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My Ohio, My Choice · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau was off today. Alyssa, thank you so much
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: for joining us. I have to say I was quite
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: jealous when I was on my vacation and I saw
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: that you were filling in for me, which I thought
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: meant we would not be able to podcast together while
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Jon was off.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, and I have to tell you, my heart was
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: full when I heard you were jealous.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I was quite jealous. But here we are, our limited
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: opportunities to pod together. We are doing it. So on
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: today's pod, Donald Trump is headed back to court while
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: he awaits a fourth indictment. Ron DeSantis shakes up his
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: campaign again. Trump debates debating. And then Senate Majority Leader
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer joins me to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Tommy Tuberville, and UFOs. But first, in a huge victory
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for abortion rights, Voters in Ohio on Tuesday resoundingly defeated
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Issue 1, a cynical attempt to prevent Ohioans from amending
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the Constitution to include the right to an abortion in November.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: With a turnout of more than 3 million voters, Issue
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: 1 was defeated, 57-43, a huge margin in a state
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: that Trump won by 10 points in the last two elections. Alyssa?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: This is great news. How are you feeling?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: My uterus is dancing, Pfeiffer. I am so excited. I
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: was so excited about this. Here's the thing. When are
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Republicans going to learn trying to pull jiggery-pokery in August
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: is not going to work for them? They tried this
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: last summer in Kansas, and they got whooped 60-40, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: here they are again. So I am very happy. Also,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Fight for abortion motivates people. Reproductive rights is motivating people
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to the polls. And so I was very excited by
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: this news.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, just to put it in perspective, the nearly
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: 3 million votes that were cast is nearly twice as
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: many votes as were counted in the state's primary elections
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in 2022 when there were huge races for governor and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Senate and House up for grabs. So the turnout is unbelievable.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Republicans specifically picked this theoretically sleepy Tuesday in August. when
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: people are getting ready to go back to school or
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: on vacation to try to slip one past the pro-choice
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: majority in Ohio, and they failed, and they failed miserably.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It was really sad for them. Fuck around and find out.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I will also say that when I put in the outline, Alyssa,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: how are you feeling? My uterus is dancing was not
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: on my bingo card.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I knew that. I knew that. I had to bring surprises.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: That's a failure on my part. I should have known.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I should have known. I'm also looking forward to the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: My Years is Dancing merch to come to.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: The- You know it's a matter of time.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: To the Crooked Merch. It's a matter of time. Yes,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of course it is. Now, we want to be careful
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: not to draw too much significance from one of these
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: sort of irregularly scheduled special elections. But are there any
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: lessons that you would take from these results that can
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: be applied in Ohio, nationally for the Democratic Party?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that when Roe was about to
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: be overturned, or at least when the decision was, you know,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: leaked months before it actually came down, people were saying, oh,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: this isn't going to be such a big deal. Everyone's
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: going to get used to it. It's going to be fine.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And I think that we're seeing it's not fine. It's
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: not fine among independents and swing voters. And it's actually
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: not fine to get among some Republicans that, you know, here,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I think the Republicans are the dog that caught the car.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And now they don't exactly know what to do. I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: think that They want some restrictions on abortion. I don't
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: think anybody watching the cases, the case rather, that's happening
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: down in Texas where women who were denied abortions are
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: being asked to testify about what happened to them. Listening
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: to a woman who knew that her fetus was not
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: going to survive and was forced to carry it to term,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: and then when she went to the hospital was told,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: you have to be septic before we can treat you.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I think that when a lot of folks envisioned bro
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: being overturned, they didn't think that. And so I think
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that this is much more motivating than people think it
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: will be. I think that candidates who hold extremely severe
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: and extreme positions on abortion are becoming less and less desirable.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: There are moments in political history that fundamentally shift the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: electoral balance in the country. They cause coalitions to move about.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Civil rights was one of those. Ronald Reagan's presidency was another.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama's presidency was one. Dobbs currently looks like it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is one of those moments that changes politics in a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: significant and sustainable way. If you look at both– I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: think that's true in a couple of different vectors. One,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the number of Americans who say they're pro-choice is at
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: a record since Dobbs. The number of Americans who say
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: they're anti-choice or describe themselves as quote-unquote pro-life is at
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a knee-deer since Dobbs. The energy around the issue is stunning.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: The turnout in this election is mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: 3 million people would turn out. This is the only
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: thing on the ballot. There's nothing else. There's no gubernatorial primary.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: There's no Senate primary. There was just abortion. And it
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: was an issue that was disguised to try to make
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it not be about abortion. Right.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Two, in the.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Elections where we have had straight up abortion related ballot
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: initiatives or constitutional referendum on the ballot. So that's Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, California,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and a couple other places. And in those places, the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: pro-abortion side of the argument is outperform Joe Biden's numbers
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: from 2020.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: So that means that it's a turnout driver. It means
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: that there are some people who maybe who did not
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: vote in 2020, but have come out because they see
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: their freedoms and their rights being taken away from them.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just an absolutely dramatic thing. In Ohio,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: 20% of Trump counties voted against issue one. And Ohio
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: is a state that if you had asked anyone before
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Dobbs that it would have been a state where an
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: abortion referendum would fail and fail miserably. And that logic
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: was clearly wrong, but it was probably wrong then, but
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it's obviously wrong now. Dobbs has changed absolutely everything. And
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I think if you want to take a lesson from
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: this for Democrats, it is that we are more than
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a year after the decision. Abortion is still clearly a driving,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: galvanizing issue in politics, but I don't think Democrats should
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: assume that that will still be the case in 2024.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It very well may be, but with every passing day,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: there's always a chance that something can recede further into
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the background. It could become less salient. And does it
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: mean that there still won't be huge majorities of people
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: who care passionately about it and are driven by it?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But the races are also narrow and we're operating on
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: such thin margins that the argument here is we have
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to do everything we can to keep it on the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: top of the agenda. We have to argue that if
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: you– reelect Sherrod Brown and we expand our Senate majority
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and keep the White House and take the House, we'll
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: pass a law codifying Roe. We have to tell people
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: if Republicans were to do the same thing and to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: take control of government that they will pass what they
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: have told us they will do, which is a federal abortion.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I think there's an argument. The lesson here is not
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: that abortion is a secret weapon. It is that if
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: we want voters to care about it and we've got
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to make sure they still care about it in 2024
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to the same extent they do right now.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I agree. And Buddy, also, I think that there are
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: other issues, ancillary issues that people did not foresee. I mean,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: there are states in this country that are gynecological deserts
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: where OBGYNs are fleeing the state. I think in either
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: South Dakota or North Dakota, I think it's North Dakota,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: there are about 66 gynecologists left in the entire state
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and they are not spread equally throughout the state. They
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: are located in two of the major cities. And I
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: don't think that when Dobbs was overturned that people thought,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: people who were rooting for this, I don't think they
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: understood that doctors were going to be targeted in the
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: way there were, that there would be like bounty laws
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: in Texas to turn people in and become vigilantes. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: I think that it's just, it is so far and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it's so extreme and that it is affecting healthcare in
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: a way that's so profound. I think that that's important
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: to sort of keep talking about too, because- Women who
