Latest / Pod Save America / GOP Passes Megabill, Betrays Its Own Voters

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GOP Passes Megabill, Betrays Its Own Voters · Pod Save America

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• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pots of America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. John is
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: off this week, so you're getting an upgrade. Our great
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: friend Jen Psaki hosted the briefing with Jen Psaki on MSNBC,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: former White House press secretary, and one of my favorite
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: co-workers ever. Jen, thanks for doing this.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Dan, I don't know that this is an upgrade, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: you are one of my favorite co-workers ever, too. And
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: in fact, one of my favorite bosses, which I always
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: like to remind you of every time we talk.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: No one would ever believe now that I was ever
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: your boss. And even then, that was only- A good one.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: That was more on the org chart than in reality.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: We were colleagues. We were partners.
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  Speaker 3: Okay. We can revise history. That's totally fine.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Yes. That's fine.
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  Speaker 2: I'm good with that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Today, we're going to talk about the big, horrible bill,
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  Speaker 2: which is very likely being signed into law as you're
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: enjoying your 4th of July barbecue. We'll also get into
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the latest on immigration, including Trump's threats to denaturalize and
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: deport Zoran Mandami. And we'll be talking with our friend
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  Speaker 2: Ro Khanna, one of the smartest people in the House
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: of Representatives, about where we go from here. But let's
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: start with the bill, because a lot has happened since
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  Speaker 2: John and Tommy recorded on Monday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon,
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  Speaker 2: the House Republicans, by the slimmest of margins, passed the
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  Speaker 2: Senate's version of Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill. There was
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: some drama along the way. Republican deficit hawks and moderate
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: holdouts banded together for a while to keep the bill
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: from coming to the floor. But in the end, all
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  Speaker 2: but two of them did what Trump-era Republicans do best—
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  Speaker 2: They folded without getting a single concession of consequence. Democrats,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: for their part, did the best they could to delay
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: the final vote. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffrey spoke for eight
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  Speaker 2: and a half hours in opposition to the bill, setting
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  Speaker 2: a new record for the longest floor speech in modern history.
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  Speaker 2: But ultimately, it wasn't enough to stop the bill's passage,
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  Speaker 2: which Trump said he'd signed on Friday morning. Jen, let's
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: talk about how this bill ended up passing. As of
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  Speaker 2: last night, it looked like there were enough holdouts to,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: if not kill it, at least delay the bill's passage.
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  Speaker 2: I went to bed at 10 o'clock Pacific time last night.
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  Speaker 2: They were all holding out when I woke up at
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  Speaker 2: 4 a.m. Pacific time. That all folded. What changed? Why
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  Speaker 2: did they cave?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I had a similar East Coast version of
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: sleep time, but when I went to bed or when
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  Speaker 3: I was getting ready to go to bed, there were
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  Speaker 3: still the four holdouts, which meant they would have had
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: to flip one, which they clearly did more than that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I was thinking about this this morning and
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  Speaker 3: I was reading this piece in The New York Times
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  Speaker 3: where they had this paragraph or two where it talked
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: about how there was a version of a Republican conga
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  Speaker 3: line that came to the White House and Trump signed
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: all of these things. And people left the White House
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  Speaker 3: after this charm offensive and felt maybe warmer about the bill. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Which that was earlier in the day. But I think
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  Speaker 3: that continued throughout the course of the evening, clearly. And
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  Speaker 3: Mike Johnson made this calculation, which is a calculation he's
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  Speaker 3: made in the past to go to the floor even
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  Speaker 3: if you don't know you have the votes. He did
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: it when he was running for leadership and hope the
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  Speaker 3: pressure will flip people. And what happened in the middle
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: of the night? Was it a Trump call? Was it
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: a promise made to somebody about something we don't entirely know?
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  Speaker 3: Or was it some of these people made the calculation
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  Speaker 3: they didn't want to be primaried and they'd rather face
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the voters in their district? That also could have happened.
