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"Last Call for Democracy." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, President Biden focuses on democracy as his
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: closing midterm message. Democrats angst over the party's strategy. and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: look for signs of hope in the early vote. Senator
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly joins to talk about his must-win race in Arizona,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and later, Dan and I play a round of Two
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Takes and a Fake. Exciting.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: As the reigning Two Takes and a Fake champion across
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the Crooked Media Network, you've never lost, correct?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Literally, I've missed one take out of two rounds. We'll see.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Elijah's loaded for bear.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Congrats to you for being so online.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay. Maybe I just understand takes. But first,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: before we start, this is it. The final stretch before
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Election Day. There is nothing left to do but persuade voters,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: which you can help do by going to votesaveamerica.com. In October,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: over 10,000 of you signed up to help get out
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the vote, but we need more help. So if you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: haven't signed up yet, it is not too late. We
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: will give you stuff to do right up until the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: polls close on Tuesday. You do not want to wake
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: up On November 9th, wishing you had done more. So
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: go to votesaveamerica.com right now. All right, let's get to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the news. Five days until the polls close, which means
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: time to make some closing arguments, unskew some polls, overanalyze
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the early vote, and second guess the strategies of campaigns
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you weren't part of before the results are known.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It's always important to Monday morning quarterback and midway through
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the fourth quarter on Sunday. That's how the best of
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: us do it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Don't do it and don't do it with your friends.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Do it publicly, preferably in the paper of record. All right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Kicking things off Wednesday night was President Biden, who delivered
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a primetime speech on Capitol Hill about what's at stake
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: for democracy in this election. Here is a clip.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: We're facing a defining moment, an inflection point. We, the people,
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: must decide whether we're going to sustain a republic where
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: reality is accepted The law is obeyed, and your vote
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: is truly sacred. You know, American Democrats are under attack
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: because the defeated former president of the United States refused
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: to accept the results of the 2020 election. Now, extreme
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: past elections, but elections being held now and into the future.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Because we've enjoyed our freedoms for so long, It's easy
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: to think they'll always be with us no matter what.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: But that isn't true today. In our bones, we know
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: democracy is at risk. But we also know this. It's
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: within our power, each and every one of us, to
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: preserve our democracy.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: What did you think of the speech, Dan?
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I concur.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I concur. I mean, I agree with every word he said.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: He is exactly right about the threat that this Republican
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Party and Donald Trump pose to our country, to this election,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to elections in the future. You know, voter suppression, insurrection,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: voter nullification, political violence, they have all brought to bear
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: a series of very, very dangerous things. And he is,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I think, right in to call them out. We can
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: talk about the political impact of that, whether that matters,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: whether it isn't. I will say there is a strain
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of thought embodied by a column by Jonathan Shade who
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: basically was, everything Joe Biden said was right. Should he
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: have said it?
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: No.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I disagree with that. I think you know, there's been
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: all this talk this week, you know, the Monday pod,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I've written about it about sort of Barack Obama's messaging
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: communications lessons, like why he's good at it. One rule
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: he always had was you always talk about the elephant
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: in the room and the elephant in the room is
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the threat this Republican party poses to our political institutions,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: to democracy, to freedom, all of these, like you can't
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: not talk about that. It would be weird to have
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: an election that did not address the elephant in the room,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: literally and figuratively in this case. And so I think
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: he had to give the speech. I think people who
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: are panicking about it as like a mistake are both
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: being overly condescending to the voters and dramatically overstating the
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: importance of a speech delivered on three cable news networks
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: at six o'clock at night or nine o'clock at night
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: or whatever time it was, seven o'clock at night. So
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: not even in primetime, a non-primetime speech covered by three
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: cable networks watched only by people who've already decided who
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: they're going to vote for.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Well, but that right there, to me, raises the question,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: why give the speech? I guess my thing is, like,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I of course agree with- Are you against the speech?
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think the speech is going to do any
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: damage at all. I think, like I said, I agree
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: with every word of the speech. It is a speech
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: he has given before. It is something he has said many, many,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: many times before. It is something that many Democrats have
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: said many times before. We had months and months of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: high-profile hearings that garnered tens of millions of viewers about
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: January 6th and the ongoing threat to democracy that I'm
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: glad happened. We covered them all on this podcast. I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: think the question is, with five or six days left
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: until the election, what do you want voters to think
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: about when they go into the voting booth? And right now,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: voters are telling us that they are struggling, that they
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: are very concerned about the cost of living, about gas, groceries, housing, education, healthcare.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And they're wondering who will do something about that. And
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to me, like, I think that talking about the threat
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to democracy is necessary, but not sufficient when you're trying
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to convince people to turn out to vote. I don't
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: know whose mind isn't made up about whether or not
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they are concerned about about the threat to democracy posed
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: by the Republican Party at this point.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. I think based on the data
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that we have, which is a combination of largely public
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: polling and like a smattering of private polls that you
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: and I still see as people who have like one
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: half of a foot still in like active politics, would
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: suggest that the people who care about this issue on
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the terms in which we think of it, we Democrats
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and progressives think of it the way Joe Biden thinks
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: about it, Have already voted, let alone decided who they're
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: going to vote for. And so that is definitely true.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: So the two things that I want to bring some
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: humility to that declaration to are, one, we do not
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: have access to the same data the White House has.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: That is definitely true. You and I, we've gotten the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: sort of polling they get. Maybe they see something we don't.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: It would be surprising to me that the polling they
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: see is dramatically different from what we hear from other
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: people who are seeing similar polls, but there is a
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: reason for it. The other reason why they might have
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: just given the speech is because the president felt strongly
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: about it and the election is coming and you give
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: it and there's no master plan behind it. I just
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: think it is at worst neutral in this situation because
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I do not believe he could have given a speech
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: that would have been covered by all three networks in
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: something neighborhood of prime time about inflation. That was not
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: an available card to play. This was the only card
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: to play. The only time, in fairness to what else,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: where the press really pays attention is when we talk
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: about their favorite issue, which is democracy. If you talk
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: about things that people who don't watch cable news care about,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: because that's who cares. Cable news viewers are highly politically active,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: high news consumers who are very focused on democracy. That
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: includes Fox News viewers who think about it in the
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: exact I would say, incorrect way. And so this is
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: how you get attention. Was this attention about the right thing?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe not. I don't think it's the wrong thing, but
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: it's not the persuasive thing.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: At worst, neutral, I am in complete agreement with. I
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: don't think it did any, yeah, I don't think it
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: did any damage at all, partly because, like I said,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I believe everything that he said. But I do think there's,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: like you mentioned Obama and mentioning the elephant in the room.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Obama talked about the threat to democracy in all of
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: his speeches over the last week when he was campaigning.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But it was sort of like three quarters of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: way through the speech. And the way he talked about
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: it was, I realize that democracy may not be an
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: issue that's on the top of your mind as much
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: as inflation and gas prices and abortion access and gun violence.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I realize that. But here's why it's important, right? And
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: so he sort of tried to meet people where they are.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And I just wonder... I wonder, you know, there's only
