Latest / Pod Save America / Noem Won't Rule Out Tear-Gassing Trick-or-Treaters

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Noem Won't Rule Out Tear-Gassing Trick-or-Treaters · Pod Save America

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• 1:25
  Speaker 1: The Trump administration is keeping everyone's heads on a swivel,
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  Speaker 1: but there's not enough time in the day to both
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  Speaker 1: Takes podcast. On Bulwark Takes, you'll hear from a rotating
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  Speaker 1: they cry, and they distill what happened and where it's
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  Speaker 1: the Bulwark stars, people like Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Sam Stein, JVL,
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  Speaker 1: and their on-the-ground reporters. If you've been tempted to tune
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  Speaker 1: the news out, now's the time to tune it back in.
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  Speaker 1: New episodes of Bulwark Takes drop multiple times a day
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: On today's show, just a couple days before Election Day,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Zoran Mamdani talks to Tommy about what's at stake in
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: America's largest city and Republicans' effort to make him the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: face of the Democratic Party. I don't know if you've
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: heard of him, Dan. He's a promising young candidate in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the local race.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: He's that guy running against Cuomo.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. We've also got lots of news to
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  Speaker 1: cover before we get to that. Donald Trump attempting to
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  Speaker 1: make deals in Asia. as he unleashes even more armed
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: agents into America's cities, a possible movement or not on
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: ending the shutdown, more democratic infighting over a report, and
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the great Bill de Blasio imposter caper has finally been solved.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Let's start with the president once again celebrating himself. for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: partially containing a fire that he started. Trump ended this
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: week's Asia trip by meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping
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  Speaker 1: for the first time since 2019 with the hope of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: resolving the trade war that's achieved nothing but economic pain
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for people in both countries. You may remember this all
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: began with Trump unilaterally imposing record high tariffs on just
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: about everything we buy from China, which led China to retaliate,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: which has led to a very stupid cycle of escalation
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and de-escalation based on um whatever makes trump mad that
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: day problem for trump is that china is in some
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  Speaker 1: small country he can bully and as part of xi's
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  Speaker 1: retaliation china stopped buying american soybeans which hurt hard-working soybean
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  Speaker 1: farmers like scott besant um China also said they would
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  Speaker 1: limit the sale of rare earth minerals, which the U.S.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and the world really need for almost all technology, from
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: phones to cars to planes to military weapons. Good news,
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  Speaker 1: after the Trump-Xi meeting, China agreed to start buying Scott
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  Speaker 1: soybeans and selling rare earth minerals in exchange for Trump
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  Speaker 1: lowering the tariffs and, in a real head-scratcher, giving the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese government access to some of NVIDIA's AI chips. which
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: could help them better compete for AI dominance with America.
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  Speaker 1: Trump was extremely proud of himself for all this. Here
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  Speaker 1: he is on Air Force One on the way home
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  Speaker 1: from Asia.
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  Speaker 3: Overall, I guess on the scale from zero to 10,
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  Speaker 3: with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting
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  Speaker 3: was a 12.
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  Speaker 1: Dan, what number would you give the meeting on a
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  Speaker 1: scale of 1 to 10 to 12?
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  Speaker 2: I would give him a 3.7. 3.7?
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  Speaker 1: I think, yes.
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  Speaker 2: So I read a bunch of analyses of this deal,
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  Speaker 2: and there were two common threads through them. The first
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  Speaker 2: one was, this looks exactly like all the other trade
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  Speaker 2: negotiations that Trump has had with China, where he comes
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  Speaker 2: to an agreement, the agreement falls apart, and we get
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  Speaker 2: right back to where we were. But the second, I think,
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  Speaker 2: more alarming thread was that Trump basically got taken to
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  Speaker 2: the cleaners here, right? He starts the trade war. She
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  Speaker 2: puts in place punitive actions, like the refusing to buy
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  Speaker 2: soybeans from Scott Besant, and... and restricting access to rare earths.
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  Speaker 2: And China then agrees to take off the punitive actions
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  Speaker 2: that Trump's initial actions sparked. And then Trump gives him
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  Speaker 2: concessions for that.
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  Speaker 1: So it's like- By the way, some of the concessions
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  Speaker 1: are lifting tariffs that were hurting Americans.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: So it's like, we'll stop hurting ourselves as a concession.
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  Speaker 2: But we'll give you also access to AI chips for
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  Speaker 2: what is possibly the most important technological race of.
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  Speaker 4: History, right?
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  Speaker 2: We're going to do that to China. And this was
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: in the New York Times story, but she clearly understands
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that the best way to negotiate with Trump is to
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  Speaker 2: make Trump think he's won. So he can go out
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  Speaker 2: and convince himself that it was a 12 on a
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  Speaker 2: scale of 10, even though he got played, it was
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  Speaker 2: total amateur hour. And it really is the difference. When
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  Speaker 2: Trump has the entire massive leverage of the US economy
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  Speaker 2: and US military behind him, he can win a negotiation.
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  Speaker 2: But when he has to be on somewhere near equal
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  Speaker 2: footing with another world power, He is totally outclassed.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and also she is, like Trump, an autocrat, but
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  Speaker 1: unlike Trump, has firm enough control over his government that he,
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  Speaker 1: and also maybe of his own emotions, that he doesn't
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  Speaker 1: have the bottomless need for approval and congratulation that Trump does.
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  Speaker 1: So he knows that he can pretend that Trump won
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  Speaker 1: because he knows that he's going to make out better
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  Speaker 1: in the deal and he doesn't necessarily... need the headlines
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  Speaker 1: like Trump needs the headlines.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Well, you can also get any headline he wants. Well,
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  Speaker 2: Trump's working on that project.
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  Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's another reason Trump so
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  Speaker 1: admires his autocrat friends. I guess Trump didn't think his
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: summit with his fellow autocratic leader of America's top economic
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and military rival would be exciting enough. So he surprised
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: all of us with a little nuclear saber rattling that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: he announced on where else but Truth Social. The Post
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: said that he, quote, has instructed the Department of War
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't that lovely? Some context here. No country has tested
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  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon since 1992, with the exception of North Korea.
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  Speaker 1: They haven't since 2017. But Trump's announcement came a few
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  Speaker 1: hours after Russia said it completed a successful test of
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  Speaker 1: a nuclear-capable underwater drone, and three days after it claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have had a successful test of a nuclear-powered nuclear missile.
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  Speaker 1: So it's unclear whether Trump wants to resume testing nuclear
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  Speaker 1: capable weapons or actual nuclear warhead detonation or whether he
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  Speaker 1: knows the difference. And he didn't exactly clear things up
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  Speaker 1: when a reporter asked him about this on the way home.
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  Speaker 5: About resuming nuclear testing, what prompted you to do that
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  Speaker 5: right before the meeting?
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  Speaker 3: It had to do with others. They seem to all
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  Speaker 3: be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody.
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  Speaker 3: We don't do testing. We've halted it years, many years ago.
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  Speaker 3: But with others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that
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  Speaker 3: we do also.
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  Speaker 6: It'll be announced.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we.
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  Speaker 3: Have test sites. It'll be announced.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack there, Dan.
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's start. Um, I don't know how you feel
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  Speaker 2: about an administration staff of fucking morons that recently fired
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  Speaker 2: almost everyone who knows anything about nuclear safety, detonating nuclear
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  Speaker 2: weapons at America's only test site, which is 60 miles
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  Speaker 2: north of Las Vegas, Nevada.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little too close for comfort.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially people who love Vegas like we do.
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  Speaker 1: That could put a real damper on his plan to
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  Speaker 1: hold a midterm Republican convention in Vegas, which apparently he
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  Speaker 1: wants to do. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And you say it's not clear whether he means testing
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  Speaker 2: capable weapons or actual weapons, but Project 2025 proposed going
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: back to testing actual weapons. And this whole thing is
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  Speaker 2: so stupid because, one, there's no reason. There's no itch
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: we're scratching here. As you said, no one has done
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  Speaker 2: it other than North Korea for 30 years. And it
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  Speaker 2: all happened because the United States negotiated the Comprehensive Test
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Ban Treaty, which, because our politics are stupid, we have
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: failed to ratify. but we've adhered to it all this time.
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  Speaker 2: So now if the United States starts testing weapons, all
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: the other countries are going to start testing weapons. And
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: when you have people just detonating nuclear weapons everywhere, it
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  Speaker 2: seems like that could cause some problems maybe.
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  Speaker 1: The fact that, he couldn't figure out or no one
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  Speaker 1: could tell him the difference between test detonating a nuclear
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  Speaker 1: weapon or testing devices that could carry a nuclear warhead
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  Speaker 1: is troubling. We also don't have the most number of
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Russia does. Um, and yeah, and like you said,
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  Speaker 1: and the other thing wrong was that, uh, we only
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  Speaker 1: have one test site here. So, and it's, it's, someone
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  Speaker 1: asked JD Vance about this too, a reporter. And JD
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  Speaker 1: Vance is like, well, um, we, it's, it's, we don't
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  Speaker 1: need to test the nuclear weapons that we have to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: know that they work, but it's also good to stay
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on top of it because they're getting old. So it's
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: good to, it's good to know that they work. But
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: we don't have to test them. We know that they work.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, it made no sense whatsoever because there's no, like,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: there's no, I don't know why you do that. It's
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: so stupid. I don't know why you do that. It
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: seems like a real- I would say.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: That Russian weapon, the undersea drone that causes tsunamis in
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: coastal cities is concerning. It seems like something out of
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a James Bond movie.
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  Speaker 1: So- Especially since it's West Coast they're thinking about. Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Don't love that. Don't love that. Anyway- I guess we
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: should just move on and hopefully that's a storyline that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't come back in a future episode, what everything that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: happened here. Maybe we'll just forget about it.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll just– and he's also talking about the Department
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  Speaker 1: of War. Also, the Department of Energy is the one
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that conducts nuclear tests, not the Department of War. So
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that's just another– so don't get too excited.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I just feel like there's not a lot that Donald
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Trump knows about this, about the science, the history, the
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: environmental effects. Never seen Oppenheimer.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: You think he's going to care about the environmental effects?
