Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Both Parties Point Fingers… And Fix Nothing + What Does A Winning Democratic Coalition Look Like In ‘28?

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Full Episode - Both Parties Point Fingers… And Fix Nothing + What Does A Winning Democratic Coalition Look Like In ‘28? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: and rates may vary. Hello Aaron, Welcome to another episode
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. Let me give you a quick
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: rundown of what we have for today's episode. Look, I've
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: got a little more fallout from the events on Saturday
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and frankly a laments, I'm not gonna lie to Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is you know, I know we're all shocked that
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: our leaders aren't meeting the moment, but our leaders aren't
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: meeting the moment. Let's not take our eye off the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: ball of Iran. We have just hit essentially a new
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: high and gas prices since the start of this war.
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  Speaker 1: We're now at a high on gas prices that we
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  Speaker 1: had to deal with at the start of the Ukraine
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Russian War. The problem here is that there doesn't seem
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to be a near term solution on the horizon. Then
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: we have a bunch of political updates. We have a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: new house map in Florida. It's a fascinating new map.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: My quick headline is this is a great map for
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  Speaker 1: Republicans in a presidential year. This is a shaky map
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: for Republicans in a midterm year, particularly a midterm year
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: where they could where they're the party in power. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: will dig into that a few Senate race developments, and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: then my conversation today is with Atima Omara. She's the
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  Speaker 1: author of a new book called The Instigators. It's basically
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: about the role black women in particular have played as
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: sort of the leading voices inside the Democratic Party at
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: least in the twenty first century. But there's also more
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: historical elements here. A Teama is not necessarily a full
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: time historian. She's a political strategist. She has been in
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the trenches on democratic politics and on the politics of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: particularly in the African American community, and she's got some
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: interesting insights. We talk a lot about sort of twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four, the future, what the future of the party is,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the very splits and divides. Plus her book. Just trust me,
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  Speaker 1: if you're a political junkie're trying to understand where it's
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party headed, you know what could work, what
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: might not work. This good conversation for you. I think
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  Speaker 1: you're going to enjoy it. Obviously, it's Wednesday, so it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Top five day, and I've got a fun little take
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  Speaker 1: on a top five list today. The top five races
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  Speaker 1: that are that are the most dangerous for Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: to cement lame duck status. Right, The test of his
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  Speaker 1: political strength inside the Republican Party is these are five
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  Speaker 1: Republican primaries that will tell us how lame the duck
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  Speaker 1: in the Oval office is these days. Right, So I
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  Speaker 1: think you're going to enjoy that. And Plus I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: take some questions. But let me begin with a lament.
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  Speaker 1: And I know this isn't a shock or a surprise,
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  Speaker 1: but it is still striking to me over the last
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  Speaker 1: couple of days that you know, to see what didn't happen.
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  Speaker 1: After last Saturday night's events, we had a man show
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: up at the White House Correspondent Center armed had written
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a manifesto anti Trump's screed. He was stopped at a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: security checkpoint, and the response from the White House has
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: essentially been, well, we should tighten security and build my ballroom.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And it's the Democrats and the left's fall. And that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: tells you something because there was a time in this
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  Speaker 1: country not that long ago, when something like this would happen.
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  Speaker 1: A president in particular would treat it very differently. There
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: would have been an attempt, at least in an attempt
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to study the country to lower the temperature, like what
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush did after nine to eleven, making it
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: crystal clear that the United States was not at war
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  Speaker 1: with Islam. Right, there was an important he had to
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: say it, and it took an American president to say it.
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  Speaker 1: There isn't there was nobody else that could say it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that would have any sort of meaning beyond the President
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of the United States in that moment. Presidents are in
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  Speaker 1: charge of the thermostat of the political temperature of the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: country period, and he chose to turn down the thermostat,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: saw what was building, feared what was building, and he
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: turned down that thermostat. But we haven't really had that moment, right,
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  Speaker 1: they even had the moment where this president said this
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  Speaker 1: isn't who we are, this is not acceptableybe, it's time
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  Speaker 1: to take a breath here. I know we've all allowed
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: political rhetoric to get out of hand, right, And yet
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  Speaker 1: that's not the instinct right now, is it? And that's
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  Speaker 1: the problem. So instead of reltigating how we got here,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and I think that's part of the problem, right, that
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  Speaker 1: everybody feels pretty confident that they're right and the other
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: side is wrong. I have felt it. I wrote sort
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of a similar thing on in my column this week
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  Speaker 1: for Newsphere and substat that essentially argued that, look, we're here,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, yes, there's no doubt that Donald Trump's
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  Speaker 1: arrival in twenty fifteen accelerated this moment, but that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: excuse the behavior now on the laugh to just say, well,
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  Speaker 1: donald Trump started eight, you'r reporce you. So that's not
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  Speaker 1: good either. So that's why you know, we can re litigate.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely nobody can deny how this began,
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  Speaker 1: but everybody's in charge of their own behavior here. And
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  Speaker 1: I still believe ultimately it takes a president, and we
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  Speaker 1: may have a president who is not interested in turning
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  Speaker 1: the temperature down. But here's the simplest way I can
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  Speaker 1: explain it, because we've produced a new kind of political
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  Speaker 1: environment that's quite scary. For years, we treated certain rhetoric
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: as performance. And I know we're going to go through
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: this again, and some of you may roll your eyes, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: we've been through here before. Yeah, we have, and apparently
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  Speaker 1: we haven't learned the lesson, so we've got to keep
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  Speaker 1: going here, right, But we treated the rhetoric that's campaign stuff,
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  Speaker 1: and there was you know, you know, I think, frankly,
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  Speaker 1: I have a higher tolerance than most right because I'm
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  Speaker 1: used to heated campaign rhetoric. It's crowd stuff. It's right
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  Speaker 1: out of the WWE and that's what Trump thinks, that
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  Speaker 1: he's doing it for entertainment purposes and things like that.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't really mean it, and I believe that. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think he really meant it. But that's me. That
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean what other people and then there are people
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that act in his name that did mean it right.
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  Speaker 1: But when this has started to when this is when
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  Speaker 1: this starts happening at scale over time, it stops being
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  Speaker 1: performance and it gets turned into a permission slop and
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  Speaker 1: then after a while becomes something bigger, becomes the environment itself.
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  Speaker 1: We can trace that shift pretty quickly. Right. We know
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump didn't invent anger in politics, but he absolutely
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  Speaker 1: changed what was acceptable to say out loud, punching protesters,
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  Speaker 1: carrying them out on stretchers, personalizing everything, turning all personal
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: opponents into enemies. Many of us felt it personally. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, with fellow Republicans who are not MAGA members,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: many of them don't speak out for fear. Out of fear.
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  Speaker 1: Trust me, I've had every single mainstream reporter has had
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: this conversation with an elected Republican, every single one in Washington.
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  Speaker 1: We all all have an off the record, and I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: have multiple off the record conversations with elected Republicans essentially
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  Speaker 1: saying I don't call it out because you have no
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  Speaker 1: idea what his people do to me or due to
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  Speaker 1: my family, or the threats that are made. Right it is,
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  Speaker 1: there is a coercion that has taken place here, and
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  Speaker 1: that's why it's sometimes frustrating to watch this. Right, some
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  Speaker 1: people only want to look back the last four years
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  Speaker 1: and say, boy, look what the Democrats have done. And
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  Speaker 1: there's some truth to that, right, the democratic cretoric has
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  Speaker 1: gotten harshir the violence that being prone to violence, it
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  Speaker 1: does seem in the last couple of years coming more
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  Speaker 1: from the left than the right. But you're sticking your
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: head in the sand if you don't realize we're living,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: if you don't pull back the camera more and realize, oh,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: how did we get here? This is how we got here, right,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: And the fact is, anybody that's been doing this for
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  Speaker 1: a decade knows this is how we got here. Now
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you can choose to put your partisan blinders on and
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  Speaker 1: say it's their faults. Look at how nasty and awful
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  Speaker 1: the left is. Look at how nasty and awful Donald
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Trump is. The fact is both things can be true
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, and that's something. And
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: this isn't both siding everything. This is you know, two
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: wrongs don't make right. Our politics is fucked up because
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: of too many people believing that two wrongs make a right,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and this sort of idea that you fight fire with fire,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and whether it's on things as sort of arcane as
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: drawing congressional district lines to the rhetoric that is used
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to describe a political opponent that you don't agree with.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the line has been moved
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and we have created the conditions for more of this,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: not less. Now, we spent years talking about January sixth
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: in that matters, But here's the thing I think we've missed.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: That wasn't the end of something. That was actually the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: beginning of something, especially after he pardoned everybody in January sixth.
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  Speaker 1: So the real question now is what happens after that
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  Speaker 1: kind of permission has been established and what is it
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: going to take to create a safer sense of normal
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in our political discourse. Because here's what we've learned right now,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the permission slip of January sixth has has not stayed contained.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It has spread, and it didn't spread ideologically. It's not
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: on one side of the aisle. It has spread culturally,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and you can see it big and small. You see
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it in moments that would have been unthinkable before. A
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: sitting president reacting to the death of a former FBI
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: director Robert Muller by saying, good, I'm glad he's dead.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You know that moment, the fact that he couldn't even
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: fake it until the man was buried. In that moment,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: he couldn't think about people that loved that man, who
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: were children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and spouses.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: That was the President of the United States's reaction. And
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: then we're surprised when people who don't like this president decide,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you know, they're going to fight fire with fire. It
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: should be an earthquake in American politics, and it's barely
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: a tremor. So why does that moment matter? Not because
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: it's shocking, but because it's not shocking. Nobody's batted an
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: eye at it. It just simply got absorbed, filed away,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: added to the pile of incendiary rhetoric that we've now
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: decided is normal. And that was the tell. That was
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the normalization. And once you get there, this is how
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it works. It doesn't take a movement and it doesn't
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: take coordination. It just takes one broken person who may
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: have their own problems and who may decide maybe their
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: own sociopathic tendencies and their own narcissism they think somehow
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: they can solve a problem, or they can be a hero.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: One unstable, angry person who looks around, seize the tone,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: seize the language, thinks that this is now more acceptable
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: than ever, or that it's the only thing left in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the arsenal to do, and then they decide to act
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: within it, within that environment. That's it, that's the mechanism.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Now let's layer something else on the top of all this.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: The last decade has made a lot of people feel
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: like they've lost control. These technological changes are fast. Our
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: cultural changes are super fast. Right, Economically, culturally, socially, it
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: feels we've all we feel less stable in all parts
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of our lives today. And then we have an information
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ecosystem that is exploitive, reinforces one idea over and over.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Someone else is responsible for the situation. Point the finger,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: don't look in the mirror. There's no such thing his
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: personal responsibility anymore, no self reflection, right, you see it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Politicians refuse to take to take stock in their own behavior.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: They just point a finger. Political parties won't take stock
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: in their own behavior. They point fingers or exploit for
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: political gain. Quote the system, right, and this is what
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the system looks like. And once you've believed that, the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: distance between blame and justification gets a lot smaller. And
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: here's the part. A lot of people are going to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: miss or ignore the guy on Saturday Night right, and
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the left has to deal with this. And this wasn't caught,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: This wasn't somebody acting on Trump's behalf. His grievances ran
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: in the other direction. But he chose to believe this
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: was the way out. He'd lost faith in the political system.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It's not a contradiction, it's a confirmation that we have
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: The environment has changed. American politics is now brutal, it's
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: now violent, and this cold civil war is warming up.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We should not want this environment to set in. It
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: takes and there's only one president at a time. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: now we've learned this doesn't stay directional. It gets adapted,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: it gets mirrored, and it gets thrown back. And you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I've been disappointed in watching the reactions from the left,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: which has been frankly similar to the reactions on the right.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Just coming up with the evidence of why it is
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: all Donald Trump's fault. And there's a strong case that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: he created the conditions for this moment. But it doesn't
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: justify the behavior, and it doesn't justify amping up your rhetoric,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't justify any of the behavior with fighting. No,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: all you're doing is accelerated your tape. It's a race
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to the bottom, and you're trying to win. Nobody wins
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: a race to the bottom. Yeah, you can comfort yourself
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: by saying Trump's reaping what he sewed, but it doesn't
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: solve the problem. You and I aren't any safer with
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that attitude. The question is what are you doing to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: change this. I'm sorry that most people don't think Michelle
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Obama was right. I don't even know if Michelle Obama
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: believes she was right that when a political opponent goes low,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you go high. Because the minute you start rationalizing your violence,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: well they started it even rhetorically, you've crossed the same line.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: You're no longer arguing about politics. You're justifying outcomes, different side,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: same logic. And that's what this environment is produced. That's why, unfortunately,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: we don't have a president that can deal with this
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: moment and take it head on, because it would take
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: self reflection. He doesn't have it. It would take an
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: admission that he was a big contributor to what's to
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: this broken environment that we're living in. But I don't like.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, those on the left should
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: take no comfort that he started. It doesn't justify the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: actions or the behavior. So what would leadership Would a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: good leadership moment look like right now? Well, it certainly
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: would sound different. You'd hear a president acknowledging the moment,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: not spin it, not assign blame, just simply acknowledging it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: You'd hear something like, we've all contributed to this own here,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: we need to say it back, we need to lower it,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and I need to do a better job myself. How
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: do you know some of you are probably laughing if
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Trump would ever admit anything. I'm just telling you what
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: it would look like if we were modeling this moment correctly,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you'd at least see an effort, a small one, to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: create space to try to interrupt this cycle. That's what
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: leadership in this moment would look like. That's not what
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: we have. And now we have leadership on the Democratic
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: side who's like, screw them, let's go. We don't have
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the president we need right now to get through this moment,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and we're not going to get what we need from
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: this White House. So instead, what we're going to get
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: as finger pointing, one sided explanations and political framing of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: this moment. There'll be no acknowledgment of how we got here,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and without that, there's no way to actually deal with
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this moment. So we're going to end up moving on,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: not because we should, but because we can't get out
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of it. Right we don't have the people at the table.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: The voters are going to have to give us new
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: leaders to see if they can get the country unstuck here.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And look, we might hear a lot about security, more barriers,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: more distance. Boy, is that that's not the issue. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: if anything, ratcheting up security only makes this worse. You
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: want to create more barriers between the elected officials, the powerful,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and the actual rank and file people. That's not a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: free society anymore. Security is not the problem. Fact, security