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  Speaker 3: It's not surprising. I wasn't shocked by it moving forward.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure you weren't either. It doesn't mean it's like
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: not disappointing. It's hugely disappointing, but.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's just so wild on one front, right? Like, yes,
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  Speaker 2: we get it. These guys fold all the time. But
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: they all said just hours earlier, I will never vote
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  Speaker 2: for this bill.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: If I don't– I need changes. Give me changes. Then
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: they voted for a bill with no changes. Not a
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  Speaker 2: single comma, period, quotation mark, number was changed from the
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  Speaker 2: Senate bill that arrived earlier that day. They just rubber
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  Speaker 2: stamped that. And I guess I talked about this a
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: little bit in my interview with Ro Khanna that you'll
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  Speaker 2: hear later. There's a lot of fear of Trump in
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  Speaker 2: the primary. It's just no one means what they say,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: which maybe that's just naive to even care about, but
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  Speaker 2: they don't even adhere to their lies. They're lying about
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  Speaker 2: what's in the bill, and even within the framework of
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  Speaker 2: that lie, they can't stick to it.
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  Speaker 4: True.
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  Speaker 3: And remember, there were two different reasons why House members
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  Speaker 3: were opposing the bill, right? There was... The Freedom Caucus,
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  Speaker 3: who all were so outraged by the cost, right, or
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  Speaker 3: how expensive the bill was, a hugely expensive deficit-adding bill,
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  Speaker 3: they were outraged by that. I'm never going to support this.
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  Speaker 3: Some of them were threatening, like, we'll walk out, what
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  Speaker 3: have you. They obviously did it. Most of them didn't
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  Speaker 3: do that. And then there were the members who were
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  Speaker 3: at least verbally outraged by the Medicaid, impact of Medicaid.
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  Speaker 3: And they... just still went ahead and did it. So
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  Speaker 3: it was like two different groups convinced themselves to come
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  Speaker 3: forward and support the bill. And, you know, who knows
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  Speaker 3: what they're telling themselves. It may be it's their political survival,
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  Speaker 3: but yeah, completely disappointing and outrageous. And, you know, hopefully
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  Speaker 3: they pay a political price. They will.
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  Speaker 2: The thing that's interesting was there for a long time,
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  Speaker 2: there were four no votes, right? Three conservatives and Brian Fitzpatrick,
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  Speaker 2: who is a I can't really call anyone in this
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  Speaker 2: caucus a moderate, but he represents a vulnerable swing district.
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  Speaker 3: Moderate-ish?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. He's more moderate than Jim Jordan, so congratulations, whatever, right?
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  Speaker 2: And his vote was mostly somewhat about Medicaid, but really
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  Speaker 2: also he's mad about them cutting off.
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  Speaker 3: Arms to Ukraine.
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  Speaker 4: Ukraine, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And he, to his credit, voted no and then turned
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  Speaker 2: off his phone and left and never came back until
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  Speaker 2: the final vote.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know why more people don't do that, by
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  Speaker 3: the way. Why would people stick around? That's like a
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  Speaker 3: side note to wait to be pressured by Lil Mike Johnson.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: It's very strange. But then, so most of the argument,
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  Speaker 2: which is just, you know, here you have this bill
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  Speaker 2: that is going to kick 17, we'll get into the details,
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  Speaker 2: but it's keeping people off their health care, take food
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  Speaker 2: away from poor people, do all these terrible things. And
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  Speaker 2: most of the people opposing it, people who are most
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  Speaker 2: likely to bring it down, were not mad about any
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  Speaker 2: of that stuff.
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: They were not mad that the bill was too cruel.
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  Speaker 2: They were mad that it wasn't cruel enough. Yes. And
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  Speaker 2: just like the total like fucked up nihilistic cruelty of
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  Speaker 2: the Republican Party comes to bear in this because their
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  Speaker 2: argument was, we said we needed a bill with $ 2
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  Speaker 2: trillion in cuts. Their claim was, that's the deal that
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  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson made to us. That was what was in
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  Speaker 2: our budget resolution. That's what we passed. And then the
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  Speaker 2: Senate gets their bill and they make a bunch of changes.
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  Speaker 2: They actually make some of the Medicaid stuff worse. Almost
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  Speaker 2: no one's complaining about that. Maybe one guy from North
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  Speaker 2: Carolina who ended up voting for the bill. What the
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  Speaker 2: Senate did was they made a bunch of business tax
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  Speaker 2: cuts permanent, which added a half a trillion dollars to
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  Speaker 2: the bill.
