Latest / Pod Save America / A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party

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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party · Pod Save America

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• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Is this weird for you? Me with the sticks?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Honestly?
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  Speaker 2: Love it. Jon and I are in the studio today.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Lovett is on his way to Wisconsin where he's doing
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: some campaigning for a very important judicial race. Yeah. That's cool.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: You and I are going to be out with Ro
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Khanna on Sunday. When you're hearing this, probably. Yeah, doing
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a town hall. To his great credit, Ro Khanna is
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: going to Republican districts where the elected officials refuse to
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: talk to their constituents. But all of this is a
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: topper for our Sunday episode this week, which I did.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Who did you talk to?
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  Speaker 2: Congressman Adam Smith. He represents Washington's 9th Congressional District. He's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: been there for about 30 years. He and I connected
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: last year after, remember when Joe Biden did that debate?
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  Speaker 1: Oh, the one he didn't do so well.
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  Speaker 2: It was bad. We held our tongue. Yeah, I think
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  Speaker 2: we did. Congressman Smith, he was not a big fan
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of that performance either. And then we've stayed in touch
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  Speaker 2: since and In December, I started talking to him and
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: he wanted to come on the show to talk about
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: what happened in 2024, his vision going forward and so
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: on and so forth. And so he was in LA.
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  Speaker 2: When was that? Wednesday?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And honestly, we had planned to talk for 15 or
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  Speaker 2: 20 minutes, but it was just such an interesting conversation
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: that we went and went and went and all of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a sudden it had been 45 minutes. That's great.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: It's rare for a politician.
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  Speaker 2: I know. I was like, this is fascinating. This guy
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  Speaker 2: has a lot of big ideas. He's a national security expert.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: He's been in politics for a long time. He has
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  Speaker 2: thoughts about how to build the biggest coalition possible for
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  Speaker 2: the party. So we thought, all right, Sunday episode. Cool.
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  Speaker 2: Let's do it. And so we're going to listen to
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  Speaker 2: Congressman Adam Smith. And then afterwards, John and I are
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  Speaker 2: going to do some Q & A from our Discord subscribers.
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  Speaker 2: So stick around for that. So without further ado, here
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  Speaker 2: is Congressman Adam Smith. Congressman Smith, great to see you.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming to the LA studio.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on.
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  Speaker 2: So we're talking Wednesday morning. Over the last week, a
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: lot of progressives, including many of your colleagues at the House,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: have voiced displeasure with Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats about
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  Speaker 2: their handling of the Republican continuing resolution that kept the
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  Speaker 2: government open. I was wondering what you made of Schumer's vote, rationale, leadership,
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  Speaker 2: and if you disagreed with it, what you think Democrats
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  Speaker 2: should be doing differently in this moment.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the biggest thing, I don't think we should be
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  Speaker 3: sucked into an extended play conversation about a CR. That's
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  Speaker 3: just a starting point. So that's my way of saying
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to directly answer all different aspects of
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  Speaker 3: that question.
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  Speaker 2: The going forward part is what you do differently is
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  Speaker 2: more interesting to me.
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  Speaker 3: The really frustrating part for me, because I think, and
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  Speaker 3: gross generalizations are always problematic, but the left side of
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  Speaker 3: our coalition is is fundamentally right about two big things,
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  Speaker 3: maybe all three actually, but the two that are relevant here.
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  Speaker 3: We need to directly confront Donald Trump in a consistent,
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  Speaker 3: aggressive way. I think that needs to happen. I totally
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  Speaker 3: disagree with James Carville's take. I understand what he's saying.
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  Speaker 3: He's saying, let the Republicans fail. Let it be clear
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  Speaker 3: to everyone that they're the ones who failed. That's not
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  Speaker 3: the world we're living in today. Today is a 24-7
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: messaging battle for attention.
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  Speaker 2: Agreed.
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  Speaker 3: And I've been doing it in a way I've never
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  Speaker 3: done it before, do a lot of my own videos,
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  Speaker 3: go on media. I think we have to point out
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  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump is attempting an authoritarian takeover of our government.
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  Speaker 3: To the extent that people don't agree with us on that,
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  Speaker 3: we have to convince them.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Now, we also have to work on other issues. So
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  Speaker 3: I think the notion that we need to be more
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  Speaker 3: aggressive is correct. I think the idea that Democrats haven't
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  Speaker 3: always picked the best leaders is correct. I mean, you
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  Speaker 3: and I started talking when I was trying to get
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  Speaker 3: Joe Biden out of the race. It still is flabbergasting
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  Speaker 3: to me that anybody, much less a significant group of people,
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  Speaker 3: thought that an 82-year-old Joe Biden was an effective messenger
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  Speaker 3: for us. And I have respect for the man's career.
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  Speaker 3: I have respect for a lot of things he did
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  Speaker 3: as president. But you could see him from four years ago.
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  Speaker 3: And even if you was doing a good job as president,
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  Speaker 3: you could know that he wasn't going to be the
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  Speaker 3: effective candidate we need. So I think we do have
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  Speaker 3: a hard time making those judgments. Also, I have clashed
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  Speaker 3: with Chuck Schumer before. Details of that story aren't worth
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  Speaker 3: getting into. So I kind of see that. But what
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  Speaker 3: really worries me is the same people who are pushing
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  Speaker 3: this narrative the hardest are the same people who spent
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  Speaker 3: a lot of the time, sorry, not the exact same people,
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  Speaker 3: same group the last year protesting Democrats. When Donald Trump
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  Speaker 3: was an existential threat, they were protesting Kamala Harris. They
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  Speaker 3: were protesting Colin Allred. They weren't protesting Ted Cruz and
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. So I think we need to look at
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: the broader coalition message and see what some of the
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  Speaker 3: flaws are in that left-leaning approach on policy, on immigration,
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  Speaker 3: on economics, on identity politics, on– to Ezra Klein's point
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  Speaker 3: in his new book, getting things done where we govern.
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  Speaker 3: So– Yeah, I don't agree with the way Chuck Schumer
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  Speaker 3: handled that. I don't think the messaging was strong. I
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  Speaker 3: don't think it's been well organized. I do think Hakeem
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  Speaker 3: Jeffries did a great job in the House. I think
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  Speaker 3: we ought to give him credit for that. But what
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  Speaker 3: I'm worried about is if we buy into that. then
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  Speaker 3: do we buy into all this other stuff that has
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  Speaker 3: really created problems for the Democratic coalition?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're getting at something important, which
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  Speaker 2: is I think the Times had an analysis week where
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: they said, actually, the real split in the Democratic Party
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  Speaker 2: right now isn't really even on policy. It's about how
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: hard should we fight or not fight. And they juxtapose
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom talking to conservatives on his podcast with like J.B.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Pritzker using harsh words, which I don't I don't really
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: think there's that much of a tension there, but I
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: think what you're getting at, let's just name a specific Gaza.
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  Speaker 2: There were a lot of protests of Joe Biden and
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  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris on Gaza. I understand why those protesters were there.
