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"The Special Master Baits Trump." · Pod Save America

0:12
Speaker 1: If you're the president of the United States, you can
0:14
Speaker 1: declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:26
Speaker 2: Just by thinking about it. Just wait, wait. It declassified. Reclassified. Reclassified. No.
0:35
Speaker 2: Declassified another one.
0:37
Speaker 4: Oftentimes when things go around on Twitter and you just
0:41
Speaker 4: see the commentary on it, the reality does not live
0:45
Speaker 4: up to the commentary. This is one of those cases
0:47
Speaker 4: where it absolutely did.
0:49
Speaker 3: Just perfection.
0:51
Speaker 4: No notes.
0:51
Speaker 3: Brilliant legal strategy.
0:53
Speaker 2: I watched it so many times last night. We're going
0:56
Speaker 2: to get to that and a whole bunch of other
0:57
Speaker 2: stuff later. On today's show, Donald Trump has an absolutely
1:01
Speaker 2: brutal day of legal news. Republicans pivot to attacking Democrats
1:04
Speaker 2: on crime. And Carlos Odio of Ekis Research joins to
1:07
Speaker 2: talk about some new research on the Latino vote in
1:11
Speaker 2: the midterms. Before we start, if you didn't already know,
1:15
Speaker 2: Love It or Leave It is recorded live at Dynasty
1:17
Speaker 2: Typewriter in Los Angeles every week. Did you know that, Dan?
1:20
Speaker 4: I did know that.
1:21
Speaker 2: Okay, good, good. Plus, tickets are now available for the
1:24
Speaker 2: Love It or Leave It live or else fall tour dates.
1:27
Speaker 2: For tickets to shows live in L.A. or to see
1:30
Speaker 2: if Love It is coming to your state. I'm looking
1:33
Speaker 2: at you, Baltimore, is what it tells me to say here,
1:35
Speaker 2: but I don't know why. Head to crooked.com slash events now.
1:39
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like there's a couple cities. I
1:41
Speaker 2: don't know why we're specifically looking at Baltimore. I'm guessing
1:43
Speaker 2: that's coming up soon. But anyway, go buy tickets. Go
1:46
Speaker 2: see Love It on tour. He's getting out of the
1:47
Speaker 2: office and hitting the road.
1:49
Speaker 4: I love it when you encounter the housekeeping for the
1:51
Speaker 4: first time as you read it. It's very Donald Trump
1:53
Speaker 4: giving a speech.
1:56
Speaker 2: And sometimes Barack Obama, let's be honest.
1:58
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure.
2:00
Speaker 2: If it's the weekly radio address, you know, what is this?
2:04
Speaker 2: That used to be a thing. Anyway, let's get to
2:06
Speaker 2: the news. We got a lot of it. America's most
2:09
Speaker 2: notorious crime family has just been accused of breaking a
2:12
Speaker 2: few more laws. Nothing too fancy like stealing nuclear secrets
2:17
Speaker 2: or a presidential election, just good old-fashioned financial fraud. On Wednesday,
2:22
Speaker 2: New York Attorney General Letitia James, a.k.a. Tish from Brooklyn, a.k.a.
2:26
Speaker 2: a friend of the pod, announced a lawsuit against Donald Trump, Ivanka,
2:30
Speaker 2: Don Jr., and Eric, big week for Tiffany, for stealing
2:34
Speaker 2: a quarter of a billion dollars from banks and insurers
2:37
Speaker 2: by lying about the true value of their company's assets.
2:41
Speaker 2: Here's a clip from the Attorney General's press conference.
2:44
Speaker 5: The pattern of fraud and deception that was used by Mr.
2:47
Speaker 5: Trump and the Trump Organization for their own financial benefit
2:50
Speaker 5: is astounding. We believe the conduct alleged in this action
2:54
Speaker 5: also violates federal criminal law, including issuing false statements to
2:59
Speaker 5: financial institutions and bank fraud. And we are referring those
3:03
Speaker 5: criminal violations that we've uncovered to the United States Attorney
3:07
Speaker 5: for the Southern District of New York and the Internal
3:11
Speaker 5: Revenue Service.
3:12
Speaker 2: Dan, is this it? Did we finally get him? Is
3:16
Speaker 2: Tish James the Bob Mueller we always wanted?
3:19
Speaker 3: A couple of thoughts here.
3:23
Speaker 4: One, I know there are lots of people who are
3:25
Speaker 4: just like, you guys got all excited with Mueller and
3:27
Speaker 4: Russia and the second, first impeachment, second impeachment.
3:30
Speaker 2: You know what? We never got excited about that. Come on.
3:34
Speaker 4: John, all of these podcasts are on the internet. Every
3:36
Speaker 4: single one of them.
3:38
Speaker 3: Everyone knows what happened.
3:40
Speaker 4: But let us just have this one moment. Just enjoy it.
3:44
Speaker 4: It was pleasurable to watch. It's good to see Donald
3:46
Speaker 4: Trump being called out for the crimes we all know
3:48
Speaker 4: he is committing.
3:49
Speaker 3: What happens next? Who knows?
3:52
Speaker 4: Second, I don't know what we have done, but the
3:54
Speaker 4: news gods have begun to smile on us. Many things happened.
4:01
Speaker 4: Important things happened from when we started working on this
4:04
Speaker 4: podcast on Tuesday evening to today. And that's the opposite
4:07
Speaker 4: of the way things happen. So that is good. And finally,
4:10
Speaker 4: if Tish James was truly a friend of the pod,
4:12
Speaker 4: she would have done this press conference in merch.
4:15
Speaker 3: Just saying.
4:18
Speaker 2: That would have been fun. That would have been, yeah.
4:21
Speaker 2: Then we would have, okay.
4:24
Speaker 4: Just lays out the crimes, takes a sip from her
4:27
Speaker 4: It's Not Great Dan tumbler and puts it down and
4:29
Speaker 4: gets back to.
4:33
Speaker 1: It.
4:33
Speaker 2: Just gulps down some crooked coffee. Okay. What do we
4:37
Speaker 2: know about what prosecutors actually need to prove here And
4:41
Speaker 2: what the consequences would be for not just Donald Trump,
4:45
Speaker 2: but the Trumps. Again, kids are involved too, which Bill
4:47
Speaker 2: Barr is very upset about. He said on Fox News,
4:49
Speaker 2: why are you dragging the kids into this? Because they're,
4:51
Speaker 2: you know, grown adults.
4:53
Speaker 3: Yes, those vulnerable 40-somethings.
4:57
Speaker 4: All they want is their privacy when they're not on
4:59
Speaker 4: Fox News or on Instagram.
5:01
Speaker 3: I think we have to put this in the.
5:02
Speaker 4: Context of the fact that the New York City District Attorney,
5:05
Speaker 4: Alvin Bragg, investigated these crimes. And for reasons that really...
5:10
Speaker 4: confuse everyone, decided not to bring charges. But what we
5:13
Speaker 4: have to understand is this is a civil case, not
5:17
Speaker 4: a criminal case, which means a couple of things. It
5:20
Speaker 4: means Donald Trump's not going to be marched off to jail.
5:23
Speaker 4: But it also means that the standard of evidence that
5:28
Speaker 4: Letitia James needs to prove is lower in this case.
5:31
Speaker 4: In a criminal case, you need beyond a reasonable doubt.
5:34
Speaker 4: In a civil case, you only need a preponderance of evidence.
5:36
Speaker 4: And so what she simply has to prove is that
5:39
Speaker 4: Donald Trump his family, his business, inflated or deflated their
5:44
Speaker 4: financial statements in order to achieve some sort of benefit.
5:47
Speaker 4: They don't even have to prove that they actually achieved
5:51
Speaker 4: those benefits, just that they tried to do it, that
5:53
Speaker 4: they attempted to defraud here. And the consequences of this are,
5:56
Speaker 4: what she is seeking is $ 250 million in damages, a
6:01
Speaker 4: permanent ban on Donald Trump and his family running a
6:04
Speaker 4: business in the state of New York, and a five-year
6:05
Speaker 4: ban on them selling commercial real estate or receiving loans
6:11
Speaker 4: for that purpose. And so this would cripple their business
6:14
Speaker 4: in the state of New York, at least, and be
6:16
Speaker 4: obviously a huge black mark, as well as a huge
6:19
Speaker 4: chunk of money that they may or may not actually
6:22
Speaker 4: have access to. And so this.
6:26
Speaker 3: Would be a very, very damaging result were it to
6:29
Speaker 3: come to that.
6:32
Speaker 2: You heard in that clip that James is also making
6:34
Speaker 2: a criminal referral to the feds You think Merrick Garland
6:38
Speaker 2: sees this referral and is like, get in line, pal.