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: No, but I think maybe he would cheerlead them. Maybe
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: he's got some friends and donors who would clean them up.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know. All right.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: This episode drops on Halloween, where this year Trump's tariffs
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: have made candy more expensive, and his paramilitary force has
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: made trick-or-treating even spookier on account of all the chemical
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: munitions they keep using to terrorize peaceful American neighborhoods. On Thursday,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker issued a plea to for the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security to stop their deportation raids in Chicago,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: if not permanently, then at least over Halloween weekend. This
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: is relevant because last week there was a kids' costume
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: parade in the old Irving Park neighborhood in Chicago that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: had to be canceled because immigration officers were using tear
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: gas nearby. Kids, Halloween costumes, in a neighborhood, tear gas.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Why did they use tear gas? We don't know. Was
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: there a riot? Was there a huge protest? Were they
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: under attack? No, none of the above, just using tear gas.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Here's the ask from Pritzker, and here's the swift reply
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: he got from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
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  Speaker 7: Can we agree that there is no imminent threat that
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: should disrupt their holiday? No child in America should have
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: to go trick-or-treating in fear that they might be confronted
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: with armed federal agents. And have to inhale tear gas.
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: I ask you to restore some sanity for the sake
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: of our children.
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: Absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: we will do to keep communities safe.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Shameful.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: The government, our federal government, that we pay taxes to,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security says that it's shameful to request...
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: That they don't use tear gas near children who are trick-or-treating.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: That's where we are.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: The Christendom response is just so telling about how they
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: think of the world, right? Like, you should have empathy
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: and compassion for any human, regardless of status. You should
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: particularly have empathy and compassion for every child, regardless of status.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: But this is not even about disrupting the trick-or-treating or
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Halloween of undocumented people because ICE is terrorizing entire communities.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They're using tear gas on entire communities. They are harassing
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: people and arresting people who have legal status or are
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: American citizens. And so this idea that it is so
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: important for this fake war we've made up for the
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: American heritage that we have to harass people on Halloween
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: is just It's like they're living on a different planet,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: but it's a planet where they do not give a
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: shit about people, right, who are not them, their supporters,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: you know, in line with what they believe.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: She, at that same press conference, a reporter asked her
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: about all the growing number of American citizens that they
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: are detaining, arresting. And this is a quote from Christine Ohm.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: There's no American citizens who've been arrested or detained. We
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: focus on those that are here illegally and anything that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you would hear or report that would be different than
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that is simply not true and false reporting. Like I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: get that these people lie a lot and they don't
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: care about lying. That is such a like that's like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: pathological that does she not. I don't I don't believe
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that she doesn't know. I don't believe that she's that dumb.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I don't think she's the brightest bulb in the cabinet
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: for sure. I don't think there's a lot of bright
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: bulbs in the cabinet, but she's definitely not up there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: She's the bottom of the list. She definitely knows. The
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: videos are everywhere, everywhere. And how many stories have we
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: heard of American citizens? And it's not just that they
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are detained briefly. They're detained for days. I'm talking to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: George Redis, who Tim Miller interviewed, Iraq war veteran guy.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: who was detained for three days in solitary confinement, wasn't
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: now suing the federal government. There's so many stories like this.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: ProPublica just ran a story on this the other week.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And to just lie like that, I don't know why
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: we would take any statement from the Department of Homeland
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Security or any explanation for some kind of abuse that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: ICE has committed seriously because they just lie like this.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's Orwellian.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: It is this idea that you can say whatever you
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: want and never be called on it, even when every
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: fact says the opposite and it's staring you in the face,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: you just lie anyway.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: In other regime news, the Supreme Court has asked the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: federal government and the state of Illinois both for additional
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: information before they rule on whether Trump can deploy National
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Guard troops to Chicago over the objections of Pritzker and others,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: which means the lower court's block on deployments remains in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: place for now. Not so much in D.C., where the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Defense Department is now saying that guard troops will be
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: in the city at least through February, maybe longer. Meanwhile,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon is moving forward on Trump's directive from back
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: in August to create quick reaction forces trained in, quote,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: riot control methods to be deployed in cities as needed.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: And Trump said a couple times on this trip that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: they may be soon getting backup from active duty military.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Here is Trump talking about this. Here we are.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: We're just sending the Marines, the Navy, the Army, just
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: into cities now, wherever he wants. He originally made that.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Made that comment. They asked him about it on Air
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Force One on the way home. He originally made it
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to business leaders in Korea. Interesting. You just go to Korea,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you sit down with some business leaders, and you're like, hey,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to deploy troops against my own citizens if
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I want from all branches of the military.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Riot control. There's no riots, but riot control.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing is that they are- They want riots. Well,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I think they actually believe riots are happening. Like they
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: truly do believe, like we are now governed by people
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: who believe they are fighting a war, not with a
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: foreign country, not with a terrorist organization, not even with,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: you know, quote unquote, narco-terrorists like Trendy Aragua or anything
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: like this. They think they are fighting a war with
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: an enemy within, right? That that includes anyone and everyone
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: who disagrees with the regime who has a different view
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: of how this country should look, who wants to dissent
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: in any way, peacefully in any way possible, right? And
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: this has been rhetoric on the right for a long time.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: They've used this sort of apocalyptic rhetoric about a cultural
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: clash in America, a fight for American heritage. These enemies
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: are destroying us from within. And that's been part and
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: parcel of Fox News for a long time. But now
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: we're governed by a bunch of people who did not read,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: who aren't in on the joke. They believe it. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: now the president of the United States is just like,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: he wants the ability to send in the Navy SEALs
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to Chicago. To what end, right? There's nothing happening. Are
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: there people in these cities just walk, like, is there
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: too much crime in some of these states? Absolutely. Are there,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: is there some sort of uprising that would require the
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: insurrection act? Absolutely fucking not.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I do think they're just, they want, it's true that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they believe that, that some of them believe that riots
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: are happening. Um, cause they see, you know, they buy
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: their own bullshit and they see videos of like a
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: few protesters here yelling and all that. And so they
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: think it's right. But I do think that part of
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: this is they want the unruly protests. They want the violence, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: They were not happy with No Kings, both because it
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: was huge and because it was overwhelmingly peaceful and that
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: there were barely any arrests out of it across the country. Well,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: so riot control is currently being handled by masked federal
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: agents who haven't even been waiting for an actual riot
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: before assaulting and arresting whoever they'd like, including American citizens
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: in Chicago. The scene is so bad that newly empowered
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino was ordered by a federal
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: judge to make daily appearances in court to give assurances
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: that he and his officers aren't violating the restrictions that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the judge had put in place on the kinds of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: force they can use. The Court of Appeals blocked that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: demand for now, but Bovino, who has been patrolling the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: city in full battle gear, is still a defendant in
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: a federal lawsuit alleging excessive force. He can be seen
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in at least one video personally throwing tear gas at protesters,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: even though that's not allowed. One of the other tactics
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: he and his fellow goons are using, targeting the political opposition.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, congressional candidate Kat Abugazala, longtime content creator at
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Media Matters, who we all know well, been on Terminally
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Online quite a few times, Kat said she'd been charged
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: with federal crimes for protesting outside the ICE facility in Broadview.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Lovett spoke with her on Thursday, and everyone should check
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: out that conversation on YouTube. But here's just a quick bite.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: I think about all of the things that I love.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: You know, my partner, my cat, hot sauce, sleeping, really
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: soft blankets, video games, my family, of course. And you know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: that just doesn't happen in jail. It doesn't happen in
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: the Broadview processing center. I don't want to go there,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: but also I don't regret protesting and exercising my first
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: amendment right. And this is not a matter of wrongdoing.
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: This is, these are my constitutional rights and the administration
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: wants to punish us for using them. Uh, I plan
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: on pleading not guilty and I plan on winning.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Just really enraging and upsetting. Um, What do you think
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of any of that from Greg Bovino to Kat?
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so disturbing that the way in which
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: the government is being weaponized against people who dissent, right?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: We see this with LaMonica McIver, the congresswoman who's being
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: indicted now fighting for her freedom. We saw the way
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: they handled Senator Alex Padilla many months ago. It's like
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: this is where we are. This is the sort of
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: thing that if you said a year ago on the
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: campaign trail, you would have been laughed out as being
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: a having TDS or whatever else, and it's happening here
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and there. And they're picking cases to make a point, right?
