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"Why Republicans Can't Get Over The Trump." · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Joe Manchin fucks over the planet while
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Democrats try to make progress without him. And former Republican
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: strategist Tim Miller is here to discuss his new book
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: about why so many of his friends and colleagues went
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: full MAGA.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: You're not even going to address who's not here today?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: The person who's not here, I honestly forgot for a second.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Jon Lovett's not feeling well.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Jon Lovett is feeling ill.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: He's a cold.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: He's feeling ill, so he is not here today.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: He's a cold. He's fine, but pray for him.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Also, come see us on tour. We are hitting
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: the road later this week and next month. Later this week,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to be in Seattle and Portland. In August,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: we'll be in Nashville and Atlanta. Tickets are selling fast,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: so go grab some at crooked.com slash events and come
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: say hi. We'd love to see you in person. All right,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: let's get to the news. A global heat wave has
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: led to record-breaking temperatures across North America, Asia, and especially Europe,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: where the intense heat has caused death, drought, and wildfires.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: But here in the United States, President Biden's plan to
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: fight climate change was defeated on Thursday by Joe Manchin,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: the West Virginia millionaire who became rich from his family's
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: coal business and has taken more campaign donations from the
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: oil and gas industry than any other senator. How about that?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: After yet another round of negotiations where Senate Democrats were
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: basically willing to give Manchin whatever he wanted on climate,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the wealthy coal baron said he couldn't support any tax
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: or energy provisions anymore. until at least September because he
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: wants to see if inflation improves by then. That's the
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: latest excuse. Manchin has reportedly told Chuck Schumer that he
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: would support a reconciliation bill that allows Medicare to negotiate
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: for cheaper prescription drugs and extends more generous Affordable Care
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Act subsidies for two more years. So Democrats will try
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: to get that bill on Joe Biden's desk before the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: August recess. Tommy, what do you think happened here? Why
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: did these negotiations fall apart between this time between Joe
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Manchin and Chuck Schumer for like the hundredth time in
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: two years?
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe we divide this into what Manchin and Schumer say happened,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and then later we get to what we think happened. Great.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Because for me, they're not the same.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, me neither. So that's great. Good place to start.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Manchin claimed that the latest inflation numbers, the 9.1%
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: increase in consumer price index in June, has upset him.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And he has decided that he can't support a package
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that includes climate change spending or tax increases. This gets
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: even more confusing as you try to follow it, because
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: days earlier- Manchin had supported a plan to raise taxes
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: on the rich by closing certain kinds of tax loopholes
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: to ensure that Medicare is solvent. But as always, finding
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: consistency here is probably not a good use of our time.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post also reported that Manchin told a group
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of business leaders that he would support raising money to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: go towards deficit reduction. So he's very focused on deficit
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: reduction these days. The thing that's so infuriating about this, John,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: is that all the smart economists, not us, smart economists,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: say that Build Back Better and these climate provisions are
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: would not lead to inflation because we're talking about climate
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: spending over a decade and they're all offset by tax increases, right?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So none of this, none of what he's saying, none
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of this logically makes sense. It's okay to be concerned
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: about inflation. It's sure you're concerned about the deficit, but
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: he's taking actions that don't make sense given those concerns.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And that is what makes this conversation so infuriating.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, Manchin and Josh Gottheimer in the house and
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: a few other centrist Democrats have been making noise about
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: this for a week now about these tax increases on
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: the wealthiest individuals on the biggest corporations because what like
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: this is just getting rid of the trump tax cuts
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: because they're worried about inflation they're worried about like a
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: big corporation or a rich person like a tax increase
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that's going to hit.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Them raising taxes that's going to inflation you'll spend less
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: because you got taxed more.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Like and we're worried about those people having a tough
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: time with price increases that that's who we're worried about
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: it's fucking ridiculous so that's what they that's what mansion
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: says happened And he's basically saying, too, like, I didn't
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: walk away from it because we could still do this
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: deal maybe in September if the inflation numbers are better
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: by September. He wanted to once again kick it down
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the road a few more months. But I think at
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: this time, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden were like, no more.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: We're not going to wait around to September and then
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: have you pull the fucking football away again in September.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And then that's it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What I think is that Joe Manchin understands that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: successful propaganda doesn't mean convincing you that black is white
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: or up is down. It means confusing you to the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: point where you lose your mind. And that is what's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: happened here over the course of many years. Trying to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: parse this man's words or follow his various positions is
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: impossible because they are truly incoherent. And I think that
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: incoherence was a strategy in service of slowly strangling this
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: bill for whatever reason, because he's from a fossil fuel state,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a coal state, and he never wanted it to pass
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: because he doesn't want the fossil fuel economy replaced by
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: climate change. Maybe it's because he's hearing from lobbyists or
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: big donors or or maybe it's his own financial interests.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I don't think he ever wanted this climate change language
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to pass. I think he has strung us all along,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and now here we are.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: In fact, there are people at the White House who
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: have said that Manchin tells Joe Biden and every Democratic
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: senator exactly what they want to hear, and then he
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: changes his mind when he talks to the staff, and
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: he changes his mind whenever he talks to some lobbyists
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: and he meets with the lobbyists. He's very impressionable, Joe Manchin.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And he has been looking, and I've also heard that
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: he has been looking this whole time for an excuse
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: to to not do this deal that absolves him of responsibility, right?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So he can blame it on inflation. He can blame
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: it on progressives for asking too much. He can blame
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: it on the White House for releasing a statement that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: includes his name, right? Press release that hurts his feelings, right?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: He wants to be able to say no to the deal,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: but he doesn't want to be at fault for it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: So he wants to look for somewhere else to blame
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: or someone else to blame. He got everything he fucking
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: asked for in these latest negotiations in climate. Schumer basically said,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: first of all, he got rid of the clean energy
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: standard in the last round of negotiations. In this round,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: he got oil and gas production included. He got the
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: electric vehicle credits out. He changed the direct payments for
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: energy companies to tax incentives for clean energy companies. Like
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: he got everything. And then what happened is because Schumer
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: kept saying yes to everything, he's like, oh, fuck, I
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: just got everything I wanted. Now I'm going to have
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to say yes. So he needed a new excuse.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It's bullshit. It's absolutely bullshit. Like, do you think there
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: was anything Biden or Schumer or any other Democrat could
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: have or should have done differently to get a better
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: outcome here?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: The honest answer is I don't know. I mean, I
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: don't know if Joe Biden could have had some heart-to-heart
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: or negotiation earlier or done something to bring Manchin around.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I do think that Schumer did not play the expectations
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: game well for all of us because he knew where
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Manchin's red lines were for a long time while progressives
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: were pushing for more and more to be in the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: early versions of Build Back Better. Now, of course, Joe
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Manchin abandoned this secret letter he had written to Chuck
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Schumer and all the red lines he had in there.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But here's where I ultimately land. I think Joe Manchin
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: did what he felt was in his political interests. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: you know what?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It worked.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin's approval rating in the first quarter of 2021
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia was 40%. In early 2022, Morning Consult
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: found him at 57% approval in West Virginia. The increase
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: came from Republicans and independents, and he protected fossil fuels
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: in the state. So Joe Manchin did what was helpful
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: for his narrow political interests. So the joke's on us.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: We're debating, like, is he stupid? Is he craven? He's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a hack politician who I think wants to get reelected again,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wants to run again. And I am skeptical that any
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: amount of browbeating from the White House or Schumer or
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: progressives could have changed his mind because he knows that
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia, being seen as beating up on Democrats
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: is good politics for him. And he cares more about
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: his future than the planet's.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're exactly right. You start with the question, how
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: do you get reelected in a Trump plus 50 state?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Not easy, right?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: In 2024. And the answer is everything that we've seen
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: from Joe Manchin over the last two years. That's the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: answer that he gave. Picking fights with liberals. You're exactly right.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Picking fights with liberals. It's like you could have, you
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: could send a thousand progressives to West Virginia to pick
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: it outside of his office. That's only going to help
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: them more with voters in West Virginia. There aren't enough
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: progressives in West Virginia. There aren't enough Democrats in West Virginia.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And that's what we got. So now the question is.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Can I tell you one silver lining?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I was looking back. I was listening to Dave Roberts' podcast.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: He was talking with some climate activists. It is worth
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: noting that the Democratic Party as a whole has improved
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: enormously on climate. In 2009, the cap and trade bill
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that passed the House got something like 40 no votes
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: from Democrats. This time, basically every elected Democrat in Congress
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: was for the climate change provisions in Build Back Better
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: except Manchin. That went much, much, much further than in 2009.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So I do think that climate activists are doing the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: right thing. They're winning. Sunrise, like all these groups out
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: there have been kicking ass and focusing on this and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: centering climate in democratic campaigns are doing the right thing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It's just like we had a razor thin margin and
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the one guy we needed represented a coal state and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it sucks.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Just like we don't have a pro-choice majority in the
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Senate because of Manchin and in the filibuster thing, a
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: pro-choice anti-filibuster majority. We don't have a pro-climate majority either
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: because Joe Manchin is not on the fucking team. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the only way to deal with that is to Make
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: sure we elect John Fetterman and a Democrat in Wisconsin
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and reelect the Democratic Senate, reelect the Democratic House, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: then you have a pro-climate majority in Congress. That's the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: only way to make sure that Joe Manchin's voice doesn't
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: count as much as it's counting right now.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, it's like 113 degrees in Texas, and Texas doesn't
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: have a power grid that functions. But yeah, things are
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: going great.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: So now the question then is, what else can the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Biden administration do about climate change on its own? And
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: what about states with Democratic governors and legislatures?