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: aren't even pregnant can't get health care in a lot
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: of states in this country right now, or it is
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: at least prohibitively difficult for them to do so.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, the vote on issue one is not
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the end of the road here in Ohio. Help people
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: understand what comes next and what's at stake with this
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: vote in November.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: OK, so in November, the, quote, right to reproductive freedom
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: with protections for health care safety, the longest name ever,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: ballot measure is up. It seeks to protect the reproductive
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: rights of people in Ohio. And with issue one failing,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: now that only needs a 50% plus one to be
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: enshrined into the Ohio state constitution. Whereas if issue one
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: had gone into law, it would have been 60%, which
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: would have been very bad.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And all the polling has shown to date that there
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is a majority in support of reproductive freedom issues. Right.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: these Republicans so cynically tried to rig the game by
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: using issue one to increase the threshold to 60%. And
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think while I think every political prognosticator would believe
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that the favorites in that November race is the effort
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to amend the Constitution to enshrine abortion rights, We shouldn't
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: assume it's going to happen. Republicans are going to learn
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: from their loss here. They are going to spend more money.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They're going to be more deceptive. They're going to be
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: more dirty tricks. And so we're going to have to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: do everything we possibly can to help. And so for
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: everyone who wants to help Ohioans win in November and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: fight back against abortion bans happening all over the country,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: go to votesaveamerica.com slash bans where you can find opportunities
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to volunteer, organizations to donate to, to help fight for
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: reproductive freedom and abortion rights in Ohio and across the country.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: All right, Alyssa, that was it for the good news.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the more challenging parts of our political hellscape.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: All right. So this week, Donald Trump is waiting for
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a potential court hearing on whether he will face a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: protective order in the January 6th case. And he seems
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to be taking this issue with his usual seriousness. Here's
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the twice impeached, thrice-indicted former president at a campaign stop
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Let's take a listen. Because
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sweating like a dog up here.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Does anybody want me to stop or should we go forward?
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Crooked Joe now wants the thug prosecutor, this deranged guy,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: to file a court order taking away my First Amendment
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: rights so that I can't speak.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So listen to this.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: We don't want you to speak about the case.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: The case. The case is.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: A ridiculous case. It's a First Amendment case. There was
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: never a second of any day that I didn't believe
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: that that election was rigged.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: It was a rigged election.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: It was a rigged election and it was a stolen,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: disgusting election. And this country should be ashamed. And they
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: go after the people that want to prove that it
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: was rigged and stolen.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And then on Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter. Truth Social,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: to personally and directly attack Judge Chukin, the judge in
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the January 6th case, by name, accusing her of an
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: array of bullshit, conflicts of interest, and conspiracy theories. Now, Alyssa,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I have to ask.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Is there a strategy here? Is Trump trying to provoke
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the judge, or can he just not help himself? What
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: do you think is going on?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Buddy, come on now. He doesn't even know what he's doing.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: This is a man... And everyone should think about this.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, not people who listen to Pod Save America
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: because they already know the answer. But, buddy, this is
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: a man with absolutely zero impulse control that he has
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: proved time and time again. And there are actually people
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: in this country considering giving him the nuclear codes back.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Some?
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Like 37% or whatever it is. But, I mean, buddy,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: you and I both know he has no strategy. He's
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: in a chaos candidate, throw everything against the wall, see
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: what sticks, whatever. He's trying to find something that further
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: enrages his base as if they need more rage. But yeah,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: he has no idea why. He will take whatever comes
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: from his chaos and his nonsense.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I generally agree with that. And I generally sort of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: laugh at the people who try to reverse engineer strategy
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: from Trump's insanity. But I think there is a consistent
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: theme in how Trump has approached all of his many
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: investigations and indictments and everything from Jim Comey, Bob Mueller,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the impeachments, Adam Schiff, everything is he just goes after.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: A mistrial.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Well, he, I mean, he just, he would, he's always
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: wants to be punching someone.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And he wants to raise questions. He wants to try
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to make it seem like everyone is crooked. Everyone's conflicted.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It's not just him. And that generally politically is, is
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: enough for him to skate by. It gives the people
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: who want to be with him the ability, the fig
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: leaf to stick with him. Where it's like, yeah, sure,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: what Trump did is terrible, but these guys are all
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: out to get him anyway. They don't really care. And
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this is an Obama judge and Jack Smith goes after
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Republicans or whatever other bullshit. And And for the people
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: who are sort of like in the middle, who are
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: pretty cynical about politics, who don't really pay– engage with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the news like in any great detail. In other words,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the people who generally decide elections in this country, it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: kind of easy to just like throw up their arms
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and be like, ah, fuck. I don't know. And then
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you can move on to another issue. So it is–
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is a plan. Like there's no
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: whiteboard that is in his legal strategy war room that's
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: like attack the judge and attack Jack Smith. I think
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: there's also an element of this where, and it was
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: just why this, what happens with this protective order is
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: so fascinating is, and I remember many, many years ago,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Lovett described Trump's behavior during the 2016 campaign as the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Raptors testing the fence in Jurassic Park. And I think
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that's a little what he's doing here, which is he just,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: he wants to see how far he can go before
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he gets burned. And he's going to push and push
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and push. And he does sort of understand that. that
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the judge can't really throw him in jail. I mean,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: technically she can throw him in jail, but she's not
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: going to. And so what's she really going to do?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And he'll do that until, you know, he'll push and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: push and push until he gets bit. And we'll have
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to sort of see how that goes. And he might,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to see. This is not a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: good legal strategy, but as a political strategy goes, you
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: could do worse.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, there's literally
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: no downside to him doing what he's doing.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think what could happen short of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: them putting him in jail. He could be fined, right?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I think they could fine him.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: He could be fined and he won't pay. The thing is,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: any outcome you can see, he's sort of faced before
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: and he just didn't do it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a little like how the classified– there's a
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: way in which this kind of plays out a little
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: bit like the classified documents thing where he thought the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: rules didn't apply to him. He refused to– Abide by them,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: ignored subpoenas. And then next thing you know, the FBI
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: is at his house. And then a few months after that,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: he's being indicted on 37 felony counts related to violations
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: of the Espionage Act. And like that could happen here, right?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Could happen. He gets fined. He gets fined. Like there's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a world in which he thinks he had– this is
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: like where he runs into someone who actually– like Jack
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Smith essentially who will take this seriously enough to do
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: something about it. So we'll see.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: It's clear that he's not going to, up until there's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: real consequences that matter to him, and maybe those can
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: never come, that he's not going to change his behavior.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Right, exactly.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: There's no reason to. We don't make predictions.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: But Donald Trump has other legal problems, too. Reports are
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that Fulton County DA Fannie Willis could indict Trump as
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: soon as next week for trying to overturn the election
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. The New York Times reports that Jack Smith
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: is still investigating Trump's super PAC, for potential financial crimes
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: related to raising money based on false election claims. And
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: perhaps most deliciously, we learned from the New York Times