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: They pick Kat to make a point, to send a
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: message to other people to not protest, to not show up,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to send a message to other members of Congress to
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: not go to ICE detention senators and try to get
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: access to see what's happening there.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And this happened a while ago. Kat was thrown to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the ground when it happened, but everyone was released without
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: charges and Then the federal government comes back around and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: decides to pursue this indictment. I read the indictment. And basically,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you can see from the footage that there's a bunch
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of protesters around a car with federal agents in it
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that's trying to get into the ICE facility. And, you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: they're like huddled around the car and their hands around
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the car. And basically, in the indictment, this is what
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: they allege, is that they all put their hands on
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the car. They said someone... like scratched pig into the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: side of the car and that the car had to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: slow down significantly because all the people were around it,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: put their hands on it. And so that was therefore
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: impeding and obstructing the work of a federal officer because
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: people had their hands touching the car. That's the indictment.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: So it's like, I mean, I don't know, there'll be
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a whole case. And so we'll, you know, people will
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: present evidence and all that, but sure feels like, uh,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: like bullshit to me.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Definitely feels like bullshit.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, we haven't had time to talk about the ice
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: shakeup that leaked the other day. Apparently they're replacing the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: heads of a bunch of ice field offices. In some
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: cases with officers from customs and border patrol, because I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: guess the ice officers and Tom Homan who runs ice
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: are not tough enough, aggressive enough. Did you ever think
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we'd get to the point where ice is being layered
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: because they're not, uh, they're not as aggressive as they
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: need to be. And so I guess now we have
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to deal with border patrol as the new baddies.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Well, Trump and Stephen Miller have put in place impossible
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: to reach goals of numbers of deportations. And so the
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: original ICE people weren't good enough, and they couldn't meet
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: those goals, so they put in new ICE people. Those
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: people aren't good enough, so they're going to put in
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: the CBP people. When those people aren't good enough, they're
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: going to find new CBP people. When those people can't
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: do it because it's impossible to do, they are going
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: to put the Proud Boys in. I don't know. They're
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: just going to keep going down the line. And ultimately,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: even if what they were doing was important on any level,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: but even if your goal was actually to deport people,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: then they're still failing at that because a lot of
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: the stories from the ICE people and the CBP people say,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: this will lead to more arrests, but it won't lead
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: to more deportations because there are backlogs. And they're more
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: focused on the arrests than actually solving the problem they
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: say they should solve. And so it's just It's just
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: another way. It's stupid, really. It's more incompetence to try
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to solve an immoral, cruel, and impossible-to-reach goal.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're running into some numbers issues. They want to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: hit a million deportations, but then Miller's goal was 3,000
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: arrests per day, right? And so you could imagine this
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is probably partly why they're arresting a lot of American citizens,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: legal residents, because they get to count it as an arrest,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: even if it doesn't end up as a deportation. Then
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the people who are awaiting their immigration hearings that they
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: want to deport. This is why they're, and you know,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Alex Wagner spoke to an immigration judge who was fired, um,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: on runaway country. You should go listen to Alex's new podcast, but, um,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: they're starting to fire all these immigration judges because they
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: want to replace them with immigration judges who are just
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: going to say, yes, sure. Deport, deport, deport, deport. So
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: they can clear out the backlog. Now that is having
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the unintended effect of creating a larger backlog because they
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: are trying to find now judges to replace the immigration
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: judges that they're firing. It's a fucking mess. But of course,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: this kind of system is going to lead to a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: bunch of cowboys, which is what Customs and Border Patrol is,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: even worse than ICE, like just running rampant through neighborhoods.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And the reason I think they like Greg Bovino and
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: see Customs and Border Patrol now is they're the crew
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that has been in Chicago for for these last several
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: weeks where some of the worst scenes of violence have been.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And so the idea that CBP is just now going
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to be in charge of a lot of these cities
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: is fucking terrifying. And Greg Bovino seems like a wacko.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, this guy is like, he's the head of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: this region, but he's just dressed in fatigues and throwing
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: tear gas canisters himself, just marching into battle. What the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: fuck is he doing?
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: A lot of main character syndrome going on with these people.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Oh my God. Here's what passes for good news these days.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: After we talked on the Tuesday pod about Trump saying
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: he would quote, love to serve a third term, Mike
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Johnson said that he talked to Trump and conveyed that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: while he sure wished Trump could run again, there probably
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't time to amend the constitution before 2028. Trump himself
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: is now conceding as much. Take a listen.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: And you know, basically.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: And we'll see what happens.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: I have the best numbers for any president in many years,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: any president. And I would say that if you read it,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: it's pretty clear I'm not allowed to run. It's too bad.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Fire sale on Trump 2028 merch?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I would say that if I was concocting a plot
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: to engage in a coup that overran the 22nd Amendment,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the first thing I do is say that I was
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: not engaged in a coup to overrun the 22nd Amendment
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and stay in power.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting. Oh, so you think, okay, you think it's
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: not settled here.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: It's hard to connect the dots here because at no
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: point was the Steve Bannon, Donald Trump plan to solve
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: this problem was to amend the Constitution.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: See, you know what's funny is I was thinking maybe
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: that was the plan. Maybe they think that somehow they
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: were going to get Because they what? They need three-fourths
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of state legislatures and they have like 50-something percent. They're
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: not quite at 75% yet, but I don't know. Maybe
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: they thought they were going to flip a bunch of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: state legislatures.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Steve Bannon is a lunatic, but he's not dumb. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: if he has a secret plan, it's not amend the Constitution.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Well, so I guess we get J.D.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Vance.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Is that– It's really, yeah, there's no... Should we all just,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I mean... No, that's the wrong attitude, John. It's a
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: question of who are we going to beat? Are we
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: going to beat Donald Trump in 2020 or are we
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: going to beat J.D.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: Vance?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Trump? No, that's what I meant. Get J.D. Vance to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: write it.
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: Get him.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: No, I did not mean.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We're not going to receive him. We're going to get him.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Like, we get him as the nominee is what I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: was trying to say.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: And then we get him.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Like.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Let's... Careful, careful. You're about to get a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: knock on the door.
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: Electorally.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Electorally.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Like, maybe you remember the Get Mitch Fund?
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Like that.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Like, we got Mitch.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. We did not die trying, though. There's still
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: plenty of time.
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: We still might, yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we still might.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: We got him. We didn't keep him. That was the
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: problem with Mitch.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think we should start calling him Lame Duck President
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. He's now conceded to himself. He's a lame duck.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And once we, pretty soon, it's not going to really matter.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump admits lame duck status. Fuck, that would have
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: been a great message box. God damn it.
• 29:46
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• 31:07
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Speaking of clickbaity topics, let's talk about the latest with
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the government shutdown. We talked last episode about how November
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: 1st is the date that the SNAP program will stop
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: providing food assistance to to 42 million low-income, mostly working Americans,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: mostly because the administration is falsely claiming that they can't
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: use the program's emergency funding to keep it going, even
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: though Trump did just that the last time he presided
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: over a government shutdown. More than two dozen states are
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: suing the administration to keep SNAP functioning, and on Thursday,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: a federal judge in Massachusetts signaled that she's likely to
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: order the administration to use the contingency funding. but we'll
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: see what she says and what the higher courts say.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Also on November 1st, people can begin enrolling in a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act for next year, which,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: thanks to Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress, will
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: cost more than they have in years. Senate Majority Leader
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: John Thune said on Wednesday that he expects to start
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: talking to an unnamed group of Senate Democrats about ending
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the shutdown, quote, pretty soon. Thune said that some Democrats are, quote,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: looking for an off-ramp, and that he told them if
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: they open the government, he'll ensure they get a vote
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: on health care. But alas, the Senate has since packed
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: up and left town for the weekend. Next week, the
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: shutdown will officially become the longest in U.S. history. First,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: do you believe, Thune, that some Democrats are looking for
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: an off-ramp and are talking to him privately that they
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: might want to give up?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I do not believe that any Democrat, with the possible
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: exception of John Fetterman, is talking to John Thune. Is
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: it possible that some Democrats are looking for an off
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: ramp and maybe talking to other, quote unquote, moderate Republicans,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: like forming a gang as senators sometimes do in these situations.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I think that is very possible. But there is no
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: cabal of Democrats who is going around Chuck Schumer to
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: meet with John Thune. That is not happening.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could definitely see that. No Thune meetings, but
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I can see some of the, I can see like
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski talking to some moderate friends.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some reporting that's like some back channel conversations
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: have happened among People that I– it seems to be
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: something like the Collins, Murkowski, Angus King, Gene Shaheen types.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: People who on the Democratic side voted against the shutdown
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: last time have been some skeptical. Angus King originally voted
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: against it but changed his vote this time. What does
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: that add up to? I don't think very much at
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: this point because the fundamental dynamics have not changed here.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Democrats are demanding something that Republicans will not give them.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Republicans are demanding something Democrats will not give them. And
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: people are continuing just to stare at each other.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you are in next week's Senate Democratic lunch meeting.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And you are the new senator from Delaware, as we
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: all know you will be someday. Just pretend. And some
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of the moderate Democrats or the Democrats who have joined
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: this informal gang, bipartisan gang, are saying it is time,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the SNAP benefits are running out, the airports are getting delayed,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: people at home are getting anxious about this. Also, it
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: seems like it's going to be really tough, even if
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: we extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies at this point,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: to have that make a difference for next year's plans,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: because people are already buying the plans, and so now
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the relief doesn't come until 2027. Didn't we make our point?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Shouldn't we just figure out a way to save some
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: face and call it a win here. What does Senator
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Pfeiffer say?
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Senator Pfeiffer probably points to the polling presentation we just saw,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: which includes private polling, like the polling presented by Molly Murphy,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: a Democratic pollster, presented, I think, today or yesterday to
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: congressional Democrats, and the polling in the Washington Post, which
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: shows that we are winning this fight, right? People do,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: they blame Trump and the Republicans more, handling of trump
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: how trump is handling the federal government the federal budget
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: uh his is being seen very poorly by people those
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: numbers the disapproval numbers are going up we are winning
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the fight and we there is no reason that we
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: should fold right.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Now when is there a reason to fight at that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: point i think well here this is the question right
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: like let's be like i'm no longer the.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Senator from delaware okay i'm.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: New to the caucus it's fun while it lasted Well,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm new to the caucus.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It's like maybe my first lunch. I'm not going to
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: be the one who like sides with John Fetterman to
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: try to.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: You're not going to be the skunk at the garden party.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Not at the beginning.
• 35:35
  Speaker 9: No, no.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: But here's the question, right? Let's say the courts side
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: and say that people are not going to get SNAP funding, right?
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: So that millions of children are going to go hungry, right?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: And this is happening at a time which food banks
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: are stretched incredibly thin because the economy sucks and things
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: are too expensive. And so there's limited supplies to help
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the people, like children, who will not eat. I don't
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: know the right answer. Like, Republicans are never going to care.
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: This is always the hard part. And this is always
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the hard part in debt ceiling negotiations and everything else
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: is they do not give a shit if these children
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: go hungry. They would rather children go hungry than be
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: forced to lower premiums for American people. Like, that is
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: their position. And so if people are not going to
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: get lower premiums next year, how long do you stay
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: in this fight?