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  Speaker 3: Made it more expensive.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
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  Speaker 2: So instead of taking those out, no one's arguing to
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  Speaker 2: take those out. They're just arguing for more Medicaid cuts
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  Speaker 2: to do it. It's Just like the opposition, it's just
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  Speaker 2: really important for I think most of the opposition within
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  Speaker 2: the Republican Party was not that the bill kicked people
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  Speaker 2: off its health care.
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't kick enough people off.
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  Speaker 3: Its health care. No, 100 percent. And the other part
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  Speaker 3: that's completely gross, there's many gross parts, is that when
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  Speaker 3: they talk about this, a lot of them explain it as, well,
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  Speaker 3: we just wanted to extend the tax cuts. And the
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  Speaker 3: Medicaid stuff is just to pay for. It's just to
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  Speaker 3: pay for. Like, it's not a policy decision. It's like, no,
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  Speaker 3: it is a decision because it's a huge impact of
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  Speaker 3: the bill. As if it was a sidebar thing, they
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  Speaker 3: were just trying to find money to cover the tax
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  Speaker 3: cuts for the highest income. As if that makes it okay.
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  Speaker 3: Which I find even more disgusting, right?
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  Speaker 2: Minutiae, as J.D. Bantz would call it.
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  Speaker 3: That, as a note, and I don't know if you've
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: talked about this, But the fact that it wasn't like
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: a reporter caught him in the hallway tired, he typed
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: that up or a staffer typed that up and posted it, right?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: It was like, you know what I'm going to say?
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: The Medicaid cuts is minutia. That's what I'm going to
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: type that up on my phone or whatever he may
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: have done. Yeah, all of that together is, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: it should be incredibly alarming for people. It should be.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something broken in our system because people voted
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  Speaker 2: to hurt their own constituents for a bill that's incredibly unpopular.
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  Speaker 2: And those are supposed to be the circuit breakers in
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  Speaker 2: the system that keep people from doing things. They're supposed
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: to be under pressure, political pressure, to not do terrible things.
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  Speaker 2: But that traditional political pressure of the voter has been
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  Speaker 2: subsumed by pressure from one man. right, in the President
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  Speaker 2: of the United States. And that's when you sort of
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: tip over from democracy into some sort of fascistic authoritarianism,
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  Speaker 2: because the core idea that the people have the power
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  Speaker 2: in democracy has fallen by the wayside, because it's really
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  Speaker 2: only about one person.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Very true. I know, I mean, you're the polar coaster man,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: so you know more about polls than most people. I
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: will say, and you probably saw these, There were a
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: couple of polls and we'll see how it plays out
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: because now Trump's going to do the big thing with
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: the B2 bombers and all this kind of stuff happening
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  Speaker 3: when he signs it. The Washington Post Ipsos poll this
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: week where it showed that by like a 10 point
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: margin and I can't remember if it was 12 or
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: 13 points in a different 10 point margin. in white
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: working class voters did not like the bill. And by
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: like a 12 or 13 point margin, white rural voters
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  Speaker 3: didn't like the bill. Those are Trump voters. Those are
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: core people. I mean, he won those groups by large margins.
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  Speaker 3: What's tricky, there's a lot of tricky things here. One
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  Speaker 3: of the tricky things is what the Republicans did in
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  Speaker 3: this bill is they made the implementation of the cuts
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  Speaker 3: not until after the midterm elections. So it's going to
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: have to be not you've lost your health care, but
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: they are going to take your health care away, which
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: still could work. But it's a little bit more nuanced
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: than like it's leaving next week.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all, there's a lot of work to do.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And we'll get to some of the politics and the
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: communications around that in a minute. But I just, when
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: John and Tommy recorded on Monday, the bill had not
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: passed the Senate yet. So they went through a similar process.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: They recorded Then we're up, you know, the Senate goes
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: into this process all Monday night. Is it going to pass?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Is it going to pass? Lisa Murkowski is holding out.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: In the end, Lisa Murkowski cuts a specific deal for
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: her state that some people are calling the Kodiak kickback,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: which I think is a great term. Did you see
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: her defense of why she voted for it? And what
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: did you think of it?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: It was, first of all, it was in the category
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: and she's not the only one. There's a lot of
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: people in Trump's cabinet and members of the Republican Party
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: who do a similar defense. which is the, like, I'm
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: an observer of what's happening defense. Like, I don't even
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: know what's going on. I hope the House fixes it
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: and makes it better. It's like, you were the deciding
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: vote in the Senate, ma'am. You know, I mean, like,
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: you were the one who just allowed this to move forward.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: But it is almost like they're taking away their own
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: power because they don't want to take responsibility. And that
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: is so consistent. I found her... defense to be so,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: it was agonizing. I hope the house makes it better.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Almost just offensive to people who she represents. I mean, really?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: You have the ability to vote which way you want.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: And I hope that Kodiak kickback, I don't know that
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: it's going to, it's not going to solve all of
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: the other things that are going to impact the people
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: of your state.