6:43
Speaker 2: I got a lot of potential charges on this guy
6:46
Speaker 2: to figure out. He's inciting an insurrection. He's overturning the election.
6:50
Speaker 2: He's stealing nuke secrets and hiding it in his beach house.
6:54
Speaker 2: And now he's committing financial fraud. It's just a long list.
6:58
Speaker 2: It's a long list. How do you choose?
7:00
Speaker 4: I mean, I really, it's really hard if you're Merrick
7:03
Speaker 4: Garland to ever get the bottom of your Trump inbox here.
7:05
Speaker 4: It's just like every time you get through one crime,
7:07
Speaker 4: another one shows up.
7:10
Speaker 2: That seemed a lot trickier for him to just decide
7:14
Speaker 2: that no charges will be brought on any of these potential,
7:18
Speaker 2: potential criminal violations.
7:20
Speaker 3: I mean, you would think, you would hope. I mean,
7:22
Speaker 3: I mean, like these are obvious.
7:25
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you'll, It is important to understand
7:29
Speaker 4: that each of these will happen separately, right? There's one
7:33
Speaker 4: group of people who are investigating the Mar-a-Lago nuclear secrets
7:38
Speaker 4: in the pool house case who will make a recommendation
7:42
Speaker 4: to seek an indictment from the active grand jury. There
7:45
Speaker 4: is a second group of people, totally separate from that one,
7:48
Speaker 4: who will make a recommendation to Merrick Garland on whether
7:52
Speaker 4: to seek an indictment on something related to January 6th, right?
7:56
Speaker 4: Trying to interfere with the congressional proceeding, inciting violence, all
8:00
Speaker 4: of those things. And then here, this one we have
8:02
Speaker 4: to imagine is that it would just be at the,
8:04
Speaker 4: we don't know that the federal government has of yet
8:08
Speaker 4: started investigating Donald Trump for financial crimes. They may have,
8:11
Speaker 4: but if they have not, this is the very beginning
8:13
Speaker 4: of what we know is always an overly long process.
8:17
Speaker 4: And so I don't know how many– like they're not–
8:20
Speaker 4: they are connected in the political narrative. They're not necessarily
8:22
Speaker 4: connected in the legal narrative. But in terms of political
8:24
Speaker 4: pressure on the Department of Justice, which should not actually exist,
8:28
Speaker 4: it does– the consequences of not seeking in any of
8:30
Speaker 4: those cases in terms of the broader sense that Donald
8:34
Speaker 4: Trump can get away with anything is much greater every
8:36
Speaker 4: single time another case lands on Garland's.
8:39
Speaker 2: Desk, I think. Yeah. Trump, per usual, handling this like
8:45
Speaker 2: a champ. He sat down with his pal Sean Hannity
8:49
Speaker 2: Wednesday night to chat about his respect for the law
8:53
Speaker 2: and American law enforcement and also his powers of declassification.
8:59
Speaker 2: Let's let's hear a few moments from that interview.
9:01
Speaker 1: If you're the president of the United States, you can
9:04
Speaker 1: declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking about it.
9:09
Speaker 1: They've demeaned me for years with this stuff, and now
9:12
Speaker 1: they find out I have very little debt, very, very little,
9:15
Speaker 1: a lot of cash, we have a great company, and
9:17
Speaker 1: we have among the best assets anywhere in the world.
9:21
Speaker 1: You mentioned the word prosecute. I don't think prosecute. I
9:23
Speaker 1: don't think this is prosecutable. The FBI coming and raiding Mar-a-Lago.
9:29
Speaker 1: Were they looking for the Hillary Clinton emails that were deleted,
9:32
Speaker 1: but they are around someplace? Were they looking for the spy?
9:37
Speaker 2: No, no.
9:37
Speaker 1: They may be saying they may have thought that.
9:40
Speaker 2: It was in there. That's it. That's it. Connect the
9:43
Speaker 2: fucking dots, Dan. They went to Mar-a-Lago looking for Hillary's emails.
9:49
Speaker 3: I mean, that server could be anywhere.
9:52
Speaker 1: Anywhere.
9:53
Speaker 2: They weren't... These weren't my classified documents. Look, I declassified
9:57
Speaker 2: everything just by blinking my eyes. Declassified everything. So it
10:04
Speaker 2: couldn't have been my shit. It had to have been
10:05
Speaker 2: Hillary's emails, which I don't know how they got in
10:07
Speaker 2: the boxes. Who put them in the boxes? Someone put
10:09
Speaker 2: them in the boxes. It wasn't me. I don't know.
10:11
Speaker 2: Many people are saying other people. At one point he
10:13
Speaker 2: calls the people at the National Archives, radical leftists. I know.
10:18
Speaker 4: Which he doesn't even say National Archives. He just says NARA, right?
10:21
Speaker 2: NARA, yeah. He's like, everyone knows they're radical leftists. And
10:25
Speaker 2: then he also accused the FBI of planting, we're back
10:29
Speaker 2: to the planting evidence excuse because declassification isn't working. And
10:33
Speaker 2: Hannity's like, well, if they did plant this evidence, it's
10:37
Speaker 2: got to be on tape, right? Because he said there's
10:39
Speaker 2: surveillance footage. And he goes, No, no. It's in another room.
10:44
Speaker 4: The best part in my view, and there are no
10:47
Speaker 4: bad answers for the question of what's the best part
10:49
Speaker 4: because it is all great. But when he's like, prosecute.
10:53
Speaker 4: You said prosecute. I didn't say prosecute.
10:54
Speaker 3: Who said prosecute?
10:55
Speaker 4: Did someone say prosecute to you?
10:56
Speaker 3: I haven't heard anything about prosecute.
10:58
Speaker 4: Just so– Like very clearly, just a wee bit apprehensive
11:03
Speaker 4: about where this whole thing may be headed.
11:05
Speaker 2: Guilty? I'm guilty? Who said I'm guilty? Did you hear
11:08
Speaker 2: that from somebody?
11:08
Speaker 3: You've been talking to Garland? All right.
11:12
Speaker 2: I want you to know that I'm screaming inside as
11:14
Speaker 2: I ask this question, but do you think there will
11:15
Speaker 2: be any political consequences for the Republican frontrunner potentially committing
11:20
Speaker 2: bank fraud? Or stealing nuclear secrets? Or obstructing the investigation
11:27
Speaker 2: into his theft of nuclear secrets? Or overturning the election?
11:31
Speaker 2: Or inciting a violent insurrection? Any of it? Any of it?
11:34
Speaker 4: Do you want me to give you the answer you
11:36
Speaker 4: want to hear or the answer you need to hear?
11:38
Speaker 2: I'm a need-to-hear kind of guy, Dan. I mean.
11:46
Speaker 1: No.
11:46
Speaker 2: I don't need to be affirmed. I don't need to
11:51
Speaker 2: live in my fantasy world here with my bobblehead dolls
11:54
Speaker 2: and my Fauci votive candle.
11:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, just download your latest episode of Pod Save America
12:00
Speaker 4: and get back on Twitter. Now, look, in all seriousness,
12:06
Speaker 4: we have to understand that political accountability in a highly
12:11
Speaker 4: polarized country happens on the margins. There's not a world
12:14
Speaker 4: where we're just like one guilty verdict, one new story,
12:19
Speaker 4: one new allegation, one new embarrassing Trump gaffe from a
12:22
Speaker 4: bunch of people taking off their MAGA hats and burning them.
12:26
Speaker 4: That's not just what is going to happen. We are
12:28
Speaker 4: seeing political accountability for Trump happen over the course of
12:33
Speaker 4: time here. It has happened as Trump has reemerged on
12:35
Speaker 4: the political scene. It's happened with all of the allegations
12:39
Speaker 4: and revelations about January 6th and his role in it.
12:42
Speaker 4: It's happening with the Mar-a-Lago case, this is going to contribute.
12:46
Speaker 4: You're seeing Donald Trump's favorable ratings among Republican voters are down.
12:51
Speaker 4: Are they down as much as common sense, logic, and
12:53
Speaker 4: morality would suggest they should be?
12:54
Speaker 3: Of course not.