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that earlier this year, Jack Smith got a subpoena to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: dig around in Trump's Twitter DMs. What I imagine is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a dark and dangerous place. Listen, this is a lot.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Like to date, you could probably argue that none of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: this stuff has done any real damage to Trump politically.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: He's still probably gone up in the Republican polls, you know,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that New York Times poll from a week or so
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: ago where he's essentially tied with Biden. But do you
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: think there's a point where all of this becomes too
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: much for voters to stomach?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, buddy, I wonder. I mean, the thing I
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: will say that the DMs are delicious. I mean, this, though,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I think could also be one of the most traumatic
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: things that we have had to experience. Like, When I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: think about listening to the January 6th hearing and hearing
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: about him throwing steak and ketchup against the wall in
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the dining room and the ketchup dripping down, I thought
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: that was pretty traumatic to hear. But when we find out,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: more likely than not, that he's been DMing with bots
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: and when he was supposed to be running the country,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I think that it's going to be a lot for
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: everyone to handle. But I'm not. sure that the people
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: who support him, right? Like, again, we're all repelled by this.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: We are exhausted. We can't take it. It's too much.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: But the people who support him, I'm not sure that
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: any of this is going to matter. I mean, I
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: think that the people, the 37%, you know, that ardently
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: support him, I'm not sure that any of this is
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: something where they're like, you know what? This is the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: straw that broke the camel's back. There has been so
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: much else that this just– I mean, again, it always
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: depends on what they find and what could happen. But
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just not sure. He has set himself up as
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: a martyr. His base supporters believe that, and I don't
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: know that anything is going to change that.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It's really– like if you were– it's just really hard
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to see– the dynamics changing with Trump because they haven't
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: changed one iota over an eight-year period.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: His approval rating has tracked within– with a couple of exceptions,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: one being a huge spike during the early days of COVID,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: which seems insane now, and then a huge drop right
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: after January 6th. His approval rating has stayed. within a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: three to four point band in the low 40s. He
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: had like high 30s, low 40s. That's where he stays
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the whole time. He can get indicted. He could get impeached.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He could have an insurrection. He can support Nazis. He
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: can do all of these things and it sort of
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: stays there. That is that baseline. And that's what our
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: experience tells us. We are scarred from thinking for eight
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: years that this is the thing that's going to bring
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: him down. In the campaign, it was attacking the Gold
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Star families that spoke at Hillary Clinton's convention. Access Hollywood,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: attacking the judge in this racist way, which was quite prescient,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: as we now know. And then everything throughout the course
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of the presidency and it stayed the same. But then
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you also sort of think like, man, this guy is
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: going to be, and this week is sort of interesting
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: model for what the rest of this campaign is going
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to be like is that the entire conversation is going
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to be around his upcoming criminal trials. He's going to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: be in court or his lawyers will be in court
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: filing motions. There'll be hearings. They're going to be, he's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: going to be arraigned again probably. And it's just like
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: at some point, For some number of voters, does that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: change something, right? Now, it's more likely to change it
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in a general election where he's the nominee because the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: way the calendar works out is if you believe that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the primary process will move along on a similar trajectory
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: as 2016, and the polls kind of suggest it might,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: then he would become the nominee basically the week before
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the Alvin Bragg trial in New York on Hush Money
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: is scheduled to start. We're going to get a– in
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the January 6th case, there is– I think we're going
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to– in the next week or two, Jack Smith is
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: going to propose a trial date. And we'll know then.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Just this idea that he is going to be in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: court for like the seven months of the general election
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: is something that you would like to think would be
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: somewhat damaging, particularly for people like us who've worked in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: campaigns and think campaigns matter, that instead of traveling the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: country and doing rallies all the time, he'll be sitting
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: in court for pretty serious– what is right now nearly
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: 80 felony charges?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Here's what I was going to say, though. For him,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I think it works. I think it works. If martyrdom
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: is his whole vibe and convincing his base and hopefully
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: some other people, because he can't win with just his base,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: that he, think about it. If you're Trump, not to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: give him any advice, but if you're Trump, First of all,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: there are only so many places he can still rally
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: and get the crowds that he needs to get to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: look like he's doing well, right?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's the case?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I kind of do. I think that there are probably
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a handful of states and a handful of cities. And
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: you and I both know that once you've been to
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: a city and you've done your big rally, it's diminishing
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: returns every time you come back. And with Trump, if
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: he has to project strength, you know, he goes, he
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: does a rally. I just don't think there are that
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: many states where he can or cities that he can
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: really rally people. I think for him, he's like coming
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: out of trial and doing a press conference, some crazy
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: fucking wild press conference on the steps of the courthouse.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And I think that the big problem that the Republican
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Party has is that. most of the leadership of their
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: party has not come out against him. Like there is no,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: there is no one he's really running against in the primary.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: If any of them who have been so brave now
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: and come out and been like, oh, what he did
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: was bad. Okay. Why would anyone believe you? You only
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: said he was bad when you became his opponent, not
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: when you could have just actually spoken the truth, if
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: that's what you think. And so I feel like, I
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: don't know, I guess I just, I, I feel bad.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's bad for him. I think that
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: he can kind of make these trials.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Work for him. I mean, this is sort of maybe
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: a crazy way of thinking about it. And this is
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: very back of the envelope because I haven't given this
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a ton of thought before this. But probably the thing
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that is going to decide this election is not Trump's
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: vote share. It's Biden's vote share.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Because it's hard to imagine people who voted for Trump
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in 2020 voting for Biden in 2020.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: 24.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: That's probably a pretty small sliver. Then you got some
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: people who voted Trump 16, Biden 2020. Do they flip back?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Do they flip third party? How much of Biden's 2020
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: vote does he get back out at 2024? If there's
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: even the slightest drop, then he loses some of these
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: states if Trump holds his numbers. It is a very
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: interesting thing that Trump has all of these problems. Biden
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: sort of has the harder job To hold his coalition
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: together than Trump does because Trump's is just a more ideologically, demographically,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: geographically homogenous coalition than Biden's, which spans from some former
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Trump voters, never Trump Republicans, to highly progressive Bernie Sanders
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: supporters under the age of 25.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: It's a greater challenge.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: But if Trump were to lose, the person that everyone
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: thought he would lose to in the primary, at least,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is Ron DeSantis.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: LOL.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: LOL is right. On Tuesday, Ron DeSantis fired his campaign manager.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: This is his third staff shakeup in a month. His
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: campaign has had strategic resets, pivots. He was going to
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: be more conservative, then more moderate, do more media, less media.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I've lost track of all the ways in which they're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: trying to rebrand this campaign. Alyssa first, based on the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: staff shakeups in this month, the summer of resets with
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, have you ever seen anyone pull off a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Band-Aid more slowly?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Buddy, this isn't even pulling off a Band-Aid. I mean,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: has he even pulled the Band-Aid off?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: That's a great question.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like the Band-Aid's been pulled off. He
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: hasn't changed his messaging, near as I can tell. Like
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: a shakeup, if you go back in history to shakeups
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: we all remember, they involved actual tumult. You know what