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  Speaker 2: I thought the Biden policy on Gaza was awful and
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  Speaker 2: immoral and indefensible. And I said as much publicly at
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: the time, but I've been thinking a lot about how
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we should reconstitute a pro-Palestinian rights, anti-war coalition in the
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  Speaker 2: Trump era. And it has to be like red rose
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  Speaker 2: socialists to Rand Paul, conservatives. Everyone is welcome under that
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  Speaker 2: coalition or effort to stop the war. And I think
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  Speaker 2: the only way you can keep it together is if
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  Speaker 2: we do not tell people how to oppose the war.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have to use the word genocide to oppose
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  Speaker 2: this war. You don't have to be anti-Zionist to oppose
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  Speaker 2: this war. You can just think, I support the state
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  Speaker 2: of Israel, but I think this is a horrific humanitarian
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  Speaker 2: disaster that's not making any of us safer. That's going
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  Speaker 2: to redound against the US, right? A broad tent.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: The other part of it, yes, we have to have
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  Speaker 3: a broad tent. The other part is that broad tent
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  Speaker 3: has to be really focused on defeating Donald Trump and
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  Speaker 3: the MAGA movement. And within our coalition, there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of differences of opinion. We have to figure out how
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  Speaker 3: to bring enough of them together so that we can
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  Speaker 3: defeat Trump. Because whether you're talking, I mean, on Gaza,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a lot of differences of opinion on that.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's not better. No. On that issue, the MAGA
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  Speaker 3: people aren't better on that issue. And then there's a
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  Speaker 3: whole host of other things. So the challenge that I'm
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  Speaker 3: trying to take on, politics is about building coalitions. My
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  Speaker 3: fundamental theory is that our coalition is broken and the
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  Speaker 3: Democratic Party brand is broken. And I don't presume to
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  Speaker 3: have all the answers, but we have to start the
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  Speaker 3: conversation and we have to force it forward and we
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  Speaker 3: have to have disagreements about it and not try to
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  Speaker 3: say there's only one way to do it and we're
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  Speaker 3: going to force everybody into that. And I'm hoping to
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  Speaker 3: have that broader open conversation about how to rebuild the
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  Speaker 3: coalition and rebuild the brand and address the policy issues
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  Speaker 3: we need to address. Got to challenge Trump for being authoritarian.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Got to challenge him on economic issues, on the way
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  Speaker 3: that it's impacting people's lives beyond the democracy thing. But
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: then we have to have a reasonable alternative for the
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  Speaker 3: American people. And I think the biggest reason Donald Trump
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: won was because too many people didn't think we did.
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  Speaker 2: Right. I agree with that. And so, I mean, Since
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the election, there has been this kind of messy debate
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: about why we lost in 2024, but also what to
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  Speaker 2: do going forward. This week, this Democratic data firm called
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Blue Rose Research released their analysis of why Democrats lost
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: in 2024. It was based on both, I think, like
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: 24 million pieces of survey data and precinct level voter data.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: So like, you know, a lot of inputs here. Some
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  Speaker 2: of the core findings are Hispanic, Asian and young voters
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: and politically disengaged voters all swung towards Trump. Democrats are
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: losing very badly with young men, especially young white men.
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  Speaker 2: The gender gap is massive among young men. Democrats did
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: not lose because of a turnout problem in 2024. In fact,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Blue Rose found that if more people voted, Trump would
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: have won by more. And they found that Democrats took
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: a huge hit when it came to voter confidence and
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: our ability to fix the economy and deal with cost
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: of living issues. I'm wondering, does that sound right to you?
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  Speaker 2: And then I mean, far more difficult question, I guess,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: is what course corrections do we make to fix those
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: impressions or, you know, losing young men, for example?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think We have to do multiple things at
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  Speaker 3: the same time in terms of messaging. I think, like
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  Speaker 3: I said, we do need to make the case against
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Now, the one thing I would– I think
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  Speaker 3: we need to stop this debate about what the right
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: way to do that is. I put out a statement
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: about the whole Al Green, Alyssa Slotkin thing. We had
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  Speaker 3: this huge debate within the coalition. Oh, the Democrats, they're
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: not on the same page. You got Al Green out
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  Speaker 3: there screaming. You got Alyssa Slotkin giving– which approach is right?
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  Speaker 3: Both approaches are right. Okay. Good for Al Green for
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  Speaker 3: standing up to Donald Trump and saying, you're a liar.
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  Speaker 3: And on January 6th, you besmirched the very institutions that
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: you're asking me to come here and respect. Good for
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: him making that point forcefully. And good for Alyssa Slotkin
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  Speaker 3: for clearly, articulately, in a measured way, laying out an
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  Speaker 3: agenda that a broader group of It's got to be everybody.
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  Speaker 3: We've got this fight. No, you've got to scream louder. No,
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  Speaker 3: I guess it depends on the circumstances. So you've got
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: to pull all that together. But I also come back,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and this is where, and I've spoken with Ezra Klein
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  Speaker 3: a couple of times, we've got to govern better. We
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: just have to get things done.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: We're in California. We feel that one.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm Washington State, the Seattle-King County area. We
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: are drowning in process and inclusion. We're not building housing.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: We're not building roads. We're not building high-speed rail. We're
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: not governing effectively because we've fallen in love with too
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: much process and too much inclusion as opposed to getting
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: things done for people. Now, there's a lot of blame
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: to go around here. And I'm dragged into this world
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: of are you a centrist or are you on the left?
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And I went through those battles. In the 80s and 90s,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: I was New Democrat, part of the DLC. Early 2000s,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Simon Rosenberg, who's a good friend of mine, and I
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: sort of felt like the New Dem movement was losing
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: its way to some extent. And I concluded that what
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: we need is we need the center and the left.
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  Speaker 3: It's not, okay, which side is right? We got to
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: figure out how to work better together going forward. No doubt.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: But my frustration in the Seattle King County area is
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: that a lot of left-leaning policies have proven ineffective. And
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: that's fine. This is a complicated, very difficult business.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: What are a couple of examples?
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Criminal justice, housing, homelessness, drug abuse.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Drug decriminalization efforts, it seems like there's been a body
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: of research that it's not going well.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Correct. But also just basic insistence on competency, accountability, and
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: personal responsibility in addition to helping people. We've set up
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: organizations based more on identity and lived experience than competency
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: at the task. So as a consequence, a lot of
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: the money that we've poured into homelessness hasn't been well spent.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: It's gone to organizations who don't know how to run
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: a business. don't know how to build housing or run housing.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: So we haven't been as focused on efficiency and effectiveness
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: in what we've been spending. And also, I think that
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: the balance, we needed criminal justice reform. I'm 100% opposed
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to mass incarceration. I think we've made progress on that.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: But can we have accountability in the alternatives to incarceration programs?
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: We don't have that accountability in King County. And the
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: other aspect of it, which we've alluded to earlier is,
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: so I noticed this, like, Four years ago, five years ago.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And I started having conversations. And the resistance to any changes,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: to trying to make it better, every time I asked
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: a question, I was like, well, you're just, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: you're in favor of mass incarceration. You're citing Republican talking points.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to fix a problem. Trying to make
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: us work better. So I think the ideological rigidity, and
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: that came out a lot in the opposition to Gaza.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, using threats and intimidation to try to silence
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: people who disagree with you should not be a progressive value.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: And I've had that happen.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I had a town hall meeting last June and could
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: not conduct the meeting because it was just insults were screamed.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't let anybody else talk. And the entire civic
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: discourse broke down because of that approach. So I think
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: we need to be more inclusive and more results oriented.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I read, I respect and
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: support everyone's right to protest however they want. I also
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: respect and support my right to tell you when you're
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: being an idiot and making things worse. And I think
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: if you look at efforts to defeat authoritarian movements around
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the world, it only works when there is the broadest
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: possible coalition. Most recently, there's a damn near neo-Nazi who
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: almost became the chancellor of Austria. And only because Three
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: different parties came together to finally form a government. Did
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: he get blocked from taking power?