12:55
Speaker 4: But with every passing day, there are more and more
12:59
Speaker 4: people who have previously supported Trump who are less on
13:02
Speaker 4: board with him running for president again. And the longer
13:06
Speaker 4: he stays in the news, the greater opportunity Democrats have
13:10
Speaker 4: to deliver accountability. Because ultimately, we said this back 2018,
13:14
Speaker 4: we said in 2020, it's not going to be Bob
13:17
Speaker 4: Mueller or Mitt Romney or Letitia James who makes Trump
13:20
Speaker 4: pay a political price for his legal wrongdoing. It's going
13:24
Speaker 4: to be all of us. If we volunteer, vote, turn out,
13:29
Speaker 4: organize like we did in 2017, 2018, 2020, and upend
13:34
Speaker 4: historical trends, that will deliver potentially, potentially a Devastating political
13:41
Speaker 4: blow to Trump's chance to ever lead the Republican Party
13:44
Speaker 4: or run for president again.
13:46
Speaker 2: Counterpoint from Politico, headline today, why Trump's legal woes only
13:51
Speaker 2: make him stronger. I know, I know we're not playing
14:00
Speaker 2: take appreciator today, but there's just this, you know, look,
14:04
Speaker 2: we named, we named our rating system after this publication.
14:08
Speaker 2: So of course, If they would offer us a take
14:11
Speaker 2: that is just the garbage take of all takes from Politico.
14:18
Speaker 2: Full playbook. We've been trolled. It's a West Wing playbook.
14:21
Speaker 2: It's even worse than a full playbook.
14:24
Speaker 4: When Politico first emerged on the scene back in 2007,
14:29
Speaker 4: I think, is when they decided– when the devil spawned
14:32
Speaker 4: this publication– Um.
14:34
Speaker 2: Before, before it was purchased and controlled by a right-wing German.
14:38
Speaker 3: Yes. It was only owned and controlled by, uh.
14:42
Speaker 2: The innovation party, the head of the innovation party.
14:46
Speaker 3: Yes.
14:47
Speaker 4: The campaign manager to the Zuckerberg Mattis ticket of 2020.
14:50
Speaker 2: Um, that is jokes for like 10 people.
14:53
Speaker 4: And seven of them are either in the studio or
14:58
Speaker 4: hosting this podcast right now. Um, But there was a
15:02
Speaker 4: truth about Politico that people who worked there would tell you,
15:06
Speaker 4: which is they wrote a lot, oftentimes, not always. And
15:08
Speaker 4: there was good journalism that happened periodically. But a lot
15:11
Speaker 4: of times they wrote their headlines in the attempt to
15:15
Speaker 4: try to get Matt Drudge to link them because that
15:18
Speaker 4: would be a massive traffic driver. More traffic equals more money.
15:22
Speaker 3: It was a startup.
15:23
Speaker 4: They needed to show relevance and business success really quickly.
15:27
Speaker 4: The 2022 version of that are trolly headlines like this.
15:31
Speaker 4: that engender liberal rage on Twitter and, frankly, even mentions
15:35
Speaker 4: on this podcast. So in some ways, we are.
15:37
Speaker 2: Mission accomplished.
15:38
Speaker 3: Mission accomplished, Politico.
15:40
Speaker 2: You did it.
15:41
Speaker 4: We are cathartically raging about stupidity, but we are also
15:44
Speaker 4: somehow perversely enriching the right-wing billionaire who owns Politico.
15:53
Speaker 2: I'll make a serious point.
15:54
Speaker 3: Please do. Please do.
15:56
Speaker 2: In terms of the political effect of all of this,
15:59
Speaker 2: I do think that Your average voter doesn't think highly
16:04
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump anyway. His approval ratings, like you said,
16:06
Speaker 2: are shit. Does the Republican base love him? Yes. Do
16:10
Speaker 2: Republican voters love him as much as they used to?
16:12
Speaker 2: There's evidence that maybe not as much, but he's still
16:14
Speaker 2: got his base, of course. But how are you going
16:17
Speaker 2: to get an average voter to care about any of
16:18
Speaker 2: this stuff? And I think it is, you know, to
16:21
Speaker 2: the extent that Trump's crimes somehow affect people's lives. that's
16:26
Speaker 2: sort of the narrative that you've got to weave together.
16:30
Speaker 2: And you heard Tish James do that during the press conference.
16:33
Speaker 2: At one point, she said, Trump's crimes are not victimless.
16:36
Speaker 2: When the well-connected and powerful break the law to get
16:38
Speaker 2: more money than they're entitled to, it reduces resources available
16:41
Speaker 2: to working people, small businesses, and taxpayers. Basically making the
16:45
Speaker 2: argument that like, because Trump's saying, oh, we care about
16:47
Speaker 2: these banks. These banks gave me the loans anyway, and
16:50
Speaker 2: then they got paid back. So it's the, why are
16:52
Speaker 2: you so upset about these banks? You know, they're the
16:54
Speaker 2: banks and insurers. And The point she's making is, no, actually,
16:58
Speaker 2: when you steal half a quarter of a billion dollars
17:01
Speaker 2: from banks and insurance companies, that means that average people
17:05
Speaker 2: end up paying the price. And I do think as
17:07
Speaker 2: we talk about Trump's potential crimes, whether it's overturning the election,
17:11
Speaker 2: whether it's this, whether it's jeopardizing our national security because
17:15
Speaker 2: he's stashing secrets in his pool house, we have to
17:18
Speaker 2: talk about the effect that this criminality has on either
17:23
Speaker 2: the security of the country or average people. That's my
17:28
Speaker 2: best go at trying to get average people to care
17:31
Speaker 2: about Trump's law breaking.
17:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that it's always about him. And this
17:39
Speaker 4: validates that case. And that's an easier case to make
17:43
Speaker 4: post-2020 when his entire existence seems to be about re-litigating
17:48
Speaker 4: an election that happened two years ago than it was
17:51
Speaker 4: in 2016. But like this is one more example of pure, selfish,
17:57
Speaker 4: narcissistic grift.
17:58
Speaker 3: He cares about himself.
17:59
Speaker 4: He cares about his rich friends.
18:00
Speaker 3: He doesn't care about you.
18:11
Speaker 2: So as we mentioned, Donald Trump is facing multiple criminal investigations,
18:14
Speaker 2: none of which seem to be going all that well
18:16
Speaker 2: for him right now. Hours after Trump was accused of
18:18
Speaker 2: financial fraud, a three judge federal appeals court that included
18:22
Speaker 2: two Trump appointees ruled unanimously that he can't actually keep
18:27
Speaker 2: the classified secrets the FBI retrieved from his beach house
18:31
Speaker 2: and that the government may continue to use those documents
18:34
Speaker 2: as evidence in their criminal investigation of the former president.
18:38
Speaker 2: This came after the special master that Trump's crack legal
18:41
Speaker 2: team nominated to review the Mar-a-Lago documents, Judge Raymond Deary,
18:45
Speaker 2: accused Trump's lawyers of wanting to, quote, have their cake
18:48
Speaker 2: and eat it during a hearing where you might say
18:51
Speaker 2: the special masturbated the former president's legal team.
18:55
Speaker 4: Oh, come on.
18:57
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
19:02
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. I'm a 15-year-old.
19:05
Speaker 3: I mean, not even.
19:07
Speaker 2: I was wondering when I read it, I'm like, I
19:10
Speaker 2: wonder if he'll notice it or if I can just
19:12
Speaker 2: go right through. I, but you noticed, you noticed it. Yeah.
19:17
Speaker 4: I mean, I do oftentimes at least listen to you.
19:20
Speaker 3: Um, I'm not holding my phone when we do this.
19:23
Speaker 4: So it's like, it's really, this is about as focused
19:25
Speaker 4: as I am when I hit any given hour and
19:26
Speaker 4: a half of a week, but yeah, that's great.
19:29
Speaker 3: I assume we're keeping that in, right?
19:30
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean, have to, is it going to
19:33
Speaker 2: be in the title? Well, it remains to be seen.
19:36
Speaker 2: Remains to be seen.
19:37
Speaker 3: Okay.
19:38
Speaker 2: Um, baited the former president's legal team into admitting they
19:41
Speaker 2: have no evidence that Donald Trump ever declassified any of
19:45
Speaker 2: the state secrets he stole, whereas the government provided evidence
19:49
Speaker 2: of classification. by marking the documents classified turns turns out
19:54
Speaker 2: that's all you needed to do deary then said as
19:57
Speaker 2: far as i'm concerned that's the end of it the
20:01
Speaker 2: 11th circuit court of appeals agreed again it was a
20:05
Speaker 2: panel of three judges two of them appointed by trump
20:08
Speaker 2: they said uh The classified documents cannot be part of
20:11
Speaker 2: the special master's review. The government can use them to
20:14
Speaker 2: continue their criminal investigation. They basically just ran roughshod over
20:19
Speaker 2: Judge Eileen Cannon's original opinion, slapped it down, and then
20:24
Speaker 2: Cannon today updated her order. And now the classified documents
20:29
Speaker 2: can be part of the criminal investigation and the criminal
20:31
Speaker 2: investigation moves on. Dan, what do you make of the
20:34
Speaker 2: fact that Trump's handpicked special master and two Trump appointed
20:38
Speaker 2: judges chose the law over Donald Trump.