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: so many opportunities to get a message out between now
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and election day. And I feel like every one of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: those opportunities is incredibly valuable and shouldn't be missed. And
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I think there we have seen two kinds of Joe
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Bidens over the last several years, especially in the 2020
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: campaign and the White House. And one is like, John Meacham,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, where he gives speeches that are like very
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: lofty and written for history about democracy. And the other
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is Scranton Joe Biden, where he talks about fighting for
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: working class people like the people he grew up with.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And he means it and he feels passionate about it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: because he feels like that's who Joe Biden is. And
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I think at this moment, the country and Joe Biden
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: will be better served with Scranton, Joe Biden, then, uh,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: John Meacham, right for history books, Joe Biden.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I think we would, I agree with that. We would
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: also need a time machine to go back like nine
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: months to have the president do that in the entire
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: party do that. And there have been times where he
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: has done it certainly more than other members of his
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: party or other members of the sort of democratic, you know,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: pundits personalities, media folks, whatever. There is one– I want
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to just put a pin in something that maybe we
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: can come back to after the election, after the votes
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: have been cast because it may turn out that the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: votes will prove what I'm about to say incorrect. But
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I have this lingering concern about how we're talking about
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: democracy as a party. Joe Biden is talking about it
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: in the way we have all been talking about it
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: for five years now, since Donald Trump– seven years, whatever.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Ever since Donald Trump ruined our lives, we've been talking
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: about it the same way, especially since January 6th. And
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I thought about this as I was watching the speech
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: last night, which is because of the very real threat
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: of Trump and MAGA Republicans, we, the anti-Trump majority in
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: this country, Democrats, never Trumpers, that group of people, have
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: appointed ourselves protectors of democracy. And in doing so, what
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I now worry about is that we've appointed ourselves the
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: protectors of of a political system that has not worked
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: for the vast majority of Americans for a long time.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: And that we have made ourselves status quo. And we
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: think of democracy as this ending of itself, like this
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: political system that is good that we should protect. It
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: is a separate thing from inflation. But if you're just
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: like a person sitting at home who is working really hard,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: trying to do everything right, And now your wages haven't
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: gone up, but now the cost of gas and groceries
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: have gone way up. To you, that's a failure of politics.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: That says something about the political system that it's not
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: working for you. And that if we're going to, whatever
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: happens on Tuesday, this battle is going to continue into 2024,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: whether it's Trump or some other person, this is going
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to be the stakes. And I think we have to
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: go from being the protectors of democracy to the reformers
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: of democracy, that we have to be trying to fix
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the political system. Because right now it's We want to
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: protect the system that doesn't work, and they want to
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: tear it down. And for some number of voters, tearing
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: it down is going to seem pretty fucking appealing, particularly
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: in an economic environment like we're currently in. And we
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: have to shift that where it's like reform that is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: making it a system that works better, like a lot
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: of things we talk about, like filibuster, et cetera, but
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: also getting corruption out of the system. The fact that
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the party went back to taking lobbyist donations like seven
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: years ago is fucking insane. The fact that we brought
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: earmarks back. All of that stuff, how do we fix
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: the system, clean it up? Like that is like how
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I think we're going to probably have to shift our
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: rhetoric when it comes to democracy, if that makes sense.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It makes sense. It's the exact conclusion I reached after
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: doing all those focus groups in the wilderness and talking
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to not just groups of voters, but like some of
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the smartest strategists in the party. Like if we want
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to persuade people to save democracy, we have to persuade
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: them that democracy is worth saving. That is just the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: fundamental thing. And this is not just like guessing that
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: we're doing here. We talked about a couple episodes ago
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that New York Times poll. And look, Biden cites this
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in the speech last night. He said, it's a top
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: concern for a lot of people. But when the New
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: York Times asked people what they meant by they're concerned
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: about threats to democracy, most people said it's about corruption.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It's about the fact that the government is not working
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: on behalf of ordinary people anymore. And like, I keep thinking,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: especially of whatever happens in this election, right? Like say,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: say we squeak by, this is still going to be,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the polls are wrong and Democrats, this is
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: still going to be an issue because we have still
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: been hemorrhaging working class voters, not just white, but Latino
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and now black men as well. Over the last several elections,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: we've been losing them. Okay. And you wonder why do
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: we continue to lose working class voters? Well, I keep
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: thinking about like the two focus groups that stick with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: me the most are sort of the working class Latinos
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I spoke to in Las Vegas and the working class
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: black voters I spoke to in Atlanta. And unprompted, when
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I asked them, what's going on, what's bothering you? Inflation, housing, crime. And,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you know, this woman, I keep thinking about her in Vegas,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and she's like, she spoke passionately about how angry she
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: is at Republicans for wanting to ban abortion and how
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: angry she is at them for wanting to, she's like,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: you tell me that I have to have a child
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: and yet I can't tell you not to bring a
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: gun to a school to shoot my kids. I have
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to worry about my kids going to school and you're
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: telling me. So she was very passionate about these issues.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: She said that, you know, they all said that Adam
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Laxalt is a big lie supporter, so they don't like him.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But the top issue is housing. The thing they're most
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: concerned about is housing. And this woman was like, I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: have gone from motel to motel for three months because
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I couldn't afford rent and I worked two jobs and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: no one is doing anything about it. And if you're
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that person and you tune into the news and you
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: see a speech about democracy and institutions and election deniers
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and then you go on Twitter
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: or you go on social media and you see people
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: saying like, oh, well, the reason that people are upset
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: about inflation is because the media has brainwashed them or
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the media's covered crime and actually look, crime statistics in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: red states are just as, are worse than in blue
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: states and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're thinking
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to yourself, okay, well, I can't afford to live somewhere.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm really worried about crime in my neighborhood. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: no one seems to be talking about these things. Like,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I know we want those people to understand the threat
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in the way that we understand the threat. I get that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: But if they're not, have we thought about trying another
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: way to persuade them? to join our pro-democracy coalition. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: maybe part of that is to say like, yeah, we're
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: going to fight like hell for you. And we're going
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to fight like hell to make sure that you can
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: afford to live somewhere. And by the way, that other
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: fucking party, they're not because they care about their rich
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: friends and their wingnut Christian nationalist base. That's all they
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: care about. So they're going to focus on that shit.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: We're going to focus on you. We're going to fight
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: like hell for you.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: We have ceded the reform issue to a party run
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: by corrupt billionaires.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: It's wild. We never talk about it. And this is
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: not like going down the path of huge government spending
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and social, all that bullshit. It is people want to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: hold corporations and wealth and power accountable. They want our
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: institutions to work for them because if we cannot make
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: institutions work for them, they will vote for demagogues who
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: will break those institutions because they're so frustrated. So like,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: let's talk about, so that was Biden's closing argument. Every
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: candidate is making their own closing argument. We have a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: sample of some of the final ads from Senate candidates,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman, Mandela Barnes, Tim Ryan, and Congresswoman Elaine Luria.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: J.D.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Vance, a fraud who invests in companies that outsource jobs
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: to China.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: That ain't Ohio.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: An extremist who calls rape inconvenient and toxically believes women
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: should stay in violent marriages.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: That is not Ohio.