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: And part of that has to be just open and
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: honest conversations. And that's what I've really struggled with in
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: areas where the Democratic Party is essentially a one-party system,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: which is California, Washington State, Seattle, King County. They tend
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: to grab onto that power and then say, don't you
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: question me.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Don't you challenge me.
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• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom is taking some shit right now. And I
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: think that the idea in principle is a good one.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe the execution hasn't been perfect or great so far,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: but I support that. I mean, I'd Glenn Greenwald on
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Pod Save the World, my foreign policy show the other day.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I got a lot of shit from people that just
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: didn't want to hear from him, but I actually thought
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: it was interesting to talk to him about the First Amendment.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Can I critique that? Because the important part is one
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: of the things I've always said, and I go on
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Fox News. I actually was on Matt Gaetz's podcast a
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: couple years ago. I wrote a book. It was about that.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: It wasn't about policy. I think we as progressives, as Democrats,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: we can't cede the ground. I agree. But the thing
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that kills me about what Gavin is doing, you got
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: to challenge the person.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, sure, don't be there in the trans thing.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: I think you need to understand that it is not
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: primarily about whether or not trans women should play in sports.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: It's about the fact that there is a movement in
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: this country that That is trying to dehumanize, target, and
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: act like trans people don't exist and the rhetoric around that.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: So you want to have a conversation about who should
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: play in what leagues. I'm open to it. But when
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: you're out there saying there's only two genders, when you're
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: banning transgender people from serving in the military, when you're
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: denigrating them and insulting them, and I'm going to forget
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: the exact quote, but there was a quote that Charlie
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Kirk used against that basically they're freaks and weirdos. I mean,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: he is dehumanizing and challenging the very existence of a
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: group of people. And if you can't stand up and
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: fight back against that, if you get dragged into a
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: conversation about a little league baseball team. Yeah. That's not
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: what we need.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I completely agree. There is a fundamental threshold issue about
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: human rights and humanity, and we need to give no
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: quarter on those issues ever. If you want to have
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: a separate issue about sports fairness at the high school level, fine.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: But I think that should be handled by local leaders.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And we don't need the demagogue people. And that's clearly
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: what's happening. You're a foreign policy expert. Can I ask
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: you some international stuff?
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: So on Tuesday, President Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin for
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: an hour and a half or so. Putin says he
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: will agree to a 30-day pause on bombing Ukrainian energy
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: infrastructure in I have no confidence that he will follow
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: through on that.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: He's already broken it.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like there's already been some ceasefire violations.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: But basically, Putin held his maximalist positions on basically every
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: other part of the negotiation, at least if you read
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the Russian language readout of his side of the call.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: What's your level of confidence that Trump can broker some
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: sort of peace agreement? And I would imagine you Talk
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: with people at the White House and the State Department,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Republicans in Congress. Like, what do they say when you
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: ask them, why is Donald Trump giving every concession to
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Putin preemptively while hammering Zelensky?
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Well, there's two ways of looking at it. My confidence
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: level is very low, by the way. One of them
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: is worrisome. The other one is catastrophic. One is that
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Trump genuinely wants to get a peace agreement between Russia
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: and Ukraine. And it's not incorrect to say that as
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: long as Ukraine was insisting on their maximalist goals, retake
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: all of Ukrainian territory, try Putin for war crimes, force
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Russia to repay. And I've had this conversation with Zelensky
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: as well as with others to say, we're with you.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: We're going to defend you and help you. But that's
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: a war that you can't win. So we got to
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: get to a path. And if you want to put
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: a little pressure on Zelensky to say, hey, let's come
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: to the table and have that conversation. So the charitable
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: view is that that is what Trump is trying to do.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: The problem with that view is it only works if
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: you also put pressure on Putin. And this is the
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: argument that I had last year when we were arguing
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: over passing the supplemental to help Ukraine. And a lot
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: of Republicans who claim to support Ukraine were like, yeah,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: but we got to get to peace and we're not
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: doing this right. We're not doing that right. I said, okay, great.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: But if we cut off Ukraine, they're dead. So I'm
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: happy to have that conversation, but there's a threshold question here.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Are we going to support Ukraine and put them in
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: a position to defend themselves? So when Trump comes in
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and cuts off intel sharing and cuts off aid and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: cuts off the military assistance, he's just throwing the door
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: wide open for Putin. You got to put pressure on
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Putin to force him to the table. He's the one
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: who started the war. And the only pressure is you
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: have to give security guarantees to Ukraine and cutting off
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: their assistance is is the exact opposite of giving security
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: guarantees to Ukraine. So the charitable way of looking at
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: this is that Trump's a little incompetent in terms of
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: how he negotiates. There is a darker vision, and that
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: is personified by Marjorie Taylor Greene and a variety of
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: other white Christian nationalists who populate the Republican Party, what
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Liz Cheney lovingly referred to as the Putin wing of
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party. that views Vladimir Putin in Russia as
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: an ally because he is anti-woke. He is a white
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Christian nationalist. And which side of that is calling the shots?
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: I wish I had more confidence that it was the
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: side that just wants peace and they're going at it awkwardly.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I'm deeply worried that Trump is aligning us with Putin
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: and Russia's vision for the world, which is a dark
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: and terrible vision.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a world where Trump, I mean, I
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: think we sort of see it in his demeanor and
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the words he says, where he is more comfortable with,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: he feels more connected to, more aligned with autocrats, including Putin.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And pretty recent.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: It's bullshit. Exactly. It's, it's, it's a, it's a fascist
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: clinging to whatever unites the people.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Any good fascist has to, has to have like, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: that sort of following. Exactly.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I've been reading this book about Steve Bannon and his
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: connection to this kind of small group of right-wing literal
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: fascists who are also kind of a cultist called traditionalists.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And it gets into his ties with this guy, Alexander Dugin,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: who's this very scary genocidal Russian thinker. And it's, Very
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: weird that Steve Bannon met with Dugan and he's kind
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: of Putin's guy.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: All of which is why it is so important that
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: the Democratic coalition gets its shit together.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And fights that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: And again, the whole center left thing, I get dragged
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: into that world a lot. But I am frustrated with
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: the left's unwillingness to make changes in policy so that
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: we can build more housing. So that our streets can
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: be safer. So that we can have more competent– and
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I understand where a lot of this comes from. Power
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: has been abused. And in our country, power has primarily
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: been held by straight white men historically. So they wanted
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: to go after the power structure. That's fine. But you
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: have to have rules and standards and hierarchies in order
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: to actually accomplish things for the people that we progressives
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: want to help. Chaos only benefits the people who already
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: have enough money that they don't have to worry about it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: So could we update that ever so slightly so that
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: we actually have– if the power system is abused, fix it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Get the right people in place. Hold the people accountable
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: who are abusing it. But then you have to have rules.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: You have to have standards, accountability, personal responsibility so you
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: can build a better, safer society so that we can
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: go to the public and say, you know, not just
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: don't go with the fascist, which I would I would
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: have hoped that that would have been enough.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: One would think.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I will be honest with you, but it's very clear
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: that it's not. No. So we have to say, come
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: with us because here's how we're going to build a
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: better life for people.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Fascism is very hot right now, especially with young white men.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Look at Germany, look at the AFD party. It's also
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: driving me insane that Trump primarily talks about alliances as
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: some sort of financial burden and rather than understanding that
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: we created NATO, we constructed it as it is because
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: it ate a ton of control and power. We didn't