20:42
Speaker 3: Two points.
20:43
Speaker 4: One, this shows the peril of pre-recording an interview because
20:47
Speaker 4: Trump did that Hannity interview earlier in the day.
20:49
Speaker 6: And in it.
20:51
Speaker 4: He had a very long– his defense of himself in
20:56
Speaker 4: this case was an attack on the original judge who
21:00
Speaker 4: signed the search warrant and talked about him as a
21:03
Speaker 4: Trump hater, said that the judge signed the search warrant
21:05
Speaker 4: because He hates lower taxes and good education.
21:09
Speaker 2: That's what he said.
21:12
Speaker 4: And then– but that interview aired after two Trump judges
21:16
Speaker 4: who are presumably not Trump haters and probably lovers of
21:19
Speaker 4: lower taxes and good education, I guess, like the fucking
21:21
Speaker 4: rest of us, had just eviscerated the decision from Judge Kahn.
21:26
Speaker 4: So that was just sort of fun to watch in
21:29
Speaker 4: real time. It's one of the rare times in watching
21:31
Speaker 4: Hannity as fun. Second, I think this is just a
21:36
Speaker 4: very– like it's so obvious. It's like it's good to
21:40
Speaker 4: know that we can return to some sense of common
21:42
Speaker 4: sense logic, basic jurisprudence here where it's like, of course,
21:48
Speaker 4: if you cannot even dare try to offer a defense
21:52
Speaker 4: that they are declassified, those have to go back. The
21:56
Speaker 4: original thing made no sense. We're like we're back to
21:58
Speaker 4: normal course of business here.
22:00
Speaker 3: And that's great.
22:02
Speaker 2: I realize this is not the legal podcast at Crooked
22:05
Speaker 2: Media and we are not lawyers, but it is worth
22:08
Speaker 2: reading the 11th Circuit's ruling. It's just like plaintiff suggests
22:15
Speaker 2: that he may have declassified these documents when he was president,
22:18
Speaker 2: but the record contains no evidence that any of these
22:20
Speaker 2: records were declassified. And before the special master plaintiff resisted
22:23
Speaker 2: providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents.
22:27
Speaker 2: In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification
22:31
Speaker 2: argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document
22:35
Speaker 2: would not change its content or render it personal, which
22:38
Speaker 2: is basically like, yeah, the declassification argument is fucked, but
22:41
Speaker 2: that aside, you still don't get to keep the fucking documents, man.
22:46
Speaker 2: You don't get to keep them. They're not yours. It
22:49
Speaker 2: is not a souvenir box of White House M &
22:52
Speaker 2: Ms that you walk out the door with. It's state secrets.
22:57
Speaker 4: I would just like to update something. While you were talking,
23:00
Speaker 4: I imagined myself going to law school and passing the bar.
23:03
Speaker 3: So I am now, I'm a liar.
23:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do it with your mind, just like declassifying.
23:09
Speaker 2: I just classified something. Why do you think they picked
23:13
Speaker 2: Deary in the first place? Like he was on the
23:15
Speaker 2: Trump list.
23:16
Speaker 3: This is so good.
23:17
Speaker 4: It's so good because Trump has, it's important, you sort
23:21
Speaker 4: of have to take a step back because Trump's legal
23:25
Speaker 4: strategy is being- spearheaded by a guy named Boris Epstein,
23:31
Speaker 4: who was fired from the Trump White House for incompetence
23:33
Speaker 4: in like 60 days.
23:35
Speaker 3: Into the administration.
23:36
Speaker 2: Which is a really high bar.
23:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
23:38
Speaker 4: He is just a moron. He's an absolute moron. But
23:43
Speaker 4: he's so dumb that he is willing to entertain Trump's
23:47
Speaker 4: insanity here. But they did actually hire a real attorney
23:51
Speaker 4: to handle this, a guy who was the Solicitor General
23:53
Speaker 4: of Florida. I think I read somewhere on Twitter, so
23:55
Speaker 4: it's definitely true that they basically had to give him
23:56
Speaker 4: $ 3 million in a down payment to do it, which
23:59
Speaker 4: is probably going in his bail fund, his future bail fund.
24:03
Speaker 2: I'd make sure I'd get paid up front there. That's right.
24:05
Speaker 4: I'm sure he didn't get a check. It's probably in cash, right?
24:10
Speaker 4: So they had to find someone who was, because of
24:15
Speaker 4: this real attorney, who was quasi-credible, who would not be
24:19
Speaker 4: embarrassing to offer to the court, who could possibly get chosen.
24:24
Speaker 4: They couldn't offer former Judge Jeanine Pirro. That was not
24:28
Speaker 4: a legitimate offer, although I'm sure Trump pushed for that
24:31
Speaker 4: for three consecutive hours in a meeting. And so they
24:34
Speaker 4: eventually landed on this guy, Deary. And the logic is
24:39
Speaker 4: so Fox News brainworms is that the reason they thought
24:43
Speaker 4: he would be pro-Trump was that he sat on the
24:46
Speaker 4: FISA court. And this is like one of the great
24:50
Speaker 4: talking points of Trump defense in the Russia investigation is
24:54
Speaker 4: that there was an instance where an FBI agent may
24:57
Speaker 4: not have been honest with a FISA judge in order
25:00
Speaker 4: to get the Carter Page warrant. And therefore, because this guy,
25:04
Speaker 4: he was not the FISA judge, he was just a
25:06
Speaker 4: FISA judge, would therefore be anti-FBI and therefore take a
25:11
Speaker 4: tough stance against the FBI. That is how they ended
25:14
Speaker 4: up with this guy. Can't see how this plan did
25:17
Speaker 4: not work.
25:20
Speaker 2: Like so it is so Fox News brain worms because
25:24
Speaker 2: like Trump's trying to explain it to Hannity last night
25:27
Speaker 2: and I'm listening to it I was like I can't
25:29
Speaker 2: there's no like even Hannity couldn't follow the logic of
25:32
Speaker 2: the argument which is how you know it's really bad
25:35
Speaker 2: so it seems like Trump could be in some trouble
25:37
Speaker 2: now look the only option he has now is to
25:39
Speaker 2: appeal it to the Supreme Court of course we don't
25:42
Speaker 2: know what the Supreme Court's gonna do but like you
25:44
Speaker 2: know what you had two Trump judges on the appeals
25:46
Speaker 2: court like I'm sure it's Trump could get himself a
25:49
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas to go along with Eileen Cannon's argument. Maybe
25:53
Speaker 2: he gets himself an Alito. I just don't think he's
25:57
Speaker 2: getting a majority at the Supreme Court on this one.
26:00
Speaker 3: Okay.
26:02
Speaker 2: I'm going to predict that. I'm predicting it.
26:04
Speaker 4: Elijah, if you're listening right now, the headline on the
26:08
Speaker 4: tweet about this clip is John puts his trust in
26:13
Speaker 4: Brett Kavanaugh.
26:14
Speaker 2: That's it. Yes. So just– Me and squee. So that's it.
26:22
Speaker 2: But anyway, anyway, so the government moves forward in their
26:25
Speaker 2: criminal investigation for now. We shall see. All right, Dan,
26:28
Speaker 2: as we all know, the best segues are the ones
26:30
Speaker 2: that you have to announce. So here goes. With less
26:33
Speaker 2: than two months until Election Day, the party whose presidential
26:35
Speaker 2: frontrunner has been accused of breaking multiple laws is now
26:38
Speaker 2: trying to portray Democratic candidates as soft on crime. How's that?
26:44
Speaker 4: I would say that there are times when we do
26:46
Speaker 4: this podcast, when I'm reminded of the fact that you
26:49
Speaker 4: are one of the great speech writers of your generation,
26:51
Speaker 4: because I suggested landing on that one. You a hundred
26:55
Speaker 4: percent did. We, I suggested we do this segment with
26:59
Speaker 4: an awkward segue. And then I wrote an awkward segue
27:01
Speaker 4: joke and then you just crushed it.
27:03
Speaker 2: I just punched it up.
27:04
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just like, I know that I have.
27:06
Speaker 4: Stumbled ass backwards into a career in writing.
27:09
Speaker 3: Um, I wrote books.
27:11
Speaker 4: Subscribe to messagebox.substack.com.
27:13
Speaker 3: But you are like our true writer, and that was
27:15
Speaker 3: evident in that segue.