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: worked here can't secure your way out of a culture.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: This is not about just going into a bunker or
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: finding a ballroom on grounds that are impossible to get
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: on unless you've given biometric issues. So right now we
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: don't have the leadership that's interested in reversing this. We
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: are escalating. We believe that you can't show weakness, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: because there's this fear of ever showing weakness politically, we
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: now default to confrontation. And the problem is that confrontation
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: is only going to make us less safe. We're less stable.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So it's a lament. I'm not going to be labor
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: this anymore. I am going to do my best to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: canntinue to highlight why we have You know, we've this
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: is a This is a collective failure of American leadership.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's on top, but he's not alone. Get to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the ballot box and realize that character matters, that morality matters,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that temperament matters. Policy goals matter too, But how do
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you want to achieve those goals? How do you plan
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to achieve those goals? Persuasion or coercion. It's a big difference.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: One is something you do in a democracy, the other
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: is something you do in an authoritarian regime. It's the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: decision we have to be and we have to make.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Speaking of pouring fuel on this fire. As I was
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: putting this monologue together, we got news that at federal
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: grand jury North Carolina, somebody went shopping for a grand
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: jury and dieted former FBI director Jim Comey the Justice
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Departments to attempt to criminally charge the former FBI director
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that President Trump fired. The charges are not immediately clear,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but apparently the case stems from a photograph that James
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Comy posted online last year showing seashells on a beach
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that were arranged to write out the numbers eighty six
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and forty seven, with forty seven supposedly being representative of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the president in eighty six meaning banning or removing someone,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: or slang for killing someone. So you can see exactly
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: what the Trump administration is up to. They are taking
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: they are trying to weaponize this moment to prove that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all of this is on the backs of Trump critics
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and that somehow they have clean hands and they have
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with amping up this rhetoric. The amount
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of exploitive ways the president has ordered his government to
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: harass the Komi family, including his daughter, who had a
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: job in the federal government, and she's now in the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: middle of a lawsuit about her firing. Look, I'm not
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: going to sit here and justify Komy doing what he did.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It was stupid, and I think a lot of Komy's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: actions while he was FBI director, were just horrendous. He
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: had the disease of eye alone can fix it disease, right,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: But the First Amendments, the first Amendment, and unless this
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: government can prove that this is connected to anything, was
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: an instigated Actually somehow somebody took it as an order.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know where this case is going, if this
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: has anything remotely to do with that, with that social
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: media post, but that is pouring fuel on this fire.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: That is not an administration interesting in turning down the temperature.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And this is my fear of Democrats get into office
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and win a majority in the House and the Senate
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and immediately go for impeachment. We are just going to
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: be in a cycle and a race to the body.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I know the elected officials I'm looking for. I'm looking
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: for people that are going to turn the page, that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: want to restore honesty and credibility and trust into government
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and they show a little bit of humility and character
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and morality while in office. That might be too much
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: to ask for in our politicians, huh, But if this
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is what we ask for in our friends, this is
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: what we ask for and how we raise our kids,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and you know what it should be what we ask
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: for and what kind of representatives that we have in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: this country. Character is destiny. It's a cliche for a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: reason because it's amazing how often it turns out to
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: be true. By the way, one final point, I'm the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel's stuff. Jimmy Kimmel should apologize. Do I think
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the government should be going after him like this? Of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: course not. He's got First Amendment rights. But the joke
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in hindsight after the events on Saturday, looks terrible. So
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: say it, Admit it. It's okay. You can say I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: was not intended for what it got interpreted as, which
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: means you've got to write a better punchline or you
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: got to write a better joke. I'm not sitting here
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: defending the behavior of this government or the president in
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: targeting Kimmel. But see, this is sort of the problem, right,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Everything is about you got to pick a side, or
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you're on Jimmy Kimmel's side or you're not on his side.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I'm on Jimmy Kimmel's side. I'm on the side of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: free speech. But if I said that and then that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: event happened and somebody got mad, I'd have apologized because
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I'd have felt like shit because it wasn't what he
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I do believe it was not what he intended, but
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to explain him. I just think that again,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it goes back to are you going to be a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: de escalator or do you want to be an accelerant
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: in this moment. It's pretty simple decision people have to make.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Toodcast is brought to you
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• 28:54
  Speaker 1: A few other things. I really want to highlight an
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: interview I did for Newsphere with a long time intelligence
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: analyst from in US government, Beth Saner. She's now out
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of government, but one of her last jobs was being
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: basically the only effective daily briefer to the president in
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the first term. To President Trump, she built a rapport
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: with him where he at least started to accept some intelligence.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I urge you to watch the interview in WHULL. I
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: hope some of you have subscribed a newsphere. I'm just
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: telling you it's really it's a high end news product
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and if you really really want not just reporting, but
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: really smart analysis, looking around the corner type of stuff,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: newsphere is the place for you. But I want to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: share a little bit because look, we're in the middle around.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: We just hit a new high end gas price. This
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is not getting resolved tomorrow. And the impact on our economy,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I mean it is. You know, there's been this sort
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of like stick the markets have been sticking their head
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: in the sand, very hopeful, almost like on some sort
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: of AI high if you will, right. But I can
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: tell you the way consumers are going to feel. Consumers
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: are going to hate this economy, and they already hate
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: this economy. But I just want to sum up a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: few things. My conversation with best Sayer, I would call
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: was very sobering, and she kept returning to one basic
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: point in our thirty minute sit down that the US
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: may be measuring this war one way, bomb damage, destroyed ships,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: degraded assets, but Iran is measuring it another way. Entirely,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: as Sanner put it, Iran's measuring stick is regime survival.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Something I've been emphasizing here that the problem we have
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: is what does our victory look like and what does
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: their victory look like? Right now? Their victory simply surviving
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: gives them leverage, and that means we may be winning
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: tactically while still moving farther away from what was supposed
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to be a strategic solution. So her argument is that
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: we've fallen into a very familiar American pattern assuming military
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: superiority can solve a political problem. She compared it to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, moments when we misunderstood the culture,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the leadership, the decision making, and the resilience of the adversary.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many times do we have to wash
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: rents and repeat? Apparently we had to do it again.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: And one of her sharpest lines in this interview was
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: we're fighting the Iranians in time, right, that's the warning.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: We're focused on what we can destroy and they're focused
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: on what they can survive. And that brings us to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the Strait of hormones. Sander said, the strait is now
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the immediate crisis, not because the nuclear she has gone away,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: but because this is the thing that can blow up
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the global economy right now. I love this line she
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: gave me. She said, the strait is an emergency, which
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: is the alligator closest to the boat. Yes, and our
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: nuclear armed iron is bad. You know what's the worst
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: thing right now? And a rhine in control of the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Strait of hormones. It's the alligator closest to the boat.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: You can't get to the other one until you deal
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: with this one. That's the frame. The nuclear program is
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: still the long term strategic threat, but the strait is
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the crisis sitting in front of us. Shipping, insurance, energy prices, allies, China, Russia,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: all of it, all of it choked off at this
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: choke point. And Sander's broader critique is that we are
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: not sequencing our power very well. We actually sequenced our
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: power really well in Venezuela. She used Venezuela as a
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: net positive comparison. Right, we had diplomacy, we had information, military, force, economics.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: These are all the tools that she outlined that are
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: supposed to work together, but you need to do them
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: in a certain order. And instead she's arguing we're relying
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: too heavily on the military hammer and then wondering why
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the diplomatic door is hard to to reopen. And she
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: made this chilling observation, the Iranians understand us better than
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: we understand them. That does seem like a scary proposition.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: They see the threats, they see the pauses right, they're
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: paying attention, they see the extensions of the ceasefire, and
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: every time we threaten something and don't do it, they
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: read that as proof that they're winning. The bottom line
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: from Santa is this, you can have overwhelming military success
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and still not have an endgame, or she put it,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you can have overwhelming conventional military success and still be
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: no closer to a solution. Welcome to the Iran that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: we have in front of us right now. That's the warning.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: This doesn't end with a bomb damage assessment. It's going
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to end with diplomacy and right now. The question is
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: not just whether Iran comes back to the table. It's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: whether we know who exactly we're supposed to be negotiating
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: with and whether we know how to get to an endgame.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: All right, let me get through a few political questions
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that I know you guys are interested in. Let's start
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: with the Florida remap here, and it is, like I
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: said at the top, this is a map that if
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: you're Republicans, you would have loved to run on in
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: twenty four, and you may like to run on it
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: in twenty eight, especially if Marco Rubio's on the ticket.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It basically dilutes some Republican some big Republican congressional districts
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: in central Florida, both near Tampa Bay and near Orlando,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and makes them a little bit more competitive. Ditto in
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: South Florida. And that all makes sense in a presidential year.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: The problem with this map for Republicans is it's made.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: It has now put more seats in play for Republicans.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: It now means they have to spend more money than ever. Yes,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: they can claim Democrats have to spend a bunch of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: money because the Democratic seats they have to fight for
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and then they have to see if they can win
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a couple of others. So let me give you a
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: few little highlights for those of you that are familiar. Basically,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it didn't make any changes in the northern part of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the state. It really is sort of Tampa Bay, Orlando,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and the Miami mostly the Miami for Lauderdale market, a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: little bit of Palm Beach. So let's start with Jared
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Moscowitz W Washerman Sultz. This is Districts twenty three and
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: twenty five. This is parts of so Moscow. It's basically used.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It's been the congressman for Parkland, right, and so it's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: both I think, a little bit of Palm Beach and
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Broward County and W. Washerman Soults,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: who used to be almost all exclusively browd County. It's
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: gotten more Miami, so there's less now a Broward County
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: base in District twenty three, which was Moscowitz, and that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: puts them in danger. Meanwhile, you've got W. Washerman Soultz's
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth district now essentially is a coastal seat and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: now is Delray Beach to Miami Beach. So it's both
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: heavily Latino and really wealthy. You know, she's if she
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: were not pro Israel, I'd say she'd have a hard
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: time holding that seat. But she can hold the seat.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: It may be a swing district now, and she's not
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: running swing districts very often, and that's something that might
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: be different, you know, to me. You know, there's certain
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: members of Congress. When you're always in a swing district,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you're sort of you have muscle memory for it, you develop.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: It's like anything when you have one workout routine. If
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you do the same thing over and over again, that's
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: what I do. Unfortunately, I don't diversify my workouts. I'm
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I sort of I'm really I'm really good
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: at handling treadmill running. I'm really bad at handling anything else. So,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I think what's new for w Wasserman Chols
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: is going to be being in a swing district mindset.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: But she's kind of I've noticed she has lowered her
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: national profile a bit and gone more I think frankly
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: in response to I mean, her district has been getting
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit more competitive over time. Meanwhile, the twenty
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: second district, this is lowis Francle, this was mostly Palm Beach. Well,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it now is shifting parlis and balances across both Palm
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Beach and Broward in central Florida. The ninth district, this
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: is Darren Soto. This one gets dramatically. This one essentially
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: gets erased. It's moved from a majority Latino seat to
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: a plurality white one. And if you just look at
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the data, goes from a plus three point five Harris
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: district to a plus eighteen Trump district. Meanwhile, Kathy Casters
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: seat in Tampa Bay fourteenth district, it's been we've drawn
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to be much more competitive, and it shifts to a
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: narrow plus three Republican edge. The point is that Castor
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: has been targeted, but this is not an automatic loss here. Meanwhile,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: there's been some huge fallout, right. So Daniel Webster, longtime
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: member of Congress in Florida, he'd been one of the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: louder voices saying don't do this. He walked. He's like,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not defending this new seat. Here's what happened to
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: his seat. The seat is no. He had a R
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: plus twenty fortress. The new lines moved parts. He had
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the villages in his district, so it took the deep
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: red villages and put them into some adjacent districts, and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: it's just turned what was a very Republican district into
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: essentially a lean R And I think they just assumed
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Daniel Webster, who's been everybody, Yes, he could hold it,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't want to hold it. And as an
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: open seat midterm year, this is the first district created
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: that could start to get us into dummy mandar territory.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And then to make Castor work, they had to pull
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Republican voters from neighboring thirteen and fifteen districts. Well, the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: thirteenth is represented by Anna Paulina Luna, who was already
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: in a fairly competitive district as it is, and she
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: is somebody who's always been seen as a little bit
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: too conservative for the district she's represented. Well, now what
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: is it Now? She's even more you know, so she
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: might not be the right person to hold that for
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: the Republicans. So that seat arguably now has become more vulnerable.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: And then in South Florida, in order to do this
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: this sort of cracking and packing of they did that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: they to spread out the Broward County voters a little
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: bit so that they didn't all get consolidated. They had
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to move some reliably Republican voters into these more competitive districts.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: What it is left is, it's left both Mario Diaz
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Billard and Carlos Sementez with more diverse and less predictable
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: red electorates in Dade County. And it wasn't that long
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: ago that both of those districts had plenty of Democratic
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: voteds Miami. Dade County is a swing county. It's still
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: a swing county. Yes, a lot of Republican money has
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: moved to Miami, a lot of major private equity firms
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: have moved to my All of that is true. But
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: all the people they bring are they're bringing, They're not
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: necessarily bringing Republican voters. And it is not clear that
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the Latino vote is going to be as Republican in
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: twenty six as it was in twenty four. And if
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: it is not, then suddenly these two districts are in play.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And Maria Salazar was already in play, although that got
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: configured a bit too so bottom line, I know I
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: went through it individually. Bottom Line, this will be a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: good map for Republicans in twenty eight, but they may
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: this basically may not pick up four, probably is maybe
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: it picks up one or two, could be break even.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: But it has done this. It's made Florida. It's actually
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: this is what it did is that Florida was not
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: going to be home to many swing districts, and now