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, the federal government buys a lot of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: stuff And one thing that activists would like to see
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the White House do is use that purchasing power to
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: incentivize industries that we need. So you buy a lot
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: of vehicles, you buy electric cars, you buy other zero
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: emission vehicles, which incentivizes growth in the entire industry. I
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: think that's something they will do. Biden could ban drilling
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: on new federal lands and in federal waters. They could
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: phase out the U.S. government's financing of fossil fuel projects.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And then you could also lean on international organizations like
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the IMF or the World Bank to try to do
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the same. They could just do more conservation of land. Generally,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of climate groups want Biden to declare a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: national climate emergency, which would unlock some authorities. You could
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: direct the EPA to establish limits on the emissions of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. Some people want him to use the Defense
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Production Act to increase manufacturing of clean energy vehicles. Now,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the challenge with all of these ideas is that the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: courts are now filled to the brim with 24-year-old Trump
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: lackey judges, right? And we have a Supreme Court that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just last week ruled to make it harder for the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: EPA to regulate carbon emissions without authorization for Congress. So
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: there's the chance a lot of this stuff will get
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: challenged immediately in court and could get struck down. But
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know the argument for and against trying. I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: would have to ask some sort of legal expert or
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: climate expert.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: And, you know, and Dan talked to Amy Westervelt of
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Crooked Media's Hot Take Pod about this when the EPA
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: decision came down from the Supreme Court. And she actually
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: said it was not as horrible as she thought it
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: was going to be worse. And they still retain the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: EPA still retain some authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw the tweet thread from
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, who's a
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: big climate hawk.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: How dare you ask if I saw Sheldon Whitehouse's tweet thread?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Of course I did. How could I miss the Sheldon
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Whitehouse Twitter thread?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Well, particularly because in the Twitter thread, he advocated for
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: an executive branch, quote, climate beast mode.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: What does that mean? He just did a whole tweet
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: thread of all the executive actions that Biden can take,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: and he wants, he's called it climate beast mode. And that,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of the, it's basically everything you just said, Tommy,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: plus a rule that would force energy producers to account
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: for greenhouse gas emissions as a cost of doing business,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: so it puts a carbon price, and a rule that
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: requires major polluters to use technology to capture carbon dioxide
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: emissions and impose stronger pollution controls on cars, light trucks,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: and heavy-duty vehicles. Obama did cars and light trucks, Back
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: in the Obama administration, you can go further than that now.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: You can make it even more energy efficient. And then
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: for the first time, do a rule on heavy-duty vehicles
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: You can just Marshawn Lynch that shit. Why not?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: It's just climate beast mode.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Sheldon Whitehouse. So that's climate. I guess what we're left
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: with is this reconciliation bill, which went from Build Back
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Better to.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: In states. What states can do.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. States.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, a lot of states are taking aggressive
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: climate action. We live in California. Luckily, we've done a
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: lot of great work. There's a statewide cap-and-trade program. California
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: has mandated carbon-free electricity by 2045. There's incentive for purchasing
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: electric vehicles. So the states are doing great work. Basically,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: some like 22 dozen some odd states have signed this
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: climate compact to try to basically stay in the Paris
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Climate Accord. So things are happening on a state level.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I think the concern is what if we lose those governorships?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: What if the court strikes down, creates a ruling that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is even more radical and direct and inhibits their capacity
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to take action on climate? What if Congress does something,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: if Republicans gain control of everything in 2024?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Like the longer term concern.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. All right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So that's on climate. What we're left with is after
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: starting with this Build Back Better bill, we're left with
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: health care and prescription drug provisions. How big of a
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: deal are these provisions in this smaller reconciliation bill?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So I've not seen all the details on the drug bill.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It seems like it would let Medicare negotiate directly with
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: drug makers over the price of some of the most
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: expensive prescription drugs. It would penalize drug companies that increase
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: prices faster than inflation and cap annual premium growth. That's
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: a big deal. That's very important for seniors who are
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: struggling to afford drugs. And then the ACA provisions would
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: extend healthcare subsidies to people who got them as part
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: of the American Rescue Plan for two more years. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I think insurers, something like 13 million people don't see
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a big premium increase. So if you're one of those
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: 13 million people, this is enormously important for you. If
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you're someone who's struggling to pay for your prescription drugs,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: obviously this is very important to you. So I'm not
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: opposed to getting this done or suggesting it's not important.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: It's just often, you know, this is what we Democrats
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: do a lot. We end up comparing what we're able
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to do with what we wish we could have done.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And it makes accomplishments look smaller, which is understandable, but
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I will say that demoralizing, allowing Medicare
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: to negotiate for cheaper prescription drugs is one of those
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: democratic policies that politicians have been talking about for as
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: long as you and I have been politics. We joke
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: about the like Every single Democratic presidential candidate talks about
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: like stopping tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and giving them to companies who create jobs here.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It's like campaign Mad Libs.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Medicare negotiation is like that one. It's one of the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: most popular polling policies of all time. It's one of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: the things the Democrats have been talking about forever and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: haven't done.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And just common sense.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: And it's common sense. And it's going to also cap
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: annual out-of-pocket costs at $ 2, 000 for all Medicare beneficiaries. So
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that's our annual thing. So it is a pretty big deal,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: but it is. Of course, just a small piece of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: what we originally hoped for.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And just infuriating as you read about Portugal and Spain
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: burning to the ground and we're doing nothing on climate.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I totally get everyone's frustration, although this would be very
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: important for a lot of seniors and a lot of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: people who are struggling to pay for their Medicare bills.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: So after this reconciliation bill, Democrats don't really have the
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: votes to get the rest of Biden's agenda passed between
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: now and the midterms. Biden said he'll take executive action
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: on climate. So we'll see if he takes some of
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the action that we've just been talking about. He should
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: also take executive action on student debt relief, which we've
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: been waiting for for a while. There's no excuse for
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: that anymore. And basically, he should take executive action on
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: anything else the administration thinks they can get away with
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: at this point.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Because you have a couple months until the midterms. The
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: House is also reportedly moving forward on legislation that would
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: guarantee other rights that Republicans in the Supreme Court might
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: be coming after, like contraception and gay marriage. Pelosi and
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Schumer have talked about setting up votes for these. What
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: do you think about that?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I like the idea. I mean, we talk about this
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: later with Tim Miller about the need for Democrats to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: force Republicans to vote on things that are incredibly unpopular
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: like this and that I think speak to the extremism
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, because it's clearly what we're seeing.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: is that in the wake of Dobbs, Republicans aren't satisfied
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: with their efforts to strip away abortion rights from women.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: They want to go a lot further. Ted Cruz wants
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: to ban gay marriage. People are talking about passing the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: most draconian anti-abortion laws you can think of. They're going
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: after all kinds of rights. So yes, I'm in favor
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of putting forward as many tough votes for Republicans as
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: we can. Will it matter? I'm not sure. But It's
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: worth trying.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And you know what? If fucking Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Sinema decide that the filibuster is more important than gay marriage,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: than the right to contraception, then they can explain it
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to their constituents. And I think it's probably time at
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: this point for Biden and the rest of the Democratic caucus,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: which they're moving towards, to get a little tougher with
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: them if they fucking block those votes.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing that's been very frustrating about All of
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the conversation around the climate change provisions and the reconciliation
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: bill is it's really written as an intra-democratic party disaster
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: or a mansion-only failure when there are 49 Republicans who
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: oppose doing anything to stop the planet from becoming uninhabitable.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because many of them don't believe in climate change
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: in the first place, and all of them don't want
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: to do anything about it.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Right, but they all just sort of get a pass.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: The more cynical you are, the more you get a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: pass on not doing anything, and that's top politics.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Let's talk about how Democratic candidates handle their campaigns
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: between now and November at this point. You know, on
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: one hand, they've got a president with record low approval ratings,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: two Democratic senators who fucked up their legislative agenda. On
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the other, they get a Supreme Court and a Republican
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Party that's arguably more extreme than it was under Donald Trump,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: which is maybe one reason that the polls are showing
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: that some of these Senate candidates, Democratic Senate candidates, are
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: in better shape than Joe Biden. And the polls are
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: also showing that the midterm generic ballot is a little
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: bit better for Democrats than, of course, Joe Biden's approval ratings.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Dan and I talked a little bit about this on Thursday,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: but how do you think Democrats should run in an
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: environment like this? What should they be saying on the
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: campaign trail?