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: want the French and everybody, you know, we don't want
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: a massive amounts of nuclear nonproliferation. Some of it happened,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: but we wanted to fold them into our system. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: he just doesn't seem to get that.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Just on that point. And I work a lot. I
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: think I mentioned Simon Rosenberg. I've worked with him a lot,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: a bunch of different issues. And he's in favor of
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: opening a second front. Front number one is Trump's destroying
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: our economy and, you know, threatening a whole bunch of
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: different things. Threat number two is he's making us weaker.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: He is actually making us more vulnerable as a country
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: that his national security strategy is is making us weaker,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: more vulnerable, and economically less strong. And that these institutions
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: that he's smashing because he just sees it as, you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: basically he sees allies and partners as people to be exploited,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: not as a partnership. That is making us weaker. And
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: the idea that the system of alliances that we built
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: was a giveaway by the U.S. to the rest of
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: the world, we benefited from that more than anybody By
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: having the richest, most powerful country in the history of
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: the world. Now, we screwed up on the distribution of
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: that wealth. We've generated a lot of wealth. We've concentrated
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: in the hands of the few and left the working
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: class behind. But the notion that we have become weaker
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: because of that, we need to go after Trump for
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: weakening us by picking fights with everybody in the world,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: isolating us. It makes us less safe.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and economic inequality is a completely fixable problem by
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: government through taxation, through redistribution. We could do this. Trump
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and Pete Hegseth, who somehow became Secretary of Defense, they're
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: conducting this purge of senior military leaders along strictly racist
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and sexist lines. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic here.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: They call it DEI, but C.Q. Brown, the former chairman
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: of the Joint Chiefs, he was fired for talking about
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: being a black man in America in one five-minute video
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: after George Floyd was murdered Similarly, senior leaders at the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Navy and at the Coast Guard have been fired because
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: they are women. How do you think these moves are
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: impacting the armed forces, their ability to recruit readiness?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: See, that would be the second leg in my three-leg
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: stool about how Donald Trump is making us weaker. By
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: weakening our institutions, by weakening our federal government, and certainly
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: at DOD, but he's doing it at NIH. He's doing
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: it at the FAA. He's doing it at the National
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Nuclear Security Agency. By randomly firing people, canceling programs, and
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: sowing chaos amongst our workforce, he is making us weaker.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: And yes, he is making us weaker at the Pentagon.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I have a death of Stalin analogy, which I like
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: to use at this point. So it's bad enough. And C.Q.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Brown is a highly qualified individual. He has led commands
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: in a whole bunch.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Of different places. Deputy CENTCOM commander, ran the Air Force,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I believe.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And I've met with him. I've worked with him for years.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Deeply talented individual. So getting rid of that level of
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: talent right off the bat makes you weaker. But the
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: death of Stalin analogy is at the start of that movie,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Stalin has a stroke, doesn't die. And they show up,
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: what do we do? Well, we got to go get
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: a doctor. Let's get the best doctor available. And it's like,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: we don't really have a best doctor. What do you
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: mean we don't? Well, we either killed them or we
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: sent them to Siberia to make sure that they were
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: loyal to us. So they're all just kind of not
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: that good anymore. And that's what you get. Because it's okay,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: they fired C.Q. Brown and those And they fired others
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: as well. The people who are left, now some of
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: them will be brave and some of them will say,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I'm doing my job and I don't care. And then
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: they'll get fired. But a lot of people say, if
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: this is the way the game is played, I know
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: that being competent, being good at my job is not important.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I simply have to be a sycophant and a loyalist
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: to Trump. I'm going to do that and I'm not
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: going to focus on actually running this place well. That
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: will weaken us all across the board and certainly at
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: the Pentagon. So- Look, Donald Trump... is attempting an authoritarian
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: takeover of our country. I was with a group last
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: night of more Silicon Valley-like people, defense industry folks, and
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: talking about this. And they were attempting to argue, well,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: we're going to say, I'm like, no, this is what's happening.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, they fired someone at the Justice Department for
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: not giving Mel Gibson back his gun rights.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems wrong.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: It's not just wrong. It is an authoritarian takeover of
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: the government. It's saying, no, no, no, no, no. Justice Department, DOD, NIH,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: I don't care who you are. You do not work
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: for the American people. You do not work to uphold
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: the laws of the Constitution. You work for Donald Trump.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: and you will do what Donald Trump tells you to
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: do when he tells you to do it, or you
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: will be gone. That is an authoritarian takeover of our government.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: And we ought to call it that. Now, I think
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: we got to be intelligent about how we do that.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: And simply running around with our hair on fire and
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: screaming about it and yelling at people isn't necessarily the
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: most effective way to do that. But we should be
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: 100% clear-eyed about what we're dealing with. Yeah.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, the only good I have a sliver of
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: good news and then some more bad news. Sliver of
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: good news. I think a judge indefinitely blocked Trump's ban
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: on transgender service members. It's just an insane decision to tell,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I think, 13,000 American citizens that they cannot serve their
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: country because of who they are. But I did also
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: notice it earlier this week. Trump named a bunch of
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: right-wing activists and allies to boards that oversee U.S. military
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: service academies. I'll give you a couple names. Mike Flynn,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: he's now named to the West Point Oversight Board. I'm
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: sure you know him well.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I know Mike Flynn, yes. I knew him before everyone
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: knew who he was.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I did too because he worked for Obama. Pleaded
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: guilty to lying to the FBI. Once posted a video
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: where he pledged allegiance to QAnon. Walt Nauta was appointed
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: to oversee the Naval Academy. He's Trump's former military aide.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: He was charged with obstructing the government in the classified
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: documents case. Charlie Kirk, who we talked about earlier. was
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: named to the board overseeing the Air Force. Charlie has
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: zero military experience. He's just a right-wing propagandist. These are
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: almost like comically terrible picks, but what do these boards do?
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: What is the impact here?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, they don't do a great... Well, they have
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: influence over the curriculum, over how the Air Force Academy
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: is run, over how West Point is run. And so
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: they are going to be pitching their unique right-wing ideology.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: And also, back to the point I just made earlier,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: they're going to be making sure that everyone's loyal to
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Trump and Trump's agenda first, last, and then always. And
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: that's what their focus is going to be. It's going
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: to be to put forward Trump's right-wing agenda. But again,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: agenda aside, it's going to be about loyalty to Trump,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: not trying to actually accomplish something for the American people.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that's one of many aspects to it. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: also on the authoritarian takeover part, can we please stop
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: having people write articles about, well, Trump hasn't actually pushed
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: a constitutional crisis yet because he hasn't actually defied the courts. Yes.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, he has.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: He's repeatedly defied the courts. Now, the courts have not
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: yet taken the next logical step in that situation, and
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: that is to sanction the Trump administration people because that's
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the way– I'm an attorney. I never practiced that much,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: but I went to law school, so I have vague
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: ideas about the stuff I prosecuted briefly for the city
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: of Seattle. And the way it works is if you
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: defy the judge, The next step is sanctions. Go to jail,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: get fined.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Contempt.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Contempt.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: They've defied probably at least a couple dozen different court
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: orders at this point. Now, the courts, I think rightfully so,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: are reluctant to step in and pick this rather monumental fight.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: So they keep holding out hope that, well, they're taking
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: their time, but eventually they'll comply.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: You've got John Roberts putting out statements trying to calm
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Trump down.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Please comply.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: You know, pretty please. Could you... But we're going to
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: reach the point, I think we've reached it already, where
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: they're going to have to sanction them or admit that
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: their rulings are irrelevant. Trump is defying the courts right now.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: And we shouldn't let anyone get away with saying, well,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: sort of. No. He is 100% defying court rulings. And
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: we should hold him accountable for it. Right.