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it is. Now there's going to be more money spent.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Right Virginia created a situation where there's much fewer swing districts,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: much less money will be pouring in from either party.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: This new Florida map actually increases the need for campaign spending.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: You'll see there's a bit more competition. And then we've
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: already seen that both the governor's race and the Senate
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: race aren't cakewalks for the Republicans. So it's Florida battle
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: around state again. I'm not quite ready to go that far,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: but it is more competitive and might have as many
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: house seats in play, certainly more house seats in play,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: or maybe as many a house season play as a
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: state larger than it than Texas. A few other nuggets
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: just to share with you. One interesting new Democratic poll
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: out of Texas that shows tall Rico within a high
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: single digit lead over Paxton and a low single digit
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: lead over Cornyn. That's not surprising. I think what's surprising
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that there is still a lead over Cornan. I think
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the real question is if Cornyn wins this runoff, is
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: this still a competitive race? Now? The problem that Tallarrica's
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: going to have is that I think if Cornan wins
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: a runoff, they'll be less national. There'll be less money
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: coming from the Senate packs because there'll be a belief
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: that it and we know John Thune's going to be
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: more willing to spend more money than ever. Now, Look,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: do I think no matter who the Republican nominee, there's
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: going to be a ton of money poured into Texas.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I do, But there'll be more if it's Corny than
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if it's Paxton. So that's a note there. And I
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: still you know, you still see all the and I'm
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: going to get to this in my top five list,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: but you're still going to see You're still going to
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: see Paxton still seems to have the advantage of the runoff.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins deciding to go negative on Graham platter before
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the primary. If you're Jana Mills, this is exactly what
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: you were hoping for. But it might but there's another
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: way to look at this, The fact that the Colins
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: superPAC has decided to engage Platiner now rather than after
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the primary sort of gets there was this growing conventional
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: wisdom that if Collins could choose, she'd rather face Platiner
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: than Mills. Well, guess what the super pac has decided. No, no, no, no, no.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: They want to kill Platiner. Now they want to face Mills.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: And you know what, I think the Collins people are right,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and I think we've been watching this race together. You've
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: probably seen me evolve on this a little bit myself.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: I was a little skeptical, and now I see the
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: strength of Platiner, don't get me wrong. And so it's
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: interesting now you see the Colins super pack essentially deciding,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: oh no, we much rather face Janet Mills. Look, she's
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: just not a good candidate. Doesn't mean she might now
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: make a great senator. She's just not a good candidate,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: whether a primary candidate or general electric candidate. It's been
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: exposed in the primary by Platner, who's a very good
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: political athlete, and now the Collins people see it in
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: their numbers. Right, This just reinforces what we've all been
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: seeing in these public polls. Platner's a strong is in
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: a strong position at the moment to win this senencee.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Collins would much prefer to face an opponent who also
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: is an incumbent politician. Pretty logical to me. All right,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: let's sneak at a break when we come back my
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: conversation with a Tim O'Mara. Like I said, she's a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategist, but also look, she's written this great book
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: called The Instigators about the history of sort of and
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: power of black women in politics. So you know, whether
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: she wants to be known as an historian or not,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: she now is as well when you go down this road.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: So I think you'll enjoy the conversation, especially if you're
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: truly trying to understand what the future of the Democratic
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Party and the Democratic Coalition is going to look like.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. This episode of the
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  Speaker 1: Check podcast is brought to you by Soul. So if
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  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: am a customer. So joining me now is a first
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: time author. The book is called The Instigators, And as
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you can see the author here Atima O'Mara, she's even
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: she's got merch. I love it like you know, you
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: got a shirt with it there. I mean, you are
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: extraordinarily well prepared. What this book is about. It's essentially
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: about the role that black women in particular have played
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and are playing right now in American politics, and the
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: influential role that younger Black women are playing these days
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: in American politics. So this book is part analysis because
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: she's in the advocacy space, political strategy space, but also
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: historical because this is not a new thing. Black women
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: in many ways have carried the banner for civil rights
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and for voting rights and for just rights in general.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Teama joins me now, team, Welcome to the podcast.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: So.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Obviously, one of the big pushbacks that your book is
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: attempting to do, Rich is there's the general consensus that
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the that it's white swing voters, suburban moderates that decide elections,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: And in some ways this is an attempt to blow
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: up that myth a little bit. And I think we
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: all have realized that swing voters are not people that
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: swing between two sides. Actually, most swing voters swing between
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: voting and not voting as much as they swing actually
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: between the two parties. Not saying that there aren't some
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: voters that do this and they become incredibly decisive when
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: the margins are super thin. But is that a fair
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: is that? Is that a fair marker here? That it
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: was one of the big MythBusters you wanted to do,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: was that?
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Yes? Definitely.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: I wanted to challenge sort of a narrative that if
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: we are are focusing on trying to get this why
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: moderate swing voter, you know, trying to think of thinking
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: of that particular guy and you would know this from
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: your coverage, I'm forgetting him.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: But he's like the guy and like the plumber.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, the plumber, he's one, and there's like another
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: one where he's just like I'm still deciding and everybody
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: off his park.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Dad, Right, We've got that one, right.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: You know, Sometimes you get like the NASCAR mom or
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: soccer mom who's.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Just trying to make decisions.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: And I get that that is is fascinating sort of
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: in coverage in media, but it's it's it's not great
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: as the basis as the foundation of a political strategy
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: for certainly the Democratic Party.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Well, you start your book, you start with Virginia.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: So this is something I'm very familiar with, and certainly
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: my listeners over the last few weeks have gotten very familiar.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about Virginia in general. But it's it's, uh,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you start talking about the Ralph Northam scandal and his
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: black face scandal and sort of the role walk me
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: through the role you think black women played in that,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and I guess would be his political survival.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, So you had elected officials, You had cabinet members
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: of his as well as advocates who were like, all right,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: if you want to stay in political power, we are
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: going to make you put in the work for it.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: So you had organizers like Chelsea Higgs Wise who had
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: started ah, you know, marijuana advocacy organization that was grassroots
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: to push for the legalization, Like, forget the criminalization, We're
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: just going to go the full legalization and organizing people
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: around that young you know, black single mother.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: And then you had Adam McClure.
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: She's now a state House representative House of Delegates in Virginia,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: but was head of the Virginia Legacity of Black Caucus.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: That's use this to put together a very ambitious legislate
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: of agenda. Maybe not everything's going to get passed on
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: criminal justice reform, social safety and such, but we are
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: going to put it forth in this in the in
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: this opportunity.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: And then you have a Voting Rights Act.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: We have our own state Voting Rights ac modeled off
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: the sixty five Voting Rights Act thanks to then State
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: Senator Jennifer McClellan. And then you had a lot of
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: the initiatives just in state government and policy that were
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: being pushed by cabinet secretaries at the time who were
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: younger black women.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: And so you know, a lot of this happened as Northern.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: Was trying to figure out how to rebound and take
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: advantage of trying to stay in place. And it came
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: right into the spring of twenty twenty when George Floyd
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: was murdered. And now we're all inside and now it
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: was really an additional captive audiences. As they say in
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: public policy, the Overton window had shifted traumatically, and they
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: were poised to take all that work and knowledge and
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: strategy and push for a lot of the change that
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: we now have in Virginia.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it look you had leverage over him, he decided,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and it was I don't want to say it was
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: accidental leverage, but it was. It was almost leverage that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: was lost. I mean not to get into the tragedy
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of the of the of the late now late lieutenant governor,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: but because he politically was essentially paralyzed at the moment
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: then and unable to be seen as the as the alternative. Uh,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: if there was a if, if Northam decided to resign
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: in the in this case, was it easier to get
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: leverage on him or was it actually harder when it
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: when he felt quote politically safer because his LG had
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: separate political issues that made him a fraud potential replacement governor, It.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Probably and I lluded to it there in the book
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: that I think it made him feel like, Okay, I've
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: got more room to try and assert that I stay.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: And that is where that sentiment that winter and going
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: into spring of twenty twenty, where folks were like, all right,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: if you won't stay, we're gonna make it work for it,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: and how a lot of those policies, and you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: he made himself very amenable to that because I think
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: he realized, certainly.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Politically, it was going to be hard.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Their cabinet members are elected officials, we're going to resign
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: or certainly make his political life not very uncomfortable if
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: he had not been as amenable. So credit to him
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: being amnimal, but I also think he was put in
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: a position where, you know, he felt that he had
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: to be a lot more to prove to folks that
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: he was what he believed himself to be as a
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: better changed person.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: How often do you think, I actually think sometimes interest
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: groups don't take advantage of what I would call transactional
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: leverage moments, meaning you know where, look, this is not
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: somebody that would normally be your ally, but they kind
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of need you more than you you know, and you
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: know what, maybe we can extract some concessions out of here.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: And there's so much pressure these days, frankly not to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: be seen as working with somebody who maybe was against
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: your interests six months ago, six years ago, you know
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: the you know what always invited, what always made to
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: me what the most inviting thing of our democracy in
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: general is that even at its founding, it was intended
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: to be a negotiation, right that it was always a negotiation.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: So if we if you think of politics as a negotiation,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: it means you're going to actually make some common cause
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: with people you don't normally agree with, because it's a
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: quote negotiation. And yet I feel like that art has
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: been lost in modern politics, more so in the democratic
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: side of the eye. I am I being a little
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: overly critical here, not.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: I mean there are moments where, you know, listen, there
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: are folks realizing, okay, I voted for something three times
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: that is now pretty terrible, and I'm not super interested
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: in being buddies with these folks.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: However, if there is an operation, I.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Don't want to be lectured at for supporting this entity
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: for the less right right yea lecturing like telling me
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I was wrong, Okay, I was wrong, And for me.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: It's like okay, listen, like you're going to be on
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: the same page and voting great, but you don't want
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: to do this again. We don't want to have to
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: go through this again. We are going to on the
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: other side of this, have to have a conversation about
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: why you did what you did and why you thought
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: that this made the most sense. So I'm one of
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: those people where it's like I understand the point of coalitions,
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: where it's like, all right, let's just be in the
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: room on this one point and win, so that we
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: can at least have a conversation.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: On the other side about how we retain this victory.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about twenty four because in here you're pretty
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: you're pretty tough on the Democrats. Walk me through it.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: What could have been was it was this an election
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: that was lost on persuasion or mobilization.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Very much mobilization.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: I think some of the things that have been leaking
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: from the twenty twenty four Action Report point.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: That we're never going to see.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: You're ever going to see it? Yeah, you're never going
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: to see.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: And you know, I've had an opportunity to get some
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: insights into into what it was from some briefings that I.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Who did it, who took in charge of this briefing
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: of this autopsy, of.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: This autopsy, I actually don't know.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: There was like a whole committee formed, and I know
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: that there's like a couple of strategists who.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Did some of the probably just two or three people
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: that did like ninety percent of.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: The work the work, right, Yeah, and then there's like, yeah,
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: so there's just generally this committee And so we definitely
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: lost it in mobilization. Not to say that racism and
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: estotrapy didn't play a role, because there were certainly these
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: people who were like, well, I remember distinctly Arizona, some
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: young person being interviewed and why you know, who are
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: going to vote for Trump?
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: And why well, I'mala didn't show up on the Joe
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Rogan podcast.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: I was just like, okay't I don't think that was
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: the deciding factor. I feel like that was a good excuse,
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: but okay, sure, so you had those, but when you
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: have Trump didn't actually get as much as he was, like,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: this was a landslide.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: It was small amounts.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Of margins of votes in all the seven states, And
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: when you looked at what happened in twenty twenty, where
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: we were trying to make it more accessible to vote for.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Folks, and obviously that rolled back.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: But then you also looked at Trump's margins. You didn't
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: do that much better than twenty It was the Democratic
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: turnout that was lower. And it's not a combination of
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: voter suppression and not having dealt with that, but also
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: the mobilization is now and I cite it in the book.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: Lots of stories from black staffers who were trying to renegade,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: just figure out how to do operational work on the
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: ground in communities that we needed to vote, as well
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: as you know, black consultants who weren't sort of getting
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: the resources they needed and black led, brown led organizations
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: to turn out their communities that they got in twenty
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: twenty by comparison.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Well, to me, you know, I've always said that the
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: damning part of this election on the mobilization front is
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: not the seventh the results in the seven states, it's
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: actually the results in the other forty three. Right when
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: you look at the the number of blue states that
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: ended up single digits close to five points, like Illinois,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: New Jersey to me or the probably the best examples,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: but this was across the board, right, It just felt
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: like that there was somewhere, you know, I do think
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I go back to what I believe more so today
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: than I even believed a decade ago, which is that
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: swing voters are those that swing between voting and not voting,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: which means it is a mobilization tool, But it doesn't
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: mean you don't have persuasion. Right, Yeah, And this is
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: why I hate saying, you know, and I did it
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: to you, right, I said Pick one was a mobilization persuasion. Well,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is you couldn't persuade those
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: who normally are with you to go vote. So guess what,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: you had a mobilization problem that was also a persuasion problem.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: That is like, there just weren't people excited. Now we
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: all have our theories. Were they not excited about her
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: because she was trying to straddle the fence between sort
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: of the old guard of the party and the progressive wing.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Was it because she was saddled with an unpopular president?