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: For what is essentially a symbolic victory of a vote.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to that. And what is
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: hard here is the dynamics are such that no one
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: is feeling political pressure. Not the Democrats, not the Republicans.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Both sides think they're winning. I think the Democrats are right,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: the Republicans are wrong. But politics is so polarized that really,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: and there aren't a lot of people who are, the
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: House is out. There are a lot of incumbent senators
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: who are up, who are feeling pressure here, either Democrats
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: or Republicans. It's just like what, and politics is so
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: fucked up now that the shutdown is the most normal
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: thing happening. So it's not the dominant story, right? Like
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: in every other shutdown, what brings it to an end
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: is it is the A, number one story in the country,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: business leaders, the press, everyone puts pressure on the side,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: which has always to this point been Republicans and says,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: give in because you were fucking everything up. That moment
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: is never coming in this media environment. Like we could
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: just be like this for a very long time. And
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden, so in a couple of weeks,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: we start hearing these stories of people who are trying
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: to stretch the money left on their EBT cards from
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: last month to pay for food for a month. Are
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Republicans going to react to that? Probably not. So I
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: legitimately do not know what the endgame here is, particularly
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: if you cannot actually get people lower premiums for this
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: upcoming year.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is... This is, I think... Way back when
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the different options for this, I
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: think I said that I would rather Democrats choose not
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: to engage in a shutdown fight than to engage in
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: one that they give up on about a month in.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Because it's just, it's like, and you said this a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: million times before we got into the shutdown, which is like,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: if you don't know the end game, if you don't
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: know how you're going to get out of it, how
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: are you going to get into the shutdown?
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Well, they had an end game. They have not achieved it.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So I guess they still do. I mean, they, you know,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: they could still, they're still looking to get the subsidies extended, right?
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can, you can keep fighting for that.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, for sure. I think if like a lot
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: of the pain points have been avoided to this point,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: like the troops are being paid by like slush funds and,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and billionaires, um, WIC, you know, snap and WIC funding
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: stopping would be, that's a real pain point. You know,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: ironically enough, I guess there were ground stops all day at, uh,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Reagan airport in DC because the centers are trying to
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: go home. because the air traffic control, there was air
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: traffic controller shortage. I don't, I honestly don't know what
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the next step is here. We just like, cause we
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: think we can stare at each other for another year
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: in this exact position.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And they just, I mean, it is, I just don't
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: know what it says that Republicans have the higher tolerance
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: for pain because they don't give a shit about people.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And if they know that, then they will always have
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the upper hand in these fights and that these fights
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: are pointless unless we're willing to say, It is fucking
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: horrendous that the administration is causing kids to starve. And
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: if Republicans want to end it, they are free to
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: open up the government tomorrow. They can just change the
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Senate rules.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Change.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: The filibuster, made an exception for judges, made an exception
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: for all kinds of other things. Why don't you go
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: ahead and if you, if there's one party that can
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: easily end this by just one little vote, I guess
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: two votes, one vote to change the rules, one vote
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: to reopen the government, you're good to go. And they
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: won't do it. Or, Another way to do it is
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: to not make people's healthcare more expensive. That's another way
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: to feed hungry children.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: When Obama won the shutdown slash debt ceiling fight over Obamacare,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: he basically had to say, if you want to push
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: this over the cliff, I fucking dare you. And then
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: I will make sure, because I'm a better communicator than
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: you have a bigger bully pulpit, that I will make
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: sure everyone knows you're the ones who did this. And
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I will win that fight.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: And we are winning. And like you said, in fairness,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Democrats are winning that fight right now.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: I mean- What I think is fair is that Democrats
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: have– they're winning the fight over who is more blamed,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: which I think is not the fight.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: They have very successfully made this shutdown entirely about making
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: healthcare more affordable. That is a political win, right? That
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: was one of the goals. There was a question of
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: whether they could actually do that. Are you giving healthcare
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: to illegals, right, with the Trump argument? They lost their argument.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Democrats won their argument. It's all about are you going
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: to extend the Obamacare tax credits? If not, why not?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: What they've been unable to do, and this is not
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: even really their fault per se, but is they've not
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: made politics about healthcare.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Politics about a whole bunch of other things, right?
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And it's just, this is the world we live in.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And that's out of their control.
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: And so then you get into this fight where it's like, okay,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: you want to starve children? We'll make sure every fucking
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: person in America knows you're the one starving children. Can
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: you win that fight? You know, that's the question. And
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: is that a fight worth having given the.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Once again, if you cannot change people's premiums for next
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: year and you're going to be, you believe you will
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: be in the majority the next time you can do
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: this in 2027, then it's maybe a different calculus.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And the most depressing thing is that the people who
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: are going to be most hurt by food assistance being
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: cut off are not the people who are going to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: like make a lot of noise about it and come
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: to Congress and protest and talk about it on TV
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and social media, right? And which made me think that
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's the air traffic control stuff.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: But that's what ended the last shutdown.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Then the ground stops, right? Because then, you know, fortunately
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: there you have people who are just like, you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: in the media, in politics, talking a lot more, complaining
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: a lot more, louder, bigger platforms, right? Unfortunately. So maybe
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that does it. But it's pretty bleak. It's pretty bleak.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Do you think that one last maybe note of optimism?
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Am I Dan or Senator Dan? Podcast Dan or Senator Dan?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: You're just Podcaster Dan in this one.
• 42:15
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: If the elections, we have election day on Tuesday. If
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: for some reason, Democrats in Jersey and Virginia way outperform
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: the polls, and it's like a big margin in either state,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: bigger than expected, do you think that puts any more
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: pressure on Republican members of Congress? It should.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: I don't think it will.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Because they're Democratic. They're states that Kamala Harris won, right?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: If all of a sudden- If the Mississippi governor's race
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: was this month and we won Mississippi over this, that
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: could change things. But this is– and even they'll just
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: find– they'll create a rationale for why this doesn't matter.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: On the promising the vote thing, the challenge with that
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: is like you could see Thune and Schumer work out
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: something where– Yeah, I can do that in a second.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: We'll do a vote in the Senate and that probably
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: passes in the Senate, the extension of ACA subsidies because
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you probably get enough Republicans on that. But I don't
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: think Mike Johnson brings that up in the House. You'd
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: have to have Mike Johnson on board saying that he'd
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: bring it up in the House and that he'd probably
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: get a fucking revolt from his right if he ever
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: did that.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: That deal could only work if Trump was involved in negotiation.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Where he could force Mike Johnson to do it. Where
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: he cuts the deal and that's the deal.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Trump needs to feel the pressure and God knows
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: he's not going to feel the pressure. At least I
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: don't think.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Well, according to him, it's the highest numbers ever.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. He does. Pod Save America is
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  Speaker 1: sponsoring this episode. All right. We're going to indulge briefly
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: in our true passion, which is to squabble about democratic messaging.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Not really squabble. Discuss.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Discuss a squabble about democratic messaging.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: Who knows?
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it is. Discuss a squabble. There's a
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: debate about a debate. If you're very online, if you're
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: plugged into the persuasion versus turnout discourse, which we unfortunately are.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Where are we?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: You may have seen the Democratic analyst Simon Bazelon published
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: a big new report called Deciding to Win, along with
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: some co-authors. The report argues basically that we fucked ourselves
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: in 2024 by adopting positions that aren't popular with persuadable voters.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Also not focusing enough on the fabled kitchen table issues
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: that the voters really care about. You know, both of
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: us talked to Simon Bazelon. I had known Simon before this,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: but he reached out and you talked to him, I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: talked to him.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know him before this either.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: We're both in the acknowledgements as people who read a
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: draft of the report. So I don't think the report
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: changed too much from when I looked at an initial draft.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: No, I offered thoughts and comments.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Simon and I basically had a conversation and a debate
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: that we'll probably have right now. Just to let you
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: in on what it was like. But why don't you
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: walk people through sort of the basic findings and particularly
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: those findings that you thought were different or new or
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: surprising in any way?
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, this report has been characterized as a call
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: for Democrats to become more moderate. And it is that
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: in some ways. Now, the headline in Semaphore from the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: story that Dave Weigel wrote analyzing the report was something like, report,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: left-wing ideas crush Democratic brand or something like that. And
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I think The report is much more nuanced than that.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: It's like 100 pages. It involves hundreds of thousands of
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: interviews with voters, discussions with a lot of people like
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: us who agree with some of the report, don't agree
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: with all of the report. But it's a very thorough,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: very thorough research project. It's based on a report done
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: in 1989 called The Politics of Evasion, which became the
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: foundation for Clintonism, essentially, after we got clobbered in the
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: 1988 election. I think the basic argument of the report
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: is as follows. Not just over in 2024, but basically.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Since 2013, or basically the bulk of the Trump era,
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: Democrats have become seen by voters as much more liberal,
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: much more out of touch with mainstream values.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: The percentage of voters who say Democrats is too liberal
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: has gone up by huge numbers over that period of time,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: while Democrats interesting enough, among the number of voters who
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: see Republicans as too conservative has actually gone down over
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: that same period of time, which I know seems crazy,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: and we can come back to why that might be.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: And Simon argues that it's not just perception. This is
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: not just the Fox News calling us liberals or Trump
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: tweeting about us. If you actually look at how Democrats
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: talk and you look at the platform, you look at
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: the words Democrats use, you'll see we've become much more
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: focused in our rhetoric on identity and cultural issues over
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: that period of time. And then I Simon looks at
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: what voters want politicians to prioritize, which is economic issues
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: and border security, essentially. Public safety. Yeah, public safety. That
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: could be crime, immigration, et cetera. Then looks at what
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: voters think Democrats are prioritizing, and it's all the other things.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: They think we prioritize climate change, democracy, guns, identity issues,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: those sorts of things. and that we're essentially not focused
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: on the things they want us to focus on. And therefore,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of sort of specific recommendations in
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: this report, but that the argument here is that Democrats
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: have to change what we're focused on, become much more
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: focused on economic issues in the minds of voters, We
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: have to be willing to run against or break from
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: the positions that voters think we have on issues like immigration, crime,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: some identity issues that are unpopular and basically rebuild the
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: democratic brand since the ground up. Now, Simon would say
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: to you, and the report makes very clear, he is
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: not arguing for sort of corporate centrism. He's not saying
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: for centrism at all. We're just trying to find the
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: mushy middle between the two. He gives special credit in
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: the report to politicians like Bernie, AOC, and Zoran, who
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: have focused like lasers on economic issues, and that has
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: been to their great benefit. The rest of the world
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: could learn a lot of lessons from them. But we
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: could also learn lessons from people like Tom Suozzi, who
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: won a tough election in New York, running in part
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: against Biden's border policies, or Jared Golden, who has won
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: several tough elections in a very red part of Maine.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: and that you have to be willing to break with
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: the party and break with party orthodoxy on some issues.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Fair summary?