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: A California imposter who grew a beard and wore flannel
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: to fit in. In the Senate, Johnson wrote a loophole
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: that gave huge tax cuts to himself and his biggest donors.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: And while our costs are rising, he supports a plan
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: that would raise taxes on the middle class. Ron Johnson
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: looks out for himself, not us.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: Oz has spent his life taking advantage of people, making
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: himself rich. I've taken on the powerful, been different. Oz
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: will only work for himself in Washington, just like the rest.
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: He lies for your vote. I'll never break your trust.
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: If you support insurrectionists or call our military weak, I'm
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: not your candidate. If you attack the FBI and defend
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump, I'm not your candidate. And if you believe
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: the 2020 election was stolen, definitely not your candidate.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: All right. So if you think these messages sound like
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: they're a bit all over the map, you're not alone.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Here's the New York Times in a classic of the genre.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Headline is top Democrats question their party's strategy as midterm
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: worries grow. leading lawmakers and strategists are openly doubting the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: party's kitchen sink approach, saying Democrats have failed to unite
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: around one central message. Dan, what do you think? Are
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they right? Was it even possible for the party to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: unite around a central message? What do you think?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: John, you know how in an NBA game at the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: end of like the third quarter, they make the coaches
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: do this interview, like all for the televised games. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: then the coach says nothing, just we're working hard. We're
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: going to have defense get better. imagine if the coaches
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: were like, I don't know, team kind of sucks. Wish
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: we'd done something. Wish our point guard could dribble. That's
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: basically what is happening here. You can just say.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: That injury really fucked us.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Just like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: happening there. You gotta have better players. It's just, it's,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know, John.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are a few different and sometimes conflicting
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: criticisms in the piece. But just to oversimplify the debate,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: they're basically, it's sort of the one we were just
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: talking about. There are some people who think Democrats have
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: focused too much on abortion and democracy and not enough
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: on inflation and crime. Other people who think Democrats haven't
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: focused enough on the threat that Republicans pose to democracy
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and abortion access and other freedoms. What do you make
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of this debate? It is interesting, you know, we were
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: just talking about sort of seeding the mantle of, you know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: fighting corruption to Republicans and billionaires and stuff like that.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: You did hear in almost all of those ads, except
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Elaine Lurie is at the end, who, of course, she
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is a member of the January 6th committee. She is
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in a sort of college educated area. That's her district.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But Fetterman, Barnes, Ryan, very economically populist closing ads. What
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: do you make of all this?
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the right close. You know, we
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: this is going to be very on brand, but I
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: think the right messaging is a lot of what Obama
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: has been saying. It is connecting democracy to the economy
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and connecting the issue of the economy to who the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: candidate is going to fight for. And that is the
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. And I think there's two, like
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: part of the critique in that article is Democrats didn't
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: settle on a single message.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Like, why don't we have a single message? And I
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: think There's kind of a couple ways to look at that.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: One is it's particularly in Senate races, which are largely
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: about the candidates, which is why in many cases, the
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Democrats are doing much better in those Senate races than
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the generic ballot would suggest or Joe Biden's approval rating
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: would suggest because they become about the candidates. They're about
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Hershel Walker, Raphael Warnock or Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: or whatever else. And in that case, you kind of
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: want to have a campaign that's specific to those candidates.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Like you're going to run a different race against Dr.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Oz than you are JD Vance or Herschel Walker. I
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: do think nationally there is an argument. If we could
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: go back in time for a singular branding of Republicans,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: because Republicans have a singular brand on Democrats. They have
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a much greater megaphone to shout that brand from and
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to do. And for a while over the summer, we
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: did like the, Because of the Dobbs decision, everyone was
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: painting the Republicans as extreme with abortion as an example
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of that. And that did work for the course of
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the summer when additional voters who were not as politically
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: engaged checked in in the fall. And when the economy
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: changed a little bit, that shifted under us. And I
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: don't know that it necessarily shifted with us. But here's
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the important point here. We don't know whether this is
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: right or wrong. We're going to find out. It's actually
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: probably going to take like 10 days before we know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: but we'll know. I think each of these messages are
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: good and interesting. And given the demographics of Elaine Luria's
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: district and her role in the January 6th committee, that
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: very well may be the right message for her. But
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: we're just going to have– this is what drives me
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: insane about this article is a bunch of people who
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: stick their finger in the wind to see which way
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: it's blowing, think it's blowing– the wrong way for Democrats,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: then rush out to call a reporter to tell them
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: they knew it was going to go wrong all along
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: and they're smart and the people have to actually make
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: the decisions.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that is, look, I know we dispense a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: lot of advice and analysis here. I should say, like,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell the right answer is
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: either for sure. But I do think like all, I think, again,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: regardless of the results, I think all of us have
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: to be a little, those of us who are engaged
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: in politics pay attention to politics or close to politics
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: there is this like tendency to dismiss voters as if
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: they're like this like alien group of people right like
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: you hear focus groups you hear polls and you're like
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: oh what is that or you say oh the voters
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: are wrong or the voters are crazy or i'm so
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: frustrated with the voters and i do think that like
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: all we can do is just listen to each other
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: listen the voters aren't just like some foreign group of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: people They're like our fellow citizens. We need their votes
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to win, you know? And like, all we can do
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: is go out there and listen to them and talk
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to people and, and, and understand what their concerns are
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and how to get their votes like that. I just,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it's a lot.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Can I just say one more thing about this? It's
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: probably not constructive, but it might have a little bit
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: of catharsis to it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Which is there is a genre of, of person within
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: our party who looks at something terrible Republicans do, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: their first instinct is to yell at Democrats about it.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: A right-winger radicalized on irresponsible Republican rhetoric tries to murder
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Speaker of the House. And the first thing
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: is not to yell at the Republicans, not to yell
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: at the media infrastructure that radicalized that person. It's to
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: yell at Democrats for not talking about that, for not
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: raising the threat. And I think if you're one of
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: those people, you ought to look in the mirror. Because
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: that you are missing the point. And you should recognize
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: that you have found yourself in a lane that has
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: existed for a long time. Because there was always a
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: place of relevance in American politics for a Democrat who
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: shits on Democrats.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: And that person has a reserve seat on the Sunday
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: show roundtables. If you look at it, Joe Lieberman's name
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: is etched on the back. You're following in that level.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: And that is not to say that the party is
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: immune to criticism. Far from it. We have offered some
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: here today. Maybe we should even offer some more. But
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I think that criticism has to have some basis in
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: the following things. One, a realistic understanding of the limits
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: of power the Democrats have. Nancy Pelosi cannot make AOC
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: and Abigail Spanberger agree on everything. Chuck Schumer cannot make
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin abolish the filibuster. That is not within their power.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden has a much smaller bully pulpit than we
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: would like to think. He cannot bend public opinion to
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: his will. Maybe he should be trying harder to do so,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: but this is not the West Wing. Next, I think
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: if you're going to criticize, offer specific ideas based in
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: those limitations I just talked about. Simply saying, do more,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: shout louder, is not advice. Third, To your point, use
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: data to back up why you think Democrats are doing
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: something wrong. And if you're someone who just says polls
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: are all wrong, or focus groups are bullshit, you are
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: basically doing the public opinion version of climate denial. You're
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: just disregarding science to reinforce your pre-existing point. Because even
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: if you think polling is wrong, there's lots of other
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: data out there. There's the precinct level data, the catalyst does,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: there's the a validated voter study from Pew. There's political
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: science research. There's like real, you can, you can find
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: a fashion.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Walk out your fucking door and just talk to some people.