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I mean? Firing his campaign manager that no one ever
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: heard of and hadn't run a campaign and then replacing
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: them with someone roughly similar is not like a reset
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: or a shakeup. He's not changing. He hasn't come out
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: and been like … Like it's pretty interesting actually when
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: you think about it. He hasn't come out and been like,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: this is my … I mean, we kind of know
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: what it is, but it's just, he's like, here I am.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I'm just this very not charismatic man from Florida. He's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: uncharismatic Florida man. Yes.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: The way that he has handled this first bit of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: turbulence in his campaign is is just one of the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: most incompetent, indecisive things I've ever seen in political history.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: It is a masterclass in how you not do things.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And that, with campaigns, the fish always rots from the head.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And this is Ron DeSantis' fault. He does not know
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: what he stands for. He doesn't know why he's running.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have confidence in himself as a politician or
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a candidate. There is a way to do campaign shakeups.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: They happen all the time. A campaign... that was supposed
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: to do well, hits bottom. The donors freak out. They
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: tell the candidate that if you don't make changes, we're
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: walking away. And so now all of a sudden, they
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: don't have the money to pay the staff or to
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: pay for the huge headquarters they bought when they thought
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: they'd be this front runner. And the rule of campaign
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: shakeups is the Michael Corleone rule from the last scene
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in Godfather. You handle all of the family's business in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: one day. Whatever staff changes you have to make, you
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: fire them and you announce the new person taking the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: role on that day. You do a big story where
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you tell them what the new strategy is going to be.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You make a hard pivot. You do not do it
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: like this. It is just– Death by a thousand cuts.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: It is so poorly done. And it's not just that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis is not a good person. on the stump politician.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: He is not a good political manager. And how people
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: run their campaigns is actually a pretty good predictor of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: what kind of president they're going to be. Joe Biden
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: ran a tight ship. Even when his campaign was not
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: performing great, they stuck together. They got it done. Obama
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: famously ran the no drama Obama campaign that we worked on.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Did incredibly well. Donald Trump's campaign, we saw what it
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: looked like. We saw what his White House looked like.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And so this would give me great pause if I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: was a one of these like MAGA adjacent billionaires who
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: are funding Ron DeSantis. This guy does not have what
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it takes to do it either behind the scenes or
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: on the stump.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: No, it's kind of like, uh, what's that saying? If
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: you elect a clown to run the kingdom, the clown
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't become the king. The kingdom becomes a circus. That
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: is where we are. And I think the problem with
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: DeSantis and his shakeup is that like, I think if
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: you asked him, why is he shaking things up? It's like,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: cause I'm, losing. But he doesn't know why he's losing. Like,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: he doesn't understand fundamentally, I think, as a baby pundit,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: that the delta between he and Trump is so large,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: so vast in the polls, that he has to take
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Trump on. No reset is going to fix the fact
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: that his strategy doesn't work. And that's, I think, what's interesting.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: You know, he's like, oh, it's the camp manager. It's this,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: it's that. Yeah, maybe they did spend too much money,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: but that's like not the fundamental problem. He has no charisma.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: He is a dishrag on the stump. And in order
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: to make up some of the space between he and
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Trump right now, He has to say what he thinks.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: If he thinks Trump is fine, why is he running?
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: But all of them, aside from maybe Christie, are parsing
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: their words so much. Why would you support them over Trump?
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Because they basically say Trump's like kind of okay. He
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: did some things I don't agree with. But none of
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: them are going to break out of the 30 points
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: they're all trailing Trump by by keep saying what they're saying.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Like one of the abiding premises of this podcast is,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: after 2016, is humility and political prognostication, right? And so Tommy, John,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and John on Tuesday talked a little bit about some
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: of DeSantis' most recent reset and some of his new
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: messaging where he said that Trump lost the election, et cetera. Right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And the question was, is there a way he could
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: possibly come back from the dead? And you worked for
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: John Kerry when he was written off for dead. And
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: there are some parallels here. Kerry was the initial favorite
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: in that race. He was the choice of a lot
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of donors looking for someone who could, because of his
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: military record, could beat Bush during a war. Kerry fired
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: his campaign manager, a bunch of staff. Do you see
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: any parallels from what you guys went through in 2004
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that could apply to DeSantis here? And the answer can
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: be no. I want to be clear.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. But I think that some of
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the things that are just like a little... First of all,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the delta between Carrie and Dean was never as great.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: The distinctions between Carrie and Dean were.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: You could make a case for, like, there were differences
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: between the two of them. Dean was very progressive. He
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: had the grassroots. But John Kerry was a statesman, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: he was going to be going up against Bush during
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: the Iraq War. And so I think that was always
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: a little bit on his side, you know, until we
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: got swift-boated. But I think that when he– that was
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: a dark day– I think that when his reset came–
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: It was exactly like you said, it was the Corleone.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, like we had many, so this is why
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's interesting because everything that DeSantis is doing
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: right now feels like a mini reset. It feels like
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: a change in staff. A change in staff isn't necessarily
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: a reset. When John Kerry brought in Mary Beth Cahill
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: to run the campaign, she was fucking law and order.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Like there was, you know, John Kerry had a bad
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: habit of like forum shopping and of asking different staff
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: for different answers until he sort of heard what he
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: wanted to hear. And I'm not talking trash. I love
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: the man. He has said this himself. He was not
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: great at taking the blame for things when he made mistakes.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And I think that Mary Beth Cahill came in and
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: was like, she did more of what Plouffe did on
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: our campaign and was like, this is where we're going
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: to go and this is what we're going to do.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And so I think right now what DeSantis is doing
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: is like, how we were sort of like limping into Iowa.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Like Favreau and I always joke that the last time
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: we saw each other in December of 2003, before the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Iowa caucuses, we were at the Pentagon City Mall buying
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: sheets because he was going to Iowa and I was
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: going to New Hampshire and we were sleeping on the
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: floor of other people's houses so that we could do
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: GOTV and that by the time we came back, we
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: would be in the unemployment line together. Like things were
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: quite dark. But I think that when, you know, like
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: JK brought in someone who was like, I'm going to
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: make change. And if you listen to me, we may
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: have a chance. And like, I don't think that DeSantis
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: has done that yet. It doesn't feel like he has decided.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: And I think that part of that is, is if
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: he brought in someone who is, who had that same
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: kind of point of view, who was going to like
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: rule the campaign with law and order, I think it
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: would mean really taking on Trump in a sincere way.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And I'm just not sure that he, wants to do that.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: It is interesting. I guess there is some multiversal world
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: where Donald Trump goes to jail next week, right? Or
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: something like that happens, and now he can't. He's convicted
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of a crime.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: Can't run.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Doesn't run. Cut some big plea deal. Some world in
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: which Donald Trump disappears, and then Ron DeSantis would probably
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: be Maybe the short-term favorite for that just because he's
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: got more name ideas.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Or is it like a free-for-all and now everybody's got
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: a chance and they all feel free to beat the
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: shit out of Trump and someone who actually, I don't know,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: is like a skilled debater or something rises to the top?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And I sort of think there are three modern examples
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: of people's campaigns collapsing and then coming back to win
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the nomination. There's Kerry in 2004. There is John McCain
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: in 08. Same thing as Kerry. Fired his staff.