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, with the caveat that I'm skeptical
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of all polling forever and always, thanks to the last
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: couple elections, I do think it's worth, it's hard for
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: me to answer this question sort of writ large, like
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: how should all Democrats run, but I do think it's
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: worth looking at a couple campaigns that are going very well.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Let's start with Fetterman's campaign in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman running
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: for Senate he hasn't been able to be on the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: campaign trail since May because of medical issues. But in
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that period, I feel like I have retained more messaging
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: from his campaign than almost any other campaign out there.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And obviously that's in part because Dr. Oz is a fun, flawed,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: like ripe target, right? He's just a weirdo, snake oil
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: salesman celebrity who doesn't even live in the state. But
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: The Fetterman campaign has been unbelievably creative and focused with
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: their ads. And I really think it's working, right? They
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: got Snooki from Jersey Shore to record a message on
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Cameo about how Dr. Oz moved from Jersey to Pennsylvania
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to find a new job. That went super viral, was
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: incredibly memorable, was talked about on The View, right? Like
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that is like the gold standard of viral online ads.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: The Fetterman campaign figured out that Dr. Oz recorded a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: TV ad in his New Jersey mansion. They hammered him
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: for that. When Dr. Oz went to this like tourist
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: trap cheesesteak place in Philly, Fetterman quote tweeted him and saying, ah, yes,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the trip to Pats plus Geno is a rite of
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: passage for every tourist. They flew a banner over the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: beaches saying, welcome home to New Jersey, right? Like the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: tone is light. It's funny. It's memorable. And it's relentlessly
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: on message saying this guy is not from here. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: it's just so impressive. They're filling this gap of not
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: having a candidate on the trail. They're raising a ton
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of money. They're on the air. I mean, it's just
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: like they are doing it how it should be done
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I think what's so effective about that is it is
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: this guy's not from here, but also he's out of touch,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and he doesn't give a shit about you. And I
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: do think that that is a message for Democrats about
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Republicans that we have not heard enough, or at least
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: heard in a while. And it's like, these people, they
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: don't care about inflation. They don't care about gas prices.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: They don't care about your rent. They don't care about
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: your cost of living. They care about deciding who you love,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: who you're allowed to marry, when you start a family,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: how many kids you have, what they learn in school,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: what books they read, what politics they have. This is
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the shit that Republicans care about. They care about having
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: control over your life. They care about controlling. They don't
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: give a shit about your cost. They don't give a
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: shit about the problems that you have. They care about
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: imposing their narrow, extreme political view on the entire country.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Doesn't matter if most people don't agree with it. They
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: do not give a shit about you.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And so I think Fetterman has made great strides in
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: defining Dr. Oz as an out-of-touch, out-of-state celebrity weirdo. The
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: other sort of theme you're seeing out there is my
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: opponent is very extreme. And I think the Warnock campaign
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: is doing a great job of defining Herschel Walker in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that way. Because again, Herschel Walker, he's helping them out
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a lot. He's helping out the, the Warnock campaign a lot.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: He said some incredibly weird stuff. Most recently it was,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: it was Herschel Walker talking about climate change and the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: issue being that like good air is floating over to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: China and displacing the bad air. It's like, what is
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: this guy talking about? He's totally incoherent, like a lot
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of his campaign. And I do think You need to
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: drive that home because it can be disqualifying for voters.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: And look, a recent poll, again, I don't trust any polls,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: but a recent poll showed Warnock up by 10 points,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: which is shocking in Georgia, which is shocking given where
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Biden's approval is. So I do think like they need
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: to get pressing that advantage. Drilling Walker is unprepared for
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the job. But that kind of message that my opponent
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is too extreme for the job, I think will be
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: effective in Georgia. It'll be effective in Wisconsin for whoever
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: runs against Ron Johnson because he's just looney tunes. It'll
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: be a potential message for the Shapiro campaign against Doug
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Mastriano in Pennsylvania because there's some really whack-a-doodle, as John
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: McCain would say, extreme people out there running for office
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party this year. And I think you
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: want to define them that way as early as you can.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And we've been talking about this all year, but I
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: don't think you have to choose between my opponent is
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: extreme and my opponent is out of touch. I think
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: it is my opponent is so obsessed with his extreme
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: positions or her extreme positions that they don't give a
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: shit about you. Like they're trying to criminalize all abortions
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: with no exceptions whatsoever. That's what Republicans care about. They
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: don't give a shit about inflation. They don't care about
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: what you're struggling with. And I think you can combine
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: both of them. And I think Warnock's doing that well.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I think Fetterman's doing that well. We're seeing that in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of these Democratic Senate races.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just really great like work by campaign teams, especially
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the sort of digital teams, the folks creating the online
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: content to fill the void and deliver a negative message
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: against their Republican opponents. while the candidate, either in Fetterman's case,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: is sort of off the playing field for a while, recovering,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: or Warnock carries a positive message about what he'll do
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: for the state.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Totally agree. All right, when we come back, we will
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: talk to Tim Miller about his brand new book. Joining
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: us in studio today, writer at The Bulwark, MSNBC analyst,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: former Republican operative, and author of the new book, Why
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: We Did It, a travelogue from the Republican road to hell,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: our old pal Tim Miller.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Old pal is right, John. It's been a long time.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: You're starting to look like Roger Sterling over there.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Pretty soon.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I did not invite you on for the insults.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: It's nice to be back with you guys. You know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: it's been a while.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: It is good to see you, Tim.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Get me self-conscious here. You wrote this fantastic book. It
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: is about why so many of your Republican friends and
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: colleagues ended up going full MAGA, which we will get to.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: but you were pretty tough on yourself. And I would
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: argue more self-reflective and self-critical than most people in professional politics.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: How did you get to that place?
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: I felt like I had to do it if I
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: was going to write about them in the first part. Uh,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: you know, I had an agent call me when I was,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I was interested in writing a book and sort of
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: trying that out, you know, my 10 year in the
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: 10th year of my midlife crisis, uh, you know, I
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: wanted to try something else new. And, uh, I was
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: talking to some agents, and one of them was basically like, Tim,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: why don't you write something about the 10 douchiest MAGA
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: grifters in America? He's like, we'll sell a million copies
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: of that. I was like, that would have been enjoyable, right?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: But I felt like if I was going to write
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: about all these folks, I really need to look back
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: at myself and be honest with the reader about myself,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: for starters. But more than that, if I want to
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: really understand why they went along with bad shit, I
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to look at myself. Why did I go along
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: with shit I knew was bad? You can know your
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: own motivations better than you can know other people's motivations,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: no matter how good you are friends with them. Some
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: of the people I wrote about were friends. I wanted
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: to reflect on, look, I'm gay. How did I work
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: for anti-gay homophobes? What was the brain gymnastics I did
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: in order to rationalize that? I felt like by exploring
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: that in the book, hopefully... It shined more of a
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: light on the rationalizations that these other folks used to
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: go along with Donald Trump.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, the elephant in the room here, or
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the rhino in the room, as it is.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not a rhino anymore.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I'm officially out. Three libs in the room. So you
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: used to come on cricket shows back in 2017. We
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: ended up parting ways because some reporting about corporate work
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you did, including work with this guy, Chuck Johnson, who's
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a right-wing troll, who you write about in the book.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: In the book, I mean.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: He wrote a very mean substack about my book, which
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I think nine people have read, and that makes me
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: feel very sad.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: So in the book, you write about the fact that,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: you know, you ultimately came to feel like it wasn't
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: just your work for Republican candidates that you came to regret,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: but that you also felt like the corporate work contributed
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to this broader problem. Can you explain why and sort
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of how you got to that place?