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Fair summary. I'm trying to think of anything else that I, like,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I guess my impression of it was nothing, and this
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: is not a criticism, but nothing in it really surprised me,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: which I think is, that's okay, because I think it
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: confirmed a lot of other really good research that we
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: have talked about many times on the show. I think
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: it is in line with Some of the exit polling,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: it's in line with what Cattle has found. It's in
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: line with what Pew found in terms of the electorate
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: and how the electorate has changed over time. One thing
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: you see is that the groups and basically the time
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: horizon of this paper or this report is between 2012
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and 2024. And you see over that time that the
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: groups of voters that Democrats have suffered the biggest losses
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: with between 2012 and 2024 are Black conservatives, black moderates,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Hispanic conservatives, Hispanic moderates, and non-college white moderates. You don't
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: have non-college white conservatives in here because we've already lost them. And,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like the biggest loss comes from black conservatives, right?
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Also like Hispanic conservatives, we probably had lost some of
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: them before 2012 as well. But what really happens is
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: voters of color who Black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: to an extent as well, who were voting for Democrats
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: even though they identified as politically moderate or conservative, have
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: now realigned to the Republican Party so that their identity
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: is less salient in their political choice than what they
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: believe about politics, which is that they are more moderate
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: and conservative. And people don't see that the Democratic Party
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: is as welcoming to moderate and conservative voters. And unfortunately
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: for all of us, the vast majority of voters are
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: either moderate or conservative.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: And non-college educated.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: And non-college educated. And the percentage of voters in the
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: country who identify themselves as liberal is the lowest of
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: all three categories, conservative, moderate, and liberal. On top of that,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: they also find what I think the New York times
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: and others have found as well, catalyst, all of them
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: that the voters who stayed home in 2024 were not
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: more progressive in any way or liberal any, in any
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: way than the voters who showed up. And in fact,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: they were, they looked more like moderate or conservative voters.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: They look more like Trump voters. Like the analysis analysis
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: say that, that if everyone had voted, Trump would have
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: won by a lot more. There are some people who
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: disagree with that. They're by the, I'd say the bulk
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: of the analyses to date suggest that.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: And so, um, So that's tough news. I think the
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: better news is what I found interesting was sort of
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the list of policies, because when you say like be
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: more moderate on this and don't be more moderate on that,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: it's like we talk about it in terms of like
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: broad categories. First of all, the broadest category is just
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: like you're moderate, you're conservative, you're liberal. Like, what does
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: that mean? Then you go issue by issue. But even
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: when you go issue by issue within those issues, there
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: are different policies that are more popular or not. So
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I actually found that like the list of like most
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: popular Democratic policies is least popular Democratic policies, most popular
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Republican policies, least popular Republican policies. I found that more
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: illuminating than a lot of the other information which I
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: had just seen in other reports.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I mean, this is challenging for me
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: because one of my big schticks is that left-right is
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: not the right access to understand politics. And I think
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: we were all hung up on that. That's the point
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: I made to Simon when I talked to him about this.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: And obviously, His entire report was basically around that concept.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: And so I sort of struggle. I find the things
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: that I just went through about the state of the
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: party and how people view the party to be incredibly
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: useful and important. And whether you think we should be
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: more moderate, more liberal, or stay where we are but
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: do it differently, you have to reckon with the reality
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: of how people see us. And this isn't a value
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: judgment on the term liberal. It's that people see we're
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: out of touch. There's an interesting chart in there which
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: goes through The percentage of people who said that the
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Democratic nominee was too liberal– so from Barack Obama in 2012,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: it was like 43% said he was too liberal and
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: like 54% said he was too conservative or just right.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: For Hillary Clinton, the majority said she was too liberal.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: For Joe Biden, and this is really notable, only 39%
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: of voters said he was too liberal because he really
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: had that sort of moderate demeanor and he's an old
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: white man and all of that. And then for Kamala Harris,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: once again, a majority said that.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: 50-50.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's correlation, not causation. And also, there's
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: another chart that looks at who say the party is
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: out of touch. The huge rise in the number of
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: voters who think Democratic Party is out of touch and
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: the number of people who think the Republican Party is
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: out of touch has come down 5% since 2012. And
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: so you have to reckon with the fact that people
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: do not relate to our party. The brand is in tatters, right?
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: And so how do you fix that? And it's not,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to me, as simple as become more moderate, right? Because
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: he's not actually arguing, as far as I can tell,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that we have to develop, quote-unquote, moderate economic policies, right?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: That's not really what he's arguing.
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: No.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Though some liberal policies or progressive policies are unpopular, and
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: some are very popular. And I think the difference there
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: is important. not just because the policies that you sign
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: up for are automatically what voters decide the election on,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: but I do think that some of the values behind
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: those policies are an indicator of messaging and values that
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: we might want to think about. So raising the minimum wage,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: very popular, right? One of the most popular policies. Also,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: anything about not cutting Medicare and Social Security, adding prescription
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: drug coverage, to Medicare, dental, vision, like making healthcare better,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: more accessible, more affordable for sure. Medicare for all, not popular, right?
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Even though all those other healthcare things were. And so
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: it is interesting, like what becomes popular and what doesn't
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: even within these buckets, you know?
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that people have to reckon with
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: here is, this is sort of another version of popularism,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: this idea that we should talk about popular things and
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: not talk about unpopular things, right? You know, almost every
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Democrat is for raising the minimum wage. It's not like
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: we had a bunch of anti-minimum wage Democrats out there
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: who are getting hammered at the polls for not being
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: sufficiently pro-minimum wage. The problem is they can't get any
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: attention for the fact that they're pro-minimum wage.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Because they need a fight.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: You need a fight.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: They need a fight for that, yeah.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: And this is the real challenge, is Democrats do not
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: have the media throw weight to make politics be about
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: what we want it to be about. And so we're constantly...
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: fighting on the issues that Republicans want it to be about,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: but also happen to be the issues that drive conversation
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: and virality in this media age, which is issues of identity.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: And we've seen that. That has been true basically, really,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: if you go back to 2012 when it started to change.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Do you remember when the most popular content on the
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: internet was BuzzFeed lists of 10 ways you know you
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: went to UVA in the 90s or you know, how
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: you know you're from outside of Boston, like, because it
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: speaks to your identity. And so now when you have
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: algorithms that are serving content that is based, that they
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: think you're going to engage with, they're looking at, they're
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: using the metadata about your identity to show that to you.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: And so making politics about some of these other issues
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: and getting attention for them is quite challenging, right? And
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: so it's easy to say, talk more about the economy,
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: The real question is, how do you get people to
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: hear what you're saying about the economy more? And that
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: is like what everyone has to reckon with.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: I think there's that. And then I think the other
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: big issue is, how do you engage on the issues
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: where Democrats are not as popular as Republicans, are not
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: as trusted as Republicans, and in a way that is
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: still in line with what people want? So my hobby
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: horse is immigration. And, you know, I think everyone should
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: be talking about the armed agents in the streets. And,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: you know, no policy was tested about whether or not
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: we want armed, masked agents in the streets, disappearing people.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: But when you look through the, and even, you know,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: you mentioned some of these are cultural identity issues, but
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: when you look at the most unpopular democratic policies that
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: they tested, like Trans issues, they were not in that top,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: like the ones that were most unpopular had to do
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: with public safety and immigration. Those are that, like if
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: I would say even more than cultural identity stuff, like
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: that is looking at this report, like that is where
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats have the biggest weakness. Abolish the police, most unpopular
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: policy ever. Which no Democrat supports. Which no Democrat supports,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: but you know, it was a thing in 2020 and
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: everyone probably thought a lot of Democrats supported it, right?