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: All new people.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Pick Sarah Palin.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Chain strategy before Sarah Palin.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Pulls out Iowa, bets on New Hampshire, wins New Hampshire
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and jumps. And then there's Joe Biden who lost the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: first three contests, won in South Carolina, and then was
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a nominee like three weeks later. And I think the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Kerry one's probably the best parallel to DeSantis because both
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: McCain and Biden were– incredibly well-known. They had 100% name ID.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: There was a deep wall of affection among them, for them,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: among voters in their party. And they each had a
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: constituency that was going to play a huge role in
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: a primary. McCain had real sway with independent moderate voters
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire, which has an open primary. So he
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: had that waiting for him. And Biden, even when his
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: campaign hit the skids, remained the dominant candidate with black voters.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And he knew he had South Carolina waiting.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And John Kerry had Ted Kennedy and his dogs.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: And John Kerry also had electability. Even when he was
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: not doing well, people thought he was the most electable candidate.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: People do not think that of Ron DeSantis. I struggle
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to figure out where his win comes. Or even if
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: he were to win Iowa, what's the next place? Where
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: does he have appeal? Because even you would think Florida
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: would be the thing for him, but that's also Trump's state.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Don't you think, though? If Trump, so say Trump goes
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: to jail, right? Trump goes to jail. Don't you think
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: that this ends up, this is what I think, I
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: think it ends up as like a brokered convention. Because
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I think that you have people, you have Republicans who
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: would do well in certain states, but I feel like
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: it's going to be really hard for them to ever
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: get a consensus because the party's so, so like fractured.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: Maybe.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: The thing about the Republican primary, though, is that most
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of the states award their delegates either win or take
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: all or win or take most. And so winning a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: state by 1%, it's much easier to get to the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: threshold on the Republican side than the Democratic side. But
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: if Trump's in jail, there is a world in which
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: they could try. You remember the thing that Ted Cruz
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: did where he was like, vote your conscience. So who knows?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Did I just tell on myself that I watched the
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: episode of Veep with the brokered convention yesterday?
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's telling on yourself.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I'm just telling on myself. I don't care.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Switching gears here.
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: Why?
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: That's so fun.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to do a lot of brokered
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Republican convention, Donald Trump's in jail fan fiction over.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: The course of the next year on this podcast.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: We are two weeks away from the first Republican debate.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Despite repeated pleas from the RNC and even the brass
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: at Fox News, who is broadcasting the debate, Donald Trump
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: is not yet committed to participate. But he may still
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: be debating it. Here he is at the rally in
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire on Tuesday.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: OK, you ready? Poll. We take a free poll. Should
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I do the debate? Well, maybe we'll do something else.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: You know, see, some people say yes, but they hate
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: to say it because it doesn't make sense to do
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: it if you're leading by so much. But they like
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: it for entertainment value because they're selfish.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: They're selfish. All right, Alyssa, do you think Trump really
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: has it in him to see the spotlight to the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: rest of field? Do you think there's any downsides to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: him skipping this debate?
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even know. I mean, I think, look,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: if you, if I were Trump, I would want to
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: do the debate because he is literally surrounded by a
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: bunch of people, pretty afraid to attack them. And he's
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: not afraid to attack anything or anybody. So I think
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: that if he gets on stage with the people who've
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: made the cut, I just, look, like TV is his
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: secret weapon. Like, I don't think that he's, you know,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I don't, I certainly do not like the man, but
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: if I were to say things that he uses to
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: his advantage, television and debates have been one of them.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, I think that if I'm Trump, look,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: he likes to build everything to a crescendo, right? So
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm not going to do it. I'm not
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: going to do it. And then he wants to fold.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: So he says, you know what? My people want me
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: to do it and I have to do what they
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: want me to do. And he gives himself cover and
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: he does the debate. That's what I would do. I
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: think if he skips the debate, the RNC, like literally
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: what is the fucking point of a debate without him
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: in it? I mean, they're like, I don't know.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: If he does not do this debate, he's almost certainly
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: not doing the next debate, which is at the Reagan Library,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: and he has a grudge against the Reagan Library based
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: on something at some point in time.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: What did they do to him?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I think they did a series of speeches where they
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: invited him. all the Republican candidates to speak, and they
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: did not invite Trump. I think that's it. But he
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: has held larger grievances for more petty slights than that,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: so I don't even really know.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Fair.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Here's my take. I think Donald Trump would be an
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: absolute moron for doing the debate.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Really.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Because he is, think about how this plays out. So
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in everyone's made that everyone of consequences has made the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: debate stage at this point, even Mike Pence qualified for
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the debate last week. So you got Christie, Scott Haley,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy, Pence, you get Doug Burgum has made the debate,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: believe it or not. Um, really?