27:18
Speaker 2: Look, I write a couple segues a week, and that's it.
27:22
Speaker 2: You write message boxes and books. I write a couple
27:24
Speaker 2: segues a week. That's all you get from me. A
27:26
Speaker 2: few tweets, maybe a few tweets. A few emails, just
27:28
Speaker 2: a few.
27:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, very few emails. A couple texts.
27:31
Speaker 2: Very few emails. According to CNN, Republicans have so far
27:34
Speaker 2: spent $ 9 million on negative ads about crime. Here's one
27:38
Speaker 2: that they're running in Wisconsin against Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes.
27:42
Speaker 7: What kind of Democrat is Mandela Barnes? He's a defund
27:45
Speaker 7: the police Democrat.
27:46
Speaker 2: It's about reallocating funds.
27:48
Speaker 6: Catch that.
27:49
Speaker 7: He's talking about defunding the police. Now murder is up
27:53
Speaker 7: in Milwaukee 40 percent. Mandela Barnes, a dangerous Democrat.
27:58
Speaker 2: All right. So Mandela Barnes especially has had a ton
28:01
Speaker 2: of money dumped on this race against him by Republicans.
28:06
Speaker 2: He was he had sort of a narrow lead in
28:08
Speaker 2: the polls. Some of the most recent polls show Ron Johnson,
28:12
Speaker 2: America's dumbest senator, retaking that lead. Potentially, these ads have
28:18
Speaker 2: had an effect. How do you think Democrats should handle
28:22
Speaker 2: ads like these and more broadly, the crime attack from
28:26
Speaker 2: Republicans now that they've gone from gas prices to inflation
28:31
Speaker 2: to immigration to crime now they've landed on crime?
28:34
Speaker 3: It always, always ends on crime. Every time.
28:38
Speaker 4: And the power of that, of the crime attack, is
28:41
Speaker 4: always somewhat dependent on the salience of crime as an
28:44
Speaker 4: issue in people's real lives. And it is higher now
28:47
Speaker 4: than it has been in a long time. This ad
28:50
Speaker 4: scares the shit out of me. There is a similar
28:52
Speaker 4: one running against John Fetterman.
28:55
Speaker 3: In Pennsylvania. They're popping up everywhere.
28:59
Speaker 4: And what's happening here is Democrats have used, successfully, and correctly,
29:05
Speaker 4: abortion to define Republicans as out of the mainstream of
29:10
Speaker 4: American values, as too extreme to be trusted with power.
29:13
Speaker 4: Because if you are someone who supports these extreme positions
29:16
Speaker 4: on abortion, you are also someone who can't be trusted,
29:19
Speaker 4: not just on abortion, but on Social Security, Medicare, peaceful
29:22
Speaker 4: transition of power, everything else. And Republicans are responding by
29:27
Speaker 4: trying to use crime to do the same thing. And
29:30
Speaker 4: the reason why crime is powerful is abortion as an
29:33
Speaker 4: issue has been very effective for Democrats because it unites
29:36
Speaker 4: our base and divides theirs. Crime unites their base and
29:40
Speaker 4: divides ours. And they're trying to shift the tone there.
29:42
Speaker 4: And so it's very, very worrisome. And I think as
29:45
Speaker 4: Democrats think about how to respond to it, it's very challenging, right?
29:48
Speaker 4: You have to respond to these ads without repeating the
29:52
Speaker 4: attack by just.
29:53
Speaker 3: Going out and saying, I don't support defund the police.
29:54
Speaker 3: Who said defund the police?
29:57
Speaker 4: Just repeating the attack, as our friend Anat Shankar always says,
30:00
Speaker 4: is a huge mistake. You don't want to validate the
30:02
Speaker 4: legitimacy of the argument. You also have to recognize what
30:05
Speaker 4: this is. It is not about crime. Not that crime
30:09
Speaker 4: isn't a real issue a lot of voters care about.
30:11
Speaker 4: In Republican advertising, more often than not, crime is a
30:15
Speaker 4: proxy for race. It is a way, just as immigration
30:19
Speaker 4: and border caravans and terrorism was under Bush, it is
30:22
Speaker 4: a way to scare the living shit out of white people.
30:27
Speaker 4: to try to get some of those Biden Republicans, more
30:33
Speaker 4: conservative or moderate-leaning independents who are almost all white to
30:39
Speaker 4: stick with Republicans. And you have to understand that's what's
30:43
Speaker 4: happening because you have to define your response in a
30:45
Speaker 4: way that understands what the underlying strategic objective of the
30:48
Speaker 4: other side is. And so I think the way to
30:51
Speaker 4: respond to this is first, and this is something we've
30:53
Speaker 4: said on this podcast a number of times, it's a
30:55
Speaker 4: lesson learned. that Obama always taught us, is when Republicans
30:58
Speaker 4: do things like this, they're trying to bait you into
31:01
Speaker 4: their issues, is you don't play their game, you call
31:03
Speaker 4: out their game. So the response here, I think, is to,
31:06
Speaker 4: you have to defend yourself. You have to state your record,
31:08
Speaker 4: your support for well-trained, accountable policing, for crime prevention programs,
31:15
Speaker 4: and then pivot to calling out why Republicans are making
31:18
Speaker 4: this attack. What are they trying to distract from? What
31:20
Speaker 4: are they trying to achieve? Why are they trying to
31:22
Speaker 4: divide us? It's going to be slightly different for each candidate.
31:26
Speaker 4: We should be just perfectly honest that because race is
31:29
Speaker 4: the undertones here, black and brown candidates across the country
31:32
Speaker 4: are always more vulnerable to these attacks. We saw them
31:35
Speaker 4: on Gillum in Florida. We've seen them on Abrams. There's
31:38
Speaker 4: a reason they're doing this so explicitly on Mandela Barnes.
31:42
Speaker 4: But that is sort of the basic approach I think
31:45
Speaker 4: we need to take. But you have to hit back
31:47
Speaker 4: fast and you have to hit back hard.
31:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think you can argue whether the salience
31:55
Speaker 2: of crime as an issue is due to an actual
31:59
Speaker 2: rise in violent crime in many places across the country
32:03
Speaker 2: or some combination of the media and Republicans scaring the
32:07
Speaker 2: shit out of people about crime because that's sort of
32:11
Speaker 2: what happens. You can argue back and forth. It's both.
32:14
Speaker 2: It's both. Right. But the reality is there's a good
32:18
Speaker 2: number of people in this country who who are now
32:21
Speaker 2: worried that crime is on the rise. That's just the truth.
32:25
Speaker 2: So I did all these focus groups for the wilderness,
32:29
Speaker 2: and I start off by asking people, unlike a poll
32:33
Speaker 2: where you give them a list of issues, just like,
32:35
Speaker 2: what are the issues affecting you and your community? And
32:39
Speaker 2: in every single group, across demographics, every place I went, inflation, inflation, housing,
32:44
Speaker 2: cost of living is like top of the list. What
32:46
Speaker 2: was interesting is my last focus group was in Atlanta,
32:50
Speaker 2: It was with young black voters in their 20s and
32:54
Speaker 2: 30s who had all voted for Joe Biden and are
32:56
Speaker 2: now sort of not sure what they're going to do,
32:58
Speaker 2: whether they're going to vote, who they're going to vote for.
33:01
Speaker 2: And I asked about what issues matter most to you.
33:05
Speaker 2: And housing did come up. Let's say Atlanta's too expensive,
33:08
Speaker 2: Atlanta's too expensive. And then almost, I don't know, half
33:11
Speaker 2: the group, a little more than half the group said crime,
33:13
Speaker 2: gun violence. And in fact, then when I asked about
33:18
Speaker 2: Brian Kemp, they all think Brian Kemp sucked. When I
33:21
Speaker 2: asked about Stacey Abrams, they're like, I want to hear
33:23
Speaker 2: more about her plans. And a couple people said, I
33:26
Speaker 2: heard she was for defunding the police. I can't be
33:31
Speaker 2: for that. And she's not, for the record. And she's not,
33:36
Speaker 2: of course. But, you know, you are absolutely correct that
33:41
Speaker 2: Republicans racialize this issue, and it has been for decades
33:46
Speaker 2: in this country. But it is also true that right
33:49
Speaker 2: now in cities across the country, people are worried about
33:53
Speaker 2: crime across racial lines. And I do think that's why,
33:58
Speaker 2: you know, Data for Progress did a bunch of message
34:01
Speaker 2: testing that you sent me this morning. And they tested
34:04
Speaker 2: all kinds of messages about crime and a whole bunch
34:07
Speaker 2: of other topics as well. And that's the most popular message.