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I thought that was another important, you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: element of what was in the book, right? I did
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: something good in 2016, which was I said.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Fuck this.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to vote for Donald Trump. I'm going
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: to support Hillary Clinton. And, you know, I worked with
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: a PAC called Our Principles PAC. I write about one
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: of my favorite anecdotes in the book is that every
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: other person who was on Our Principles PAC, which was
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the main principle, was to stop Donald Trump, ended up
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: being on a pro-Donald Trump PAC after he won the primary,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: except for me and one other person. So I did that.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: And I think, and then Trump wins. And, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: we all go into this depressive place. We don't need
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: to revisit all that. And I'm trying to figure out
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: what to do next with my life, right? I'm like, okay,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I can't go back into Republican politics anymore. You know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: what should I do? And inertia, basically, I wrote about this,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: like inertia takes over, right? Like, well, what do I
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: know how to do in my career? Well, I know
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: how to be a hitman, like an opposition research magnet.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And so I guess I'll just do that for corporate
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: clients instead of for political clients because I can't work
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: for Republicans anymore. And, you know, so I went and
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: did that for about a year or two. And that's,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: you know, how we got caught up in our kerfuffle
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: based on the work that I was doing then with Facebook.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: And I just, I looked back on that and it's like, well,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: any of the individual things that people were like mad
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: at me about, about that, like, you know, we could
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: argue back and forth on like whether that was, you know,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: a good thing to do or a bad thing to do.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: But what I wanted to reflect on is like, why
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: was I doing this shit at all? Like I had
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: this big like moment of clarity in my life, which
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: was like, man, like the Republicans are going down to
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: this dark place. but I compartmentalized out the rest of
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: my work life, you know, and continued going along with,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: you know, doing this sort of opposition research work that
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I think is really contaminating to the public discourse. You know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: if your job is to put negative information out about
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: people every day, like that's not adding anything to society
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: if you're doing it on behalf of anyone, frankly, but
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: corporate interests for sure. And so... you know, I thought
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: that in a lot of ways it tied into the
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: theme of this book, right? Which is like a lot
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: of the people who were in different shoes than me
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: kind of went along with Trump for the same reason,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: like the same sort of inertia, you know, like these
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: were people who knew Trump was bad. Maybe they probably
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: in private voted for Paul Ryan or the Pope or whatever,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: you know, they wrote somebody in and, but they're Republican
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: political consultants. And they said, well, I can't go along
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: with Donald Trump. I'm not going to go into the
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: White House.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: What should I do?
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: I guess I'll just keep running ads for Marco Rubio and,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: you know, or doing spinning for, you know, Cory Gardner,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: you know, you name the person. And so in a
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: lot of ways, I felt like even though, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I got, I landed in the correct place where they
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: didn't on the matter of Trump and the enablers in
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the party, like our rationalizations for kind of continuing to
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: do work that was not enriching, that was outside of
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: our integrity and was the same and so I kind
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: of wanted to explain how I got caught up in
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: that trap because I think it explains why a lot
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: how a lot of these guys got caught up in
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: that trap and still are Fucking doing it seven years later.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's an incredible examination of all the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: ways people compartmentalize their support for Trump or I guess
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: their political lives versus the things they essentially believe in
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you you do a great job of defining different groups
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of them and Reading through it. I mean you can
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: talk about some of those groups if you want and also,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I A lot of them, I held a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: lot of people you talked about in the book in contempt.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think the folks that bugged me the most were
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: people like someone you report on named Josh Holmes, who
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: is a sort of a Mitch McConnell stooge who supported
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Trump basically to get super PAC money and corporate clients.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: That might be the top person that frustrated him. The
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: others are the sort of committee to save America. People
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: who think they're so important that they're above, you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the stink of Trump because they are somehow saving the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: country from him. Was there like, as you went through
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this reporting, I could feel the frustration welling up in
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you in chapters. You write about it pretty honestly. Was
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: there a type of person or like Trump enabler that
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: ended up bothering you the most in the process?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Oh man. Um, yeah, there was, I just want to
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: get into the Holmes thing really quick. Cause I think
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: it backs into kind of what we were just talking about.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Like the most, before I talk about the thing that
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: bothers me the most, I'm going to be positive for
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: one second here. Um, like one of the things that's
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: been the most gratifying about the book and that I
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: hope you know, other people take from this is, is
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: that I have, I've heard from like Republicans who are
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: working in, in politics right now who were using the
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: same rationalizations I did to keep doing, you know, this
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: work that we were talking about and that the people
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: in this book would keep doing. They know Trump is bad.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: They see, they know, obviously they hated January 6th, but
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: they're still whatever. They're a press secretary for a random Senator.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: And they're like, if my Senator loses, some insane Senator
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: will replace them. And they read this book and they're like, man,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: you made me feel really bad about myself, but like
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: in a good way.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And so that's why I felt, that's why I
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: thought that that part was like looking at my, explaining
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: my own actions was so important. And then getting into the,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: the Holmes's of the world, like Holmes is just like
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: the Uber Alice version of this.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, he, it's not like Josh Holmes, this like
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: five foot four, like Chamber of Commerce, Brooks Brothers, Republican,
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: like really want a Donald Trump autocracy, right? Like obviously
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: he doesn't, okay? But he is succeeding on, you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: in continuing to work in the Republican apparatus, like beyond
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: anyone's wildest imaginations, like financially, you know, he continues to
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: do well. He continues to be courted by top GOP
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: donors and campaign hands. And so like these guys though
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: live in this culture, where they don't have to do
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: this examination that I did in this book, because the
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: culture that they live in incentivizes not looking at themselves
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: at all and actually attacking the people who challenge them, right?
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: And so I think this is the important corrupting part
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: of the DC culture, obviously, and we're talking about the
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Republicans here in particular, is like, if somebody goes up
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: to Josh Holmes at a bar and says, like, what
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: the fuck are you doing, man? Like, you know this
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: guy is bad. Like, you know that this is dangerous.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: like among Holmes's friend group at that bar, they would
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: be like, that guy's the jerk, right? Like that guy's
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: the jerk for like puncturing the bubble. And then, you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: they all might be able to sort of do gallows
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: humor about how Trump's a buffoon and how they know
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: he's a buffoon and, you know, whatever among themselves. But
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: it's like this cozy little club, this cozy little culture
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: where they don't feel like they're getting challenged. And one
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: of the people, I didn't name everyone in the book
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: because I wanted people to be honest who interviewed with me,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: One of these guys like says to me on background,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: he's like, you know, Tim, it's just like, I get so,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I know Trump's an idiot. And I just get so
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: mad because, you know, woke culture and everybody's judging me
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: and my wife's friends are judging me and they're calling
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: me a racist. And it's like, I just, I feel
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: like I'm left with no choice, but to look at
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: the one or two things that I like about Donald
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Trump and focus on those and focus on keeping my job,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: you know, because all of these other folks out there
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: are so.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Mean to me.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I was like, I mean, you're on background here, but
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: you know that I heard that, right? I mean, I
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: will always know that you said that. That's really embarrassing.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I was forced to like him. I'm forced by the
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: left to like Donald Trump.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: But he felt comfortable saying that because they say that
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: to each other, right?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: That's their rationalization.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's their rationalization. We got in this cozy place,
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: and that's where he felt comfortable with me, and that's
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: what they all say to each other.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the categories of people
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: that you described that's part of that DC culture that
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: bothered me the most were the strivers. And you write
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: a chapter that's focused on Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman from
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: New York. And you wrote that the excuse that all
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: of her friends make is that she's just following the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: politics of her district, right? Which has become a little Trumpier. Now,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: there are times where I have actually bought that excuse
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: or thought about that excuse myself because I always thought
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: the way this goes is, The right-wing media radicalizes Republican voters.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And then Republican politicians just do what these radicalized voters
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: want in order to keep their job. And that's not,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: you know, like that's still bad, but that's what they're doing.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: But you argue that with Stefanik, that's not the case. Like,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: can you explain why? Yeah.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: And this is, I called, this was the one time
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: that Politico playbook has ever been useful. Because I went for,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Elise wouldn't talk to me. She emailed me and said,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: I see your Twitter feed, so I'm not going to
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: talk to you for this book. And I was like, ugh, okay.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I knew Elise.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: We worked together at the RNC. And so I was like, okay, well,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: if I'm going to write this, I want to at
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: least talk to her friends. And I looked at who
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: went to her wedding in the book. And so I
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: called all the people that went, all the Republican types
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: that went to her wedding. And literally to a person,
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: they all gave this same excuse. Like I just said,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: what happened to Elise? First question. And so I was like, well,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: you know, this is what our voters want. It's what
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: our voters want. But there's a fundamental problem with that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: The next district over from Elise is John Katko. Now,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: John Katko might not be a perfect guy. Like the
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America listeners might not feel like, boy, do
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I love John Katko. But he voted to impeach Donald Trump.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: He was the one that said that he was going
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: to do the January 6th committee before Kevin McCarthy pulled it.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: He didn't go along with idiotic conspiracy theories about Ukraine
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: and the Biden crime family or whatever Elise Stefanik is
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: saying these days. And he kept getting reelected. And he
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: kept getting reelected in the same district. And so it's like, well,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: that wasn't it then. I mean she could have kept
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: getting reelected. I think what was somebody going to primary her?