• 34:05
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• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Last foreign policy question for you. I mean, this week alone, our...
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: America first isolationist anti-war president reportedly greenlit the Israelis restarting
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: bombing in Gaza and ordered the U.S. military to begin
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the sustained bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Do you think there is more military value to continued
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: bombardment of Gaza after this place was obliterated over 15 months?
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: And regarding the Houthis, what's the legal basis for them
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: framing this as a long-term bombing campaign, aka a war campaign?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: And do you see any evidence that their team has
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: new intelligence or new strategy that the Biden administration didn't have?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Because Joe Biden bombed the shit out of the Houthis for, what,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a year? And they came to the conclusion that they
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: have failed to deter them.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an important overarching frame here on what we
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: as Democrats should do about national security policy, which I
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: want to get into an answer question. No, there is
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: no value in going back to bombing Gaza. We should
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: not support that. That is wrong. The president green lighting
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: that is completely wrong on the Houthis. I actually. I
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: got a call from deputy chief of staff telling me
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: that they were going to start this campaign up against
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: the Houthis. And it was really funny because the guy,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: and I'm forgetting his name now, was, you know, he
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: was reading to me like, President Trump has determined that
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: we will not stand for that. He got like a
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: sentence into it. I said, who do you think you're
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: talking to? I said, okay. I said, look, we've done
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: this before and I've seen the plans and I've met
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: with General Carrillo, CENTCOM commander and all that. So operationally,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: what are you guys doing? What targets are you hitting?
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: How do you think this is going to be successful?
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Do we have partners on this? And he said, he
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: kept repeating, I have no operational details for you. I
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: have no operational details for you. So, yeah, I mean,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: I will say the Houthis are attacking U.S. ships. They
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: are blocking the shipping line.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: They had been. Apparently, it seems like they said they
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: would resume attacks on ships, but they hadn't yet. So
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: this was a preemptive strike.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: They took a shot at a U.S.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Destroyer. Maybe you have more intel than I have.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: And they took a shot at a U.S.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Drone. They're not good guys. These are bad fucking guys
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: who kill aid workers. We're no Houthi fans here.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm just going to the legal justification. There is
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: a legal justification.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's a response?
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Force protection.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Now, is there a plan behind it that's going to
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: get us to a better place? I don't believe there is.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: The only real plan would be getting enforcing a peace
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: deal in Gaza, enforcing a peace deal between the Israelis,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: the Palestinians and the Saudis and all of that. But overall,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: whenever we as Democrats are talking about national security, I
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: think we have to understand what Trump's appeal is. His
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: appeal is, number one, he said, I'm going to get
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: us out of foreign wars.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: We're being dragged into too many things. And I have
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: sympathy for that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: Number two, he said, the U.S. is getting screwed in
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: every deal we've ever made.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: I'm going to start screwing the other guy for you,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: for you, the American people.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Like the USMCA.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Whoever negotiated that.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It's absurd on a deeper level than what
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: I didn't articulate as well as I would have liked
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: a moment ago about how the global alliances actually do
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: benefit us. But understand that to the average American, the
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: notion that foreigners are screwing us is something that they're
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: kind of sympathetic to.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: It's nationalistic, yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Right. So when you're countering that, you have to show, A,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: he's making us less safe and making conflict more likely.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: And the Houthi thing, and also, by the way, threatening
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: to invade Greenland, Panama, and Canada also makes us less safe.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Because it says to the world that that sort of
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: attack is perfectly okay and we don't have any problem
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: with it, that you can do a might makes right
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: approach to the world. It makes us less safe. So
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: when we're attacking him, attack him for making us weaker
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: and for making us more vulnerable and for undermining our
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: own prosperity by cutting bad deals. You can't come out
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and just say, oh I'm trying to figure out how
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: to say this because I don't feel this, but you
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: can't come out and even say, you cut off a
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: food program in Sudan, you're starving people, that's awful. You
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: should be able to say that. And I do say that.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: But you've got to go a step further and show
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: how what he's doing is harming us, harming the American people.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Self-interested argument.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: I fervently believe it is. Now, I also fervently believe
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: that part of being the United States of America is
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: supposed to mean that you care about other people. And
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I will explain the basic human relationships. We're all kind
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: of selfish to some extent, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: But we also have to interact with the other humans.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: And I think Disraeli referred to this as enlightened self-interest. Eventually,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: you realize that getting along with the other people is
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: kind of selfish because it's to your benefit.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: You've been talking to my wife, yes.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: You can't go through life irritating everybody. You have to
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: find some way to get along. Now, I also happen
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: to be enough of an idealist to think that we
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: as the U.S. should go beyond that, that we're trying
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: to build a more peaceful, prosperous world. One of Joe
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Biden's best lines, and I've been a critic on a deep, deep, deep,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: deep level. And I wish to God he had never
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: for one second thought about running for a second term.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: But when he trots out the line about how America
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: is the only country that's ever been formed on an idea,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: he's so right about that. And that's such an important
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: part of who we are. We didn't just gather around
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: one religion or one nationality or one ethnic group. We
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: gathered around the idea that everyone should have a say
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: in how they are governed. that the purpose of government
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: is to always be working towards greater equality and opportunity
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: for all. And that to get there, we shouldn't rely
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: just on kings and popes. We should use practical, common
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: sense logic to solve the problems that are in front
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: of us, benefiting from the wisdom of all. And that
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: idea is so important. So I don't think we should
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: just walk away from that idea. But you also have
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: to argue that what Trump is doing Even if you're selfish,
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: it's stupid.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I do think
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Nick Kristof had a piece in the New York Times
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: this week where he went to South Sudan and met
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: with people who had died or had family who died
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: or about to die because of USAID cuts. And I
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: do think bringing home and making Republicans own those specific
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: stories to see those images, children who are going to
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: die because they're no longer getting HIV, that is valuable.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: But associated with that, With that trip, Kristof also had
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: this organization try to calculate the impact of the growth
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: in tuberculosis or diseases that are going to boomerang back
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: and hit us. I think that's an important part of
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the argument that you're talking about.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I've been making this speech for a while. I'm the
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: co-chair of the Caucus for Effective Foreign Assistance and have
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: been for 16 years. I thought about disbanding it the
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: other day because I've got Republicans who have worked with
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: me before. But if they're not willing to stand up
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: when we literally shut down all foreign assistance, how can
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: you continue to be part of the caucus.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: For effective foreign assistance? Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: But I came up as a four-part argument. And depending
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: on the audience, I either started with the first three
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: or I started with the one. The three are it
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: is in our national security interests because an unstable world
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: can come home. And if people don't have enough to eat,
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: if they're facing disease, they are much more likely to
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: be radicalized, much more likely to rise up. Yes, I
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: know that the leaders of these radical movements tend to
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: be educated. Fine. But the followers are the ones who
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: are desperate. And that desperation leads to instability. Number two, disease.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: And I trust I don't have to make this point.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: It spreads. If AIDS starts spreading across Africa, it's going
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: to start spreading across the world. If smallpox and measles,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: they're going to start spreading across the world. So we
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: should care about that. Number three, economics. And this is
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Bill Clinton's old point. We're 5% of the population and
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: 20% of the consumption. We need access to markets. And
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: you need robust middle class societies to have a market.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: But then the other argument that I would make is
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: the one that I already made. If we're going to
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: be a Christian nation, can we at least get the
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: good part of the Christian thing?