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Which is frankly, sometimes I look at things and it's like,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: let's stop being complicated. Where to Humphrey didn't win, al
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Gore didn't win, Kamala Harris didn't win. It's hard to
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: succeed a president who is unpopular for one reason or
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: the other, either personally or professionally, and my goodness, look
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: how close she came, and yet and yet he was
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: holding it right. So I still at the end of
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the day put this on Biden that we could sit
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: here and nitpick all we want. If Biden had been
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a more popular president, Kamala Harris would be president.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah it was, and yeah, there was a the fact
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: that the margins were so tight, and then the fact
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: that you had she had one.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Hundred and seven days.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: And as somebody pointed out when they were talking about
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: the election, I.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Was going out and thought about it.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: But she's like a voting started basically after the convention,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: so she was already behind before she started. And so
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: that is you know, that's where I sort of am
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: as well in thinking there was not a lot that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: between his popularity and then the operation that was handed
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: to her that set her up for.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Success, and she closed that gap.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Like the stories about him being under the water and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: then he couldn't have pulled it out were as we
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: now know true, And she really didn't as much as
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: she could to close.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: The gap and came very close.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: She saved three or four Senate seats. I look at it,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think people, I mean, you know,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: let's Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada. What am I leaving out here?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Is it Michigan? Yeah, it's Michigan. Right, four Senate seats
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden would have lost. Joe Biden been the nominee,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: he'd lost all four of those Senate seats go down.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty convinced to that because he probably has something.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: He's probably performs two or three points lower than she does.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt that as well. That was the failing.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: Even just the energy on the ground in volunteer enthusiasm
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: is completely shifted of people who were of the the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: diehards wanted to get work done, and volunteer shifted with
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: her at the top of the ticket.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to black women voters, and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: it is more and more Democrats talk about that black
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: women are the heart and soul, certainly in primary politics.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: One of the things though, that I think is nobody
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: quite knows the answer to. And I see people in
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the media just as presume that black women are primary
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: are are super voters, so that must mean they're super lefty,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and that's not the same. I think that that's always
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the biggest mistake most amateur analysts make with black voters,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: but walk me through sort of the ideological spectrum of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: black women and what works and what ideological arguments don't.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Like why do some progressives have such a hard time
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: convincing black voters to support them?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: I think oftentimes, and I'll say this from my own
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: perspective and the conversations in my cohort, is that you're
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: you're having conversations with people who are not having an
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: analysis of an economic issue that takes into account the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: experiences of what it means to be black, brown, or
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: woman in this country. You know, every single time I
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: heard Bernie Sanders say, all right, but it's about the economy,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: and I'm like abortion rights, and in response to abortion
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: rights or anything that just wants.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: To do it, he kept saying, oh, it's downplaying it
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: when every single, every single sort of study that has
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: come out says that, you know, the essentially the discussion
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: around whether you grow a family or not.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: I know, it's personally is based around how many children
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: you have, whether whether you can feed that child, provide
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: for that child, and with things, yes, costs or rising,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: but it is it is that's taken away, that's a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: big part part of an economic discussion. So as an example,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: you know, talking about criminal justice reform and and not
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: you not talking about it in a way that at
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: all takes into account the humanity of black people, you know,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: not talking about the environment. What's happening right now in
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: this country around you know, data center organizing, like anti
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: data center organizing, and not really realizing it's very much
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: of an environmental justice issue. And you know that we
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: have a great opportunity because it's like a multi racial
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: now sort of organizing. It's happening in some of the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: redist areas to some of the more blue areas against
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: this this sort of pushing of corporate stuff, but not
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: really kind of capturing a lot of that energy or
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: understanding or proposing policies that really take into account the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: experiences of what it means to be black or brown
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: in the US.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: So, So let me ask you this, do you describe
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: a two track system of insiders and instigators? Are they?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: How much do those worlds trust each other? And how
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: much are they just fundamentally intentioned?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: They know, there's always been attention and there should be
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: a sort of a natural attention to somebody who's like
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: an elected official and government highest and you know, halls
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: of power as it were, and those who are doing
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: the activism. I do think that that has become even
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: more tense in recent years, and there's.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: Like less respect.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: Really on either side, you know, certainly for the roles
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: that everybody has to play.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of why is there less respect? What's
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: your sense is it? Is it money has sort of
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: clouded the picture for the groups, and the groups are
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: just so driven by finances. What is it?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: I think on the elected official side, I think it's like,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: why don't you trust me to.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Just get the work time? I think it's that's their
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: their feeling.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: And I think on the activist side, I think it's
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: more so that because we don't see you doing a
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: lot of that. We don't even see you trying to
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: put together piecemeal reform in the direction of.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: You know, making change, and so.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: You're asking us to trust you based off of And
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: a good example I think of is like right after
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty get the Senate and granted Mansion Cinema were
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: the hold up on why we couldn't get a lot
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: of things through Build Back Better Voting Rights Act.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: I guess what they call for the people was the legislation.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: And and and so it's like, okay, literally, well you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: we can't get it through, and they're like.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: What do we just push to put you in power?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: For?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: What are the ways around?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: You know, what are alternative things that we can do
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: to expand the right to vote? Because we're telling you like,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: if we don't, we're seeing a whole slew of voter
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: suppression bill is going to come, which they did. And
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: so I think it's that that's like, Okay, you're asking
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: us to trust where there isn't something, and officials are like,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: I need you to trust that we're going to do
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: the right thing. And it's like got to be a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: little goob and take in that relationship.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: It's a dance. You know.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Do you think democrats in the Biden White House spot
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: aren't it.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Not as much as they should have known?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: What would that have looked like? I mean they certainly
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: risked now part Look, I think you had President Biden
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: has the heart of a legislator, not an executive. So
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: we had more patients for sort of the Senate games
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: been shipped and perhaps other presidents would have And you know,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I think that that's if you want to know the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: real secret difference between a senator becoming president and a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: governor becoming president. It is probably that level of patience. Right,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Obama had more patience for the process then maybe I
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: remember a lot of people thought that he should. Biden
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: had a lot more patients for the process, because you know,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: they've been on the other side. You know, even if
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: briefly they you know, they're too personally friendly with those
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: But what would that have looked like? And what if
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the whole thing had blown up and you wouldn't have
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: gotten anything? And perhaps you just think, you know what, No,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: they would have you know, a little hardball wouldn't have
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: hurt them.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually don't think a little hardball would have
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: hurt them.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: And I think about because you.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Know, channeling his inner LBJ, you know lb J.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Like one of my favorite stories I read about olbi J.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: It's lesser known, was he was trying to get the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: voting right ZAC pass. He did a whistle stop tour
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: like and he had Lady Bird Johnson go through the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: South have teas with all the Southern senators. There was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: one senator in Virginia. If I'm not mistaken, I believe
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: that he was the father of one of our evangelical leaders,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: Pat Robertson. I believe I think it was his father, right, yes, yes, yeah,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: And so he was like, absolutely, I am not meeting
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: with her. I am not voting for this thing. The
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: Jenet was like, Okay, that's how you want to play ball.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: Found a primary opponent, groomed him and did an operation
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: to essentially take.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Out Senator Robinson. And I think about that, I'm like, wow.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: That is sounds like Donald Trump. By the way, when
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: he doesn't get his way, what does he do? What
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: he always said? Right? No, there's like parts of Trump
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: that are a little LBJ and a little Teddy Roosevelt, right,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: you know which is you know, it's a little showmanship,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: but he's you know, it's always like you know, one
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: of the worst mistakes opponents of Donald Trump make is
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: that they assume everything he says is wrong or everything
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: he does is wrong. It's like, you know, there's some
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: there's some things to learn from him. You know, he's
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: won twice. Don't don't think he doesn't know what he's
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: doing here. That doesn't mean you have to emulate him,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: but there is tactics you can learn from him, just
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: like you would learn from your enemy in a war.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, that was pretty smart. Well you got to
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: try that, you know, when it comes to drones or whatever.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And sort of what Trump shows is that the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: example of LBJ are the example of FDR even because
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: there was like a point where he thought he was
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: going to expand.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: The supreme and he did primaries, you know, primary somebody.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And is that to push for what you
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: believe in and what you want to get done?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: And most of our legislation that passed in this country
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: was through very much not on the dogged persistence of activists.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: But then you know, when it came leg slatively, these
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: folks were like, all right, I'm going to make this happen.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know how I'm gonna make this happen.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: We're gonna find ways to do it, whether that's breaking
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: up the bill, doing an executive.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: Order, what have you.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: And not surprising you, though, are some of our most
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: popular farm more fondly remembered presidents for their agendas too.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: What's a how does an act? I'm a little skeptical
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: of advocacy advocacy groups these days that they don't have
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: the influence they once had, and I sit there because
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: I fear as if the only influence that matters now
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: is money or votes in a primary. And maybe I'm
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: being a tad cynical, but you know, how would you
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: advise today's activist groups to get more leverage in the
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: non campaign seasons.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, first to just continue to do advocacy and
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: organizing in need on campaign seasons as someone who you
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: know does this work through you know, my own advocacy
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: and consulting firm.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I just.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: I have, I have counseled often. All Right, you want
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: folks to mobilize and come out around these issues as
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: we are getting into the time of as you know,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: many folks call it lake stage capitalism, where housing is
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: more expensive, you're working more jobs, and need used to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: your distraction is kind of all over.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: The place with social media.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: You've got to find a way to break through and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: let people know, all right, some of these things that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: you're frustrated with you.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: Can do something about.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: And I know that there are some organizations that's just
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: recently at the America Votes Conference who would love to
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: spend more time on the doors and organizing, and they're
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: not getting the funding at the levels they should something
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: I talk about in the book, and how that has
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: led to sort of an erosion of this support in
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: election years. If somebody is not talking to the not
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: politically engaged like you and I, you know, there is
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: just more challenging.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: To do it. It is amazing to me how this
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: is flipped within twenty years. Yeah, Democrats used to dominate
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: the off year messaging, and it was Republicans that sort
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: of just sort of campaign hopped, and now it's sort
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: of you know, you know, basically since Obama it has
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: been you know, oh it's election season. Let's you know,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: round up the usual suspects, round up the usual billionaires,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Let's fund what are we going to call the super
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: pac this year future forward? Okay, we'll try that. Like
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: it's just like redoing whatever they thought worked in twenty twelve,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: right the last time it all kind of came together,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: and it's just a consistent attempt to replicate twelve. And
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: they're almost thinking that these you know, and there's been
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: something missing here right in the off year. What did
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: what did the right do? Well? They used crypto organize
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: young men and that had a bigger impact, and I
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: think I expected it also wasn't just young white men,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: it was young men of color. Right. I think crypto
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: has been you know, I think I've got a lot
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: of skepticism about it. I got a lot of concerns
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: about it. But politically it has been very effective for
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the right to woo young men under forty, regardless of race.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Am I not wrong about that? No?
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: I mean they have taken the media.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: The growth of social media, the growth of podcasts is
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: the reason they call twenty twenty four the podcast election.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: The matisphere is quite real. We see it now, even
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: for those who might not be engaged in politics, seeing
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: it in there.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: You know, I see it.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: My son's nineteen, My youngest iseteen, nineteen year old boy.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Young man. I'm sorry, he's nineteen now, and you know
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: he's he certainly has knows what I do for a living,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: but so he keeps He lets me know, but he'll
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: be down in one of his sports things or whatever,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: and it's like, man, it gets political real quick. And
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: he's a little more aware of it because of what
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: dad does for a living. But I see it. It
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: is quite effective because you don't really know you're being
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: given a political argument. You realize it.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they have moved into pop culture and fitness and
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: healthcare and and we're still like, all right, let's have
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: political podcasts.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: And it's like, Okay, that's great for you, and I'm.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: They're only talking to you and I I know, you.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: Know, but that's not you know, there are amazing podcasts
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: that I listened to with some very thoughtful people who
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: are talking about like what's happening on reality TV that
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: that's a right audience.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you do you want to know what
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: the what the politics of your hosts are for your
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: non political podcast or do you fear finding out what
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: the politics are of some of your favorites, Like I
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: do this with this World and I'm like, you know,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: they'll they'll hint at something political, going well, we're not
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: touching that because of this, And then I'm like, wait,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: where are they coming down? Like I don't maybe I
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: don't want to know. I enjoy this too.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: Much, right, I mean, it's funny.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: I have I have sort of discerned in some of
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: the stuff that I listened to, and I think because
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: I'm like my ear is like, oh, oh's.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: You look for the red coded or the blue coated?
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, and there are some who are
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: who are talking about.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's happening on Summerhouse right now, that's the
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: topic of.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: Conversation pop culture, and they have very thoughtful takes on
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: raise and gender analysis and easily.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Just doing it through the prism of this TV show
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: rather than yeah yeah, mm hmm. So that's the space
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: you think that that the left needs to get better at.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: What funny is that the right was convinced that the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: left was always better than them at.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: This Yeah, that's that's the irony, and maybe that paranoia
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: gave you know, got them that funding and that energy
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: to sort of, you know, really take over podcasts and
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: you know, influencers they pay that they compensate their influencers
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: in a way that left wing influencers are not.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: To be compensated. Yeah, they're just and that's a whole
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: chapter in the book.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: It's just on on how that influence has allowed you know,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: very much of a of a perspective to thrive us.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: Kind of gone challenge in a lot of quarters.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: So it totally has. Let me ask you this about
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: you think the two parties are going to sustain themselves
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: as the two major parties in this country for the
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future, or do you think that our
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: two party systems vulnerable right now?
