integrity in the Senate.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: And I wouldn't have our expectations be too high that
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: that represents any kind of moderation from his policy views.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: I know you're very busy and you got to get
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: back out there on the campaign trail, but before you go,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you just your person, put aside
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: who came out with more estate delegate equivalents or whatever
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: in that count, but just want to get your personal
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: reaction to how it felt in Iowa. Cause I, you know,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: I had the great privilege of being with president Obama
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: when his faith in the people of Iowa was validated
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: on that January 9th, 2008. What was your, What was
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: your personal reaction to someone, a gay American with your background,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: your unique set of credentials of presidency, to be at
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: least a top contender in Iowa, number one or two,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: depending on how you count it?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: Well, it's an extraordinary moment and one that shows me
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: that when you put yourself forward and eye-to-eye have conversations
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: with Americans, with voters, sometimes it's one at a time,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: and spend a year earning that trust, demonstrating not just
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: what you believe in, but who you are, that if
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: you have a compelling vision, then you have a shot.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: And I don't think anybody would have believed that we
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: would have had any kind of easy path to this point,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: looking at where we were a year ago in terms
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: of everything from organization, resources, money, and yes, even just
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: my profile. And so it's an extraordinary validation of the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: fact that When you do have that kind of intimate
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: campaigning that really gives people a chance to kick the
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: tires on your ideas, but also understand who you are
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: and what makes you tick, that people will take you seriously.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: They will give you a chance and extraordinary results can happen.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: Pete Buttigieg, thank you so much for joining us and
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: good luck out there in New Hampshire. We hope to
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: talk to you soon.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Good to be back with you.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Pete Buttigieg for joining us today. We will
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: be doing our group thread on Friday night for the
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire debate, like we said. And then on Monday,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: we'll be back to our normal schedule. Love it. And
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: that's Leo barking for a ball that he has been
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: chasing around the entire recording. On Monday, Tommy and Love
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: It and I will be doing a post-debate recap episode.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: And then on Wednesday of next week, All four of
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: us will be talking about the results from New Hampshire.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Have a great weekend, everyone. Get some rest.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not booking my flight to LA for that until
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: I make sure that the New Hampshire Secretary of State
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: can count the votes. We're not doing another pod without
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: the results again.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's very wise, Dan. I think it's very wise.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: All right. I'll talk to you. Bye.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.