34:11
Speaker 2: What for Dems is we need to be tough on crime,
34:14
Speaker 2: but we also need to be smart about it. We
34:15
Speaker 2: need to invest in programs proven to reduce crime like
34:18
Speaker 2: community policing and after school programs. There's even a message
34:21
Speaker 2: about the root causes of crime that was very popular
34:24
Speaker 2: and worked for Dems. We need to address the root
34:26
Speaker 2: causes of crime. If we want to make communities safer,
34:28
Speaker 2: investing in education, good jobs, social services, affordable housing will
34:32
Speaker 2: help reduce crime. Talking about well-trained, accountable policing works. And then,
34:37
Speaker 2: of course, there was a message about defund that they
34:39
Speaker 2: tested that was We need to defund the police and
34:42
Speaker 2: make sure that money goes back into the communities that
34:44
Speaker 2: need it. We have to end the militarization of police
34:46
Speaker 2: and stop racial profiling. Throwing money at the problem will
34:48
Speaker 2: not solve it. That message performed in the bottom 1%
34:52
Speaker 2: of all 3,000 plus messages tested on every single topic.
34:57
Speaker 2: Just to level set on the efficacy of the defund message.
35:03
Speaker 2: So that's the reality that's out there.
35:06
Speaker 4: One other thing, I want to dent into what I
35:07
Speaker 4: said before. In the response, Democrats should not shy away
35:11
Speaker 4: from pressing the case on popular gun safety laws like
35:14
Speaker 4: assault weapon bans and universal background checks in this case.
35:17
Speaker 3: Too often, we.
35:18
Speaker 4: Sort of think– we overthink guns as a powerful political
35:23
Speaker 4: issue and we're sort of like, what about the people
35:25
Speaker 4: in the rural areas here? But on those issues, even
35:28
Speaker 4: in those parts of the state, there is large majority
35:31
Speaker 4: support for them. And so in our– in the counterpunch,
35:34
Speaker 4: we should be hitting Republicans for, among other things– not
35:38
Speaker 4: doing anything to take guns out of the hands of
35:41
Speaker 4: criminals or keep guns off the street or ban weapons
35:43
Speaker 4: of war in our schools or things like that, like that,
35:45
Speaker 4: that absolutely has to be part of it. And it
35:48
Speaker 4: undergirds the larger argument that Republicans are incredibly extreme.
35:53
Speaker 2: Yes. And I don't think you people should, Democrats should
35:56
Speaker 2: shy away from demanding accountability in policing, right? Like people
36:01
Speaker 2: want accountable police officers. People want well-trained police officers. They're
36:04
Speaker 2: going to actually focus on violent crime. and not police
36:08
Speaker 2: officers who abuse their power, right? Like that is a
36:11
Speaker 2: popular position, but they do want public safety. They do
36:15
Speaker 2: want community safety. And they're willing to say that to
36:18
Speaker 2: get community safety, you don't just need policing. You need
36:20
Speaker 2: mental health services. You need social services. They're totally willing
36:23
Speaker 2: to believe that. That's what people want, but you need
36:25
Speaker 2: to have both. So here's the deal. Republicans are spending
36:28
Speaker 2: so much money on these negative ads in Wisconsin and
36:32
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania against Mandela Barnes, against John Fetterman, Because they're
36:36
Speaker 2: really worried about losing these two Republican seats. They're the
36:39
Speaker 2: most flippable seats that we have right now that our
36:42
Speaker 2: best chance to get a anti filibuster pro-choice majority in
36:47
Speaker 2: the Senate. And so Democrats really need to fight back.
36:51
Speaker 2: So for the next week, our Senate fund at Vote
36:54
Speaker 2: Save America will be dedicated to flipping Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
36:59
Speaker 2: The VSA community has already stepped up big. and helped
37:02
Speaker 2: raise over $ 100, 000 each for the Democratic incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada,
37:06
Speaker 2: and New Hampshire, as well as a bunch of other
37:08
Speaker 2: competitive races. But just for right now, we're going to
37:11
Speaker 2: focus on helping Mandela Barnes and John Fetterman finish strong.
37:14
Speaker 2: So if you head to votesaveamerica.com slash Senate and chip
37:18
Speaker 2: in today, you can support those two campaigns so they
37:21
Speaker 2: can fight back against a lot of these ads, and
37:23
Speaker 2: they could be our path to, again, a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
37:28
Speaker 2: All right, when we come back, Dan will talk to
37:30
Speaker 2: Carlos Odio from Eckie's Research.
37:42
Speaker 4: This week, Eckie's Research issued a new memo about Latino
37:45
Speaker 4: voters left in limbo. Here to talk about the memo
37:47
Speaker 4: and how Democrats can persuade Latino voters is Eckie's Research co-founder,
37:50
Speaker 4: Carlos Odio. Carlos, great to see you.
37:53
Speaker 6: Dan, thanks for having me on.
37:54
Speaker 2: Good to see you too.
37:56
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
37:56
Speaker 4: So, Tell us about your memo, what you found, and
37:59
Speaker 4: what the status of Latino vote is right now as
38:01
Speaker 4: we are, whatever it is, 50 days away from the midterms.
38:03
Speaker 7: Sure.
38:04
Speaker 6: Well, look, as you know, there was actually a shift
38:07
Speaker 6: in Latino vote from 2016 to 2020, where if Trump
38:12
Speaker 6: got 3 in 10 Latino voters in 2016, he got
38:15
Speaker 6: closer to 4 in 10 in 2020. And the question
38:17
Speaker 6: everyone had was, will that trend continue? Would it get
38:21
Speaker 6: worse for Democrats? Would it return to kind of pre-2016 levels?
38:25
Speaker 6: Or would it kind of stay the same? And the
38:28
Speaker 6: real kind of unsatisfactory answer is that we don't quite
38:31
Speaker 6: know yet. What our polling suggests, and looking at a
38:34
Speaker 6: lot of different data, including our own polling and 16,000
38:38
Speaker 6: interviews in 10 states, is things haven't gotten worse for
38:43
Speaker 6: Democrats among Latinos, but they haven't also gotten better. And
38:46
Speaker 6: there's just a lot of uncertainty at this point, lots
38:49
Speaker 6: of voters on the fence in key states and kind
38:52
Speaker 6: of signs pointing in different directions.
38:55
Speaker 4: When you say voters are on the fence, are these
38:57
Speaker 4: people who have decided to vote and are choosing between
38:59
Speaker 4: Democrats and Republicans, or is it Democrats, Republicans, or not
39:04
Speaker 4: engaging in the process this time around?
39:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question, right? We've got a big
39:09
Speaker 6: column of undecided. Many of those are folks who previously
39:14
Speaker 6: probably would have voted for Democrats. Some of them previously
39:16
Speaker 6: voted for Republicans, but I think it's a bigger chunk
39:19
Speaker 6: who are, for example, Biden voters, but kind of had
39:21
Speaker 6: moved into this more persuadable space. And The reality is
39:26
Speaker 6: we have a big chunk of voters who are at
39:29
Speaker 6: this point kind of undecided. Many of those had previously
39:32
Speaker 6: voted for Democrats, had even voted for Biden in 2020.
39:35
Speaker 6: And now I think the question is, do they defect
39:38
Speaker 6: from Democrats essentially, or do they defect to the couch, right?
39:42
Speaker 6: Many of them might just not vote at all. They
39:44
Speaker 6: don't find Republicans to be an appealing alternative And so
39:48
Speaker 6: they might not participate at all. But we are still
39:50
Speaker 6: seeing a chunk who are folks who look like likely voters,
39:53
Speaker 6: who tell us they're likely to vote, who at this
39:55
Speaker 6: point are just not sure who they are going to
39:57
Speaker 6: vote for. That column is somewhat narrowed as the year
40:00
Speaker 6: has gone on. And yet it's still a larger segment
40:05
Speaker 6: than I think either political party would be comfortable with
40:07
Speaker 6: at this point.
40:09
Speaker 4: And that's sort of a double whammy for Democrats, because
40:13
Speaker 4: obviously we can, particularly given where this election is taking place, right?
40:17
Speaker 3: Nevada.
40:18
Speaker 4: Arizona, Florida, Texas, all kinds of places where the Latino
40:22
Speaker 4: vote is incredibly consequential. And even in states that we
40:25
Speaker 4: don't commonly think of as having large Latino populations, Latino
40:28
Speaker 4: vote can be swing like Wisconsin and North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
40:32
Speaker 4: for instance. But so we have two challenges. One is
40:34
Speaker 4: how do we maintain the margin or improve upon the
40:37
Speaker 4: margin in 2020? And how do we get sufficient turnout?