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe she started tweeting like me. Like, yeah, she couldn't
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: do that. But she could have survived. There are plenty
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: of House Republicans that none of your listeners have ever
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: heard of that have survived not being brave but not
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: being a lease. What she wanted was something else. She
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: wanted the rush. She wanted the brass ring. And she
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: went after Liz Cheney and she got it. This is
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: also kind of a depressing book. I know. The sad
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: part about all this that you have to deal with
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: in therapy and yoga is that sometimes good things do
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: happen to bad people. And so this worked for her.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: So what actually motivated her was not, this is what
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: her voters wanted. It was, if I want to maximize
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: my power within the party, I have to act like this.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: This is how I can guarantee... That I can unseat
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Liz Cheney. I can guarantee that I can go to
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: events and get big cheers. You know, this happened to
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of them. At least, I wanted to use
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: some other examples, but the least example is just so stark,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: like all the ones felt like lame by comparison. But Marco,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: the same thing happened to Marco, right? Marco, remember in 2016,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: was like, I'm going to be a check on Trump
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: or whatever and conservative values. And then all of a sudden,
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Trump comes to Florida and he has these rallies. And
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: it's nothing like the Marco events. They're like these monster
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: truck rallies. People are cheering for him and they're going crazy.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: And Marco's friends, I've asked them, some that used to
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: work for him, he just.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Gets caught up in it.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: He got caught up in it. And he sees that
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: it's more than just like this. I'm going to have
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: to do the minimum the voters want. I want the
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: voters to adore me. And I want to get as
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: much power as I can get.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's such an important point because we talk
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: a lot about the culture and the larger forces that
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: led to Trump.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: As if.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: individuals don't have agency and as if leaders don't have
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: real influence. And it's sort of like, what drove it
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: home for me was just watching that last January 6th
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: hearing when Stephen Ayers, who was this random guy from
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Ohio who stormed the Capitol, was like, yeah, if Donald
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Trump had told me not to go, I wouldn't have gone.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, if, yeah, if a couple of
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Republican leaders or in Donald Trump and a couple of
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: people on Fox had just said, no, actually Joe Biden
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: won the election, which is the truth they all knew,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: then people wouldn't have died at the Capitol.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: And let's look at this just really quick. This counterfactual
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: had 10 more of them voted to convict him in
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: the impeachment thing, which obviously 10 of them wanted to do.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: You know, you had J-Mart on about his book. Many
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: of them confessed it in private to J-Mart in those
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: following days. Had 10 of them done that, we'd be
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: done with this motherfucker. It'd be over right now. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: by the way, the Republican Party would be fine. You know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: like it's not even a long term. You can't even
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: sell me on this. The voters demanded this. This wasn't
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: like we had to do this to save the GOP. B.S.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Everyone just moved on to Ron DeSantis. Everyone would have
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: just moved on to Ron DeSantis and Trump would have
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: been an old fart truthing away by the pool with
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: the Cougars. You know, and we could have dealt with
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: the Ron DeSantis problems, which are different and they're, you know,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: their own category. But yeah, like actual choices do matter. Yeah.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you really hit on something that drives me
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: crazy about Washington, which is politicians are talked about like
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: they have no choice, like politics must drag them where
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: they need to go. Right. Like they have no agency,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: like they can't do the principal thing. And the reason
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Elise Stefanik is such an interesting character in this, not
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to pick on her, but she deserves to be picked on.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: She deserves to be picked on.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Pushing for more moderate positions on gay rights and on immigrations,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: demanding that the report be read aloud in Spanish to
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: signal like an openness to the Latino community. You have
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Elise Stefanik literally authoring the report before getting elected as
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a moderate congresswoman and then going full MAGA. I mean,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I guess what was interesting to me about that report
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: in that process was one, it just shows how all
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: these people that went full MAGA truly, truly know better
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: on a deep level, intellectually, morally, spiritually, but also that
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: that report that was really celebrated at the time was
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of wish casting from kind of a D.C.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: establishment class that maybe wasn't actually listening to the base.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: That was like, no, no, no, no. We want to
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: snort a line of Infowars and red meat in like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the base, really nasty stuff. Yeah, I thought there were
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: two lessons from my reflection on the autopsy. The first
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of people, particularly on the right,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: want the Trump question.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: To be about policy.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: And wanted to be like, oh, Tim didn't go along
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: with this because he's a rhino.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: And like we went along with it because we realized
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: we had to make some sacrifices in order to get
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: these good policies that Donald Trump really so deeply cared about.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: And like the autopsy shows that that is like not
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: true at all.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Like what divided the people who went along with Trump
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: from didn't had nothing to do with policy. Later on,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: we might get to Liz Phair later. And look, she's
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: like this hardline, insane conservative. And she quits eventually. And
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: all these rhinos like Elise Stefanik are still in there.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: Liz Cheney is this prime example of this. So So
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: it really, like the choice to go along with Trump
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: wasn't about policy. That's why the book isn't about policy.
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: It's about like these ethical and moral choices and rationalizations.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: As far as the autopsy itself, one other counterfactual I
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: look back on was kind of regret is I think
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: our intentions were pure to a certain degree that we like,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: we did want the party to be nicer to immigrants
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: and gays and more welcoming. And everybody, it confirmed our
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: priors of all the people in the room that were
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: writing that autopsy. And that was sweet and nice. But
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: we didn't listen to what the base wanted. And so
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: where we went wrong is instead of dealing with that
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: by actually addressing their grievances. The base's grievances weren't about
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: immigration and not even the base. The working class voters
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: that Trump appealed to, it was about the forever wars,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: it was about their communities being hollowed out. You could
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: imagine an alternate autopsy that's like, you know, it wouldn't
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: have been Tim Miller's party, but it would have been like,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: maybe we can be more protectionist, right? And maybe we
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: can like be less globalist and maybe we can appeal to,
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: you know, actually address your grievances. And then maybe there
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have been this vacuum for Donald Trump to come into.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know. That's like, who knows? But I probably not,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: probably not. But it would have at least been a
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: good faith try.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: I wonder about that too, because I think you say
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: in the book that the autopsy reflects sort of the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: George W. Bush, Paul Ryan view of the world, which
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: includes free markets and low taxes, and those are things
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: that you didn't want to touch. On the Democratic side,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: I wish we could run against Mitt Romney again and
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Paul Ryan, because I know that the positions we take
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: vis-a-vis Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are popular positions. But
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I do wonder how to address the anger and the
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: populism that's out there with that, like the party of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Trump now knows how to address that with racism and
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: xenophobia and all the bullshit. The question is how does
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: all of us, how do all of us who want
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: to like protect democracy, whether you're never Trump or liberal
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: address that anger in a way that's different. I think
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: that's the big question right now that I don't know
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: that anyone is quite figuring out.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: It's the Fetterman question, right? I think it's an interesting,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: it'll be an interesting test case in Pennsylvania. And this
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: is where You know, I am. We're part of this
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: all-big happy family coalition that we're on, us Never Trumpers
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: and the socialists on the left. Everybody does love us
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Never Trumpers being part of the coalition. And, you know, saying, like,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: you always want us to be more moderate. I'm like,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: not really. Like, I want you to be smarter. You know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: I want you to be smarter. And, like, I'm willing
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: to be supportive of Fetterman against an insurrectionist, like, fake doctor.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: He used to be a real doctor, but, like, scam
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: doctor who doesn't believe. you know, then, uh, uh, as, uh,
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: just because that's, that needs to happen. And he's running
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: against Fetterman who like, like might not even like the
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: capitalist system unclear for me, like where Fetterman is on
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: some things that I feel strongly about, but I'm, but
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I'm for it. And, and I do, and I think
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: that this is an open question, like, can the Democrats
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: do what we didn't do in 2012, which is like
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: channel these people's grievances in a legitimate way. Right. And,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: and say, we're going to actually try to address your
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: problems by doing X, Y, and Z, you know, with
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: different economic policies and different changes, you know, and various
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: things that these Republicans aren't going to go along with
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: because they're all fake populists, right? Like they don't actually
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: want to do anything. They're all phony. And I think
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: that could, that wedge might work. It might not work.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know. But I think that the Fetterman is
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: like the most stark, you know, a test case for this. Unfortunately,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: like these test case are pretty high stakes.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's, you know, the mood music. is difficult
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: for Fetterman. Although I do think they're running a really
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: good campaign. I do too. I mean, I guess for me,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: like the further we get from 2016, I think the initial,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you know, all the reporting initially was like, oh, this
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: is all about disaffected working class voters. They were left
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: behind by NAFTA, et cetera. I feel like the more
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: data I read, it's like actually there's sort of like
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a hardcore white Christian nationalist base that has always been
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: kind of like the beating heart of the GOP that
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: people thought Trump wouldn't appeal to because they were like, oh,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: he's a disgusting sinner, misogynist, 10 divorces. And the reality
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: is those people don't care as long as you further
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: their agenda, right? Like they want you, they want conservative judges,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: they want abortion overruled, and they want to tell people
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: like me to shove it, right? I mean, that's kind
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of the piece. But then he seemed to have married
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: that with this young white bro Republican, like bro Bible
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: reading frat dude, right? And like, It seems like he's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: made being a Republican a fun, subversive act. You know
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like being in the 60s, being anti-war
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: and pissing off your parents by going to Woodstock. Today,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it's like wearing a MAGA hat or, you know, sort of,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like supporting Trump in some way. Do
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you think I have a remotely accurate read on this?