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: You can touch grass while you do it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Just touch some grass, get off your computer and just
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: talk to some people. I'm begging you. Yeah. There's this
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: whole stream like, Oh, the Democrats have, have relied too
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: much on data and like data becomes this like amorphous
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: evil thing. It's like the data is just what people
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: are saying.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Pilots rely too much on radar.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Like, what are we doing?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Like, you want to save democracy? That's what democracy is.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It's 300 million people who all have different opinions and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: who all have different, and all are in different places.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And you got to get a majority of them to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: be on your side to win. That's it. That is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the most basic element of what we're doing here.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Last point about these people. If after all of that,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: you are still so sure you were right and they
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: are so wrong, Put down your phone and get in
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: the fucking game.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Go get it.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Run for something.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Run for something. Go apply for a job on Capitol Hill.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Start a political organization. Use your platform to actually mobilize
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: instead of criticize. Get in the game. If all you're
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: doing is– if you think Republicans are so bad that
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you have to yell at Democrats, I really think you're
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: missing the point.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I feel a little bit better now. No one in
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: my house has slept through the night in like two weeks.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: I am underfed, over-caffeinated, extremely tired. I needed that. I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: want to thank you, our listeners, for whatever part that
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: does not get cut, or perhaps should be. I feel better.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: We're going to have a lot more to– we'll have
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a lot more to say.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, the next few weeks are going to be something.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It's either going to be.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Triumphalism or– I wanted to ask you one more question,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: but now I feel like it's going to trigger you,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: so maybe I won't. It's just a question because you
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: are Crooked Media's biggest YouTube star with Political Experts React,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and so I know that you focus a lot on ads.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me that I would say, again,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: my opinion, could be wrong, but Fetterman, Ryan, Barnes, all
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of those ads focusing on economic populism, focusing on they're
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: fighting for people in their state and their opponents are not.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I'd say there was a right on the money. I
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: do think it's become difficult for, like you get all
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: these ads, these paid ads that are all about sort
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of economic populism and drawing the economic contrast. And then
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the earned media, meaning like what the narrative is about,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: what the press writes about, what voters see when they're
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: not watching ads, but still are consuming information about politics.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That's almost never about the economy. It's never, or at
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: least it's not, it's about like high inflation. It's about
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: gas prices and inflation, but it's not about like, The
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: fight between Democrats and Republicans over what they would each
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: do about it. And I wonder, like, do you think
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: these ads are effective? Do you think like Democrats? How
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: do how do we like sort of break through sort
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of the and get more earned media? about these economic fights?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I think the use of the term earned media is
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: an anachronism in this day and age. And that we
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: should not think about the coverage. We should think about
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: the conversation and what people are talking about. And then
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: one of the challenges that Democrats face, and this is
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: a challenge that's really been true since, since, every election
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: after the 2012 presidential election, is that the conversation is
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: happening around cultural issues. And so the ads on economic
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: populism that work are the ones that use it as
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a way to tell a story about who their opponent is.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: It's a values-based argument about them. It is a proxy
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: for a larger conversation. But we have a dramatic challenge,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: which is issues only matter if they interact with what
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: is happening in the world, what they're thinking about. We
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: have a media ecosystem and a social media ecosystem that
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: bends heavily towards cultural identity issues, because that's the only
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: way to get attention and drive traffic in this day
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: and age. And it's been this huge shift in politics,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: not to promote another podcast on this one, but Ezra
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Klein had a podcast this week with Lynn Baverick and
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: John Sides, who are two political science professors who do
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: in-depth studies of, I think, the last three presidential elections,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: but their 2020 study just came out, and it's essentially
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: a book about it. And One of the points they
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: make is, I think it was in their 2016 study,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: is that up until 2016, the axis upon which politics
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: was fought were New Deal-based issues. From Franklin Roosevelt through
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the 2012 election, it was about size of government, who benefits,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: how you pay for it, taxes, et cetera. And that
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: shifted to cultural issues in 2016. And we have not
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: yet recovered or found a way to pivot it back
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to our stuff. And I think that's going to really
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: require thinking about it. I don't have the answers. differently?
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: How do you make the economy a cultural issue? And
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: populism is one way to do that. Mixing it with
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: reform is another way to do that. But I think
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: that's going to be one of the big tasks going forward,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: whether we win or lose on Tuesday.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ezra's been on this beat because he also had
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: a political scientist on who talked about how this is
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: not just an American phenomenon, by the way. This is
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: sort of why we're seeing the rise of right-wing populist
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: parties all over the world, is that this axis has
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: shifted not just here, but all over the place where
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it's now this sort of cultural divide more so than
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: an economic one. And you're right. I don't think there's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: not an easy answer of just like listing off economic
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: policies more like that. And I don't think that's going
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to do it. It's much bigger than that. But but
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: we do at least have to recognize that that's that's
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the issue right now. And that's where there's this huge
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: divide between non-college and college voters, which we find ourselves
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: on a side that doesn't have as many people.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Well, it has more people just not allocated appropriately among
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: the states that decide to send an electoral college.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Correct. Correct. Correct. All right. So before we get to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the interview, we want to help people make sense of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: the debates you might have noticed around two things, partisan
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: polls and the early vote. We're going to give you
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: guys this, but only if you sign up for Vote
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Save America shifts. So I'm just going to trust you all.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: that right now you're signing up for some Votes Save
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: America shifts, and now we'll dig in. Dan, let's take
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: each of these separately. There's been some, Democrats have pointed
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: out that the polling averages are just, they've been flooded
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: with polls that are either from Republican firms or Republican-leaning firms,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and that's sort of screwing up the average. And, you know,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: former Clinton staffer Simon Rosenberg, he's called this Republican propaganda
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: designed to shape public opinion about who's winning. What do
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you make of that?
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: There is an element of truth to what Simon is saying.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Something happened in 2020, which is forever the real clear
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: politics polling average was sort of the gold standard of
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: polling average. It was certainly before various Nates got involved
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: in data science and started weighting them. It was just like,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: instead of looking at one poll, look at all of
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: these polls. In the Trump era, a bunch of right-wing
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: billionaires bought the bought RealClearPolitics, and they changed the polling
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: standards and started letting in a whole bunch of shit polls,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: really Republican polls. And in 2020, that did affect the average. Now,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the reason why this is somewhat of a flawed argument
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: is by adding in the Republican polls, the Republican-leading polls,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: it actually brought the average closer to the real results
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: in the states than before. And so that's one of
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the problems. There are more Republican polls. There's not a
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: bunch of Democratic Trafalgar's out there putting out polls. But
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the problem is Trafalgar got an A rating. Because they
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: were right. Now, are they right in a Brooklyn clock sense? Probably.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Because they just– they err on the side of Republicans
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: and that has been the way to be right in
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: recent years. But ultimately, whether the averages have moved by
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: half a point or not, who cares? And just pick
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: a poll that you want to trust, right? That could
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: be the New York Times, CNN polls or the NBC,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal. They all show basically the same thing.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: which is incredibly close races that have moved somewhat in
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: the Republican direction over the last month. Whether that's by
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: one point or two points, it doesn't matter.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: If you take out all the Republican and Republican-leading polls,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you still have an extremely close horse race that Republicans
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: probably have a tiny edge on. So that's just the truth.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: All right, what about the early vote? Well, this is
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: our annual warning about the early vote. What do you think?