40:41
Speaker 4: Because in a world where the margin doesn't change, but
40:44
Speaker 4: the overall number changes, we probably lose in that scenario too.
40:48
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
40:49
Speaker 6: Yeah, essentially, I think that's right. And I'd say kind
40:53
Speaker 6: of two interesting quirks there, which is to some extent,
40:56
Speaker 6: the voters with whom Trump made gains in 2020 were
40:59
Speaker 6: kind of a low propensity voter. It was not the likeliest.
41:02
Speaker 6: In fact, I was just looking at a Florida poll
41:04
Speaker 6: and it is the least likely voters will actually look
41:07
Speaker 6: the most Republican at this point. And so this assumption
41:10
Speaker 6: that all non-voting Latinos are Democratic is has been seriously offended.
41:14
Speaker 6: I don't think they're Republican either. It's actually, they're just
41:15
Speaker 6: very swing. They're not hard partisans. They're making a decision
41:19
Speaker 6: on a case by case basis. And we're gonna have,
41:22
Speaker 6: you tell me, but I think we're gonna have high
41:24
Speaker 6: turnout all around. I think both sides are gonna see
41:26
Speaker 6: historically high turnout for a midterm election, certainly higher than
41:30
Speaker 6: we were expecting at the beginning of this cycle. And
41:33
Speaker 6: so the folks were coming in, they still need information,
41:37
Speaker 6: education from Democrats to keep that margin up. Your point
41:39
Speaker 6: about it mattering everywhere, In Wisconsin, we ran a bunch
41:43
Speaker 6: of scenarios about what levels of Latino support you would
41:46
Speaker 6: need in order for a Democrat to win statewide, whether
41:49
Speaker 6: we're talking about Barnes or talking about Evers. And the
41:53
Speaker 6: Latino vote is critical in Wisconsin in a very narrow
41:55
Speaker 6: range of scenarios. And yet, Wisconsin has found itself in
41:59
Speaker 6: that very narrow range of scenarios in two of the
42:01
Speaker 6: last three major elections. So you kind of have to
42:04
Speaker 6: bet on the Latino vote being important. And you need
42:07
Speaker 6: support above 60%, which it's not quite there yet.
42:12
Speaker 4: So in your memo, you offer some advice to Democrats
42:15
Speaker 4: on how they can improve our process between now and
42:18
Speaker 4: the fall. What is that advice?
42:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:21
Speaker 6: The number one thing I think we learned is we
42:23
Speaker 6: were treating this as a purely persuadable vote. And I
42:26
Speaker 6: would say that's not quite right in the sense that
42:29
Speaker 6: we are talking about a lot of voters who are
42:30
Speaker 6: more democratically inclined. Like I said, many of the ones
42:35
Speaker 6: that I would be most worried about actually voted for
42:37
Speaker 6: Biden in 2020. And so it's helpful to understand, okay,
42:41
Speaker 6: then why are they at this point uncertain? Republicans have
42:44
Speaker 6: not done a good sales job. They have not sold them.
42:47
Speaker 6: They're like, I've looked at that as an alternative and
42:49
Speaker 6: it ain't gonna work for me, but they're not sold
42:51
Speaker 6: on Democrats. So what is holding them back? And what's
42:52
Speaker 6: holding them back is the economy, is concerns about the economy.
42:55
Speaker 6: It is a concern that Democrats perhaps don't share the
42:59
Speaker 6: same priorities when it comes to the economy or the
43:00
Speaker 6: same values when it comes to the economy. Like do
43:02
Speaker 6: Democrats actually prioritize what I am going through and how
43:06
Speaker 6: I think about my economic struggles Or are Democrats going
43:10
Speaker 6: to get distracted by like the topic of the day
43:12
Speaker 6: and the thousand things that as a big tent Democrats
43:14
Speaker 6: end up having to talk about? Are Democrats going to
43:17
Speaker 6: be kind of ruthless in the way that they need
43:19
Speaker 6: to in terms of operating and handling the economy? And
43:22
Speaker 6: do they value hard work? And those are kind of
43:23
Speaker 6: like the concerns we heard in the 2020 election. But
43:26
Speaker 6: in some ways, this makes it, I always dare say
43:30
Speaker 6: this word, like easier for Democrats because the task is
43:33
Speaker 6: just reassure people on the economy. It is reassure people
43:36
Speaker 6: on the economy. and kind of overcome some of our
43:38
Speaker 6: worst instincts that as progressives we can kind of get
43:41
Speaker 6: into and get a little bit back to basics, like
43:43
Speaker 6: lean into our strengths. They believe Democrats care more. Then
43:48
Speaker 6: there's like a bridge though, from just care to care,
43:51
Speaker 6: fight and deliver. And there's plenty of proof points for that.
43:54
Speaker 6: There's plenty to show. Now it's actually like communicating on that.
43:57
Speaker 6: It is making like the voters themselves, the heroes of
44:00
Speaker 6: their own story. It is acknowledging the role that Latinos
44:03
Speaker 6: and other hardworking people have in the economy. Um, and
44:06
Speaker 6: it's talking about the things that we have done, not
44:08
Speaker 6: in terms of handouts, but as opportunity that is created.
44:12
Speaker 4: Are there any Democrats out there who you think are, uh,
44:17
Speaker 4: doing that well, who are, as you say in your
44:19
Speaker 4: memo centering, um, middle-class, hardworking Latino families at the center
44:24
Speaker 4: of the messaging.
44:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:26
Speaker 6: First of all, whatever Mark Kelly is doing is phenomenal,
44:30
Speaker 6: like bordering on miraculous, because if you look at Mark
44:33
Speaker 6: Kelly's numbers from when we first ever polled him in
44:36
Speaker 6: the summer of 2019, among Latinos, they've never budged. you know,
44:40
Speaker 6: like everything else around him swirls, like other democratic fundamentals
44:43
Speaker 6: go up and down. And like among Latinos, Mark Kelly's
44:46
Speaker 6: numbers are incredibly resilient. And so I think there is
44:49
Speaker 6: a model there, both in terms, by the way, like
44:51
Speaker 6: there's a lot of spending that is bolstering him. But
44:53
Speaker 6: I think there's a way that he's talking about that.
44:55
Speaker 6: I've heard it a lot coming from Senator Warnock. I
44:58
Speaker 6: think Senator Warnock has understood, as does, by the way,
45:00
Speaker 6: Stacey Abrams, you know, talking about this kind of hardworking
45:05
Speaker 6: Latino and centering that message. So there's a lot of
45:07
Speaker 6: that that I think has, um, has coming up some
45:09
Speaker 6: of it more newly people who've come around to it.
45:12
Speaker 6: But I think you have in some of these key races, um,
45:15
Speaker 6: Democrats who've been a good, a good model of that
45:16
Speaker 6: kind of messaging.
45:19
Speaker 4: Earlier in this election cycle, um, you know, there was
45:22
Speaker 4: some hope that Democrats might get something done on immigration.
45:25
Speaker 4: There was fears about what would happen in the community
45:28
Speaker 4: if they did not. How central is immigration, you know,
45:32
Speaker 4: defined as broadly as possible, uh, you know, What's happening
45:36
Speaker 4: at the border, Republican responses to immigration, including what DeSantis
45:39
Speaker 4: is doing, the fact that another– obviously, this legislation is
45:42
Speaker 4: not over yet, but I think we could probably safely
45:44
Speaker 4: say yet another period of time in which Democrats controlled House, Senate,
45:48
Speaker 4: and the White House have ended without passing comprehensive immigration reform.
45:52
Speaker 6: This is a much longer one, but I'm going to
45:53
Speaker 6: give you like the shortest version of this that is
45:55
Speaker 6: possible because it is so complicated. It is so fraught
45:58
Speaker 6: because as you understand, Latinos, there's a reason that many
46:03
Speaker 6: Latinos who are actually pretty conservative have held back from Republicans.
46:07
Speaker 6: And it's that over a 10-year period that started in
46:09
Speaker 6: like the 2006, 2007 immigration fights, there was a perception
46:13
Speaker 6: created of Republicans as being conservative. anti-immigrant, but it extended
46:17
Speaker 6: to being anti-Latino, right? And it wasn't just about a
46:20
Speaker 6: set of policies. It was like, it was the rhetoric.
46:22
Speaker 6: It was an understanding of, I don't, I'm not invited
46:24
Speaker 6: in that coalition. That's not the party for me. And
46:27
Speaker 6: that hardened pretty well. And then what you see in
46:29
Speaker 6: the Trump era is immigration kind of being moved a
46:32
Speaker 6: little bit to the side, which is, I know, ironic
46:34
Speaker 6: because Trump was doing all these atrocities. But toward the
46:37
Speaker 6: end of the cycle, he stopped talking about immigration because
46:42
Speaker 6: he understood he had an opportunity with Latinos. the economy
46:45
Speaker 6: was top of mind for everybody. And then after the election,
46:48
Speaker 6: Democrats didn't really want to talk about it either. And
46:50
Speaker 6: so it just kind of became this like neglected issue.