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And like, do you think there's a way for the
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party to reach these younger white male voters? Because
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like they're slipping away, if not gone.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I don't think they're gone. I do think you have
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: a good read on it. Now we're outside of the
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: confines of the books. I just want everybody to know
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: if you don't like this upcoming opinion, you can still
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: read and enjoy why we did it.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: We need to hear opinions we don't agree with on
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: this show.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: So here's my take. I worry about the Democrats. Look
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: at just the abortion thing as a recent example. You
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: have Dave Portnoy, who's the barstool guy, going out and
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: saying like, this is crazy. We're overturning Roe versus Wade.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: And like, I don't, you know, I think women should
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: have rights. Um, you know, obviously some of the barstool
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Rogan crowd, they, um, you know, these bros aren't ready
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: to be dads. Like they can't even iron their shirts.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Like they want to have freedom of choice in there.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: You know, if any, any situations that they have in,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: in relationships, uh, and, and yet like, Are the Democrats
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: even trying to talk to these people? I just don't know, right?
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: To reach out to that audience.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to reach that audience. Is there someone that is
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: capable even, a prominent Democrat, of going on to one
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: of those shows?
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Bernie tried with Rogan.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he gets finger-wagged.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Is that a Twitter phenomenon where Bernie gets out of that,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: whereas the actual audience you reach might be a lot larger?
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I never know. For sure.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: No, for sure it's a Twitter phenomenon, but I think
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: that the Twitter phenomenon is preventing... candidates from trying, right?
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Because they're afraid of getting browbeaten. And if they're like, oh,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: you're going with Portnoy, but he's a sexist and all that.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I don't want to defend Dave Portnoy. I don't have
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: an interest in boobs. I don't listen to Barstool. But
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: as a strategic matter, trying to speak to these people,
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: actual concerns and coalition build, I think is very important.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: like particularly when the nature of the threat is so great.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: And like that is where this does tie into the book.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: I felt like, you know, like we beat Donald Trump
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: in 2020. I did our VAT and like we did
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: the vote. I could have just walked off the stage
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: here and.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Said, okay.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Republican voters against Trump. This is actually very interesting. Maybe
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: you should explain a little bit.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So we did Republican voters against Trump, which is
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: an ad-based campaign in 2020 where we had actual Republican
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: voters say in their own words why they were not
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: voting for Donald Trump. Most of them were voting for
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden. Some of them were just writing in. And
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: then we tested to see which of those resonated with
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: actual Republican voters. And then we ran just ads that,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: you know, were these real people talking that was not,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: you know, not cut, not produced ads, right? And we
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: ran it to target, you know, Republican audiences to try
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: to depress Trump's vote. And there's like some evidence this worked.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you look at certain places in Wisconsin,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: people like voted for Biden and then the Republican down ticket.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I think that these sort of strategic approaches
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: are necessary because you know, as part of a big coalition,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: given the nature of the threat. Like it'd be one
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: thing if it was Clinton and Dole, you know, and
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I would understand like the argument for like, actually we
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: need to make our party a little bit more pure
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: and like move to the left and, you know, on
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: these sorts of things. But like right now, like where
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: are the areas of, where you can draw a broader audience,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: where you can appeal to ex-Republicans, where you can appeal
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: to the bros, who, by the way, many of them
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: used to be Democrats, who, like, these are Obama-Trump voting,
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: you know, people, like, how can we kind of penetrate this?
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: And I do worry a little bit about the effort
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: isn't there on that.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And it's not just these bros that Tommy's talking about, too. It's, like,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: a broad swath of working-class voters now of all races,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: not just white working-class voters. Like, I just did a
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: focus group for the Wilderness Association in Las Vegas with
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Hispanic working class voters who were like middle of the road.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Some, some Democrats, some Republicans, some independent. And like there,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: they were horrified by what the Supreme court did on,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: on Dobbs.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: So they think the Republicans have been too extreme on
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of these social issues, but they're like, I
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: care about housing. I can't afford rent. I can't afford housing, inflation, gas.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: And like, who is, what politician of either party is
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: like speaking to my concerns?
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: There was one, there was one guy who had voted
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: for Biden who now said, He's going to vote for Ron.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: He's favored Ron DeSantis in 2024, but he also really
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: likes AOC. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I have to ask, like,
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: what the fuck? And he's like, because she is an outsider.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: and she takes on the system. And there's all these
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: politicians are too cozy in Washington. It's all establishment. I'm
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: just looking for people to take on the system. Now, OK,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: you can say whatever you want about that view. But
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: there is this feeling that like people have all these.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: these concerns about, like, just their cost of living and
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: their lives, and no one is addressing them, and no
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: one seems like they're fighting for them.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: And this should be an area where the Democrats can
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: speak to these deals, because the Republicans don't give a
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: fuck about them.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Which is why you get a lot of people who
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: are just, who are supposedly these middle-of-the-road swing voters who
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: are like, I do like Bernie Sanders.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Because someone like that is speaking to their economic concerns.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: And that's fine. And maybe, and, like, economic concerns, like,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: different people might have different things that they want to solve, right? Like,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: some people might want more you know, better social services,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: and other people say, well, we need to drill more.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Like, it's not exactly on
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: the ideological spectrum, right? But here's the thing. The Republicans
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: don't care about that stuff at all. Like, all they're
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: talking about is going back to 2020 and relitigating the
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: last election and whether it was fraudulent or not, and, like,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Hunter Biden's laptop, and, like, Mitch McConnell said that he
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't have an agenda, like, that their whole agenda is
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: stopping Biden. And so the problem is that these voters
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: who are rightly frustrated, are like sending all of their
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: frustration at the, at the party in power, which like
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: makes sense. And so, so that has to, you know,
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: that has to be disrupted in some way by, by
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: demonstrating to them that no, okay, we're, we're trying, you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: we're actually trying to address the problem. These guys are
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: the ones that don't want to do anything.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: There's like the, you're sort of a two parts of your,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of your comments. Like there's a message issue and there's
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: a medium issue. Like I do agree. that we do
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: need a Bernie Sanders or anyone else, frankly, to go
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: on a Joe Rogan and try to reach his audience.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: And although he said abhorrent things about many communities, we
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: should try to talk him and explain to him why
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: that's wrong and explain to his audience why that's wrong.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And frankly, as you're sitting quite literally in a liberal
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: safe space, like that's a message I've been trying to
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: take to heart more these days. But it's also, you know,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: a message thing like, and the book I think really
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: captures the power and allure and danger of, you know, like,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: only caring about your team and tribalism and resentment of
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: the other side. Because, you know, when you think about
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: climate change, you've got a bunch of Republicans who would
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: literally rather live in an uninhabitable planet and hand up
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: uninhabitable planet to their kids, then admit that annoying libs
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: like me are, were right to care about the polar bears.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: And yeah, you're right. Driving around in your Prius with
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: your coffee, coolada, paper straw.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Just not a liberal elite. Yeah.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: In the book, someone suggested a coffee, coolada, the Dunkin'
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Donuts is a liberal elite thing. But again, like, I mean,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: so is your, do you think that a Republican voters
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: against Trump style campaign where you have a bunch of
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Republicans who say, I used to not believe in climate change,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: but this is why I do. That might be a
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: more effective way to peel voters away because I do
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: worry that, you know, like I think that a lot
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: of Democrats just get tuned out the minute they start
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: talking because there's a D next to their name. Yeah.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Or I mean, I also think there's a substance issue,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: but while I'm litigating all my complaints, I'm coming into
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: this safe space to tell you all the things that
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: you guys are annoying me about. Um, Despite the fact that,
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm with you. I voted for Gavin Newsom
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: like 17 times because of all the recalls, unfortunately.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Being a self-loathing Democrat is kind of par for the course,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: so welcome to the team.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: But okay, but also substance, like on the abortion stuff,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: on the reconciliation, can't we like pull some of this
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: stuff out and hit the Republicans on the fact, because
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: they're going to block everything, you know, and all of
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: the popular items in BBB. Can we not just pick
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: one of them and say, okay, we're going to run
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: on this? And if Joe Manchin and the Republicans are
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: the ones that vote no, then run against Joe Manchin
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: and the Republicans? Or maybe Joe Manchin will get off
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: the House vote and decide that he'd vote for that
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: one thing? Or make Ron Johnson vote up or down
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: on whether a teenager should have the right to an abortion?