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't see that one.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: He spent a lot of money, uh, to get there.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: He's a billionaire. He's, which is a surprise, but he is. Um,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Here's how this plays out. He's up by a ton
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: of points. Right. If he doesn't go, what are all
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: these people going to do? Beat the shit out of
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know what? That's a good point. I didn't
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: think about that. That's a good point.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: And so he'll just sit back. He'll send some truths
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that the press will immediately tweet out or X out
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever words we're using these days. And he'll comment
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: on it. And they'll all look really small. And he'll
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: stay above the field. And then he doesn't have to
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: engage until September at the earliest, which is when... Or
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the third debate. I think the second debate's in September.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: So the third debate is in October. So now he's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: like three months from the Iowa caucus when this happens.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not saying you're right, but I'm saying
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I see your point. I did not think about them
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: all trying to take down DeSantis, which.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, can you just imagine how DeSantis will handle that?
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: It'll be so good. Because instead of going after Trump,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie's going to go after DeSantis. He's going to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: try to do DeSantis way to DeMarco Rubio.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I'm into that. I'm glad not. August 23rd will be
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: a good time.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: We'll tune in. It's on a Wednesday night, so we'll
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have hot commentary on the Thursday pod about it. And
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: if you want to watch the debate with us on
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night, we'll be doing a group thread on Discord.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Go sign up to become a friend of the pod
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: at crooked.com slash friends. All right, one more debate thing.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Last night in an interview with Newsmax's Eric Bolling, Trump
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: said he would not sign the RNC's loyalty pledge, which
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: requires candidates to do two things, support the nominee and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: commit to not run as a third party candidate. So far,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the only people to sign the pledge are Vivek Ramaswamy
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and Nikki Haley. Why do you think Trump wouldn't sign
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: this pledge?
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: What do you mean? Like, I mean, why would he?
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Because he won't. Because by signing the pledge, what he's
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: saying to his supporters is that he thinks the other
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: people running would be okay presidents, right? Isn't that what
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: you're saying? That ultimately you have enough faith in the
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: people who you're running against? And he would never, ever
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: cop to that. Like that's, it is him and him alone.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: There is no other, there is no other king for
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: the GOP. So I totally understand. Even if he did
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: say it, everyone would know it was a lie. But
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I totally understand why he wouldn't.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was a similar pledge in 2016 that
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: he said he would sign, but then also said he
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: would just violate it if he decided he wanted to.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: So there's no enforcement mechanism here. So it's not like
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: they could do anything. The RNC and Fox want him
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: at the debates so bad. that they're not going to
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: keep him off stage for not signing it. So it
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I do think it's sort of benefits him
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: more than anyone else because you know, it puts, you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you have like the Chris Christie's and the Mike Pence's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: and the, you know, these people who are, who have
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: somewhat run someone explicitly against Trump saying that they would
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: support him, right. Or not run as a third party candidate.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, none of this really matters. It's just, He
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: just knows he has so much leverage here that he's
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: just using it for shits and giggles, right?
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: He just is doing it because he can. And he
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: knows that he's already made RNC chairwoman Ramna Romney McDaniel
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: stop using Romney in her name just out of penance.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: So why not do this too?
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Totally true.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Just a raging asshole. It always comes back to that.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with our interview with Senate Majority
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Leader Chuck Schumer. But first, do you love Taylor Swift?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Do you love Jon Favreau? Are you Emily Favreau? I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: can't believe I'm reading this and I can't believe this
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: is in the housekeeping on the one day Jon decides
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: not to pod. But on the latest episode of Offline,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau breaks down how Taylor Swift has navigated the
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: internet age to build one of the most successful musical
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: careers of all time. It is a fascinating conversation. Then
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Max Fisher returns for the Tech Roundup to unpack Elon's
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Twitter rebrand and Ron DeSantis' cruel summer. New episodes of
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Offline drop every Sunday morning or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: In honor of the huge victory for abortion rights in Ohio,
• 44:34
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• 44:38
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• 44:40
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  Speaker 1: The Bros for Rome merch is the quote, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: quoting here, this year's hottest accessory for basic rights supporters
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of all genders. You heard it. Hottest accessory. As always,
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• 45:01
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  Speaker 1: it out at crooked.com slash store. Joining me now to
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: talk about the one year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Act and everything else happening on Capitol Hill is the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Senate Majority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer. Welcome back to Pod
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Save America.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: And it's great to be back.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: It's great to talk to you, sir. So it is
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the one year. We're going to start with some real
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: tough questions here. So it's the one year anniversary of
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: this historic. piece of legislation you passed. Polls show a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: lot of people don't know much about the bill or
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: even that it passed. What is your elevator pitch to
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: someone when you see them about what you guys accomplished
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a year ago and why it matters?
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: I would say I just first sum it up in
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: two words. We're going to lower your costs and we're
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: going to grow the middle class with lots of good
• 45:57
  Speaker 6: paying jobs. So let me elaborate. This bill was the
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: most monumental piece of legislation probably in decades. The whole,
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: you know, the seven bills we passed over the over
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: the summer, people have said it's the greatest Senate since
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: the Great Society.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: What did we do?
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: Well, we reduced the amount of carbon. It was the
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: greatest bill on climate change that we have ever done.
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: We reduced the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: by 40%. So people will live longer and cleaner. But
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: at the same time that we did that, we greatly
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: created millions of good new jobs, good paying jobs, because
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: people are gonna have to build the panels and install
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: the panels, whether they be wind or solar. People are
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: gonna have to lay the transmission lines. People are gonna
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: have to build the new cars. So not only did,
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: and these are jobs that have a future. When your
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: son or daughter gets a job in one of these places,
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: you say, this industry is going for a long time.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: It's not gonna be one of these things for a
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: short amount of time.
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: But climate is one of the greatest dangers we face,
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: climate change, and we did something very real and very
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: strong about it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I had a North Star.
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: Of course, there were compromises in there on climate. We
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: had a deal with Joe Manchin. But we kept a
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: North Star, 40% reduction of carbon into the atmosphere. We
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: also reduced people's costs in other ways. Prescription drugs. For
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: the first time, we went after big pharma. And insulin
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: for people on Medicare will no longer be more than $ 35.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: And after we did that, a lot of the private
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: sector followed. There'll be for the first time Medicare can
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: negotiate with the drug companies to lower costs. Vaccines are free.
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: And starting next year, it hasn't started yet. No one
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: will pay more than $ 3, 000 out of their pockets for
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: prescription drugs. Instead of these huge costs, you have a
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: kid with cancer and.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: The drug costs $ 1, 000 a month. And you say, I
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: can't afford it. What do I do?
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: That isn't going to happen anymore. Third, we did something
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: Republicans would never do. We closed some real tax loopholes.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: We made the rich pay. Every corporation that makes you
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: all hold the stories of corporations paying no taxes, that's over.
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: An amendment by Elizabeth Warren got in the bill that
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: said a corporation has a profit of over a billion dollars.