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Even though no one does now. Abolish prisons, same thing.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Provide free health care to undocumented immigrants, number three, which again,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: no Democrat supports, but this.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Is what they did in 2020.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: They did in 2020. Lower the voting age to 16. Sorry, Lovett.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I like that idea too. That's the fourth most unpopular policy.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Cut police budgets by 10%, which I think a lot
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: of Democrats would say. Some of the more progressive Democrats
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: back in 2020 probably were four or something like that.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Increase refugee admissions, very unpopular. Um, and you know, subsidize
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: electric vehicle purchases. A lot of this stuff that is subsidies, right?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Student loan forgiveness, uh, free college for everybody subsidize electric
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: vehicle stuff. That is those economic, I guess you'd call
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: them economic issues. Those economic policies are less popular than
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: economic policies that require more of corporations and rich people,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: which I think is, is notable here. So like minimum wage.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: going after tax cheats, making, you know, like things that
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: don't seem like a handout, but seem like, or at
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: least will be perceived as a handout because Republicans will
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: say that, but are like really taking on corporate power
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: tend to be much more popular.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: And Simon does recommend in the end that any, no
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: matter what else you do here, you have to have
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: an aggressive critique of the system, right? The political system,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: the economic system, corruption, money and politics, all of that.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Because one of the challenges here is, and this is
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: report doesn't exactly get to this either, is it's not
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: just that people don't think we focus on these policies.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: It's also they don't think that we can deliver on
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: them because we're too weak, we're too much of institutionalists,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: we're too corrupt. And until you do it... And so
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: my main takeaway from this is I do not believe
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: that Democrats have to move to the center writ large.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: I think that is an overly simplistic thing. I think
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: we do have to do some things in our... We
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: have to come to terms with the fact that we
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: don't just get that the median voter is to the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: right of the median Democratic politician. And we have to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: recognize that we have to appeal to those people. We
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: have to persuade those people that we share their values,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: even if we disagree on some issues. And that the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: Democratic– this is where this is going to get my
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: other controversial. I think the Democratic Party brand as it
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: currently stands cannot be fixed. Tell me what the world
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: is where Democratic Party establishment figures go on a whistle-stop
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: tour and they remind everyone of what we're doing, right?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Or that a bunch of billionaires get together and they
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: run ads during the Super Bowl, right, to tell you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: that– Democrats, you know, it's got FDR, Truman, Barack Obama, right? Like,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: this is the future of the party. Like, no. The
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: way we're going to fix this is actually the way
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: we fixed it the last time the party brand was
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: in tatters.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: With the nominee.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Which is a nominee who runs against the party brand
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: and therefore is seen as a different Democrat. And so
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: if you're running for president, you have to run against
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: the party as it currently stands. Because frankly, the establishment
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: is not up to the task. It has failed. This
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: report is an indictment of the Democratic Party over the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: last 10 years. Even as we won elections, a lot
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: of elections, including a presidential election, the party brand is
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: in tatters, in particular over the last four years. And
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: so- You basically have to burn the thing down to
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: rebuild it in a new image.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: So this is probably my biggest critique of the report
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: is there's one chart that Simon uses to argue that it's,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: you know, although like we need more to go on
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan or we need more progressive media or we
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: need to be better at getting attention on social media.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: And the chart shows that the Democratic politicians in Congress
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: with the biggest social media followings tend to perform. They
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: don't they don't perform well. better than expectations in that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: given district, right? In fact, they perform under expectations in
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: their given state or district. And that some of the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Democrats who most overperform their expectations in their district or
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: their state are people who don't have almost any social
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: media following and barely get any attention. And then they
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: have an electability index, which shows the same thing of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: like possible 2028 candidates. And it's like, who has performed
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: better than the national average in their last election. Andy
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Beshear in Kentucky, top of the list. Gavin Newsom, bottom
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of the list. Because he won California by a lot,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: but not as much as whatever the national... He didn't
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: overperform expectations.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: He didn't overperform his own state by more. So if
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: you're running in a Republican state, if you win a
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Republican state, you're always going to win that. It'd be
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: mathematically impossible for Gavin Newsom to win California by enough
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: to have the NDB share like numbers.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: And my big problem with this is that may be
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: true for members of Congress who can run an election
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: in a, especially in a house district where you can
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: go talk to a lot of people, meet a lot
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: of them, TV, get reached them by TV, reach them
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: by wherever, or even a state when you're running for
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the deciding to win is deciding to win the general election.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: It is also deciding to win the democratic primary, which
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: is a national primary. And in order to get the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: democratic nomination, like, Andy Beshear, who way overperformed in Kentucky,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: is going to have to get a lot of attention.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And to get attention, is he going to be able
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: to get attention?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: We'll find out. His first test will be at Crooked
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Con next week.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: That's what I say. We'll find out, right? And so
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: it is about getting attention for the issues, like it
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: says in this report, that people care most about. But
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: there's also just a lot of intangible factors here about
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the person's charisma, their ability to excite people, inspire people.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: And people say, oh, well, we just got to win.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: But you still have to win a Democratic primary, and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: that's still going to be Democratic voters.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: You still have to win a general election.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: You still have to win a general election.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: And if you cannot win the attention wars or compete
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: in the attention wars and be someone who can go
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: on every podcast and answer all the questions and not
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: get flummoxed and have a quick rejoinder when the right-wing
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: media comes after you, then you're not going to win
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: the election.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And be acceptable to... the liberal base of the party,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: even though that does by no means makes up the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: majority of the general electorate or really even the majority
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. It's about half and half, liberal
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: and moderate, even within the Democratic Party. But you need
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a candidate who liberals will at least be fine with,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: if not super excited by, and moderates will be, will
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: get behind. Not an easy task. It's a much harder
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: task than just like picking the most popular policies, I
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: think is where I come down on it.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: My last question thing I'll say here, I think this
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: for everyone is that obviously this report as any report
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: that gets into the future of the democratic party does
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: has created like massive backlash. People are so pissed about this.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: They're yelling about it. Here's the thing I'd say.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen much of the backlash. It's not weird.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Like I've seen a few tweets here and there, but usually,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: usually I'm really in the discourse on this one. I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: guess I must've been busy.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: You haven't been on blue sky because the, the screenshot
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: of the acknowledgements with, uh, our names in it has
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: made the rounds.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: Um, I would say... I have not checked Blue Sky
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: since the Graham Platner incident.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: Yes. But I would say that people.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: And before that, the post-Charlie Kirk assassination incident.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: The nicest thing I can say about it is people
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: are curious as to why you and I are on
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: the list with all these other corporate central shills, right?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Who are all friends of ours. But it's like... Because
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: it's not even.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Think that answers itself, guys.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: But it's people from, you know, the list. It's like
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: people we've worked with in the past. It's like Democratic
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: strategists who work for Progressive Canada. It's like Liz Smith.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Like it's... But the thing I'd say is just No
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: one knows the answers here. There was no one simple
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: answer of go left, go right, or anything else. So
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: let's get all the data, look at everything, and try
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: to have an open mind about all the various things,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: because we're going to find the solution to this in
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: between the poles of this overly polarized conversation.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Go tell that on Blue Sky when you go
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: to your- I'm.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: Going to do that in the safe space of this
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: podcast right now.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: When Senator Dan- Goes and does a Q & A
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: on Blue Sky.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 6: AMA.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, two ridiculous updates we had to fill you in
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: on before we get to Tommy's interview with Zoran Mamdani. First,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: if you aren't a regular viewer of Piers Morgan Uncensored, which,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: what are you doing with your life? You may have
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: missed this exchange from Wednesday night in which hit podcaster
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Katie Miller got into it with liberal commentator Cenk Uygur.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: It's very normal for a Miller to be completely and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: utterly lying.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Piers, I'm going to be done with this.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: If you're going to allow racist and bigoted attacks against
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: one of your commentators, he inserted a.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: Line that says the Miller's lie. Is that not coded language?
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: Or therefore we are Jewish?
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 6: Come on, Piers. Where are you?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: What? Where are you standing? God, you're so pathetic.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: Katie, if I can speak.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Hold on. Hold on.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: Hold on.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: So what?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 7: Happened in the Holocaust and all the pogroms were disgusting.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: That doesn't mean that.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, first of all, Katie Miller, she talks like
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: her husband now. They do the same. They have the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: same cadence.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's how they met. Had a fascist speech class.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: So he says the Millers lie and that's anti-Semitism.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: And two, I guess now we're just going to denaturalize
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: people who hurt the feelings of the ruling regime. People
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: who are in the ruling regime.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Also, did she just announce some pillow talk about the
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: denaturalization of Ilhan Omar?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: I missed that. Did she say that?
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's hard to say what she's saying because she's...
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: So much yelling. There's so much yelling and backtalk, but
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: she says, you know, check your citizenship papers, hope everything
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: in there is entered correctly, or you're going to end
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: up like Ilhan Omar.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Wow, I missed that last part. That's a good find.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, a bad find, but like, what the fuck?
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like, what are we doing?
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I'm really like, and they've said it
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: with Mamdani too, and we've talked about that, the two
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Republican House members, they just They're now, and you see
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: it from all the like MAGA influencer assholes online. The
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: denaturalization thing is the next thing that's coming. But really
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: tough for Katie Miller that, you know, she's in the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: media space now, but cannot take criticism very well without
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: threats to deport you. So that's where we're at right now.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely disgusting.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Second big media event you might've missed. The other day,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the Times of London announced briefly posted an interview with
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio about Zoran Mamdani's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: economic plans, in which de Blasio appeared skeptical of Mamdani's ideas.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: The problem was, as de Blasio quickly and strenuously pointed out,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: he never did an interview with the paper. Now, after
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: a global online manhunt, we know who the culprit is.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Not a prankster or a Mamdani opponent, but a Long
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Island wine seller, also named Bill de Blasio... whose email
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: address the reporter mistook for the former mayor. He told
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Semaphore that he chose not to correct the misimpression, figuring
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: that a fact checker would, and used ChatGPT to help
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: formulate his own actual criticisms. There are so many amazing
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: parts of the story. What's your favorite?
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: I really feel like you're the one who should react
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: to this because.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, yeah, it really does.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Like, have you ever answered questions of The Mandalorian without.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, I have.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: No, I told you, I once... I once got an
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: email from someone pretty high up at Disney ABC sending
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: me their notes on the season two of The Mandalorian.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: And I had to say, well, first I said, I
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: think it's great. And then I quickly looped in the
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: other Jon Favreau whose email I do have and who
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: we have been confused for each other. So it does happen.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: It does happen.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: But see, the thing for you is like the other
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Jon Favreau was a popular, famous, cool person who made
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: The Mandalorian and Swingers and all this other great stuff.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: This other guy has been running around with Bill de
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Blasio's name for years. And he has a total grudge
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: because when they actually met at a Mets game, Bill
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: de Blasio, the mayor, made a joke. And he said, basically,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: he said, well, how's it feel to have my name?