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be nice.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Which is help your neighbor. Who's your neighbor? Your neighbor
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: is anyone you can help. That's supposed to be who
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: we are. And I forget who said it, but it's
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: the old cliche, America will no longer be great if
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: it ceases to be good. That we ought to care.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: A part of human existence ought to be, if you
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: can help somebody, you want to try and do it. Now,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: we can't always do it. We got our own shit
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: to worry about. We got other things going on. Yeah,
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I could cross the street to help that person, but
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: I got my own kids. I get that. But as
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: a general rule, if you can help someone, And if
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: you are the world's largest economy ever, you certainly can,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: then you ought to at least try to help some people.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: Not everybody. I know we go overboard sometimes. And that's
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: the basic argument for why the U.S. should be engaged
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: in the world.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: I totally agree with all that. So final question for you.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: You and I have been sitting here for 30, 40
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: minutes pulling our hair about this autocratic threat to our nation,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: about the kind of feeling like the Democratic Party is
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: divided and feckless in this moment. I think all of
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: us are waiting for someone to say to the country,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: it's time to take to the streets. We need mass mobilization.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: We need protests.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: We need a movement. We need to show a force
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: in an entirely peaceful way. Where do you think that
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: leadership can come from? Will it come? Are you worried
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: that it hasn't come? Because 2017 felt really different, right?
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: There were marches right away. Now it's just people are
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: scared shitless and reading the news.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I think we need to make clear the basic path forward.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: We need to stop talking about what we can't do.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: What we can do is we can organize and deliver
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: the message. And that's what we've done here. And I've
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: walked through the message. Call out the autocratic takeover. Don't
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: be shy about it. Number two, talk about how it's
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: negatively impacting your life. And number three, make sure the
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: Democratic Party starts working on how to present a more
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: reasonable alternative. Actually addresses how to deliver for people. Now,
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: and yes, mobilize in a thousand different ways on platforms
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: and elsewhere. But I do think we also have to
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: be smart about it. I don't agree. And this happened
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: with a lot of the Gaza stuff. You know, if
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: you're showing up screaming at people because they disagree with you.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I'm not talking about going to Tony Blinken's
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: house and throwing blood on his car. I'm talking about
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: like a couple million person protest, like a women's march.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I think that would be great. But what I want
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: to work with, and I want to work with the
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: indivisibles and the move-ons to make sure we do that.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: And I know that you draw this line. It's like, well,
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't the left that was throwing blood
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: on Tony Bank and it wasn't the left that vandalized
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: my house or a whole bunch of other places. But
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: can we talk to those people maybe? And I had
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: this conversation about 10 years ago around when abolish ICE
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: became a thing. I was like, that's just not a
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: good slogan. I mean, we have to have border enforcement.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: We have to have more legal immigration. We have to
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: have a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. But abolish ICE. And, oh, yeah,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: it's probably not good. I said, yeah, but it's the slogan.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: It's out there.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fine. Well, have you talked to people about it? Well,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: and the quote I got was, you can't tell activists
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: how to be activists. And that's not helpful.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't resign ourselves to being silent when people do
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: unproductive things, but we can never control the furthest fringe.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: There's dumb people in the world.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: You're right. It's a balance. But I don't think I
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: think we've been too quick to just dismiss that as
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: something that we should even worry about. So I want
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: us to do it effectively. I want us to do
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: it intelligently and, and loudly. And look, let me just say,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: just people don't get the wrong idea. As I said earlier,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: good on Al Green for what he did. Right. Now
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: the paddles were ineffective just because they, when I say
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: dumb people.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: I mean like violent people, people breaking laws, right? Like
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I think, Protests have to be peaceful in part because, hey,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: guess what, guys? The fascists on the other side, they're
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: always going to out-violence us.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Be loud. 100% for that. Be loud, but also
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: take a little time to listen because we got to
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: persuade more people. You know, we got 48 and a
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: half percent. Not terrible, but we got to get a
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: little more. So to do that, you can't just shout
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: at the people who voted the other way. You have
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: to make your points and I think loudly, forcefully, intelligently,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: and respectfully and constantly. But then also take a little
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: time to listen and say, this is how I feel.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Where are you coming from? And then once you learn
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: where those people are coming from, you're in a better
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: position to counter their arguments, to understand their arguments, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: to bring them in. So it's a balance. And I
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: worry a little that the general message from a lot
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: of folks is whoever breaks the most things is the
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: person I'm going to follow.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Be loud. Be passionate. But also there's a part of
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: it that has to also be trying to be more inclusive.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: And there's a bunch of good ways to do that.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: And I think we've talked about it.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: No, I agree. You have to listen before you can persuade.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: And I think you're reflecting back frustration that I feel
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: profoundly that I think a lot comes from the Internet
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: and the amplification of the worst voices on Twitter or
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: other platforms. But Congressman Smith, thank you so much for
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: coming in and talking with us. Really appreciate it.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: It was a great discussion. I appreciate the opportunity. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: like I said, every day, we got to keep doing it.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: We got to keep putting the message out there and
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: trying to grow support.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. They say money can't
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  Speaker 1: at acorns.com slash crooked.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: All right, John, so we got some great questions from
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: the Discord. I'm going to ask you a few of them.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: We can talk them through. Andrew wants to know, assuming
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: we make it through the next four years and we're
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: still holding elections at that time, are you afraid that
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: the next Democrat To get elected president will be hamstrung
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: into keeping a lot of the government dismantling happening right now.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: He's trying to rebuild basic functionality will be viewed as
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: too expensive or intrusive outreach.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I love that question because- It assumes. What a high
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: class problem.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: But you know what? I like the optimism.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: It's good.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: It's fun to think that. I think they could be hamstrung.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Dan and I talked about this a little on Friday's pod,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: which is I think that the next Democratic president probably
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: even when they're running, is going to have to like
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: issue a call for the best and brightest in every
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: expert field to join government again, because Trump and Musk
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: have taken a chainsaw to the government. And I think
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be hard to recruit and retain people in
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: a government where, you know, they'll think to themselves, oh,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: if a Republican wins again, I could just like lose
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: my job. Like, I think that the next Democratic president
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: will be able to get fantastic political appointees. I think
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the civil service is going to have to be rebuilt,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: and it could hamstring the next Democratic president. But I
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: also think that one potential benefit of Trump doing what
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: he's done is he's showing what you can change and
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: get away with within the confines of the law or
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: what the courts will allow, oftentimes outside the confines of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the law. But I'm sure there's a lot that he's
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: doing that is actually going to be legal, just that
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: we might not want to, wouldn't have done ourselves. So
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I think the next Democratic president is going to be
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: liberated in some senses of like reorganizing agencies and cabinets
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: in a way that's going to make government most effective
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: for people.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think about this a lot. I mean, I
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: don't want the next Democrat to feel like they need
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: to just go back to the status quo before Trump.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't just go back to USAID as it was
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: and spend a ton of political capital trying to just
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: run it back. We need to reimagine what these agencies
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: can look like. How can we do it smarter? How
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: can we be more efficient? I think there will be
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: some challenges, though, because Trump is just throwing all Democrats
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: out of what are supposed to be nonpartisan boards or
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: agencies or leadership positions. And I think it is going
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: to start a tit for tat That is going to
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: be hard to put back in the tube, you know,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: but we have to do it. We can't let like
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: these right-wing mega zealots run the, you know, I don't
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: care about the Kennedy Center, but that's an example.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Well, you and I were talking about this yesterday, ICE.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: And look, we went through the whole abolish ICE cycle
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: back in.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: 2017, 18.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: But I do think that there are like a lot
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: of these ICE agents and we're hearing about this and
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: these stories where people are getting detained and deported. based
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: on like, you know, misidentifying tattoos and bullshit like that.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: It's like, these are probably some pretty partisan, pretty MAGA
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: people that like a democratic president is going to have
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: to like clean out that agency and rebuild it from scratch.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: You're going to have to clean house. And it's going
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: to be hard because you're going to have to give
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: up some power because there are independent agencies that Trump
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: has now taken over. And I think we should restore
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: their independence to a lot of these places. There's better governance, right?