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: I always feel like, you know, the duo, I have
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: like love hate relationship with the duopoly as somebody who's
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: like done a lot in the Democratic Party. But I
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: approach to sort of with that pragmatic sense of things,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: all right, you know, the mechanisms of change, and I
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: still for the foreseeable future see it that way because structurally,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: to build, you know, to have a country with multiple
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: political parties requires some structural changes to electoral college and
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: our districts.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Just simply primary rules, right, primaries perhaps or something like that.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: I mean that that's sort of my head is at.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, I do feel like we are
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: a nation that is more diverse than the options we
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: offer on our politics, right, Like, Yeah, imagine going into
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: a store or even go on a website and buying
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of T shirts and the only sizes available
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: were extra small and extra large, Right, that a lot
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: because it's usually the last two that sell, right, those
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the last two sizes that sell. Well, that's essentially what
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: we've done with our politics. We have two choices. You know,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: good luck if you want a different you know, the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: spybe got a different size. Good luck that. And I know,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: are we have a structural you know, there's no doubt
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: the people have spoken about their dissatisfaction with the two parties.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: How do we know they're not registering in either one
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: of them? It's a rejection, collective rejection. But we don't
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: have a way. This group of voters is begging for
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: something different, but we don't know how to offer it.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: And I say we, meaning the collective, we left and right.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, one of the things that I wanted to
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: really address in the book is somebody who's just been inside,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: you know, all the way from local to national party
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: politics and Democratic Party is that you know, in the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: entire time even that I've been involved in, Democratic Party
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: has evolved in change. You couldn't talk about abortion at all,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: and people were like third rail.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: Now if you're not, you know, pro choice, that's a problem.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: And most pretty much most parts of the country as
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: a Democrat now and that's because of folks who got
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: involved in the party and were active and activists, and
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: so you know, people look at the DNC and they
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: think of it as an entity that cannot be moved
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: and changed, and this party has evolved over time because
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: of the people who got involved and moved and changed it.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: And you know, I say that, you know, you may
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: even be frustrated with the structure of the party as
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: it is now. For me, I found, you know, common
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: cause of people who felt similar to me in what
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: we were advocating for. You know, Working Families Party has
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: become a good holding space for a lot of those
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: folks who are pretty frustrated you can vote a certain
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: line and not have to run a Democratic party in
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: New York. They're building power in other places. But I
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: you know, say, hey, Working Families Party exists primarily to
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: organize people who agree on some of these issues around
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: a multiracial democracy, as you know, a stronger social safety
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: and all of that.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: And you know, use that.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: Community to sort of change your Democratic party in your area,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: within whatever the structure that we have now. But I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: never like to talk about our duopoly like we cannot
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: in a democracy as a people moved to change it
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: because there are many people who have made it a
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: better on a lot of fronts as it is now.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Well it's funny, it's both parties are coalitions and they
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: have been. It's just you know, I think twenty sixteen
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: actually gave us our most vivid version of this. We
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: saw that both parties actually had pretty bright line divisions,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: you know. And if we had been a four party
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: European sort of like the French, we would have had
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: four finalists, you know, Bernie with the Greens, yeah, and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton with the you know labor, let's center labor,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: you know, and maybe Marco Rubio with the sort of
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: center right party, and then the nationalists being Donald Trump
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: right like, that would have been your European breakdown. And
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: who knows what that coalition would have looked like. It's
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: possible Sanders and Trump would have bound together in a
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: run off situation, you know, or Rubio or Clinton or
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: maybe not right, it could have been based on the
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: cultural lines that are drawn. So it is. I do
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: think Americans want that kind of flexibility in their politics.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: We just don't know how to deliver that system.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think that it will take electing
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 3: people into office who are willing to push, you know,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: for those changes, certainly so that we have a system
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: that it's better reflective.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks who are just not happy
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: with the electoral.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: College for obvious and good reasons, right, and we haven't
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: you know, organized the will around changing it.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe that will change.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I will tell you my obsession with dealing with
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: the electoral college is to actually double the size of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: the House. And then you actually make the numerator. The
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: electoral college issue goes away. And it doesn't mean it
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist, It just goes away if you raise the numerator, right,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: like that's been And oh, by the way, if we
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: have more members of Congress than you actually have more
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: people with access to power, and you've opened the door,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: you've lowered the barrier to entry, and you may diversify
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways what Congress looks like. You
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: know that for some reason, that's an easy reform to
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: do without a constitutional amendment. And it's really hard to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: get people engaged in.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's, uh, it'll be interesting. I'm
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: I'm actually curious to see if some of the energy
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: for those changes really kind of takes hold with a
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: lot of a lot more folks as as they are
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: realizing now you know everyday folks that it's not working well.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: AI job, fear of AI job displacement could be that trigger.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, job a spliceman not be able to afford homes, right,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: jobs just not paying what they used to.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me right now about what you think
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: a winning Democratic coalition looks like in twenty twenty one.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: Winning Democratic coalition, Well, it's definitely going to have to
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: be somebody who is very unapologetic about addressing the previous
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: harms of the administration.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that people.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Who and you do it without looking like you're looking backwards.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: You get my drift like, yeah, get you got to
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: right wrongs And I'm with you there, but you got
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: to look like you're worried about the future. Right, it's
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a tough it's a tough It's
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: tougher than you think.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah no, And it's one of those things where I
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: feel like, you know, all science point to unless something
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: goes really weird, Democrats will get the House. They will
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: have an opportunity to attempt to pass legislation and draft
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: legislation that.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: Speaks to the concerns of the American.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: People, housing economy, and a winning coalition looks like a
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: lot of people at the table who it's diverse. It's
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: racially diverse, it's people from all different walks of life.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: The base of the party might be very racially diverse,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: but those who have sort of made the decisions you
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: said earlier about twenty twelve.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: And it seems like we're stuck on twenty twelve.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: And I would say that that is very much because
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of the people who are still running it
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 3: are some of the folks who were involved in twenty twelve.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's Look, it happens to every generation of operatives.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: There's a moment where they become the geniuses, and then
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: there's the moment when they're the past. And right, I
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: think the geniuses of the Obama era haven't accepted the
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: fact that they're no longer genius.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: They're no longer the geniuses and are not the future.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: And it will be a hopefully a lot more.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to throw my gen x
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: ers completely out the window just yet.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: Please, we never got our chance to lead. I am,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: I am, I have this like you know, it is
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: one of these like we're I fear that we're the
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: generation that's just going to get skipped, all right, We've
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: we like sucked up to the boomers for like my
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: entire lifetime, and now we're going straight to millennials and
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: Gen Z you know, as my generation screamed reality bites, right, So, yes,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: Where it is the next generation. You know, we have
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: the gen xers. Finally millennials and gen Zers who are
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: are really and it's you know, millennials and a Z
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: are much more racially diverse generation.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: But it's large, and it is large generation.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: She isn't a combined Is that fifty percent of the population, right?
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: Just yeah, right, yeah, yeah, just about just about, if
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: not by twenty eight for sure.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: So and especially voting.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: Vot voting popular, yeah yeah, and having a Folks have
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: different walks of life. Because one thing that struck me
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: when I was really looking at data is not only
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: these racially diverse generations, but also the different perspectives that.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: You have as a result of it.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: You know, you're more likely to have grown up in
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: household where parents are no longer together, you're blended families.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: You likely maybe have related to immigrant people, folks who
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: came from somewhere else in the world. You know, you
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: are likely to have okay, counter economic strubles. You're likely
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: to have been in debt. You know these are people,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: you know, Ayana Presley says, the people who are closest
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: to the pain should be closest to the power. And
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: those are the definitely the folks who should be at
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: the table. I mean one thing, even just to go
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: back to sort of the David pluffs and Carvill's Carvil
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: who's long since been eating out on his time.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: So he kind of admits it, like he will go
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: out there, right, Remember he called out. You got to
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: give him credit for this. He goes, he called out
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to name names, but certain them
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: consultants who are worried about their carried interest clients and
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: not putting together a populous economic plan. So I hear
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: you on James, but he's still a populist at heart,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean at heart.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: But he has his moments. We're like get it. It's like, okay, sir,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: like we are getting to be a more diverse America.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: Let's let's start to sound like that that populace is
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: reflecting that the people.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: And you know, when you think back on sort.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: Of that, when you when you think of where this
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: country could be if you have those people at the
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: table making those decisions.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: That is, that can be a coalition that wins.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: Let me throw I I've I've made this observation a
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: few times, and I think it it always lands awkwardly.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: I'm curious how, but I think we sometimes don't fully
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that we still have a large chunk
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: of voting Americans who grew up in segregated America. And
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm look, I started kindergarten nineteen seventy seven
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: in Miami. I believe if I had started kindergarten eight
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: years sooner, I'd have been in a segregated system, right,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: And you know that when that generation, as I like
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: to say, ages out of voting, that's like a big
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: structural like I don't I sometimes think we don't fully appreciate,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: you know, how young are. Multi ethnic and multi racial
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: democracy really is, right. It has only been around since
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, and there's you know, a third of
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: American of the American electorate lived a in a free,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: multi racial society. It didn't mean it didn't exist, but
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: one that we actually recognized.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of allude to that. I think I
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: say it very directly in the book which is that
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: you know, when you don't realize how good you had it,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: because a lot of the freedom's joid, the rights that
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: we've had has been because of sort of the work
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: that came before. And you know, I think at the
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: organizing muscle for a long time of keeping a democracy
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: vibrant and pushing back against encroaching on sort of those
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: rights kind of atrophy. Right, Like you're like, okay, everything,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: everything's working.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: Look, we've we've we've equalized voting. Okay, yes, you've equalized voting,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: but we didn't equalize opportunity, and you still have an
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: equalized opportunity. We still have an equalized education attainment we got.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: In fact, I would argue that the single most underrated
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: issue going into twenty eight is our fracturing public education system,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: and I think it is I admire that Ram Emmanuel
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: is one of the few talking about it on the
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: democratic side. I mean, I've got my skepticism about Ram,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: whether Ram can shed the establishment baggage of his previous
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: eras and all that stuff, but he's right about this topic.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: And I think the shattering of the public education system
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: actually brings us apart as a society as well, Like
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: I think this is a polarization issue. It's not just
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: bad for education outcomes, it's actually bad for the culture.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: If we don't have a shared public education.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: System, we not have a shared public education, we don't
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: have a shared memory.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: And other Well, that leads to that, like I think
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: one leads to the other. That's why I think it's important.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: What was brilliant about our public education systems and in theory,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: and it didn't work this way everywhere. I'd like to
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: argue that I just got a taste of it living
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: where I lived, because Miami was its own little unique experiment.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I always say, we're you know, Miami had this reputation
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: of being where the city of the future, meaning you know,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: tomorrow's problems are happening right now in Miami, and then
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: we solved. We went through all this in the eighties,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: right then. And yet now it's you know, you don't
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: have socioeconomically wealthy people and socioeconomically poor people in the
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: same schools, and you don't it's not even a close call.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: That actually was a reality in the eighties.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: You had that, Yeah, and more of that, and yeah,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: it's changing in ways that is intentional.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: And of course this voucher system. Yes, it is. It's
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: all about it.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in religion, ye, and you know the running joke.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: You may have heard it, but you know a lot
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: of folks it's like.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: All right, I mean Iraq and Afghanistan war is bad,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: but really no child left behind is legacy in you
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: know what what it sort of opened the door to
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: which it's like the kind of this acceleration of you know,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: not a set of agreed to ways to make sure
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: that everybody is getting sort of like a shared public education.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: Because in the countries where they're all like on the
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: same page about the Holocaust and.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: What happened in Germany, right, I mean you never again
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: mean something right, And it's the same where twenty twenty.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: Was interesting to me.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: I was luckily raised by people who made sure that
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: I understood the history of this country and the contributions
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: of many people. But when you have somebody who's like,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: I didn't know about Tulsa, like so many things, so
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: many people like wait that happened.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: You know, and look we had it similar in Florida.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: I'm taught Florida history. I wasn't taught about axe Handle
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Sunday in Jacksonville right, you know, And that was one
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: of those you realize you don't know which you haven't
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: been taught. If it never gets introduced.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: It never gets introduced, right, And there is an intention
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: obviously behind that, because then if we're not exploring those things,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: then we're not trying to think of what led to
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: that and how can you do better?