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: So it is true that polls are guesses and early
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: vote is actual votes. These are people who have actually voted.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: The problem with the early vote is we don't know
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: how much of the picture it's telling us for a
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: couple of reasons. One is to measure democratic performance, you
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: have to measure it against a baseline of something. And
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: there is no good baseline in this election because in 2020,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the voting rules changed In a lot of states, because
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: of the pandemic, states that did not allow early votes
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: started allowing early vote votes that didn't allow mail ballots
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: started allowing mail ballots. And even in the states with
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: long histories of early voting, voting behavior in those states changed. Like,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: for example, Florida is a state where Republicans always did
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: better in the early vote than Democrats before 2020. But
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: now that how you vote, thanks to Donald Trump, now
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: how you vote is almost as important. For whom you vote,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Republicans now tend to vote even more so on Election
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Day and Democrats vote by mail. So you can't compare
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: this to 2020 because that's a presidential election with a
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: larger voter pool, and you can't compare it to 2018
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: because that's before a seismic shift in how people voted.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: So if you see numbers that say Democrats are doing
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: so much better than they were in 2018, maybe that's
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: something great. Maybe not. Maybe it just tells you that
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who in 2018 voted on Election
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Day now vote early because they think that's a very convenient, awesome,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: safe way to vote. Next, and some states will tell
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: you The Secretary of State will release who voted by party,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: number of Democrats, number of Republicans, number of unaffiliated. That
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: is informative. Even without a baseline, that's interesting. The problem
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: is some states have a very large unaffiliated number, in
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: some cases larger than– like in Colorado and I think
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire, larger than either party. So when you see
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: these– in these states that do not release partisan voting,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you're seeing modeling done based on who they think voted.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: And so maybe that is right. Maybe it's wrong. We
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: don't know. And so this is all very, polling may
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: be imprecise. These are also imprecise ways to make judgments.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: And once again, we're going to find out before too long.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: And the one exception to this, everything we just said
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: here is usually John Ralston, a reporter in Nevada, who
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: knows Nevada better than anyone else, who does an early
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: voting blog. And the reason that And Ralston doesn't say like, oh,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I know exactly what the outcome is going to be.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: He gives you like different models and different projections. But
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the reason that Nevada is different is because you get
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a most of the electorate votes early or by mail
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: before Election Day. And so if you know the denominator,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: then you know that most people have voted and they
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: release the Democrat versus Republican split. you can have a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: better sense of what might happen. Now, even there, there's
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of unaffiliated voters and you don't know what
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: the split there is going to be. So, and Ralston
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: has like different projections, like, oh, if Indy split, it
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: looks like this. If Indy's go 10 points for Republicans,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: it goes this way. So you can do it that way.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: But that one's like, that's like a little more, you
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: get a little more information out of Nevada, but the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: rest of the states, I wouldn't really bother.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, I think we are all spend using early vote,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: pulling average, unskewing stuff, trying to figure out what is
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: going to happen instead of trying to make happen what
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: we want to happen, right? That's why everyone who's still
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: listening to this via our activism-based Patreon has already signed
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: up for Vote Save America. So only the good people
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: know this now.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: And if you somehow snuck in- Hopefully everyone has turned
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: us off five minutes ago and they're just making calls
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: That's a good point. We are just speaking to each other.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: We're just talking to each other. All right. When we
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: come back, I'll talk to Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. Joining
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: us today, a former Navy captain, retired astronaut, and current
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: senator from Arizona who's in one of the closest and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: most important midterm races in the country. Mark Kelly, welcome
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: John, thank you for having me on. I think it's
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: my first time on the show, so.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: It's good to be here. It is. It is. We're
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: lucky to have you. So last night, President Biden focused
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: his closing midterm argument on the threat to democracy posed
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: by extremism and election deniers like your opponent. You have
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: focused your closing argument on your bipartisan track record, economic opportunity,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: public safety. Can you talk about why you've prioritized those
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: messages over the one that we heard from President Biden
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: last night?
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: Well, let me first say, I think both of these
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: messages are important. You know, I am not your typical politician.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm a guy about getting stuff done. I
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: was in the Navy for 25 years. I spent 15
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: years at NASA. I come from an operational background. You know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: my message, you know, for the last six months has
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: been about a lot of different you know, about good
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: paying jobs here in the state of Arizona, about bringing
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: down costs for families, you know, gas and groceries and housing.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: It's just too expensive. So I've been focused on delivering
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: on those things. But I also think it's really important
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: to know, and I think the president made this point
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: while I didn't see the speech last night. You know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: I was busy with a campaign event I imagine you're
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: probably going to ask about. I think it's an important
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: message to send. And that is that this democracy we've
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: had for nearly 250 years is not something that's guaranteed.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: And we're going to have to fight for it. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: there are forces out there that could, over a period
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: of time, cause this whole thing to unravel. I've said
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: this before on the campaign trail that I really think
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: the wheels could come off of our democracy because of
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: people like my opponent, Blake Masters, who is denying the
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: 2020 election again here in Arizona, denying the outcome. He
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: did it in the beginning of the campaign, and then
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: he stopped for a while. And then about three weeks ago,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: he gets a phone call from a guy in Florida
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: that says he has to start doing it again. So
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: now he's denying the 2020 election. But what's worse than
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: that is he's also denying an election that's still five,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: six days in the future here. He started doing that.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Already.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, this is this is dangerous. And I didn't
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: see all the president's remarks, but he I assume I
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: understand what he was trying to say. And I think
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: that's an important message for people to hear.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: You mentioned people's economic concerns, obviously, you know, interest rates
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: keep rising to tamp down inflation. That's also softened the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: housing markets. Now we've got higher prices, higher credit card interest,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: homes are worth less. If the Democrats hold the House
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and the Senate, what do you think the party should
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: do to improve the economic situation?