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: And our responsibility gene is going to bite us in
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: the ass once again, but it's the right thing to do.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: We might've said this, but every year around the State
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: of the Union in the Obama administration, there was a
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: proposal to like reorganize government somehow, right? And there was
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: one to merge commerce and small business administration. There was
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: one to merge education and labor. And so it's not
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: like democrats are just against reorganizing and making government more
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: efficient because like we tried to do it and the
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: problem was like we had two uh cabinet secretaries we
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: want to get rid of one and congress would have
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: not gone along with it because everyone has their fiefdom
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: and so there are obstacles to like making government more
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: efficient that he might be clearing out of the way
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: for us so i'm not saying that like all government
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: efficiency is bad so that that might help us but
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: i do think just getting the the people in is
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: going to be really tough.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah Uh, Janice C 37 asks, how concerned should we
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: be about the conservative lean of Gen Z voters? Uh,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest. I'm quite concerned because I think you were, you,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: your brain can get hardwired for your political views for
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: the rest of your life. When you're younger, the issue
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: isn't really Gen Z voters. It's Gen Z men. Um,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: we're seeing that in data here in the United States,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: the gender divide is massive among, uh, people under 30,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the German elections that just happened. there was a huge
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: split among young people where you had younger men going
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: to the AFD, which is the crazy far right party,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: and young women going to these leftist parties, whether it
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: was the BSW or the sort of like traditional communist
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: adjacent parties. None of them wanted the traditional social Democrats
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: or the traditional conservatives. They all kind of hated the
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: establishment and the status quo. So it's worrisome insofar as
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: we are Democrats and we want the Democratic Party to
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: get support from young people. But also this young men
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: problem is a real thing that needs to be addressed.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: It's a real thing. I think part of the problem
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: is algorithmic. This is where young people are spending more
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: time on their phones and on their screens than any
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: other generation that we all are. And the algorithm is
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: sending young men one place and young women another place.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: And so that's going to make a bigger gender gap
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: than older generations who are still getting more of their
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: news from the same place, which is to say not
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: on social media. So I think that's a challenge. I
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: also think for a lot of these, I saw somewhere
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: there was a chart where Gen Z kids who did
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: not spend their formative years in high school and college
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: in the pandemic are still voting pretty democratic. And it
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: was the younger Gen Zs who had been stuck home. during,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: you know, key years in high school and college that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: are the ones who are swinging the furthest to the right.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: So I think the pandemic fucked a lot of people
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: up and we're still dealing with that.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: I'd be real pissed too if I missed my senior
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: year of high school or college or anything like that.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: And I think it fucks you up in a specific
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: way politically, which is not, I'm going to be more
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: conservative in the traditional sense, but the more MAGA style
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: of politics, which is the system sucks. burn it all down.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: I can't, everyone has let me down, you know? And, uh,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I think rebuilding that trust with that generation is going
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: to be, uh, it's going to be hard, but I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: think that's sort of the task for Democrats.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: We gotta, we gotta deliver for them. Uh, super skink asks,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: are we pro Dem T party or against it right
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: now with all the shit we are seeing? I am
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: super pro. I feel like Dem T party has become
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: a shorthand for just upending the status quo within the party,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: new leaders, uh, Um, not, you know, voicing the kind
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: of traditional democratic shibboleths, not necessarily gerontocracy is a big
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: piece of this. I mean, just know that like the,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: the Republican tea party movement, there was grassroots energy and
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: enthusiasm behind it that helped the Republicans in the near
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: term and the 2010 midterms, but was ultimately very destructive
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: for the party and the country.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. People look back at the tea party and the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: tea party successes and say, oh, well, You know, it's
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: like it's a model, but it was helpful for them
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: in 2010 in a midterm electorate. It wasn't helpful for
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: them in 2012. In fact, like Mitt Romney, I think,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: was probably hobbled by the fact that he had to
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: take positions in that primary that pulled him to the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: right towards the Tea Party that he could then not
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: get out of when he was in the general election
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: against Obama and was portrayed by us. as more conservative
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: than he was when he was governor of Massachusetts. And
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I think that's thanks to the Tea Party.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Like, I also think it's a case by case thing. Like,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're going to run against a Democrat
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: in a primary, go for it. But like, have a
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: theory of the case of why you want to beat them. Like,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: if it's someone who voted, if you're going to make
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: your whole race about they didn't vote to shut the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: government down, and they wanted to vote for the CR,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: like you can, but I think in in 26, that's
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: not going to be a great basis for a campaign.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: Everyone's going to say, what are you talking about?
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: So you sort of have to find other issues. I
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: think if you're a younger person running against an older person,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: that's generational change. So you can do that. So I
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: do think it's case by case.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Morgan L0975 asks, are you finding yourself censoring some
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: of the stuff you want to say or how far
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: you want to go given the wider crackdown on media
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: and honestly, even for your own safety and that of
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: your families? Interesting question. I will say one of the
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: great things about doing a podcast is you have to
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: opt into it. So we don't have a lot of
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: like as many rage listeners.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: It's when you go on Fox News or something goes
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: viral thanks to some right-wing person on social media clip
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: or whatever. That's when you get attacked, threatened, cursed at,
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: et cetera. So I think- All people in media need
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: to be aware that this is a very scary time
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: in terms of defamation lawsuits. Trump has said he wants
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: to open up libel law and make it easier to
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: sue people. We're seeing major corporations caving to Trump. Facebook
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: cut him a big check. There's a report today about
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: a major law firm that went into the Oval Office
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: and groveled and offered, you know, what is it, $ 40
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: million in pro bono services?
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Insane.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Was it Paul Weiss? Paul Weiss. Don't know that guy.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I think he's kind of a loser.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Do you know that it's actually two last names, Paul
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and Weiss?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I only got that when I was finally reading it
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: No clue at all. But, you know, I don't know
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: that I– You haven't censored anything. I don't self-censor, but
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: some of this stuff is in the back of my mind.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: It's there.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: It's in the back of my mind. It's weird. I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: worry about it all the time, but it has not
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: changed my behavior. Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Much like knowing your email could be hacked at any time,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: I'm still a moron.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Emily doesn't love it when
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: I get in fights with Elon Musk. It makes her
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a little nervous. But I don't know. I think on
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: the defamation thing, I actually think that there's another silver
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: lining in this and how it shapes your criticism, which
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: is like defamation is accusing someone of being something or
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: doing something that, you know, they can argue that they
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: didn't do, right? And do we really need to label
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: people or raise rumors about Elon Musk doing this or
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doing this? You don't need to do that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: to level a really persuasive critique about the person. All
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: you have to do is talk about what they're doing.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Just play footage of them talking.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And you can call them assholes if you want, right?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: You don't have to call them something that's debatable whether
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: it's true or not. It's just not necessary. It's not
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: politically necessary. It's less politically effective, I think, than actually
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: just making a case against their policies and their behavior. So,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: you know, it's almost a good reminder that, like, we
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: don't really need to call people all kinds of names
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: just to make a devastating case.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: But we will. And it's also a good reminder that,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: you know, for public figures or elected officials, the standard
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: is far higher than commentary about individual citizens. And I
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: think we focus on elected officials anyway. John, NishColeslaw00 wants
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: to know, what are your favorite podcasts, let's say non-crooked media,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: and newsletters that you look forward to consuming each week?