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. Right.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: So I think that there's a substance part of this.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: There also is a messenger. Anyway, I guess my only
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: point on the messenger thing is, unfortunately... It's going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: take imperfect messengers to break through to these people. The
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: lesson from the book is if we don't cultivate that,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: then someone else is going to do it that isn't
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: going to be great. You know what I mean? I'm
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: not saying that there will be a Democratic Trump. What
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I am saying is a Republican establishment was not messaging
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: the things that people cared about. And the voters were
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: starting to tune us out. And we're like, hey, here's
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: another dose of Jeb. And Donald Trump came along and
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: was like, no, F you. I'm going to go with
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: this guy. That, I think, could happen in the center-left,
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: where the Democratic primary gets disrupted by somebody that is
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: a little bit more irreverent, that is speaking more to
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: this big center-left. Um, that, that people do listen to.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: So I do think finding different kinds of messengers who
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: are going to be responsible about it is something that
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: should happen.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: It requires a megaphone too, though, right? Like I thought
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: a really interesting part of the book is when you
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: talked about, um, how center right media publications, media outlets,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: like you talked about the independent journal review failed because
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: they weren't giving the base. what they really wanted yeah
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: and and and you can you contrasted that with Breitbart
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: which just gave them all the all the good stuff
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: which is bad stuff no here's.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: The post book scary thing about how the conservative media
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: thing goes I get a call from a Breitbart reporter
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: um after the book read the book said I really
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: got it you know because I recently said I got
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: it because I understood that it was the Breitbart was
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the tail that was dragging like the Josh Holmes you
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: know all the Josh Holmes guys think that they're in
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: charge but they're not like It's the Breitbart comment section
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: that is in charge. And, you know, you might be
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: in charge on these random little issues, right, that nobody
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: cares about. But on the major things, they're getting dragged
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: along by the base. This guy calls me and says,
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: but here's the weird thing you missed is that during
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: January 6th, Breitbart, this was self-identified, we were responsible, actually.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Because we just talked about the drop boxes. We didn't
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: go along with all the real crazy stuff like Venezuela.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Not responsible for January 6th. Responsible actors.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, responsible actors as compared to OAN and Newsmax and
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: Gateway Pundit. And the people that were advising the president. Yeah,
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: the people that were advising the president. They were outflanking Breitbart.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: And so this is this kind of death spiral that
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: the right has gotten into, right? And that is true
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: about what you, John, said earlier about how it's like
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: the right-wing media is feeding the base's anger, like the
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: base's anger is feeding the politicians, and there's nobody that's
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: breaking that cycle. And instead, what you have is this
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: quote-unquote center-right, like to the extent that exists anymore, media
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: outlets have either gotten sucked fully all the way in,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: you know, to being complicit in that, you know, or
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: are just total kind of niche outliers. You know, I
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: went on, like, the Dispatch podcast, gotta love those guys,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: and said this, and, you know, Stephen Hayes is like,
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: you're calling me niche? Like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: it as an insult, but, like, yeah, I mean, like,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: the idea that there are, you know, that a media
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: outlet on the right can survive by being, you know,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: more in the center and more moderating, it just isn't there, and,
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: you know, so that's dragging the whole process along.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Look, you know, you brought up abortion as an issue
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: electorally a few times. I mean, Roe versus Wade is overturned. Clearly,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: now states are passing the most draconian anti-abortion laws they
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: can possibly pass in many instances. There is talk of
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: trying to pass a federal abortion ban. There's reporting today
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: in The New York Times about women who are having
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: miscarriages in not getting life-saving care when they need it
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: because there is a fear that it might be called,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: quote unquote, an abortion, create legal liability, like literal fucking
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: nightmare horror scenarios, right? Like my wife and I went
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: through some tough things earlier this year and the thought
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of going to the hospital with her when she was
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: having a miscarriage and being told, you know, we got
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: to hit pause on this and we, you know, see
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: where this goes before we could, right? Like it makes
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: me want to fucking murder somebody, right? And so I
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: guess my question is like, Do you think that the broad,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: the party is in a place where they might start
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to read some of these stories and see some of
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: these laws and think, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: has gotten more extreme than we wanted? Or is all
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: of this really just about owning the libs and telling
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: people what to do and controlling women's bodies and controlling
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: people that are not in their in-group?
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: I don't see any evidence that there's going to be
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: a whoa, whoa, whoa. And unfortunately, because what John was
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: talking about earlier, Republicans might get the message in the
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: midterms that they can act with impunity on this issue,
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: you know, like that they don't, they're not going to
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: suffer any political damage from it at all if the
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Republicans have a good midterm. So this is, and then
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: you run into a 2024 situation where, you know, there
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: might be a competition, you know, you see Ron, uh, uh,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: DeSantis and Abbott and like trying to outdo each other, right,
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: on these restrictive bills. So no, I mean, I think
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: that if we understand and what I wrote about in
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: the front end is I think we created this monster
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways. But if the driving motivation
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: of the Republican base is grievance, and this is one
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: big difference between the Republican base and the Democratic base.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: It's like the Democratic base have actual policy prescriptions that
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: they would like to see implemented. At this point, the
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Republican base doesn't realize.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: They got nothing.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: It's very nihilistic. It's like, we want to see the
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: left punished. We want to see these women and their
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: purple hair punished. We want to see immigrants punished and
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: the media punished and the Pod Save America fuckers and
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: the cucks. and right like i mean the absence.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Of any platform at the 2020 convention sort of said
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: it all right there from that point on there was
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: there was there's no policy driving the driving so.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: That is the driving factor like the question is okay
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: are there enough responsible you know, Republicans in certain places
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: to try to do, but like, where is the evidence
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: of this, right? I do think that, you know, could
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: the Democrats cobble together? You'd have to get 10, right?
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: Like 10 Republicans to sort of moderate this thing in
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: the Senate. Like, who are they? Like, who are the
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: 10 Republicans? Like, you could get three, maybe.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: But that's why, like, as frustrating as it can be
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: on the Democratic side to be like, oh, keep voting
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: and keep focusing on elections, stuff like that. The only
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: thing that Republicans are going to understand is getting beaten.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: There's going to be no moral change of heart here.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: If politically they start losing, like if they don't have
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: a great midterm or if they have a midterm that's
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: not as good as they thought, then maybe think, ah,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: some of those positions that we took on abortion might
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: be too extreme. They're not going to think about it
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: because now they suddenly had a change of heart. But
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: if suddenly they start losing, yeah, then maybe they'll think
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: about it, which is why they have to be defeated.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: That's the only way.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and unfortunately the system is biased in their favor.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: Of course. Right?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, you have to really defeat them
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: in order to get a message. And obviously Trump is
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: a prime example. He loses the election but, like, wins
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: his electoral college victory. So this is where I think
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: how can this fight be taken into– and this is
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: maybe a place where the never-Trumpers can– we can provide
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: a constructive help to the– coalition here is like completely
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: giving up on a place like ohio or you know
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: like in these iowa there's a senate.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Seat yeah right now the admiral franken the admiral franken
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: is a great candidate who is not.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: It's grassley's below 50 in the des moines register poll
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: for like the first time.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I keep getting hit up by friends in iowa and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: i'm like well the mood music is bad and inflation
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: is high and i'm like what have i become No,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: People are mad at us because they're like, well, you
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: guys left off Tim Ryan. What's wrong with Tim Ryan?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what? Great. You're right. Tim Ryan
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: has a fighting chance.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: And he raised $ 7 million more than J.D.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Vance.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: It's going to be a tough year. But I think
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: that the Democrats might need to start thinking a little
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: differently about this. And this isn't voters' responsibility. This is
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: all y'all's old friends' responsibility of like, how can we
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: win in some of these places and not just– like
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: sit around and complain about the tyranny of the minority,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: which is legitimate, you know, but are there different types
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: of candidates that might be able to appeal? I think
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: Tim Ryan's running a good campaign. I'm interested in this
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Admiral Franken's campaign in Iowa. I think that there are
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: different types of candidates, but, you know, I think that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: the best case scenario is, I don't know, our A-block
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: is on our good friend Joe Manchin, is rather than
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: being like, f joe mansion to hell like the best
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: case scenario is probably like nine joe mansions right like
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: who all have their own horribleness that you have to
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: deal with in different ways i'm sorry this is this
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: is a nightmare this is a nightmare but i know
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: your eyes like nine joe mansions would put the democrats
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: in a much stronger position than zero.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Well for those who have just started paying attention when
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: when trump became president like that used to be obama's
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: majority when everyone's like obama had 60 votes for three
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: months yeah There were nine Joe Manchins.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Why didn't you save the country in those three.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Months, John? And they were all really annoying, but they
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: were all really annoying in all their own individual ways.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: And we were able to cobble, trade different things together
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: to get some shit done. Sometimes it's harder with one
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin than with 60, and then you have a
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: bunch of moderates.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: So somehow... Sean Spicer turns out to be a more
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: pathetic individual than I thought.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Which is a high bar.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I know, which I think I take as really high
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: praise because you had to go into this thing like,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: there's nothing you could tell me about Sean Spicer that
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: would make me go, ooh.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. I mean, you talk about how