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: Fascination and so you know when I I.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 3: One of the points I wanted to make about sort
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: of pluff to some extent Carve Believen though he's Southern,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: but many of the strategists from the Avamba universe are southers,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: and I think that and I think that has contributed
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: to some of the issues we've had because our politics
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: in a way at large, while it's like this American thing,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: but it's very much affected by the seg The.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: South is the mood music for our politics still.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: And it and soul of the Republican Party, right, and
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's cultural base is in the South, right, And.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: If you don't understand it and you didn't grow up
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: around it, which most black people have. And there's a
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: chunk of white strategists to have, but they're not the
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: one sort of of of leading that work, and then
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: you're going to have some tone deaf responses like I
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: remember as reclined at some point after you know, Kirk
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: was murdered, where he said, you know, what is it like,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: what would it be if we like went into a
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: church and argued about abortion rights and folks from like
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: in the South and the Midwest are like, we'd be dead, Like,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 3: we don't, that's not how we organize here around that. So, yeah,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: that lack of understanding when we have people who are
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: polsters and strategists, and.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to ste in that a
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: little bit more because I do think that you know,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: there's always been that joke about, you know, in the South,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: whites and blacks are more honest about race. In the North,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: everybody's more polite, but they're more dishonest about race. Do
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: you still feel that in sense that.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And there is this belief that because.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know, we're the North, that we're not subject
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: to the same you know ills the South.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: We're not the racist we're the Northerners. Yeah, we don't
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: have a history.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: Right yet when you could point to so many many.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: Different right yeah.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and it's it's interesting.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, somebody was like, I found Confederate
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: flags in the hard parts of rural New York, and
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know what part of the country
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: you're in, Like, yeah, and I remember it was I
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: think it was Trusty McMillan Cottam I heard or say, like,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: you know, because it was it clicked for me when
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: she was saying, like, you know, the culture of the
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: South has very much migrated into other in other parts
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: of the US and even other parts of the world,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 3: you can find Confederate flags and other parts of the world.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: Even no, I mean even just country music is more
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: mainstream today in the Midwest than it was back in
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: you know, back in even the eighties, seventies or eighties
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: on that. You know, though, it's interesting you say that.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: I always thought that Barack Obama's superpower as a political
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: victor was being from Illinois. You know, when you looked
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: at the just the simple power of the states you
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: know that were that touched Illinois were all important moments
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: for him in the primary. First of all, there was
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Iowa Indiana late in the process, a statey loss, but
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: almost one Missouri on Super Tuesday, one that he eked out.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: It was important to eke one out against her and
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: the power in general, and he did really well and
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: basically anything that was touched in Illinois. But you know,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: because there's this assumption to does the swing vote is
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: the swing area of America still the Midwest? Or you know,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: is that the last time the Midwest sort of was
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: the swing area and just everything is down south? Now?
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think I think, you know, biased
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: here being in Virginian, but I think a lot of
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I took that Virginia seceded from the Confederacy sometime
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. But that's yeah, right, you know
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: that Mason Dixon line keeps moving, you know, right, Yeah.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: We'll be having a very different conversation if Georgia, North Carolina, Florida,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: and Texas were different electorally. There's a reason that most
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: of the pushback to progress, some of the most horrific,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: you know, voter suppression bills that you've seen, anti abortion,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: anti liber all happen in the South, some of it
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: in the Midwest.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: Well, look at the National Party. They seem allergic to
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: actually trying to work on the South. Outside of Georgia,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: and North Carolina and that yeah, I mean, I'm sorry,
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: Mississippi and South Carolina are totally underfunded and have enough
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: potential vote to be competitive. You just have to put
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: a little elbow grease into it. In Texas and Florida
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: arguably the same way. They're expensive, but there's this consistent
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: well the money will go further if we just lock
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: down Michigan, right, And.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's because of those are the areas in
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 3: which they feel comfortable. And that goes back to saying, oh, okay,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: well we don't have like Southern strategies, especially come brown organizers.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: You've had to navigate around all of these challenges if
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: you're from Chicago and you go down to you know,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 3: the South. I mean, when I think of some tomes
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 3: of stories I would hear from like fellow, you know,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 3: folks in.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: Virginia other parts of the South.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 3: Then they would get somebody who mentioned the name of
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 3: a street where it was and then said it incorrectly
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 3: or didn't have sort of an understanding of a cultural
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 3: nuance of why you refer to, you know, a black
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 3: elder in a certain way, or the nuances of food
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: or anything like that.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: I'll give you one that I ran into when I
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: first joined NBC, which was like, well, we can't poll
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night. Why can't you poll on a
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night? And this was in South Carolina, like Wednesday
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: night's church night. And if you don't know the culture
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: of the South, you wouldn't know that you'd get a
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: bad poll number on a Wednesday night. You know, just
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: special eating, you know, because there's just all sorts of
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: noise because and it's like, just because people go to
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: their church on Wednesday nights doesn't mean they're religious fervor
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: it might just simply be that's what the community does
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: to get together on a Wednesday.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: Night, that's what the community does. My first campaign, I
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 3: remember he was in the deeper southern part of our district,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: was a real southern district, and he said, yeah, I'm
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 3: not even a religious person, but I am definitely putting
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: up the sign on Sunday morning that says gone to
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: church if anybody's coming by the campaign or whatever. And
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 3: understanding the culture of the district. And so yeah, I
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 3: think that that has absolutely presented challenges and to the
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: type of work that.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: We can do.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 3: And one of the things I was going to say
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 3: was that. You know, Obama's superpower to me was that
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 3: he he at least I think, because he had grown
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: up living around the world, had lived in a multiracial
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: place like Hawaii. He kind of really early on understood
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: how to talk to everyone. That was his talent.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: And you still.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 3: See a lot of election no scar tissue, no scar tissue.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: Everybody does what you get through. But he didn't have
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of scar tissue in that. There's something freeing
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: about that as a politician.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that that is having something.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jimmy Carter also had that talent too, Like
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, his primary, you know, he did
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: well because he knew and was comfortable in the room
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: with black people, like just soon how to deal with them,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 3: Unlike a lot of other folks he was you know,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, other folks he was in the primary
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: with at that time.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: All right, let me get you out of here on this.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: Give me four. Give me four people, one of you know,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: the four people in your head who think are most
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: likely to be the actual Democratic nominee, not who you
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: want right now, Give me four. You know, it's sort
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: of like it's way early, but I'll give you. That's
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: why I'm going to give you four of which one
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: of whom you know you're You're just sort of like,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: it's like, look, this is my field, so narrow, this
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: giant field of about forty mentionables these days. Who give
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: me a quartet where you think, yeah, the VP or
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: P is going to come out of this?
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know, I see Pritzker. I'd be interested in,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 3: especially if he kind of fashioned himself in a modern
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: day sort of FDR that same sort of.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: Fact I am. I was a skeptic until I saw
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: him play party machinist in a very effective way, and
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: during the primary he did for Juliana Stratton. I'm like,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to dismiss him anymore. Yeah,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not dismissive.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's kind of where I'm with him too.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: You know, he says no, because I think I was
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 3: the thing of the thing you say when you're running
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 3: again for you a senate.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: But I see as off in the mix somehow more.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: So than made Warnock too right in that like a
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: little bit of the only one can run.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well only one can run, and that is like
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 3: warn Oxhmbison I wouldn't be surprised if it is. He's
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 3: you know, preternaturally talented on stump and inlakable.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: And gosh.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, I will see her in the mix, whether
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 3: she is whether she's actually successful again in the d
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 3: of the nomination of no but I could see the
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 3: Vice President Kamala Harris back in the mix as well.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: She got a we're all in Washington underestimating her strength
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: at the current elector in army.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 3: I feel so, I do, and I think she could
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 3: be an interesting candidate again now that she's less tied
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 3: to trying to essentially accommodate an administration that she's part of.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: I you know, I've been through this, and I hate
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: I know they hate when people like me put them
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: on the couch. I will go to my grave believing
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: that she's yet to run a campaign that was her campaign,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: yet that she's always been running somebody else's race or
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: somebody else's, you know, suggestion. I found her primary campaign
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: to be this attempt to be all things to all people.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: She was trying to straddle write the Medicare for All
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: mindset sort of told you everything you needed to know.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: She was trying to be all things. To all parts
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: of the party. It felt very consultant driven her twenty
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: sixteen race per Senate with Holp, consultant driven her twenty
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: ten campaign. You know, so she's always had I think,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: and so my guess is you're right, we will see
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: a different version of her. And I'm very curious what
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, Sam, very curious what it is. So
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: that's three Pritzker awesof and common don't think I didn't
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: keep count.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, all right, I'm not keen on it,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 3: but he gonna find some way into it.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Gavin Dewson, Yeah, I don't know what he's four.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he's four either. That's why I
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: said I'm not Yeah, but I.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Know what he's good at, which is being a resistance leader. Right.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: He knows how to do that. And that's what I
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: think about Pritzkert. I don't know what they're for, although
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: there's a little bit more meat on the bones with Pritzker, right,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: I get that.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: I would say, Yeah.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: No's he's sort of he's in charge of the Illinois
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Kevin Newsom is not in charge of the
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: California Democratic Party. And you can feel that difference in
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: their government styles and their campaign style.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And if I knew what Newsom was for, it's
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 3: kind of interesting. I saw him when he was speak
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 3: when he was an elected mayor. He's very different and
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 3: you evolved in your politics. But I'm like, okay, was
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 3: that for version? Real?
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: This version he's all sorts of talented. Yeah, there's no doubt,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: like he is a I used that. I like to
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: use the expression political athlete. He's a really good political athlete.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: But you've got to have a specialty, right, You've got
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: to be what are you fighting for? Right, It's got
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: to be it's got to be a thing, not a
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: not a not just winning. That isn't the idea, you know,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: And we'll see. Look, this book's a great you know
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: the instigator. Do you when do you think this translates
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: to more black women getting elected on their own right statewide?
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: Although I think we're finally starting to see that breakthrough.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: I think we are some of the treatin also Brooks.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm actually hopeful in this next couple of years,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 3: like twenty six and setting up for twenty eight, that
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 3: we'll start to maybe finally get that, you know, black
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: woman governor, So I haven't got one yet.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: You know that could have lands bottoms is probably the
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: best shot.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: This probably be shot this year, I think, yeah, this
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: year for sure, but I do see an increase just great.
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well a team of this has been great to
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: talk with you, great to meet you. I mean, yeah,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that we've not met before. Where are you
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: in Virginia? Where did you grow up in Virginia?
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: Northern? Well, actually I grew up in just outside of Richmond, and.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: Now I love northern Virginia. Where does Northern Virginia d now?
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: Fredericksburg.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this blob that keeps growing, right, Yeah,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: what's bigger? Northern Virginia or the Atlanta suburbs? Right, it's
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: almost it's a very similar thing.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 3: And yeah, no, I'm like when they say Atlanta suburbs
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, that's not that's like an hour out
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: and they're like, now still the suburbs.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know. Right. It's like it's well, if we
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: were all one state, we'd talk about Washington Baltimore as one. Yeah, well,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: what do you think about if we you know, if
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: Trump had really been clever about this whole Arlington splitting
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: putting Arlington back to d C. You know what he
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: really would have done. What is is we're going to
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: put give Arlington back to d C and advocate for
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: d C statehood. Then if you really want to put
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: pressure like that would be a fault line. They're not
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: that clever. This is why I'm like, they're terrible at this,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: Like they could be much smarter about their policy. Like
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: you want to drive a wedge. Yeah, offer offer to
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: give Arlington back in exchange for statehood? You want state? Hup,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: you got to take Arlington?
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, yeah, gosh, that would be kind of interesting.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: I mean they're never that Like I said, they're never
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: that clever. It's all a sledgehammer everything, you know, every
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: problem is a nail, every hammer. Anyway, Well, the book is,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: it's terrific. It's a good especially I've got a lot
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: of political nerds in a good way. I say that
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: it's a compliment. Thank you know that listen that want
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: to know more. And this has also got plenty of
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: data in it too, So thank you for coming on.
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: All right, thank you again for having me Jack, and I.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: See you down the road and I love the merch.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 3: Well then, well, thank you you can order on the
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 3: website as well The Instigators book dot com.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: Well said he have a great evening. Well, I hope
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed that conversation. As you saw, got a little
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: blunt there about twenty twenty four and Joe Biden. But
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: it's definitely I think a book a book worth getting
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: to understand just how big the importance is in a
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: primary particularly. But I found what I found really fascinating
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: when Atimo was making the case is sort of, do
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategists who aren't from the South just not get
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: it right? Let's just say there might be something to that,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: right too many I could tell you this, if I
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: were running for national politics, I wouldn't hire anybody that
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: lived in New York or DC. Right, you want people
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: that are grounded somewhere else. I think you know it
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: just is, you know, certainly at least as one foot
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: outside the coast. I certainly would be as far away
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: from New York as I possibly could culturally in California,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: because I think right now for the Democratic Party, the
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: coasts coastal connections are sort of radioactive. All right, let's
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: go with the top five list.