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, nobody saw this pandemic coming. And,
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: you know, we've been in this now for three years
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: and it was incredibly disruptive, especially to supply chains. And
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: that still exists in many sectors of the economy today.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: where manufacturers can't get parts, where businesses can't get the products.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: At least right now, there's a shortage in the labor
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: market because of the disruption. We often think of our
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: economy as this very stable, well-functioning machine, And when 2020 hit,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I think we all realized that it's a lot less
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: stable than we realized. I think of this a lot
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: of times in terms of my old job with airplanes
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: that are unstable. You push it off in one little
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: direction and it could go out of control. As a
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: test pilot, that was a big part of my responsibility
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: was testing things in airplanes and changes. And I think
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: we realize that their little disruption in the economy can
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: have rippling effects. We're still feeling that today. We've got
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: to continue to address rising costs. Interest rates are now
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: a factor here, but that is by choice. The Fed
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: is making a decision to raise interest rates to stop
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: or slow inflation. These are hard decisions. I think it's
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: hard to get this exactly right. But consumers now who
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: were impacted with higher costs, now they're going to have
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: higher borrowing costs, and businesses are going to have higher
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: borrowing costs, and it's going to make it more difficult
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: for businesses to grow. These are the kind of things
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: that could multiply into other problems. I think right now,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: the Fed has taken the right steps in raising interest rates.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: I know there are some folks that disagree with that.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: But we have to stop this inflationary pressure, this upward inflation.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: We have some of the highest inflation, highest rising costs
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: in the country or in Maricopa County. And I remember
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: as a kid, I was in middle school and high
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: school in the late 70s and early 80s. I remember
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: what that was like. First, the high inflation and then
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the high interest rates. It was hard for my mom, especially.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: She was the one in our family who would have
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: to pay the bills. And I remember her sitting at
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: the kitchen table with all the bills, trying to figure
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: out what to pay. She had one of those giant calculators.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Remember the calculator about that big? And she was trying
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: to figure it out. So I know what folks are
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: going through. That's why I've worked to address this, address
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: it with the White House specifically on the price of gasoline.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: I talked to a guy down in Yuma. who lives
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: about 50, 60 miles from work. He's a federal government contractor.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And he told me, he says, it's starting to be
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: unaffordable for him to go to work because he's got
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: this 60 mile commute each way every single day. And
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: it's getting really, really expensive. So I've called on the
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: administration to increase oil and gas production. They did a
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: little bit of it. And then we put it in
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: the Inflation Reduction Act to compel the federal government to
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: expand leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. But we have
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: to do more.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: What do you think about the windfall profits tax that
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: President Biden floated this week?
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's something to consider, and I will.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: I'll be back in D.C. a week from Monday. There's
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: a lot of issues that we have to address. I
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: want to make sure the government stays funded. There's some
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: folks that serve in the United States Congress that are
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: perfectly fine with the government shutting down. That's not an
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: option for me. I mean, just across the country, the
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: role of the federal government, when the government shuts down,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: it hurts people. And we can't allow that to happen.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the rally that you were at with my
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: old boss, Barack Obama, last night, where he said that
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: if you were trying to create in a lab, a
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: wacky Republican politician, it would look a lot like Blake Masters.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: What'd you think of that characterization of your opponent?
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: It was funny. You know, I often try to stick
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: to the facts and what people say. I appreciate the sentiment.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: My opponent's, you know, he's a relatively young guy. He's
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: new to this. I'm new to this too. But he
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: has some ideas that I think, some beliefs that And
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: then beliefs are almost worse than ideas when they're dangerous.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: And he's got some beliefs that are just dangerous for
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Arizonans on everything. I think if you look across the
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: country for a challenger for a U.S. Senate seat, a
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: competitive U.S. Senate seat, I think there's an argument to
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: be made that he's got the most extreme views. Whether
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: it's on abortion, he calls abortion demonic and a religious
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: sacrifice and says he wants to punish the doctors. I mean,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: think about this. He wants to punish doctors for delivering
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: health care to women. And he wants a national abortion
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: ban that's so strict that even in the case of
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: when a woman is raped, she will not be able
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: to make this decision herself or between her and her doctor.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's what he wants. And the national abortion
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: ban he wants could criminalize this decision for women. Social Security.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, he has said during the campaign on a
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: debate stage, people are usually pretty careful and thoughtful about
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: what they say during a debate. They know it's recorded.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: And he got caught telling the truth. He says he
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: wants to privatize Social Security. I hadn't heard this before.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: He used the term, he wants to cut the knot.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what that means, but I can
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: tell you this.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sound good.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: It does not sound good. I mean, cutting the knot
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: on a senior who's just trying to get by. I
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: meet so many seniors in our state that are having
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: to make these really tough economic decisions all the time,
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: and he wants to extend their Social Security earnings to
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Wall Street. I mean, who makes money in that deal?
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Wall Street. So on issue after issue, he's got some
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: really dangerous views about the United States military that I
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: served in for over 25 years, says our military is
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: totally incompetent. I mean, these are beliefs.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: That are dangerous.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: So I get what your former boss was trying to
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: articulate there.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: So President Biden started his speech last night by talking
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: about the horrifying attack on Paul Pelosi and You and
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: your family sadly understand the threat of political violence in
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a personal way. Your wife, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: shot during an event with constituents in 2011. How has
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that tragedy shaped your views on political violence and what
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: we do about it as a country?
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: I would say more than anything else. I mean, it has,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: you know, made it very real for us. You know,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: it's affected, you know, my wife. And me too. I mean,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: when Gabby got shot in 2011, I mean, she was
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: nearly assassinated. Six people died, 12 others injured. You know,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: this was politically motivated. This individual had come to a
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: previous event of hers, didn't like what she said, planned
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: this attack. The rhetoric that we see out there and
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: the polarization and the just this charged political atmosphere that
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: we live in right now, I think it makes it
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: more likely that these things will occur. That's why I've
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: been focused on, and you mentioned my message, which is
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: also what I've done in the United States Senate, which
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: is bringing people together, working with Republicans, not accepting that
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: we have to live in a world where the other
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: party is the enemy. That's not true for me. That's
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: not true for many of my colleagues in the Senate.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I would say it's not true for most of them.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: We've got to fight back against these forces. What happened
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: to Paul Pelosi was just horrific. That individual was there,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: in my opinion, to kill the Speaker of the House.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: That's what happened to Gabby. It ended Gabby's career. It
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: ended my career at NASA and my career in the
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: United States Navy. What happened? in January of 2011. We
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: can't accept that this is somehow the new normal. And
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: that's why we have to call out individuals who try
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: to normalize this. And that's happened over the last week
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: since this happened to the speaker's husband. There are folks
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: that just dismiss it and they make jokes about it.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: This isn't funny, it's serious. And those individuals shouldn't think
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: for a second that they're immune to it happening to them.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, as this problem grows, it exposes more and
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: more individuals. I don't know what the numbers are in
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: the United States Congress, but the death threats that members
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: of the United States Senate get, I'm speaking from my experience,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: it is significant. I mean, the threats of violence against
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: us Um, and you know, you know, for 535 of us,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine what that number is. It has got
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: to be off the charts. And these are, you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: for the most part, individuals that are just trying to
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: serve our country and make our country a better place,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: even when we disagree. But we've got individuals out there that, um, just,
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: just the way they conduct themselves, um, you know, puts
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: us in a situation where you will have individuals often unstable,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: but they'll be pushed over the edge and they will
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: commit an act of violence. And there's no place in
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: our country for that.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: How do you deal with what I must be, what
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I imagine must be a real challenge in you're trying
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to sort of this, this political climate of violence, you're
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: trying to sort of tamp it down. by showing that
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: you can work with Republicans, that you can tone down
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric, that you can work with your colleagues, Republican
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: colleagues in the Senate, which you have done. At the
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: same time, some of those Republican colleagues have espoused conspiracy
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: theories and lies and slander and used rhetoric that has
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: radicalized some of these people in the country who then
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: go on to commit acts of political violence. How do
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: you sort of deal with that tension? You want to
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: You want to tamp down the rhetoric and show that
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: democracy can work and you can work with the other side.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, the other side, at least
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: some people on the other side, are espousing rhetoric that
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: makes this worse.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Well, let me start by saying it isn't always easy
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: to do that. But I try to make decisions in
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: the United States Senate that will benefit the state of
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Arizona and the country. And I think we get better
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: solutions when both parties are involved. When we work across
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: the aisle, Democrats and Republicans working together. I think the
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: CHIPS Act, perfect example of this. This is legislation. It
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: was my language. The CHIPS part of the CHIPS in science, myself,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Mark Warner, Todd Young, John Cornyn came together, come up
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: with that legislation, get it across the finish line. We
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: get good ideas from the Republicans. We have some good ideas.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: We come together. We throw out the ones we can't
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: agree on. And I think we get a better product
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day. So you got to
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: put that as the priority. At the same time, you can't,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: you know, you can't ever accept. And I think this
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: is true more so in the U.S. House of Representatives
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: than it is in the Senate. But we should never accept,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: you know, when, you know, individuals are just going over
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: a line and doing things that could cause somebody, you know,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: to get, you know, hurt. That's just unacceptable. So I
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: will call them out.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: All right. Before you go, I got to know, what's
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the scariest place to be? Space, combat, or on the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Senate floor while Ted Cruz is speaking?