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: They're going to pay a minimum of 15%, and many
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: of them will pay more. We put a 1% tax
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: on these stock buybacks, which so many people dislike. And
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: we put a large number of new agents into the
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: IRS to go after the very wealthy who hire all
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: these lawyers and everybody else to close loopholes. And at
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: the same time, we did it in a way that
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: was reducing inflation because we put some of that money,
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: not all of it, but some of it into job reduction.
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: So this bill is going to reduce your costs and
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: create a middle class that is permanent and longstanding.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: It's a great bill.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: There's no question. on the substance. The challenge, as you
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: know better than anyone else on the politics, is that
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: not enough people know about it. A Washington Post poll
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: came out just earlier this week that showed that 7
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: in 10 Americans knew either very little or nothing about
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act. I know you've always prided yourself
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: on someone who thinks very thoughtfully about how you communicate.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: How important is it for people to know what's in
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: this bill and what's your plan for changing those numbers
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: by the time the votes come in 2024?
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: The answer to the first question is yes, it's very
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: important they know. And it's things that when they hear
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: about it, they really like it. How are we going
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: to get them to know it? One word above all, persistence.
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: It's going to take a while for this to sink in.
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: But we may not see it out there where you
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: are in California or me in New York. But in
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: the battleground states, every week, more than once a week,
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: our senators are going there and they're opening up a
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: new factory that's going to employ people in good paying
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: union jobs. They're cutting a ribbon at a new road
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: or a new bridge. They're going to a pharmacy and
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: talking about lower drug costs. And it's sinking in. It's
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: going to take persistence. But we are spending a lot
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: of time on implementation, particularly in the battleground states.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: But also in other areas as well.
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, we put in that bill, in the bipartisan
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: infrastructure bill, broadband.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: To rural areas.
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: Everywhere I go in the most rural parts of New
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: York State, and we have the third largest rural population
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: in America, people don't remember that because of New York City,
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: the local officials are amazed that we're getting broadband to
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: people for the first time.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: So it's going to take a while.
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: We're going to have to persist and persist and persist,
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: but we're spending a huge amount of time on implementation.
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: In fact, Jeff Zients as his deputy chief of staff,
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: a woman named Natalie Quillian, whose only job is implementing this.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: And it's going to sink in. Here's the analogy.
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: I remember in 2017 and 18, the Republicans passed this
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: big tax break for the wealthy. But it was hard
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: to get through at the beginning. People said, well, the
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: Republicans said, see, they're against tax cuts. They didn't say
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: they were for the wealthy. But we crafted a message,
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: Speaker Pelosi and I, and said, we're going to keep
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: at it for six months.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: We're going to stick with it. And guess what?
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: It sunk in so that by 2018 elections, they weren't
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: even going to use the tax issue and they had
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: to try to use immigration to try and win, which
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: fortunately failed. So we're going to have to persist. We're
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: going to have to implement, but it will sink in
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: because this is just what people want. And the same
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: polling data says, do you want your cost of prescription
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: drugs lower? Do you want to do something about climate change?
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: Did you want to do something to rein in the NRA,
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: which we did in the Gun Safety Act, people say,
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: oh yeah, I really care about that. And not to
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: mention the issue of choice, abortion, which is going to
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: be a very important issue as well. In the 2022 campaigns,
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: many of our candidates, Catherine Cortez Masto, Art Kelly, so
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: many of the others, used the things we did in
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: the IRA and in the chips and science bill and
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: in the infrastructure bill with great success.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: And we picked up a seat in the Senate.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Just curious tactically, and this may be the former Senate
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: press secretary in me, is that back when I was
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: working in the Senate many, many years ago, you went around,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: you were always the person that senators turn to for
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: advice on how you get press, right? You were famous
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: for that. You told many of my bosses to do
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: whole press conferences on Sunday because that's the best way
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: to get into the Monday papers. Obviously, we're in a
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: very different media environment. Is there any sort of, I
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: know you have a lot on your agenda these days,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: but any sort of like tactical advice like that, that
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you're giving your battleground senators?
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: I still have my Sunday press conference and they're very successful.
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: 70% of them produce results. And you know what they're
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: aimed at? And this is what I tell people. Aim,
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: don't get into the fights in Washington. Talk about things
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: people care about. I'll never forget my daughter when she
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: was in high school, had a concussion and went to
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: the hospital and the nurse came over to her and
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: there was her name, Alison Schumer. And they said, Schumer,
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: you related to the senator. This was a nurse from Queens.
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: And she said, yeah, it's my father. And she said,
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: you tell that man I love him. All the other
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: politicians are talking blather, but he's on TV every Sunday
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: talking about something that matters to me. Talk about things
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: that matter to people. Don't get involved in the Washington fighting,
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: et cetera. They want to know that you can do something.
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: And the one other thing I'd say is, that, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: the social media is now much more important and has
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: a much greater reach and you ignore it at your peril.
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: You know, when I got to the Congress a while back,
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: there were people who didn't believe in television. They just
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: believed in newspapers. Anyone who gets to the Congress now
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: and says it's just the regular media, the TV and
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: the newspapers is missing a point. The social media is
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: very important, but it works. And again, it's worked in
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: our campaigns very well. We've spent more than half our
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: campaign dollars, DSCC and Super PAC, on the social media side.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up the fights in Washington,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: because now I'm going to ask you about one. It's
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: not even a Sunday, so I guess we can do it.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: But Senator Tuberville's blockade of military promotions is ongoing. It's
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: causing huge problems. I know you have said it's not
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: your job to get Republican senators in line, and I
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: agree with that. But people whose job it is are
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: not doing a very good job of that, and he
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: continues to to have this blockade. We also have other
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: senators holding up State Department appointments and Pentagon appointments. And frankly,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Senator Tuberville seems pretty immune to sort of traditional forms
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: of political pressure. He seems like he really likes being
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: this hero of the MAGA right. If the Republicans cannot
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: get him in line, do you have tools at your
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: disposal or things you can do to break this blockade?
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: You know, Dan, to be honest, I'm not going to
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: shift the onus to Democrats. This was done by a
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: Republican senator. Let me tell you, if one of my
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: senators did this, he'd be in my office and he'd
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: change his mind because the leader, the Republican leader, has
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: the power to do it. Now, McConnell and Thune have
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: said this is wrong. Well, let them take some action
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: on it. Now, the pressure on them is mounting. They
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: know it's a terrible issue for them to be taking
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: women who have volunteered for our armed forces and saying
• 55:13
  Speaker 6: they can't get health care because they're in a state
• 55:16
  Speaker 6: that doesn't allow them to get proper health care, and
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: then hold up these people who have worked so hard
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: and labored for so long in our military. This is
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: an issue that is their responsibility. The pressure will mount
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: on them. And I believe that they will have to
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: come to the conclusion they cannot let Tuberville persist.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: By the standards of Washington these days, the Republicans and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Democrats have been working relatively cooperatively around funding the government,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Less is happening on the House side.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: That is a understatement.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Yes, I would say nothing is happening on
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the House side.