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: I think he said something like, you're fucking killing me
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: with it or something.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: He did. And then he said to Semaphore, who spells–
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: who spells D with a lowercase D because that's the difference.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: It's the, the, the, uh, wine seller, Bill de Blasio
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: is capital D E B L A S I O.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: But the mayor is lowercase D E new word, Blasio.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: And so wine seller says, uh, who spells D with
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: a lowercase D and inserts a space between the two
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: parts of his surname in de Blasio's view, quote, low
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: class Italians use a little D.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Take that, Bill de Blasio, the mayor. Take that, Big D.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: Take that for what you will.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: There's also a picture of them together. Yeah, because that's
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: when they met for the first time. And then this
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Bill de Blasio that they reached was very upset. He said,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Bill de Blasio. I've always been Bill de Blasio.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Nice to have a little moment of joy in these
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: dark times.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: That's all. That's all we got.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: You're about to hear from Zoran Mamdani himself, the real one,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: not a wine seller from Queens. It's the real Zoran Mamdani.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: Before we do that, a reminder that depending on where
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: you are, this could be your last chance to vote
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: early in person for Tuesday's election. You know by now
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: that we are hyper-focused on the governor's races in Virginia
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: and New Jersey, Prop 50 here in California. Find my ballot.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: It's already counted. Love California. I already got the Secretary.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: Of State text.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: State Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania. The Public Service Commission
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: race in Georgia. If you know anyone, any of those states,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: please reach out. Make sure they have a plan to vote.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: They can find all their voting info at votesaveamerica.com slash vote. Also,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: fans of strict scrutiny, big news. By popular demand, Leah, Melissa,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: and Kate are headed to California for their first ever
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: live shows on the West Coast. They'll be at the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Herbst Theater in San Francisco on March 6th, and then
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: the Palace Theater in LA on March 7th. Before that,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: they'll be doing a live show at Crooked Con to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: close out the day. So go to crookedcon.com to get
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: tickets for that. There are only a few tickets left.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: If you can't make it to CrookedCon, you can get
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: tickets to those California shows now at crooked.com slash events. Lastly,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: a humble reminder to subscribe to Senator Dan's newsletter, The
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Message Box. Get it now while he can still write it.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I guess you can write it as a senator.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris Murphy has a sub stack.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is fucking podcasting every day. Do you think
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: I'm quitting this pod when I get elected to the Senate?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: Fuck no.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I hope you better not. The Message Box is all
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: about how Democrats can rebuild our coalition, rebrand our party,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, win elections again. Dan, want to give
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: a pitch? I don't know how it could just beat
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: that pitch that I just gave, but yeah.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: Here's the pitch I'd give. Some would say that Messagebox
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: is a newsletter. I'd say it's my passion project, right?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: I have discovered that I have so many takes, so
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: many thoughts, they cannot be contained in one podcast alone.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: That's why I've had to take to writing. And also,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: and perhaps more importantly, I have this never-ending itch to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: get back into a more granular politics than we do
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: on this podcast. And I really do view message boxes
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: as essentially the equivalent of writing the memos that contain
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: the message guidance, the polling analysis, the political analysis they
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: used to write for candidates like our former boss. So
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: now anyone can get those. And so it's become very
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: important to me. I feel like we want people out there.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: I want everyone who reads message box to be able
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: to talk about politics with all their friends and family
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: in a way that can actually persuade them And so
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: that's sort of the goal there. So the more people
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: that sign up, the more people that sort of expand,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: you know, it expands exponentially so we can reach more people.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: And so this part always takes a little piece of
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: my soul. But to sign up, go to crooked.com slash yeswedan.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Website we will have to claim back for the Senate race.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, we will. Yes, we will.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, we can.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: And yes. You care so much that you're willing to
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: give people a 30-day free trial if.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: They go there right now. Yes, for Pod Save America
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: listeners only. It's a special. And if you say to yourself,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's made everything so expensive, even 30 free days
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: is not enough for me, sign up for free. Sign
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: up for free. I want to convince you to become
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: a paid subscriber, put a lot of content above the paywall,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: particularly the stuff that can help you win the arguments
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: with your people. And then next week, get ready because
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: we're going to have a lot of analysis on what
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: happened in the elections and what it means for 2026.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: All right. You heard the man cricket.com slash. Yes, we Dan.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Zoran Mamdani. Positive America is brought
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  Speaker 9: com slash PSA for 60% off their annual plans. My
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 9: guest today is running to be the next mayor of
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 9: New York City. Zoran Mondani, thank you so much for
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 9: doing the show.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 6: to be back.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 9: So election day is less than a week away. How
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 9: are you feeling? What's keeping you guys up at night
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 9: at this point besides, I guess, everything?
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: Well, I was talking to my mom this morning and
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: she was asking me which poll that she should actually trust.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: And I told her none of them because at the
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: end of the day, all of these are just snapshots
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 6: in time. The only thing that we know for certain
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: is if we get out there and canvas ourselves. And
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: that's what's giving me a lot of confidence is that
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: we're getting close to 100,000 volunteers. We have, I think, 92,000
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: as of last count. And that's going to be the
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 6: way that we make the case. Because as much as
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: this has been every waking, breathing moment of my life
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 6: for the last more than a year, I had a friend, Charlie,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: that went out to Canvas the other day. He met
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 6: somebody that had never heard of me or of the race.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 6: They said they were just tuning in. That's the reality
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 6: for a lot of New Yorkers because they're too busy
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: trying to afford the city they call home to care
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: about the politics of that place.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 9: And if people want to knock some doors, zoron4nyc. com slash GOTV.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 6: Is that right? That is exactly right. And I would
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 6: recommend you come out, you knock whatever neighborhood is closest
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: to you. It might even be your own. And if
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 6: you're not in New York City or you can't make
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 6: a canvassing shift, you can still phone bank because the
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 6: story of how we won the Democratic primary is as
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 6: much the 1.6 million doors we knocked as it is
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 6: the 2.1 million phone calls we made.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Here's my pitch.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 9: October, November is a beautiful time in New York City
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 9: to be outside knocking on doors. You will have conversations
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 9: with voters that surprise the hell out of you like
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 9: they didn't know there was an election happening. They don't
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 9: know the difference with the candidates. You will learn something
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 9: about politics that you did not know. And also you
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 9: probably will do it with a group of people that
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 9: are young and excited and inspired by a campaign and
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 9: not like just talking about Donald Trump.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: So give it a shot.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: We should just have you doing the pitches.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: I'm in.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: I'm in, I'm sold.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 6: The only downside I'll tell you is after my mom
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: came back from a canvassing shift, she was like the
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: 25 year old I was paired with walked too fast.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: I was like, okay, I can handle that.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: That's a good downside.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 9: So like bigger picture, President Trump has gone all in
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 9: to defeat you. He got like Eric Adams to drop out.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 9: He's clearing the field. Some of his biggest donors are
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 9: back in Cuomo. He's overtly threatening to punish the city
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 9: if you win. What is it like having the full
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 9: force of the Trump administration coming down And do you
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 9: think those threats are intimidating voters or make them worry like,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 9: I don't know, if I vote for this guy, is
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 9: Trump going to send the National Guard into my city?
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: You know, I think this campaign shows New Yorkers a
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 6: glimpse of what it would be like in governing, in
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: that Donald Trump is sparing no effort at trying to
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 6: stop our campaign, right? As you've said, pushed Eric Adams
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 6: out of this race, has made very clear that Andrew
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 6: Cuomo is his pick. And it's Donald Trump billionaires who
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: put him back in the White House who have been
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: the ones that are funding Andrew Cuomo's very narrow path.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 6: Back to City Hall. And yet, in spite of all
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 6: of that, in spite of millions of dollars being spent
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 6: every single day, we're still seeing an outpouring of support
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 6: from New Yorkers across the five boroughs. And I think
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 6: it is New Yorkers who refuse to believe that the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 6: two choices in politics are either what we are living
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: through right now in the most expensive city in America.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: or that it could be worse. Politics has to also
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 6: offer a vision of life that is better than this,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 6: and also has to offer the will to deliver on
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 6: that vision. And that's what is so exciting is, yes,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 6: we will continue to have threats from Donald Trump, but
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: we've also seen those threats existed while he had the
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 6: most collaborative mayor in New York City history to the
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump agenda. He had Eric Adams, who quite literally
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 6: knew that his personal freedom was a reality in exchange
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: for him assisting with the administration's immigration agenda. In spite
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 6: of that coordination, still the Trump administration took 80 million
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: from New York City's bank accounts. Still they suspended more
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 6: than 50 million from New York City schools. Still they
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 6: look to suspend $ 18 billion in infrastructure funding. And so
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: we know that the threats, we know that the attempts
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 6: at intimidation will continue, but I'm confident in our administration
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: and in our city's ability to rebuff them.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 9: Yeah, and we cannot let him dictate elections all over
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 9: the world or here. I know in this final sprint,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 9: you guys are leaving no stone unturned. You're trying to
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 9: persuade every last voter. In that spirit, have you considered
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 9: reaching out to the fake Bill de Blasio who did
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 9: an interview with the Times of London attacking you?
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 6: I couldn't believe that. It was, it was, you know, he,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: I think he lives on Long Island, right?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 9: So I reached out, I reached out to the fake
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 9: Bill de Blasio. I shit you not, it turns out
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 9: that they emailed.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: Com. Honestly, not a bad, not a bad attempt. There
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 6: are a lot of politicians that are pretty straightforward contact addresses.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 9: Bill wrote me back. He said he would be happy
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 9: to chat this morning. Well, the Bill de Blasio that
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 9: was featured in the Times of London. Yeah, Times of London, Bill.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 9: He told me he'd be happy to chat. I sent
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 9: him a list of questions and he didn't write back.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 9: So either he didn't like me or he's doing the
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 9: most authentically de Blasio thing ever by being super late.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: So we'll find out.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 6: I read articles where people reached out to him and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: then he told them, meet me on the steps of
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 6: City Hall. Let's fight. And then they emailed him, where
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 6: were you?