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: I read JVL's Triad and The Bulwark.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Great one.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Unlike Sarah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sarah does not ever read that.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I listen to a lot of The Bulwark pods. I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: listen to Ezra's pod. I listen to Kara Swisher's stuff.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Ezra's on a one-name basis for you, like Madonna. I
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: feel like everyone knows Ezra, right?
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, I listen to their stuff.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: I really like Hard Fork. Casey Newton and Kevin Roos
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: over at the New York Times. I'm happy to say
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: that we talked about us having that show on our network,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: and then they jilted us and dumped us and went
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: for the New York Times.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Um, I love Eric Thompson's pod, plain English.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Great. Uh, great writer too. I love this show. Pardon
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: my take. It's a Barstool sports show.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: Newsletters.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Besides message box, I'm not like a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: huge newsletter consumer. Uh, they go to my inbox and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: I forget to get to them.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: I have them all flagged every morning.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: A thousand flags.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Subsects that I, I, uh, subscribe to and I have
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: them all flagged. Like I'm going to read them later.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: And then I, like I said, I read the message
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: box and I read JVL and I, sometimes read a
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: few others, but it's hard.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is hard. There's a lot to read. Uh,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: final question from that's Nick. Can you share some thoughts
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: on Gavin Newsom's podcast? Uh, good, bad, or anything in between? Well,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: first of all, work in progress. He's had what? Two
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: or three episodes.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: I've listened to two. I've not listened to Tim walls.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: I have no problem with him interviewing people on the right,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: even the far right. I think the execution could use
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of work. Um, We don't need a kind
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: of wonky conversation with Steve Bannon about tariffs. We need
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: to mix it up a little more, push back, call
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: him out on some of his shit. And again, I'm
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: not saying this because like our liberal ears are offended
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: by Steve talking. I think what Gavin was really good
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: at in the last couple of years is going on
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Fox and mixing it up and punching and counterpunching. And
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: the same is his debate with DeSantis. And I just
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: want to see a little more of that energy and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: less kind of interview podcast energy.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Well, and some of what makes like fights on cable,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: so awful is the format of television where it's like,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: you get a soundbite, you get a soundbite, you're going
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: to yell at each other and then you're going to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: go to a commercial. And I don't find that all
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: that valuable.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I don't either.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: But the whole beauty of a podcast is it's long
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: enough that you can have like debates and tough conversations,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: but you can do it with like nuance and not like,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking for headlines out of Gavin's podcast or
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: like Newsom slams, destroys Bannon. Like that's not what I'm
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: looking for, but I'm looking for like a real debate
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: about their differences. And I think so far he has
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: not really done that. He's kind of just playing host
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: and just listening to what the hosts, what his guest says.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: He's being polite.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's being polite, which I think you can be,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I think you can disagree and.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: Still be polite.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: You know, like there's just not a lot of, disagreeing.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: And I kind of want a little more debate because
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: that just, I think that's more interesting. Yeah.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: And I, and both of us have spent a bunch
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: of time with Gavin Newsom off the record and he's
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: like a super engaging, funny, competitive, very smart, smart guy,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: like facts and figures just fly out of his mouth
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: all the time. And so he's someone who actually, I
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: think could be really good at this format and probably
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: will be. Um, we sucked at this job when we started.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, like if, if when we started,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: you put us in like a, interview with a Steve
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Bannon or someone on the right at the beginning, I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: think I would have been fucking horrible.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Steve, Steve Bannon, who I, I full disclosure, I've texted
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: to try to get him to come on the show.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I'm still thinking about whether it would work. He's a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: professional propagandist, so he's going to be someone who's very
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: difficult to debate and it's challenging.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: But I think it's a good skill to learn.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: It is a good skill to learn and it's good
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: to mix it up. I will say I am, I'm
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: looking for a venue for what you were just describing,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: which is conversations with people you disagree. I hate debates.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: I don't like the debate format. Like the Jubilee stuff,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: it's interesting. Like Sam Seder did a great job.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: He did a great job.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: It was compelling. He's super smart. He's got all these
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: facts like at the ready. But I don't, like I
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: feel no desire to own someone, let alone 30 people.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: I'd like to talk to someone who disagrees with me
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: in a reasonable way and try to find some common ground.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Like I had Glenn Greenwald on Pod Save the World
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: the other day. And I felt like the reaction from
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: the audience was like, you guys agreed too much. I
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: was like, well, I don't know. Glenn's smart on the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: First Amendment. Yeah.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: When you're going into that, because I've done this too,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: it's like either people are going to think that you
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: agree too much or they're going to think like you
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: didn't challenge the guest on a specific point that was
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: important to them. And I guess my advice would be
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to these, like it's not– these conversations
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: are not like for– they're not going to hit every
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: point that everyone agrees on. And when I'm sitting down
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: with someone, I'm like, if I was talking to someone
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I disagreed with and I spent the whole time just
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: fact-checking them, that's not really an interesting.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: You don't want to listen to that.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: You don't want to listen to that. And guess what?
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: We can all fact-check them on the computer.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: It's also really hard to do.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Look at our phone.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really hard to do. Imagine you're in a
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: conversation with your kid, with your friend, with a political opponent.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: In real time, you're taking in the information, you're cataloging it,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: you're finding in your mind why it's wrong and you're
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: spitting back out. It's difficult to do.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: It is difficult to do. And I think The more
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: interesting conversation is not just calling out all the times
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: they're lying or exaggerating or whatever, but like getting to
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: their worldview and then trying to pick apart that worldview
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: if you disagree with it. And I think if you
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: can do that, then that's an interesting conversation for people.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's valuable. All right. That is it for the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Q & A. Thank you again to all the Discord folks.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Great questions.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: Great questions. It's always super fun to pop into the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Discord and talk to the folks there because there's really great,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: well-meaning people there. sharing interesting information and articles, people from
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: all over the world. So love our discord, uh, crooked.com
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: slash friends. If you want to join also, John, if
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: you're only listening to our podcasts, you're missing out.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Peace. We got full video episodes and tons of exclusive
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: content on YouTube.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yesterday, I recorded- We have a new look here at
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the studio that we're experimenting with. We got a new look.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: We got a look in progress.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: I kind of like it.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Let us know what you think.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us what you think. At John Lovett. But yesterday,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: I recorded, me and Ben recorded a bonus Pod Save
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: the World exclusively for YouTube with Nish Kumar from Pod
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Save the UK.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: It's great to see Nish here.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: He's so funny. He's so funny. He said some things
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: about Nigel Farage that I'm not going to repeat because
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: they're his jokes, but it's worth listening to. We talked
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: about Elon Musk, like, banging around and screwing with British politics.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: It's not just Keir Starmer. He's now messing with the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Reform UK party, which has four MPs in their parliament
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: out of 650 seats.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: And this is what he's focused on?
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: We're getting real niche here. Wow. Real niche. So check
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: that out. Subscribe to the Pod Save the World YouTube.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Pod Save America YouTube. Talk to you
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: guys on Tuesday. Yeah. See you Tuesday.
• 1:08:48
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• 1:09:19
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• 1:09:26
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