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: Less is too strong a word.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: What is your concern level about a possible shutdown when
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: government funding runs out in a little over a month here?
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: You know, we've had a great last six weeks in
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: the Senate as a whole. Bipartisan.
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: First, we avoided default. And now that was, I'm so
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: proud of my Democratic caucus. 45 of the 50 took
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: the tough vote, the responsible vote, and said, we are
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: not going to default. The majority of the Republican senators
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: voted to allow us to default, basically. But we held
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: the line and that was great. But we also passed
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: a defense bill. You know, if you look at the House,
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: they put all kinds of poison pills in this bill
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: about things like, you know, anti-choice and what you're allowed
• 56:32
  Speaker 6: to teach in the military and all that other stuff.
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: We had none of that, none of that in the Senate.
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: And we passed the defense bill overwhelmingly. But the most
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: amazing thing of all is the one you mentioned. Under
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: the great leadership of Patty Murray and Susan Collins, all
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: 12 appropriations bills were passed out of the Appropriations Committee
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. So the bottom line is, and
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: I've told this to Speaker McCarthy, I've said, you got
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: to follow the Senate. You can only keep the government
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: open if you work in a bipartisan way. And if
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: you're going to insist on doing it in a partisan way,
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: you'll be responsible for shutting down the government I hope
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: they see that the cooperation between the Senate Democrats and
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: the Senate Republicans as a model and go forward. Now,
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: you know, that means telling the Tea Party folks, the
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: right wing MAGA folks, Freedom Caucus, they call them now,
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: that they're not going to be allowed to shut down
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: the government and they'll have to be a bipartisan bill
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: with Democrats and Republicans in the House like the Senate.
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: In my history, The party that is demanding things before
• 57:40
  Speaker 6: the government is funded and lets the government, pushes the
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: government into default almost always loses.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. Pivoting back to the economy for
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: a second, the shutdown would certainly hurt our economic growth,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: but the economy is in a much better place right
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: now than anyone expected. Inflation is down. Unemployment remains at
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: a historic low. Fears of a recession that were pretty
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: widely expected by prognosticators have receded. But the polling does
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: not show the American people agree with that. How do
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: you plan to navigate that? Do we have to convince
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: people that the economy is better? It's always hard to
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: tell people to not believe what they're feeling. What's your
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: sort of economic messaging strategy heading into 2024?
• 58:27
  Speaker 6: Well, the strategy is first, as I've mentioned before, and
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: I won't repeat it, to focus on what we're doing.
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: The two things people want the most our data shows are,
• 58:35
  Speaker 6: get my costs down. They know that wages are going up.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: But when the costs go up and eat up, the
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: wage increase doesn't do you much good. And make sure
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: this country has a, the middle class has a future
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: in this country. Even if you're in the middle class now,
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: you doubt it. But the second thing that I would
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: say about the economy is, and I've talked to some
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: of the experts on this, including some of the polling experts,
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: it's often a lagging indicator that people look at the
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: economy six months ago and it's still in their heads today. Well,
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: if the economy continues in the good way it has,
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: inflation lower, wages up, unemployment, particularly minority unemployment, down to
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: record low levels, within a while, I think the people's
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: view of the economy will improve.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: But it's not just going to happen like that.
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: And we Democrats have to keep talking about it and
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: talking about it. I read your article or column or
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: whatever it was that calling it Bidenomics is a good
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: idea because it forces people to focus on the differences
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: between the two parties.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: I tend to agree with that.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Any lessons that you take from the victory in Ohio
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday? And how much do you plan to make
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: both the idea that if we were able to expand
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: our majority in the Senate and keep the White House
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: and take the House, that we could pass a federal
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: law on Roe and that Republicans, if they were to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: take all, could pass a national abortion ban?
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: It's a very potent issue. And lots of people in
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: the middle who have tended to vote Republican in the past.
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: This is influencing them. And it's interesting.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: It's not just college educated or more affluent or suburban people.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: A lot of poor women feel this very much themselves.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: So this is a very strong issue for us. McConnell
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: has said they want a national abortion ban. They can't
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: help themselves because the hard, hard right has such power
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: in the Republican Party, even though it's a real distinct
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: minority of the American people, probably 20 or 25 percent,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: that they're walking themselves into a cul-de-sac. And this is
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 6: going to be a very important issue. It helped us
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: in other states. But it's also something we believe. You know,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: women have a right to make their own decisions. And
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: if you're a true libertarian, which these people profess to
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: be on economic issues where they don't want to pay
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: taxes or see anything else. Well, if you're a true libertarian,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: you're pro-choice. Let each woman make her own decisions.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Senator, before I let you go, I have to ask
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: you about UFOs. You have introduced a bill. You seem
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: like you might know some stuff. I'm not going to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: ask you to reveal classified information. As recent events hold us,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I can get you into a little bit of hot
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: water these days. But just if you know anything, wink twice.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: But what led you to introduce that bill? And if
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: you want to just tell us the truth right now,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: please do.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll tell you.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: The truth is I have not read the report. I
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: have not gotten a briefing. But sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: Lots of people say they're disclosing it because they know
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: something that we don't know. Well, let them disclose it
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: and we'll all know the truth and we'll be better
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: off with the truth.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: And then I think of my dear friend, Harry Reid, you.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: Know, who would sit together and discuss this. And he
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: had a more view of UFOs and outer space intelligence
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: being more likely than I did.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: But I love talking to him about it. Okay. All right.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: We'll take that. You are neither confirming nor denying the
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: existence of UFOs.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: I'm for those sunlight. And let's see what happens. Okay.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: We agree with that.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: And by the way, that's another thing we passed in
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: the defense bill. We passed a lot of good stuff.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: Don't forget one other thing I forgot. We have this
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 6: Fendor-Fentanyl bill. That's one of the biggest problems we face.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: And I made sure that it got into the NDAA bill.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: And we'll allow the White House, the Senate, I mean,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: the president to put tough sanctions on China and Mexico,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: which is allowing this evil drug to flow into our shores.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: So there was a lot we got done.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Senator Schumer, thank you so much for joining us. It's
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: always great to talk to you.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 6: Thanks.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: Nice to talk to you, Dan. Thanks for having me on.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, thanks so much for joining today. It was so
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: much fun to do this with you. Thank you to
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. for joining the podcast. We'll
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: talk to you all next week. Bye.
• 1:02:46
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