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: I would definitely say flying in combat. My experience, I've
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: had a missile blow up next to my airplane.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: On the first night of Desert Storm. An SA-6 close
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: by and then immediately have another one coming right up
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: at me. That is not a good feeling. especially the
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: second missile doing a last ditch maneuver, or, you know,
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: I had a couple of missions where I had, you know,
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: I sunk two Iraqi ships, separate days getting shot at
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: triple a, you know, fire directly in one case for
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: one of the ships, the other from the shore. And, um,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: it is, let me say it's a little stressful. Um,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: but you, you resort to your training, you know, you, um, and, uh,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: you accomplish the mission. That's what my whole life has
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: been about. Working hard, making good decisions, and just accomplishing
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: a mission. Now I have this mission here in Arizona
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: to do the best job I possibly can to the
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: benefit of our state and our country. I got an
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: election coming up here. I hope you're going to ask
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: me about this, John. We've got five or six days
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: to go. This race here is It's going to be
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: really tight. I mean, most of the polls have this
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: in the margin of error. This could really go either way.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: I plan to be successful. I also live by science, data,
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: and facts. And the voters in Arizona have a decision
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: to make. I think it's pretty obvious. I've worked incredibly hard.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: And we've gotten a lot done. We got bipartisan legislation done.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: And then when we couldn't get that done through the
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Inflation Reduction Act, We're capping the out-of-pocket expenses for seniors
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: on their prescription drugs. We've got Medicare negotiation, big down
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: payment on climate change. So I think the choice is
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: obvious because my opponent has just some really, really bad ideas.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: But I want to make sure that folks realize that
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: this is going to be close. There's going to be
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of close races across the country. You know,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: here in Arizona, I think it's going to be as
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: close as any of them.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope all the listeners heard that and go
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: sign up for a phone bank or a text bank.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you could use the help in the final
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: days to get out the vote and make sure that
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: people in Arizona mail back those ballots.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they could go, John, they could go to MarkTelly.com.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: They can chip in a few bucks if they want.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: They could also sign up to phone bank. Or if
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: they're here in Arizona and want to come here, come
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: knock on doors. Knocking on doors really makes a difference.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: It sure does. It sure does. Senator Kelly, thank you
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Good luck in these in
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: these final days.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: Very welcome. Thank you for having me on.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, we are handing it over
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: to our chief take officer, Elijah Cohn, for a quick
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: round of two takes and a fake. Elijah, take it away.
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: Hey, John.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Hey, Dan. How are we doing?
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: We're great.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Super, super, super, super. Never been better.
• 58:52
  Speaker 8: John, I wanted to ask, you got that woman from
• 58:54
  Speaker 8: Las Vegas, can't get her out of your head from
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: that focus group you did. What are you doing this weekend?
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Las Vegas.
• 59:01
  Speaker 7: To?
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to Las Vegas. We are going to, John
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Lovett and Tommy Vitor and I are going to go
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: do some uh, some kickoff events. Uh, we're going to
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: do some ballot drop events for, uh, some of the
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats running in Nevada for the house. And, uh, I
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: think we're going to do two events on Saturday and
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: one event Sunday morning. I think love it's doing one
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: early Saturday morning as well. Love it's going Friday night.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: So I will be here in Northern California doing things
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: in this state, which will help determine control the house,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: a state that does not have legalized gambling and very large,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: delicious buffets. Look at these guys living their values. That's right.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: You can do both, Dan. You can do both.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I would say for america.com.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 59:46
  Speaker 8: You guys ready to play the game?
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Sure are.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 59:50
  Speaker 8: It's our take on the classic game, two truths and
• 59:52
  Speaker 8: a lie. Here's how it works. I'll read you both
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: three takes. The producers have seen these takes. John and
• 59:58
  Speaker 8: Dan have not. Two of the takes are real. One
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 8: of them is fake. You must decide which one is fake.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: This game is three rounds across three different topics. John,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 8: as Dan said earlier, you are a current champion. You're
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: on a hot streak. Any words before we get going?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: No, I'm just incredibly nervous. It's like waiting for the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: last New York Times Siena poll, you know?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 8: Plus stakes to two takes on fake.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Just playing a type. Just playing a type.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: You meant every word of that. This game matters.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 8: Let's get into it. Topic number one. The 2022 midterms
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 8: are less than a week away. So you know what
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 8: people are writing about the 2024 election. Here are three
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 8: takes about why Joe Biden should step down.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: Number one.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Number two.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 8: Many 80-year-old plus seniors are still intellectually vigorous. Famed lawyer
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 8: Alan Dershowitz, for example, is 84 and still an intellectual powerhouse.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 8: But Joe Biden isn't your average senior. Number three. What
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 8: is perhaps even more baffling is it appears that no
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 8: one on Mr. Biden's staff seems to care for his legacy.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 8: If he stepped down now, he would forever be remembered
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 8: as the man who defeated Donald Trump and passed significant
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 8: pieces of legislation despite a thin margin in Congress. A
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 8: gaff-ridden 2024 campaign would sully such a narrative. Which one
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 8: is the fake?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: They're thinking.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 8: Audio and video, they are both thinking very hard.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Man, Elijah really came to play today, people. I think....