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 6: I don't think there's another guy with my name. But
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 6: I did meet a grocery store owner named Zahran on
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 6: Steinway the other day. Shout outs to you.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: Shout out that guy.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 9: I really wanted fake Bill to let me know whether
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 9: you thought Curtis was saying glazing too much. Like, is
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 9: it funny? Is it try hard?
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: What was your take?
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 6: Well, that was the first time I'd heard it. And
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 6: I thought it was quite funny on that stage.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it was.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: It was a good moment. OK, jokes aside, the Times
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 9: of London is a Murdoch paper. The fact that this
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: London based newspaper was so desperate to write something shitty
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 9: about you that they humiliated themselves by interviewing a fake
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 9: Bill de Blasio. It suggests a level of interest in
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 9: your campaign from Rupert Murdoch that strikes me as a
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 9: bit ominous. Like, does that worry you at all? You
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 9: guys feel ready for like four years of the the
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 9: New York tabloid treatment?
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 6: We are. We're ready for it. We've been living through
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: it through the course of this campaign. And it's also
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 6: an opportunity to make the case to each and every
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 6: New Yorker as opposed to write people off. And what
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 6: I mean by that is, you know, we had this
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 6: rally at Forest Hills. We had more than 10,000 people there.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: One of the attendees, I was stepping out onto the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 6: stage and a member of our NYPD security detail pulled
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 6: me aside. They were like, sir, I just want you
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 6: to know in your line of sight, you will see
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: someone with a MAGA hat. But we checked and they're
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 6: here sincerely. And I walk out and there's a guy
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 6: with a MAGA for Mamdani hat and a MAGA for
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: Mamdani t-shirt. And I say this to you as an
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 6: example of there will be many New Yorkers who read
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 6: the post as the way that they get their news.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 6: And I'm still looking to reach out to them as well.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 6: And it was actually the post that has endorsed a
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 6: piece of legislation that I introduced quite some time ago,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 6: though they probably won't recall. And that's what it means
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 6: to have a desire to serve each and every New Yorker,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: not just the ones who already agree with you.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 9: And you seem to actually believe it when you say it,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 9: unlike the president of the United States. So this question
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 9: is a bit of a journey, but bear with me.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 9: So the closing message from a bunch of your opponents
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 9: is like, in some part, overt bigotry and Islamophobia. There's
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 9: Cuomo laughing when a radio host suggests you cheer at
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 9: another 9-11. Adams and Curtis Lewis said some vile things
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 9: I'm just not going to repeat. At the same time,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 9: I'm watching Donald Trump blow up boats off the coast
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 9: of Venezuela and kind of marry up the war on
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 9: drugs with the war on terror in just the worst
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 9: way possible. And for me, it's just like the latest
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: reminder that this country has not moved on from the
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 9: post 9-11 fear-based war on terror policies and politics. And
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 9: you recently gave this remarkable speech where you addressed the
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 9: Islamophobic attacks on you. And you said, quote, the bigger
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 9: question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 9: anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 9: that That when we hear it, we know not whether
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 9: the words were spoken by a Republican or a Democrat.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 9: We know only that it was spoken in the language
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 9: of politics in this city.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: Great speech.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 9: Everyone should watch it.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: It's up on YouTube.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 9: It's only 10 minutes long. And my question is, where
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 9: do you think your campaign fits in that process, in
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 9: that journey, this like decades long effort now to move
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 9: past the post 9-11 politics of fear?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 6: You know, I hope that this campaign represents to New
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 6: Yorkers across the five boroughs the possibility of being their
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 6: full selves in the city that they call home. Because
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 6: I spoke in that speech about how for a long
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 6: time many Muslims were made to feel as if that
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 6: safety could only be found in the shadows. And two
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 6: days after I gave that speech, I went to Abyssinian
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 6: Church and Reverend Johnson gave a sermon, in part in
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 6: response to my speech, speaking about the allure of the shadows.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 6: and the necessity of stepping out of those shadows. And
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: he looked at me in the course of that speech,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 6: and he told me that I was enough. And these
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 6: are the words that I think many New Yorkers need
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 6: to hear in understanding that there is no amount of
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 6: shrinking themselves into a box that will ever be sufficient.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 6: And he quoted from the Bible and spoke about Esther.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 6: And when she said, if I perish, I perish. If
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 6: the cost of living up to the moment and what
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 6: it is demanding of me is to lose myself, it
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 6: is still worth doing so. And I continue to see
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 6: in New Yorkers, many of them Muslim, but many of
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 6: them also not, that this feeling of an ever-narrowing definition
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 6: of who gets to belong in the city is the
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 6: antithesis of what makes so many so proud to be
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 6: New Yorkers. And I think that there's this tendency to
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 6: think in an era where we have a bully in
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 6: the White House that the only way to take him
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 6: on is to become the bully ourselves. It's similar to
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 6: the articles that were written after the presidential election when
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 6: we saw the rightward shift in New York that in
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 6: order to defeat the Republican Party, we may have to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 6: become the Republican Party. The truth is, in fact, we
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 6: have to live up to what made so many people
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 6: excited to be a part of the Democratic Party when
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 6: we had an affirmative vision for the dignity of working
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 6: class people. And I think that we have been far
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 6: too willing to cast so many aside in the hopes
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 6: of retaining power, as opposed to building a coalition that
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 6: can win power. That is what I hope that we
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 6: are on the precipice of right now.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 9: As you know, at the same time, your opponents in
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 9: the New York Post, again, they are closing the campaign
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 9: by going back to this focus on your views on Israel. Specifically,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 9: they're circulating this clip from 2023 where you said, quote,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 9: we have to make clear that when the boot of
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 9: the NYPD is on your neck, it has been laced
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 9: by the IDF. Was that a reference to just like
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 9: police training that happens often, including NYPD going to Israel
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 9: to get training from the IDF or the Israeli police
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 9: or intelligence?
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 6: That's what that was a reference to. And I find
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 6: that no matter how much we have, whether it be
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 6: the Post or whether it be my opponents, looking to
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 6: make the closing message of this race about anything other
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 6: than the most pressing crisis in New Yorkers' lives, I
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 6: found that New Yorkers, when I actually meet them in
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 6: person across the five boroughs, It still comes back to
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 6: the same thing that they told me more than a
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 6: year ago. Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 6: And I think in many ways we see that all
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 6: Andrew Cuomo has is a vision of the past as
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 6: it was, as it should have been, and what we
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 6: have actually is a vision of the future. And we're
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 6: going to see the contrast of that only increase over
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: the next five days.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 9: When I watch your campaign, when I watch the great
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 9: rally you did with AOC and Bernie on Sunday, And
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 9: I see that energy. It brings me back to 2007
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 9: when I was young and working for Barack Obama in Iowa,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 9: and everything was ahead of us. It was all hope
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 9: and excitement, and there was nothing we couldn't do. And then,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 9: of course, as you know, candidates get elected, and you
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 9: face inevitable setbacks, and sometimes your supporters can feel frustrated
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 9: or demoralized. And I just wondered if you have thought
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 9: about that or worried about you know, how much hope
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 9: and excitement there is behind your campaign and how many
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 9: young people are getting involved and feeling like your campaign
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 9: is the avenue to get them back into politics and
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 9: feel that excitement again and how they can prepare themselves
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 9: for how difficult it is to govern.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 6: You know, I think that with hope comes an immense
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 6: responsibility to deliver on the promise of it. And I
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 6: take very seriously that responsibility because as you've said, This
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 6: is a hope that for many New Yorkers has been
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 6: the first time they've experienced it in the politics of
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 6: their city. For others, it's the first time they've experienced
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 6: it in years since the last time they actually engaged
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 6: with politics. And the things that are written behind me,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 6: these cannot just be slogans. These have to be commitments
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 6: that we deliver on. And it will be hard. It
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 6: will be difficult. But I continue to believe that what
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 6: we have seen in our politics in this city for
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 6: far too long is an unwillingness to even try. an
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 6: unwillingness to even dream of the life that people actually deserve.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 6: And I know that the coalition we've built has proved
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 6: that impossible is nothing on many a different juncture over
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 6: the course of this last year. I know that we
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 6: can continue to do the same in actually governing the city,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 6: delivering on these promises and showing New Yorkers that when
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 6: they look for representation in their city hall, they will
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 6: find it in the struggles that we focus on because
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 6: those will be the struggles that New Yorkers are experiencing
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 6: each and every day.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 9: Final question. What is more annoying, people whining on message
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 9: boards about Arsenal's playing style or Bill Ackman's tweets?
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 6: You know, it's tough. It's tough. I'm going to say
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 6: it's got to be Arsenal. Because at this point, Bill,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 6: I've come to expect the tweets. I kind of look
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 6: forward to the tweets. It feels like you're trying to
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 6: tweet as many as we would tax you, but you're
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 6: spending even more than that.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 9: So long.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 6: But when it comes to the Arsenal message boards, guys,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 6: we've been through the tough years. Come on. Results.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 9: Is Arteta getting fired if Arsene doesn't win the Premier League?
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 6: Arteta in. I'm not even entertaining that hypothetical.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 6: This is what's wrong with the media. Every other question
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 6: was fair and then you went the wrong way.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 9: Zoran Mamdani, thank you so much for doing the show. Again,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 9: that's Zoran4NYC. com slash GOTV if you want to knock on
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 9: some doors.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: Best of luck next week.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 6: Thanks so much, man. Appreciate you guys.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Zora and Mamdani
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: for coming on. I'll be back on your feet on
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: Sunday with a great conversation I had with CNN's Abby
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: Phillip about covering Trump, hosting one of the most contentious
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: shows on television, and her fascinating new book about Jesse
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: Jackson's presidential campaigns. Talk to you all then.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 6: Bye, everyone.
• 1:33:03
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  Speaker 1: Emma Illick-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
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