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: his underlings at the RNC, he made his staffers at
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the RNC call every campaign and get signed paraphernalia. Then
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: he put it up on the wall and he said
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: lent by the courtesy of Sean Spicer. Then he tried
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: to start a tie business from the RNC and make
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: staff do this. Can you please tell us more about this?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can. I felt like the Sean Spicer chapter
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: was really important because the book is dreary. I go
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: through and self-flagellate myself and go through all of the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: things that I missed that I should have seen. And
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: then I go through all of these really noxious, horrible
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: characters who use these ridiculous rationalizations for themselves. And I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: only have one character that even has a glimmer of hope.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: So I was like, I feel like everybody needs a
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: little comic relief. You know, it's just like halfway through
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: the book, it's like, let's do a little Sean Spicer.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, because he is a key, you have to admit,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: there's some Democrats like this, maybe not in the pathetic sense,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: but Sean Spicer fits a mold in DC.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we've all known.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Super nerd. In college, he was called Sean Sphincter by
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: the school paper. That hurts. His roommate says when people
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: entered the room, he would enter the room at a party,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: people would kind of go, ugh, Spicer. I read that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: in an old interview about Sean Spicer, like from 20
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: years ago in the Connecticut College Magazine. This is the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: journalism I was doing. It's tough. I was like, that hurts.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: And so he gets to D.C., and all of a
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: sudden you're the RNC communications director, and Jeff Zucker's calling you,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: and Jake Tamper's calling you, and boy, like now I'm
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: a man about town, and I'm really kind of enjoying
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: this little mini celebrity.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: He's in the mix.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: Right, I'm in the mix.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: In the mix.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: And so I'm this like nerd, you know, I'm like–
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: remember in the Simpsons when Martin like got the cool
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: in the summer and he's like, I'm the king of summer.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: All the cool kids are coming over to my pool.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: It's hot out. Like this is Spicer. Uh, and so,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of people are like, well, why
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: would the establishment Republican guy go be Trump's first press secretary?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, why wouldn't he have been?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: They used to call him Sean Sphincter. Now he gets
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: to be on TV every day and all of his
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: mom's friends are calling saying, hey, look at your boy.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: He done good, right? And so that is the nature
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: of Sean. And it was true even from the time
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: that I worked there. And I do have one little
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: additional thing to share.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Nice. Well, it's nice.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: I have a postscript to the book. So this story
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: where he put this little bronze placard up in the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: RNC that said, graciously donated by Sean Spicer, these mementos
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: that he made his staff work on. This was, by
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: the way, during the 2012 campaign that all this was happening.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: So we had some important work that we were doing
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: campaigning against you guys. But, um, uh, so, so he
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: has these little placards made up graciously donated by Sean Spicer. And, um,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: I did, I did find out that, um, a fellow
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: nerd revenger who was upset that Sean was getting so
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: much attention, snuck into the RNC one night and took
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: them down off the wall. And so that is why
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: a question in the book was whatever happened to the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: graciously donated, uh, uh, placate. And, and I did find
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: out the answer, uh, by a reader.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I think what's interesting about the Sean Spicer archetype
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: and why it's important to understand him is that we
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: think of him as a buffoon who has made fun
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: of on SNL and couldn't talk at briefings. But, His
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: anger and frustration at his mistreatment and then his ascension
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: manifested in being cruel to everyone around him and putting
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the rest of us down. And I do think it's
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: actually worrisome to have that kind of character in charge
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: or in a powerful role, right? Because he's not, he's
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: not a hapless idiot. He's kind of a vindictive, nasty
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: guy who was doing bad things.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: And this was unique to Trump's in a way, like
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: something that was maybe unique is the wrong word, but
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: but particularly acute in Trump's Washington, like among the different
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: categories of characters, you know, people who are striving, people
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: who want to be in the room where it happened,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: you know, people that like inertia drove them up their
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: career up like that, that happens across, you know, a
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: lot of industries. This was the Trump thing. These guys
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: wanted revenge on you guys. He wanted revenge on you.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: And on establishment Republicans.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: They all had an Obama thing.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: They had a real deep, deep well of hatred for Obama.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: I didn't quite realize. I thought it was kind of performative.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: It was like, you know, we're all doing this WWE thing.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: But they really hated Obama. They hated the elites. They
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: hate that the media is nicer to Democrats. They hate
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: You know, obviously there's a racial subtext to all of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: this stuff. And so, you know, when you have these
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: people that gain this huge power inside Washington and you
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: get in this bunker, every White House has a bunker mentality,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: but this is like the deepest bunker mentality ever, right?
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: Like all of these popular people hate us. Like we
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: were all nerds. We were rejects. We were deplorables. We
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: were hobbits. And so we're going to be really, we're
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: going to take it out on them.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: It's revenge.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And so, and I think that, The entire, that drove.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: So when Adam Serwer does like the cruelty is the point,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: like there was, there was one group of Washington for
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: whom cruelty is the point, like the Stephen Miller, you know,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: your actual anti-immigrant bigots. But there was another group for
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: whom the cruelty was the point where it was much
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: more interpersonal. It was like, I hate you guys who,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: who got, who get more retweets from famous people than me.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: And clearly like vengeance and grievance is going to drive
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: the entire 24 races. Oh my God. That's the whole,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: that's gonna be the whole campaign.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: And just a thought on that, like as we, for
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: me as we conclude here. I mean, I think the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: book is really good and it's really worth reading and
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: it is dark at times. Like there's a path part
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: of the end where you're, you know, trying to understand
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: from a good friend who was such like a seemingly
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: kindhearted person that she traveled to Iraq for 10 days
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: to build homes for LGBT kids, uh, and then worked
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. Like the most, like holding those two
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: things in your mind is almost impossible. Um, so it's
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: really worth reading to sort of understand those people, even
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: if you don't come to get them, you sort of
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: do a great job of categorizing and explaining them. But
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: I also think it's worth reading just to talk about
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: incentives because, you became anti-Trump, you gave up your career,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you dumped your party, you walked away from your business,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you became anti-Trump. And then I think the net effect
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: for you was you got attacked by Republicans and then
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: also I think often attacked by progressives for not being
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: liberal enough or people you had worked for in the past.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: And I do think one of the lessons from studying
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: fights against fascism from around the world is that the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: efforts that are successful are the ones where we build
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: the broadest possible coalition to defeat the authoritarian fascist candidate.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: And I do think that is going to be from
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Bernie and the socialist left to never Trumpers on the right.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: And it's just something we all have to keep it.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Like we should fight it out about policy and we
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: should disagree and never put down our principles. But I
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: do think like there is a real looming threat that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: we're all facing right now. We're not going to be
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: able to have the policy fight if there's no democracy.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: That's the.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: We can all have the policy fight when democracy is preserved,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: but right now it's sort of on the edge. Absolutely.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: And I just want to say this as being somebody
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: who's been, and I'm not a victim here. I appreciate
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: you said that to me. I don't, but like people
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: can be mean to me on Twitter.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I can take it.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: But like, even me, I feel this way, right? There's always,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: you want to be the one in the door that
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: you're like, I deserve credit.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: Like I voted for Hillary. All right. Like, you know,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: like I want like somebody give me a cookie, you know? And,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: and now like these assholes, like I get this even,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: so I sure, I sure as hell get how people
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: on the left get it. Right now, these assholes who
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: want to come out of the administration and like write
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: these books, you know, sometimes I get weak on Twitter
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: and attack them.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: And sometimes they deserve attack, especially if they're not going
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: to oppose Trump in 2024. That's my red line still.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: But for the ones who are trying in good faith,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: and this is why the only hopeful character in the
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: book is Alyssa Farah, who went on to be Trump's
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: communications director for And knew he was bad when she
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: took the job and justified it in all these myriad ways.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: And I decided to write about her because I thought
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: bad about her. And I even hate tweeted her. And
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: she said that when I reached out to do the interview.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: She's like, I don't know if I should do this.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: I saw this tweet that you sent about me about,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: you know, about some interview I did when I came out. But, like,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: I came to find, again, this is not a perfect person.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: None of us are perfect people. But this was a
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: person that was seriously grappling with this and trying to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: do the right thing. And, you know, when there are
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: allies in this fight... who are seriously grappling with this
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: and trying to do the right thing, but might have
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: problematic either paths or opinions on certain things, like trying
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: to figure out ways to work together on this. I
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: do think the incentive part of this matters, and I
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: recognize more than anyone how hard that is, because I'm
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: tempted sometimes to not be a good faith actor, not
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: a good faith, to not be a positive actor on
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: that front, and we should be.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I sometimes think if I met me through my Twitter feed,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: I would hate myself. So, you know, a lesson for
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: all of us at this point. Well, a lot of
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: books written about Republicans and why they did what they did.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: But I think that you sort of nail the psychology
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: better than any book that I've read. And it's complicated.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Humans are complicated, as you say. And I think you
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: nail that really well in the book. The book is
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Why We Did It, A Travelogue from the Republican Road
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: to Hell. Everyone, go read it.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: Tim Miller.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Tim Miller.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining the pod, everyone. Go buy the book,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Why We Did It.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Thanks, gents.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being here. Pod Save America is a Crooked
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: and Amelia Montooth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: slash crookedmedia.