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: Shit.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 8: Walk me through it.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Do I have to go first?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: As the reigning champion, yes, you have to go first.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: You have honors. Okay, I'll walk you through my thoughts.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: I'll walk you through my thoughts. It's tempting to do
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: the Dershowitz one because I could see you thinking it
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: was really funny to compare him to Alan Dershowitz because
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Alan Dershowitz is a clown. But also, I could also
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: see some right-wing troll saying that about Alan Dershowitz.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: So it's either a real thing from a right-wing troll
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: or a fake thing from a left-wing troll.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly this is which really explains the internet.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: Yes that's the that's the game.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna and then the third one i feel like
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: i've heard before um i don't know what do you
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: um i'm gonna go with i'm gonna go with one
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: i'm going with.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 8: Two One is the fake.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: So I got you both.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 8: I'm saying one as the fake.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: I got you both.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 8: Three is the fake.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Legacy talk is fake. You know what that is? He
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: just fucking took a Marine Dow column from a few
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: months ago and just changed three words.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: And just reworded it. I know. I know. I know
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: that's what he did. I know. Fuck.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 8: So number one, number one is real from George Will.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 8: That was getting a lot of play yesterday for being
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 8: so ridiculous. The piece is way worse than even that paragraph.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: Cause it goes after Kamala too. And number two is
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 8: from the hill. It's Merrill Matthews. Someone I've never heard
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 8: of before.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: I mean that, that like, I need evidence that that
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: person is real before I should have.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Gone with three. He definitely was. I have fuck. Okay.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: All right. Next.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 8: That's a tell. Legacy talk is exciting for me as
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 8: a sports fan. Joe Biden retiring me for LeBron's legacy.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: All right. Next up.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 8: We talked about this on Tuesday's show. Dan, I'm excited
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 8: to hear your thoughts on it. We have some takes
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 8: on Elon Musk buying Twitter.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy. Number one.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 8: These are all from conservatives, by the way, so there's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 8: a certain POV here.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: Number one.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 8: I'm thrilled that Elon finally got control. He immediately fired
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 8: the left-wing executives. Lots of liberal tears. Number two. The
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 8: woke Iron Curtain has fallen. The mob is in full retreat,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 8: and we finally have free speech again. Number three, it's
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 8: the biggest and most significant purchase of our generation, if
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 8: not American history. I think it's the Louisiana purchase of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 8: our time.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, three is absolutely real. I think that two is fake.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: Dan?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go with one.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 8: You think that three is real because I laughed at it?
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 8: Was that like a giveaway?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: That and just coming up with Louisiana Purchase would be...
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, hats off to you if you did it.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Hats off.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 8: No, I couldn't come up with that. John, there's a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 8: reason you're the champion. Great bounce back.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: Number two is a fake one.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 8: Number one is real. It's very generic. It's Blake Masters, though,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 8: which is why it's notable. He's out there talking about
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 8: liberal tears.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: So.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: I almost did that because just saying liberal tears is
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: just sort of funny. Who just says that? But I
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: guess Blake Masters does.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: To me, it was really a coin flip. And if
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: we both pick the same ones, it seems boring.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: And then three.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 8: You guys want to take any guesses? He's probably the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 8: stupidest person in Republican media. If you want to take
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 8: a guess at who did number three.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, Greg Gutfeld? No.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 8: Less mainstream.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Benny Johnson?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Baseball crank?
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: No, Charlie Kirk. okay that's fair that is that you
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: know what incorrect historical analogies is really charlie kirk's.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Uh bed and breakfast bread and butter yeah bread and butter.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Not bed and breakfast the next line if he had
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: a bed if he had a bed and breakfast it
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: would be named incorrect historical analogies.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 8: His next line was people may mock me for that
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 8: but i believe it well you're right.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: You know what you know what given him what he
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: asked for.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: You know what that should be people should adopt that
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: as their auto signature for eight dollars a month elon
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: can we put that on all of our tweets.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 8: Dan, since we're on Twitter and you didn't have a
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 8: chance on Tuesday, anything you'd like to get off your
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 8: chest about Elon's purchase, the Louisiana purchase of our time?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: I think two things. One, I think is example of
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: how insular the political media bubble is that we're so
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: much more focused on Elon Musk's purchase of this tiny
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: little platform with not that many people. The word 90%
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: of the content comes from 10% of the people. And
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: not worried enough about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: just running roughshod over the entire world. That's one. Two,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: we should make every social media platform subscription-based. Everyone should
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: have to pay for it.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: How about that for a take? I didn't see that
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: one coming.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Let me explain why. Because right now, the reason these
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: platforms are so dangerous is we, you, me, everyone else
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: who spends our fucking lives on them, are not the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: customers or the product. We only exist to give them
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: free content and then have our personal data monetized to advertisers.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: If we paid, they would have to pay attention to us.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: But instead, the customer is all the advertisers. So the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: ship is probably set on that, but I'm probably not
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: spending $ 8 to be able to sort my mentions among
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: various people I've already muted. So who cares? I just
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: love a take. And that was great.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: All right, let's do the third one.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 8: Okay, let's do it. This is what we're going to
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 8: call the conservative Q & A grab bag. A lot
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 8: of conservatives have been doing Q & As on their
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 8: shows recently. Let's take a look. Number one, this was
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: in response to the question, what do you think of anime? Answer,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: I think anime is satanic. I have no argument for
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 8: why it's satanic. It just seems that way. Number two.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 8: This is in response to a question about the LGBTQ community. Quote,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 8: I think male homosexuals are largely born that way. Female
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: homosexuals are much more complex. And number three, this is
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: a question about Daniel Radcliffe distancing himself from J.K. Rowling's transphobia.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 8: I read the books with my kids a long time ago.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 8: I remember spells and wands and creatures and adventure and fun.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 8: I don't remember anyone ever getting canceled at Hogwarts.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: Which one's fake? I'm going to say three.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Say i'm gonna say three two.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: That's such a fucking that's a coward move it is.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: A coward move.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Playing four corners.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Here it's what i believe.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Typical boston fan Wow.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 8: Well, you are both correct. Uh, so that makes John, uh,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: our champion.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I knew it was three. And I thought if I
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: aggressively went with three, cause instead of waiting for John,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: He would then default to two just to be different.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: But instead, he played it safe.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm not trying to keep it interesting
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: for the listeners. I'm trying to fucking win.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 8: He's a gamer.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Look, I think I have to say in the end here,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: John has an extreme advantage because he is no more
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: online than I am because you have to be online
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: to play this game. He just has fewer interests. So he's...
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: Same amount of time. Here's just all political media takes.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: That is tough. That is tough. I also, I'm not
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: going to reveal it because I want to keep winning. There's, I, I,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a mind meld with Elijah
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: where like, I know he, he, some of the ones
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: that you, that you're making up that there's similarities to
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: them that I, that I, there's little things that set.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, he has, he has a tell. I'm going to
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: turn my camera off. Elijah, while you're here, would you
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: like to share with the audience what you said to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Tommy in a text about John getting in a Twitter
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: fight yesterday?
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 8: Yes, I said that. I'm not going to say a
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 8: person's name. I think we've subtweeted them enough this episode.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 8: But John getting in a Twitter fight with this person
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 8: while he hosts offline is the equivalent of a fitness
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 8: influencer housing a pint of ice cream on their Instagram page.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: No notes.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: As an extremely online person, like John would say.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: Totally fair. I have no notes.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: It was like your cheat day.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: It was my cheat day. I've been pretty good.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: That's enough of this pod. Thank you, Mark Kelly. Good luck.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: Good luck, Mark Kelly. I hope we helped. Good luck
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: in your race against Blake Masters. Thank you to Elijah
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: for another two takes and a fake. I'm still champion.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: We're going to win.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone. Apologies for delirium.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: Votesaveamerica.com votesaveamerica.com go help Pod Save America is a Crooked
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Media production the executive producer is Michael Martinez our senior
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein our producers are Haley Muse
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and Olivia Martinez it's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show Thanks
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.