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: Chest top top chest.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: Then this is a fun one today, which it's the
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: top five races that are essentially that are going to
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: decide win. Lame duck status kicks in for Donald Trump, right,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: every second term president becomes a lame duck at some point.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: And I've condentned it's very possible Trump's already a lame duck.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: We just haven't fully realized it yet. Sometimes you have
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: to go back, you have to go forwards, and then
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: you'll go, oh, it turns out that he was a
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: lame duck starting, you know, with the with the you know,
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: it could could have begun all the way on tariff day, right.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: It was like with Joe Biden. You know, in the
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: moment of the Afghanistan withdrawal, it you didn't realize, oh,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: that's the beginning of the end of his presidency. Then
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: the farther away we got from it, and the less
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: unless he recovered from that moment, the more you're like, oh, hey,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: that turned out to be the beginning of the end
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: of his presidency. Right. In some ways, that's when it began, right,
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: And it is one of those things you sometimes it
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: takes takes a beat to look back. But I definitely
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: think in this midterm cycle, especially with the way that
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has tried to exert a grip on the
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: Republican Party, right is he took over he you know,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: at first it was hijacking, and now he's done a
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: purge and this is his party. His endorsements usually lead
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: to victories. And that's what I'm framing my top five
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: list around, which is the top five primaries where Trump
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: is most vulnerable to seeing his choice lose and essentially
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: which would then trigger the narrative that perhaps his grip
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: on the party itself is loosening. And we know that
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: that has all sorts of contagion effects, right, And there's
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: no doubt you can probably guess what the number one
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: race is going to be. But all of this begins
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. Okay, four of my
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: five primary races are all in the month of May,
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: So we're going to find out in the month of
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: May whether Trump's grip on the party is as strong
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: as it has been over the last few cycles. So
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: my top five races that will be to me are
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: a measurement of his strength in the party and will
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: be a essentially success. Right, Well, then the critics quiet
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: down and his grip on the party. Titans failure and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: the grip starts to loosen. How many multiple failures and
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: the whole thing could collapse. So number five on my
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: list is actually not a primary. It's the only non
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: primary I've put on the list in his North Carolina
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: Senate because Michael Wattley essentially got handed the nomination right
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: he was the de facto candidate after Laura Trump decided
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: she didn't want to be a senator. But this was
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: essentially Trump blessed. This was Trump's rn Sea chair, so
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: you know, he walked. So this is somebody that Trump
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: has groomed to be a party leader, essentially shifting him
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: to the top spot at the RNC and now shifting
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: him into the nomination slot for the open US sendency
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: to replace Tom Tillis. And oh, by the way, he
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: essentially chased Tom Tillis out of the party. Don't believe me.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: Just look at Tom Tillis's behavior right now in the Senate.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: He ain't doing Trump's bidding. Look, losing to Roy Cooper
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: is not a sign that Donald Trump has lost his fastball.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: Okay that I'm not going to sit there. But if
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: Michael Wattley loses by double digits. Then this is proof
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: that Trump really just absolutely made a gigantic mistake. Right,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: probably should have let if he didn't really have confidence
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: in Watleys as a statewide candidate, well, let a primary happen.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: In some ways, a competitive primary might have given new
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: name id to somebody that's a rising up, might have
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: been a member of Congress. But that is not how
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: they wanted to handle things. So I do this race,
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: and for me, the marker is double digits versus single digits.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: A double digit Roy Cooper victory really is an indictment
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: on Trump's political acumen, right, and will be will cause
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: all sort because this is a former R and C chair.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: We'll cause all sorts of handwringing and blind quotes and
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff saying, you know, this was crazy,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: what was even made the nominee? This is all Trump? Right,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: So he is just large ownership of the North Carolina
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: center race, more so than Maine, more so than really
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: any other competitive center race. Right, this is his creation. Right,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: He bullied the till Us out of the party, he
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: put his person in there, He cleared the primary field, right,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: so there is no Senate race. He in some ways
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: owns more than this one. So that's number five of them,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: list number four. It's another center race Louisiana Senate. Now
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: we've got the primary on the sixteenth of May, and
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: then there's likely to be a run off because we've
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: got a three way competitive race, and with of course
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy the incumbent, Julia Letlowe congresswoman, and then John Fleming,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: who's been in this race before. So it's a three
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: way race. They've all got reasonable money and there's going
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: to be two that make it through. If Cassidy's one
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: of the two, you know, Cassidy is a puncher's chance
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: in this thing. Now, look, they've rigged the rules in
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: Louisiana to try to punish Cassidy. Right, this is the
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: first time they're ever doing a cartisan primary. That Louisiana
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: used to be an all party primary, one ballot and
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: then there was sort of a runoff situation. Frankly, it's
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: actually a model that I wish more states would have adopted.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: And so it's a shame to see this go the
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: other way. But we know why it went the other way.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: Cassidy voted to convict Donald Trump after the second impeachment
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: and this was they knew that in the old system
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: Cassidy would survive. How do we know this, Well, there's
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: still two impeachers in the House, Dan Newhouse in Washington
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: State and David Valade. And what do they both have
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: in common? They are in all party primaries. They did
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: not have a partisan primary that they had to get through.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: Anybody that had to get through a partisan primary lost.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: So look, I am I certainly think Cassidy's the underdog here.
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: I think he'll get into the runoff. I assume he loses,
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: But what a repudiation to Trump. If he doesn't. It's
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: a big win for Trump. If Cassidy doesn't even make
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: the runoff, it's a small win for Trump. If he
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: knocks him off in the runoff, it's a humiliation. If
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: Cassidy wins renomination Texas Senate. This is number three on
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: the list. Look, even though Trump is supposedly not endorsed,
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: it's pretty clear Paxton's Maga Cornin is not right. So
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: Trump is. You know. My guess is if he the
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: fact that he hasn't endorsed now means he's probably not
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: going to because he's afraid. I think of this one
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: because it's not clear. I don't know, you know, I
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: don't think he has the standing with the party anymore
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: that endorsing Cornan would put automatically put him over the top.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: Put it this way, he's afraid to find out, and
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: the lack of him not wanting to get involved in
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: this race says more about his own fear of exposing himself. Right,
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: does the Emperor have clothes on or not moment than
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: anything else. So you know, he'll take credit for a
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: corn and win if Cornin somehow gets out of this runoff.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: By the way, this runoffs May twenty six, end of
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: the month, right after Memorial Day, so likely to be
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: low turnout, usually not a good sign for the for
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: the for the more center right candidate or center left candidate,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: you know, always usually an advantage for the base. But
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: this is one that I think, you know, Cornyn surviving
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: this is a repudiation Omega, and that in it indirectly
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: is a repudiation a Trump or a loosening of the grip.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: Next time, this is Georgia governor, and this is going
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: to be an interesting test. So Trump's already endorsed in
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: Georgia Governor. He endorsed the Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, and
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: he's endorsed him from the beginning. And Burt Jones has
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: been somebody that has flirted with some of these conspiracies.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: He's been on the MAGA train from the beginning, very
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: much like Paxton in Texas well. A new candidate jump
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: in this race, sort of a former healthcare executive named
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: Rick Jackson. Got a terrific personal story that really I
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: think resonates with people. He's essentially a foster kid that
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: built his own life after that and he's been incredibly
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: charitable with Foster organization. So he's just he's got a
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have the usual political narrative for a biography.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's quite syllable, and I think him is
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, if you're gonna ask me, I
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: think Brick Jackson's the favorite to be the next governor,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: let alone the primary winner. Now. Rick Jackson, in some
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: ways he's been He jumped in this race, and he
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: proclaimed himself, you know, very much a Trumper, basically trying
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: to trying to trying to triangulate a little bit and
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: sort of either forced Trump to duel endorse like he's
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: done in the past when he sees somebody playing up
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: to him or in some ways dare Trump to back
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: up his endorsement. And I think that's you know, if
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: Trump doesn't come to Bert Jones's aid here because Rick
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: Jackson is self funding, well, what's Trump raised all this
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: money for? Right? Is he going to use his money
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: to show to defend those that stood with him and
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: that you know, got in early or not. And if
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: he doesn't come in and help Jones here, if this
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: Maga super pac, I really think it does send this
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: broader message and it's a bad look for the Trump
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: movement that hey, it's a one way loyalty street and
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: he's going to he will run away from you if
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: you look like you're weak or losing, even if it's
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: not on you. And you know, the idea that he
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: is not a reliable ally, I know is going to
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: shock people. But you know, if Burt Jones wants to
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: know what this feels like, he can go ask the
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: Lensky what it feels like. Right. And the number one
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: on the list that to me probably matters more than
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: any of the other races on this list is the
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: May nineteenth primary in Kentucky's fourth congressional district and Thomas Massey.
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: A Thomas Massey victory, I think cements the narrative that
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: Trump's Elaine Duck, his his his control of the party
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: is loosening and there's no going back from it, like
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: it becomes just it is. It is probably the single
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: most powerful narrative reaction of anything on this top five list.
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: That's why it's number one for me on this list.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: I think this has the you know, he has repeatedly
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: gone after Massey. This is one of the few races
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: he's put his money where his mouth is. Massey has
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: done his thing, and he's gone back, and he's certainly
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: not been shy about trying to fight fire with fire
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: back on him. You know, past is if past is
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: any guide here, Massy's gonna lose. But there is risk
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: if Massy wins this, and he's pretty connected to this
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: district and Kentucky Republicans tell you talk about a group
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: of Republicans that just aren't cookie cutter, right, and there's
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: none of them you can point to and say, well,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: they're you know, look at the Senate race, right, There's
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: it's easier to make the case that they're non Maga
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: than Maga there is this own sort of independent streak
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: that they have. McConnell is no Maga Republican for different
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: reasons than Ran Paul is no Maga Republican for different reasons,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: and Tom is Massey, And then you could keep you
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: got the Secretary of State, Michael Adams is a different
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: type of Republican, but so is Daniel Cameron, and so
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: is Andy Barr. I mean, it's just been you know,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: in some ways, I'm going to be culturally surprised if
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Massey loses, because it's not in the culture of Kentucky politics.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, right history shows that when
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: Trump really wants to weigh in on something and throws
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: actual money behind that way, he can have some success.
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: But if you're trying to keep track, when does lame
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: duck status officially begin for Donald Trump? Thomas Massey victory
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: on May nineteenth would cement the narrative that is that
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: he's fully in lame duck status. Ask Chuck, all right,
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: let's do a little last chuck here. First question comes
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: from Doug and Shaker Heights, a wonderful community in Cleveland,
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: and he goes new listener here, really appreciate the measured
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: analysis on the show. I'm wondering if Ohio Democrats made
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: it a strategic mistake by backing shared Brown again, given
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: concerns about his age, branding and his association with the
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: national party leadership. With nominating younger, newer candidates be a
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: better way for Democrats to rebuild their image and compete
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: more effectively in states like Ohio. Curious to hear you
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: take thank you, Doug and chicker Wright. So I think
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: big picture your instinct. I could see where you're thinking,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: and I kind of tend to agree with it. And
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I was surprised that Brown got into
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: this race because do you realize and I bet I
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: don't know if you do, And I don't know if
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: many Ohioans realize this. This is technically not the time
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: for this seat to come up, but this is a
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: special election to fill out the JD Vance's term that
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: began in the twenty twenty two cycle, right, and John
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: Houstad was the appointed successor. He was the lieutenant governor
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: before that, the Secretary of State sort of really sort
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: of a more of an Ohio Republican and anything on
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: the megaside of things. But this was DeWine's appointment and
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: it's only for two years, and you're reward for winning
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: this massive, expensive Senate race in twenty twenty six, is
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: you got to run again in twenty twenty eight? And
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe that Shared Brown was going to
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: sign up after running in twenty twenty four. We know
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: he already did this running in twenty twenty six and
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: then running in twenty twenty eight. Is he really going
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: to have run three straight Senate races? If he wins,
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: does he not run for reelection? And then if he
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't run for reelection, who the hell are Democrat's going
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: to find that can somehow hold a seat when it
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: apparently is going to be proof that only only a
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: Shared Brown can hold the seat. So yeah, it was
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: a head scratcher to me on a number of levels.
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: And I expect that Shared Brown I knew he wasn't
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: done running like he just certain people his motor was
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: still going right. The one office he never ran for
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: was governor. He's run for a lot of state wide offices.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: I think he was Secretary State at one time. I
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: think he ran for another state white office. I mean,
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: he and Mike de Wine have you know, and the
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: one you know, he could have and there would have
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: been some sort of poetic irony, you know, following Mike
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: de Wine, because the one office Mike the Wine always
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: that he had eluded him before finally winning in uh
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen was governor. So I figured Shared
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: Brown would run for governor because it's a four year term.
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: Number one, I think it was an open seat, it
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: was winnable. I think Ramaswami has proven to be two
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: week a very weak Republican nominee, and maybe Amy Acton,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: who's going to be the likely Democratic nominee for governor,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: switches over to the center race. Now I don't you know.
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: And and my concern about Shared Brown as the nominee
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: is that Houston. You know, normally what makes a midterm
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: year advantageous for the out party is you get to
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: run against incumbents, and I guess Shared Brown could run
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: against Trump, and he's going to run against Republicans. But
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's hard not for voters to see him as
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: any anything but part of the establishment, just the Democratic establishment.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: So all your choices, do you want the Republican establishment
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: or do you want the democratic establishment? That's it. I
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: don't know if there's a stronger Democrat that anybody that
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: you could have found other than Chuck Schumer for the
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: center race. I think governor's races are still winnable in Ohio.
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know if center races are, but maybe Shared
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: Brown's the one Democrat that can win. Maybe Tim Ryan
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: could have you know, maybe there's somebody new or younger.
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's a taller Rico out there. I've always sad,
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you know it is. I do believe Ohio
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: is a light red state, not a dark red state.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: So the right type of Democrat can still win out there.
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe maybe Greg Landsman from the Cincinnati area. Right.
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: So let's just say I've I've gone at this one
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: hundred ways from Sunday, I think from sixty thousand feet.
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: I agree with your take on this that this is,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: but there's also an argument to be made who else
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: could have done it in this environment for the cost
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: of this race. And when you look at the larger
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: map that the Democrats were facing, this was you know,
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: a tried and trude and proven voke get her in Ohio. Right,
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of and I've given you all
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: the reasons why I'm surprised he said yes, and that
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: to me is, to me still the biggest surprise because
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: by saying yes, I think you've inadvertently signed that if
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: you win, you've signed up for one more ride on
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: twenty eight And my god, I know he used to
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: be a House member and you're used. But senators usually
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: don't like to have to run every two years, and
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: if he wins, his reward is to run again, literally
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: in two years. Dean from Long Island rights with Donald
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: Trump paying off wind companies to abandon offshore Win project,
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: I we thank you for writing this in I have
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: a piece of my monel that I put together that
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: was going to be on this, and then I just
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: there's so many other things that piled on top of it.