46:53
Speaker 6: And the only ones talking about it were Fox news.
46:55
Speaker 6: And all we were talking about was the border. And
46:56
Speaker 6: so we see in our polling is some of Biden's worst,
46:59
Speaker 6: some of the president's worst approval numbers are on his
47:02
Speaker 6: handling of immigration among Latinos. And it's like all kinds
47:06
Speaker 6: of Latinos, like wherever you are and how you think
47:07
Speaker 6: about immigration, like disapprove of Biden. And, um, And what
47:12
Speaker 6: you see is these persuadable Latinos, who are the ones
47:14
Speaker 6: that we're focused on right now, they believe that something
47:18
Speaker 6: needs to be done about the border. They see the
47:19
Speaker 6: border as kind of a public safety concern, just like order.
47:23
Speaker 6: It's like when you go on the border in Texas,
47:25
Speaker 6: people are like, this is about homelessness in downtown Brownsville.
47:28
Speaker 6: This is not about federal immigration policy in the way
47:32
Speaker 6: that we all think of it. Those same people will
47:34
Speaker 6: tell you, I, of course, believe in a pathway to citizenship. I,
47:38
Speaker 6: of course, believe in taking care of those who are here.
47:41
Speaker 6: I clearly believe in a humane and orderly process. And
47:45
Speaker 6: so it's complicated. I think DeSantis has kind of walked
47:48
Speaker 6: into the wrong end of the spectrum, frankly, on what
47:50
Speaker 6: he's done, because it has moved it from the order
47:54
Speaker 6: and security framework to this framework of humanity, like how
47:59
Speaker 6: are we treating people, where you actually have much higher
48:02
Speaker 6: levels of rejection.
48:03
Speaker 3: Of course, there's got to.
48:04
Speaker 6: Be people to capitalize on it and take advantage of
48:06
Speaker 6: that moment and message around what Dan Santis is doing.
48:09
Speaker 6: Fox is kind of owning it at this point. But
48:12
Speaker 6: it is to say, I think that's actually an example
48:14
Speaker 6: of a Republican weakness on immigration.
48:17
Speaker 4: So you talked earlier about Democrats getting their economic messaging.
48:22
Speaker 4: We're talking about what they're for, who they're going to
48:24
Speaker 4: fight for, how hard they're going to fight, what they
48:25
Speaker 4: have delivered, what I assume a continued Democratic majority could deliver.
48:30
Speaker 4: And How should Democrats talk about Republicans if they want
48:35
Speaker 4: to get to that group, that surprisingly large group of
48:37
Speaker 4: persuadable voters that you talk about?
48:40
Speaker 6: Well, like I said, the advantage Democrats have is that
48:44
Speaker 6: Latinos tend to believe that they care more. And then,
48:47
Speaker 6: of course, the concern is that do they actually then
48:50
Speaker 6: fight and deliver? For Republicans, probably their greatest strength is
48:54
Speaker 6: a perception that they really prioritize the economy and that
48:57
Speaker 6: they're like business obsessed. and that they're ruthless in handling
49:01
Speaker 6: the economy. The downside of that is that they're ruthless,
49:03
Speaker 6: like the sense of, okay, they don't actually give a
49:06
Speaker 6: shit about me. And so anything that they do that
49:08
Speaker 6: reinforces the extent to which they put an extreme agenda
49:12
Speaker 6: ahead of taking care of people, that they have the
49:15
Speaker 6: wrong priorities, that they're out of touch. And so you
49:19
Speaker 6: have that in terms of the votes they've taken on
49:23
Speaker 6: economic measures, drug pricing, out-of-pocket health care costs are such
49:27
Speaker 6: a good issue here for Democrats among Latinos. The fact
49:30
Speaker 6: that Republicans have been on the wrong side of that,
49:32
Speaker 6: along with the fact that they are on the wrong
49:34
Speaker 6: side of abortion rights, that they are taking away rights.
49:38
Speaker 6: What we have found is support for a Democrat proactively
49:45
Speaker 6: talking about their position on abortion, like let's expand abortion access,
49:49
Speaker 6: you get kind of mixed numbers among Latinos. But when
49:51
Speaker 6: it's the frame of Republicans are going to take this
49:53
Speaker 6: away from you, it is outright rejection. The trick for
49:56
Speaker 6: Democrats is to paint these Republicans as extreme and out
50:01
Speaker 6: of touch and have the wrong priorities, and then use
50:03
Speaker 6: that as a pivot to the economic argument. It is
50:06
Speaker 6: not about let's just have an argument about abortion and
50:09
Speaker 6: Let's just have a debate about gun safety. It's let's
50:12
Speaker 6: use that to illustrate the ways in which Republicans don't
50:16
Speaker 6: actually care about you. So we can talk about the
50:18
Speaker 6: ways in which Democrats are actually working on the things
50:20
Speaker 6: that you care about.
50:22
Speaker 4: John, right before we did this interview, John Favreau and
50:25
Speaker 4: I had a discussion about messaging and basically a, not
50:29
Speaker 4: Latino specific, broader to the entire universe of persuadable voters.
50:32
Speaker 4: And I use persuadable to include quote unquote swing voters
50:36
Speaker 4: and people who are swinging between not voting and voting.
50:39
Speaker 4: And it's basically that exact advice, right? That abortion is
50:41
Speaker 4: a gateway to have a conversation about extremism and all
50:45
Speaker 4: the ways in which Republicans cannot be trusted, will not
50:48
Speaker 4: fight for you, et cetera. Is it sort of fair
50:51
Speaker 4: to say that Democrats could actually have one narrative that
50:55
Speaker 4: could reach all of our target voters here? And it's
50:57
Speaker 4: not like, obviously you're going to center, you know, you're
51:00
Speaker 4: going to show the diversity of our coalition and all
51:02
Speaker 4: the various different people affected by it, but it's Like
51:04
Speaker 4: the advice you're giving is very, very good advice. And
51:06
Speaker 4: I think it's probably the same advice if I was
51:08
Speaker 4: doing a similar conversation about how we do slightly better
51:10
Speaker 4: with rural voters or how do we get young voters?
51:12
Speaker 4: It's going to be a very similar set of guidance.
51:16
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
51:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you kind of caught on to our
51:19
Speaker 6: Trojan horse at Equis, which is we often talk about
51:22
Speaker 6: things that you need to do to be better with Latinos.
51:24
Speaker 6: And it's actually just a way to talk about what
51:26
Speaker 6: needs to get done more broadly with the American electorate.
51:30
Speaker 6: But people will listen to us on the Latino piece.
51:32
Speaker 6: But that's exactly right. I mean, it's broadly true across
51:35
Speaker 6: all Americans that that is the approach that, yeah, your
51:38
Speaker 6: poll might be showing that you should be just talking
51:40
Speaker 6: about abortion all the time because it's your top testing hit.
51:44
Speaker 6: But don't forget, the voters you most need are going
51:46
Speaker 6: to go into the ballot box with their economic anxieties
51:49
Speaker 6: on their mind. You know, abortion and other issues along
51:52
Speaker 6: those lines are already kind of baked in to their
51:54
Speaker 6: assessment of Democrats. They get the Democrats are better on this.
51:57
Speaker 6: They just need reassurance on the pieces that they have
52:00
Speaker 6: maybe some questions, maybe some outstanding questions about. That said,
52:04
Speaker 6: Latinos also need to feel invited to the party. And
52:06
Speaker 6: that's where it's a little bit different, where identity does
52:08
Speaker 6: come into play. And feeling like Democrats get it, right?
52:12
Speaker 6: I think the weakness has been a sense that Democrats
52:15
Speaker 6: neglect Latinos, take them for granted. And so there has
52:17
Speaker 6: to be some explicit invitation kind of in the mix.
52:20
Speaker 6: But the core messaging is the same thing.
52:24
Speaker 4: Carlos, thank you so much. This was incredibly helpful and insightful.
52:26
Speaker 4: Everyone should check out your memo and follow all of
52:29
Speaker 4: your work. Thanks for joining us.
52:30
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan.
52:36
Speaker 2: All right. Thanks to Carlos Odio for joining us today.
52:39
Speaker 2: And everyone have a great weekend. We'll talk to you
52:41
Speaker 2: next week.
52:41
Speaker 7: Bye, everyone.
52:47
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