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm so glad this is a question. So thank you, Dean.
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: But let me bears repeating with Donald Trump paying off
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: win companies to abandon offshore win products, so you know,
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: if that would be considered interference with contracts, could be
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: allowing the States to sue the administration and keep the
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: companies involved. Thanks Deem from Long Island. Look, I think
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting way to go. I think there could
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: be lots of lawsuits on this, but I just this
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: whole thing, you know. Again, it goes back to sort
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: of what's wrong with our politics in general. Not everything
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: is either or. Some things are ants, okay, and we
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: need energy badly. Why are we ruling out parts of energy? Right?
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: I think you know, weaning yourself off of any energy
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: is a bad idea at the moment. All of the above,
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: but it's really foolish not to be thinking about alternative
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: energy sources at a time when literally wars get started
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: over access to energy. So this is just stupidity. This
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: is bad policy, This is bad for the country long term,
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: all because of a fetish about climate change. I mean
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: this is literally like, well, I don't want to I
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: don't want to do these wind farms because somehow it'll
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: make us think we believe in climate change and we
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: will need to prove that renewables don't work. Why don't
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: we want to prove that renewables don't work. All we're
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: doing is handing more more power to China. Right. The
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: war of choice against Iran has absolutely scared a whole
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of smaller and middle sized countries who don't have
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: their own energy access who rely on buying oil from
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: the Strait from the Gulf, and it comes to the
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: Strait of hormones, it go man. We got to find
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: alternative sources. And it isn't all just finding alternative sources
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: for oil and gas. There's going to be a surge
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: in interest in renewables. And guess what country they're going
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: to go to for the supplies to tap into solar
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: and to tap into wind. It ain't going to be
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: the United States because this administration is gutting the entire industry.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: It's again, this is self inflicted. There's no part of
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: this that makes any sense. And the amount of people
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: that don't say this is nonsense. This is not about
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: climate change. This is about preparation by the freaking insurance policy. Sorry.
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: I find the war against climate change to be just
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: so asinine because at this point, who cares whether it's
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: man made or not. The climate's changing. We have more
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: wildfires happening, we have stronger hurricanes, we have coastal erosion.
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: Why does it matter how it started? We should all
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: be trying to mitigate it, and all be trying to
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: and there's no interest. Literally, this ideology on the right
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: is to pretend it doesn't exist, that it's made up up.
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: You want to disagree in the origin story, fine, but
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: the results not made up. This is the world we're
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: dealing with. The climate has changed. Do you want to
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: fight over whether it was a hidden hand above or
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: an actual person or an industry or entity? Sorry, I
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: know I get a little rant about this. I just
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: find this one of the dumber things. Where did we do?
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: I just you know, why wouldn't we want the insurance policy?
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Pete. What do you make of
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: the what if scenario where Trump bought the Buffalo Bills
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen? Could owning an NFL team have kept
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: him from unning for president of twenty sixteen? And if so,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: how differently do you think that election in the broader
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: political landscape since might have played out? Pete, that's a
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: good one. It is a what if. You know, when
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: I did my original what if on twenty sixteen, I
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: think I was riffing with Jonathan Martin. I worry this
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: is on the old NBC feed. The their own They
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: didn't get to own the name, but they owned my
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: intellectual property there. But we went through all these various
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: scenarios on that. Do I think if he were the
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: owner of the Buffalo Bills he wouldn't have run president? Yes,
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: I do, And I think the NFL would be something.
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: Put it that way, and you'd have, you know, the
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: war between Jerry Jones, Bob Craft and Donald Trump, those
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: three egos fighting each other for supremacy among owners, right, like, man,
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: let's let's let's get that. Forget the TV series running
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: point about you know, loosely about the Genie bus Lakers.
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: Let's do that, right, Craft, Jones and Trump NFL owners, right,
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the New Housewives of the NFL, but starring
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: Jerry Jones, Donald Trump and there. So what would happen
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen? I will tell you so if Trump
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: never runs, there's sort of two what ifs that I've
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: entertained on this and they and I have to talk
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: about them sequentially because this if there's no Bridge Gate,
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie's the nominee in sixteen. Chris Christie's personality fit
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: the moment, right, because Donald Trump proved that this is
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: what kind of the country was looking for. It fit
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: the moment. But he'd have been a lot He's he
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: probably wins big, not small, Christy versus Clinton, Christy probably
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: gets fifty one to fifty two, fifty three percent of
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: the vote, and Christy would have been challenged from the
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: right by you know, by the Ted cruises of the world,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: would have been hit hard on judges, on abortion and
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: some of these cultural issues that I think wouldn't have
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: mattered because Christy was just a better debater and he
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: would have been, you know, without Donald Trump involved, Christy
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: would have been the star of that show. All right,
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: that that's one scenario. But bridge Gate did happen, and
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: it was a different It was a you know, it's funny.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: It was sort of like a wounded version of Chris
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: Christy in that primary, and we didn't get the best
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: version of him it would have been, because I do
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: think if Christy's in that race, Trump's just an endorser
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: of Christy. He never jumps in because he doesn't think
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: he can be Christie. So that's sort of where one
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: of my head. That's one of my what if scenarios.
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: The second one if on this is so let's say
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: bridge Gate happened, and so what you essentially have is
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: is I think Rand Paul would have been a much
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: bigger factor because Paul had the non traditional Republicans that
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: were interested in something new. Now, the minute Trump got in,
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: it was like a vacuum cleaner on Paul's support. Right
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: the first chunk that he took, first, lunch money he
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: took was not Jeb Bush's lunch money, it was actually
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: Ran Paul's lunch money. And so I think without Trump,
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 1: Paul's a much bigger player Rand Paul. You know, there's
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: a scenario where Ran Paul's nominee and Paul versus Clinton
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: is very similar to Trump versus Clinton, except probably a
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: little less personal. And I think given what we saw
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: with the with the vote and the desperation that there
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: was among you know, there's sort of the obstinates that
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: there was and the electing Hillary Clinton right, there definitely
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: was a strong anti Clinton chunk of voters that just
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: were put a low ceiling on her ability to gain votes.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: So I think Paul, so Christy, Paul, and then probably
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. That's probably the order of likely nominee with
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: no Donald Trump and no Bridgegate. I think Christy with Bridgegate,
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: I probably think the nominee is still Paul or Cruise.
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think Rubio. I think we found out that
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: Rubio was trying to straddle too much there. Now, maybe
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: Rubio looks like a better candidate, but you know it's
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: pot You know you could, you could if you want
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: to argue with me, that maybe Rubio gets in there. Now,
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: Rubio and no nominee probably wins by a bigger margin
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: over Clinton too than Trump. I do think both Rubio
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: and Christy would have been stronger candidates than Trump. I
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: think both Crews and Paul would have been kind of
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: the exacts, very similar races where we're some sort of
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: split decision. That was fun. Pete, all right, Next question
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: comes from Ben s from Tona, Wanda, New York. One
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: of my favorite undergrad courses I took at the University
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: of Rochester was titled the Mythology of the Founders. I
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: remember writing my final paper on Congressman Raoul Labrador on
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: behalf of the Tea Party advocating for the repeal of
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: the seventeenth Amendment because it deviated too far from the
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: Founding Father's intentions, for better or worse, Many Americans mythologize
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: our founding documents and their authors, and I wanted to
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: know how you might navigate that with some of the
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: proposed constitutional members you have to discussed on the podcast
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: Go sabers ps. Did you have a favorite course from
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: your college days? I did. I had all. I would say,
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, it's gonna be a bit dorking out.
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: I loved all my history classes. It didn't matter which is,
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: you know, I had a general one. I had an
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: at least history that I took. Two different mid least
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: history courses I took, but I always say this the
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: two courses that I used the most in life, in
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: my professional life, after I took an elective on the
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: federal budget, which is the type of the type of
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: course that only at GW is going to offer. Right
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: you're in DC, and it was taught by somebody that
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: worked at OMB, and I just it was you know,
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: it is certainly benefited me in my ability just simply
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: learning how to read a federal budget right when you
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: see how you look at it and things like that,
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: and how it's done and how the math works. Right,
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: the math isn't the rules of math for federal budgets
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily follow the general rules of bath. That was
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 1: that was a big one for me as well, but
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: as for your So, I I believe in founders intent, right,
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you don't modernize with founders intent.
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: The seventeenth Amendment is an interesting debate. You know, in
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: my class how Washington works that I briefly talked about
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: here that I teach part time at USC for for
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: the visiting students that have internships in DC. We just
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: did our final They just did their final prison. They
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: just did their oral presentations on what their final paper
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: is going to be on, and one of them is
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 1: for And the whole is what's what's a you know,
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: how would you try to make Washington work better? What's
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: run reform you would do to make Washington work better?
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: And there's one gentleman who picked repealing the seventeenth Amendment
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: and about how you know it would and one of
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: the best of fits that he believed brought to it
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: was that it would actually make state legislative elections more important,
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: more people would look into that, more senators would be
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: more representative of their states, rather than an ideology. So
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting argument on the seventeenth On the seventeenth Amendment,
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: we know what the intent, but the intent of the
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: Electoral College was to actually be a bit of a
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: vetting mechanism in case the public went too far off
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: out of the mainstream. And we've let the states essentially
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: create what are likely unconstitutional faithless elector laws on that.
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: But we've never tested the faithless elector issue in court
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: per se. But right now states just bound electors, and
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: so they've kind of made the electoral college no longer
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: a vetting issue. So I think I am a believer
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: in Founder's intent, which means to me, if my amendment
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't easily be defended by something already written in the
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: federalist papers, then I might I might be willing no
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: longer to defend that addition to the Constitution. And in staid,
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: just why don't you just codify this? Look, there's certain
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: ideas that should just simply be codified into law by Congress.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: Like I don't think there should be a constitutional amendment
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: for reproductive rights. I think that's something that should just
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: simply be codified into law, why you know, And it's
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: sort of a fear of doing it that now makes
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: you think, well, I guess you got to do it
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: as a constitutional amendment. And it's perhaps if you make
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: a better argument about equal protection that the equal protection
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: argument on reproductive rights Trump's the original back and forth
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: on Row and Dobbs anyway, but set that aside. But
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of it. I take your point here. Like so,
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: for instance, I think the nullification of a presidential pardon,
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: the way it is framed, this constitutional amendment actually fits
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: the vision of the Founders, right. It uses the same
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: logic of a supermajority that a that overwriting a veto
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: would use it, doesn't you know. It's still it respects
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: the idea that a president does have this power. It
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: just offers a nullification by Congress if it's if Congress
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: deems it so. So I could argue that that, you know,
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: But I think that I I where I generally agree
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: with you is that proposed constitutional amendments that there should
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: already be federalist papers written that already would defend the
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: concept even if the amendment hadn't been proposed back then.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: And I could argue in some of these proposed amendments,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: whether it's on whether it's on money campaign money, I
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: think they're you know, whether it's on the election of judges. Right,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: there's there's certainly the Founders have made their made their
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: They've told us what they meant based on the Federalist papers,
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: so I'd sort of think that should be the guidepost,
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: all right. Last question it comes from fred a. Hey.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about Thomas Jefferson's quote that the tree
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: the blood of patriots and tyrants, and now it's often
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: used to justify a more extreme interpretation of the Second
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: Amendment parts of the country. That idea still resonates deeply,
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: but I wonder if it's something we should be moving
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: beyond as a modern democracy. How do you interpret that
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: quote today's political context? Best regards freda A. Look, I
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: think that that you know, we didn't there wasn't many
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: democracies and free societies that even existed when Jefferson said
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: that quote, and there were a lot more authoritarian regimes
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: we called the monarchies, but they were just that you know,
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: you know my attitude on this. I think the monarchies
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: are just a just a way to beautify the term dictator.
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: And I do think that we you know, one of
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: the things and the sort of fits hand in glove
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: with the last question. Actually, one of the things that
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: we failed to do is understand, you know, what moment
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 1: were they living in at the time. And that's why
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: I would emphasize this, what moment was he living in
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: at the time, Right, he was living in a moment
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: where there was some where you had revolution brewing in France,
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: and he certainly had been an ambassador there. He knew
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: that there was right we had it brewing, and and
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: it already happened in the United States. So there was
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: definitely we definitely had you know, you could you could
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: feel it. I find it hard to believe that he
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: thinks this would apply to our democracy that instead it
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: applies if democracy you know that, you know, every once
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: in a while, you got to fight for democracy. I
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: think that's what it is. But there's no doubt that
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: quote gets gets weaponized by those who rationalize or justify
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: behavior that is that a mature democracy shouldn't be dealing
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: with right that with a steadier instead of leaders. But
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: we're not in a stable place right now, and so
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: what I think that quote really means is that you
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: got to fight for democracy and freedom every once in
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: a while, because notice it says the blood of patriots
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: and tyrants. Right So, now where what may be subjective
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: is one person's patriot is another person's tyrant. It just
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: like I've always said, one person's patriot is another person's terrorist.
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: Right the British monarchy thought the American those that were
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: revolting were terrorists. We call them patriots. So yeah, I
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: sort of think that Jefferson is responding to the moment
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: he was living in, and then it didn't apply to
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: a mature, modern, two hundred and fifty year old democracy
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: that we're supposedly celebrating this year. All Right, love the
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: Q and A. You guys got made to pop off
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: on the environment. I've been waiting to find a way
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: to pop off on that, and I think even my
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: producer might split that out. You might see that part
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: of the Q and A separated out. We rarely rarely
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: do that with the ass Chuck segment, but to say
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: you touched a nerve as an understating on that way.
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: So with that, I'll see you twenty four hours