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  Speaker 2: She, it's just the idea that she thinks her constituents
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: are idiots. Yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Because she can't possibly be as obtuse as she's acting here.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Everyone knows that it's not coming back from the House.
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  Speaker 2: But if it were to come back from the House,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be better on Medicaid.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: No. Right?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: It's the opposite. It goes the opposite direction. The House
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: would make it... If they made any changes at all,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: it would be to make the Medicaid provisions more onerous
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: on the people of our state. And to probably, I
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: would imagine, since the state of Alaska has a grand
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: total of one House member... they would have taken out
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: the Kodiak kickback because that would have offended people everywhere else.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And it's just, you're exactly right. They are just people,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: everyone involved here is so unwilling to take responsibility for
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: what they have just done to the people of their
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: states or of their districts.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I know. Also, Lisa Murkowski, you've been in the Senate
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: a long time. The House is now run by little
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Mike Johnson, who's like, how high should I drum Donald Trump?
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: And Marjorie Taylor Greene, depending on the day. So like,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: You think they're going to make it better? I mean,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: she obviously doesn't. It's again, as you said, treating people
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: like they're stupid.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Do you think Democrats did enough to oppose this bill?
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I love what Hakeem Jeffries did. I think it's great.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I think it brought the vote at least into the
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: light of day. Is that going to make the ultimate
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: difference around midterm elections? No, but I think it was
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: at least a smart tactical thing to do. Leading up
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to it... You know, I'm not, it's hard to envision,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: now I want to hear what you think about this,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: that they could have done anything to prevent Republicans from
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: going the way of Trump and getting enough of them.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: But could they have put more pressure on in districts?
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Could they have spent more money in those places? Could
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: they have done more targeted efforts? Probably, but again, I'm
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: still not totally sure, given how willing to cave Republicans
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and spineless this caucus is, it would have changed the
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: outcome just because of who the final votes were. But
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: what do you think?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. So the polling, in addition
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: to showing this bill is incredibly unpopular, the polling shows
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that people have not heard a lot about it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: It just hasn't broken through to people.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So I think it's, while I am, as people who
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: listen to this podcast know, I talk a lot about
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the media ecosystem and how challenging it is to get attention.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Democrats obviously did not find a way in this very
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: difficult environment to To get enough attention for this bill.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know what, like, I don't have a great
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: idea of what's the thing they could have done any
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: time in which Trump is bombing Iran and we have
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the tariffs and there.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Are- Alligator Alcatraz. I mean, all the freaking things happening.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: He's sending the military to Los Angeles in the middle
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: of this. Like, I just don't know what the silver
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: bullet was. But if the measure is, did you focus
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the nation's attention on this terrible bill? They did not
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I do not think that would have changed the legislative
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: outcome here because the general view, how this has always
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: been in politics, is you defeat a bill when you're
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: in the minority by making the bill so unpopular that
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the majority thinks it is not in their interest to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: pass it. This bill is so unpopular, it's the most
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: unpopular piece of legislation in the history of modern polling,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and they still voted for it anyway. And almost every
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: single one of them voted for it. And so I
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: don't know that they'd gotten a whole bunch more attention.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: That would have stopped the bill. It may have made
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: it easier to inform– made more people aware of it,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: which would have driven their numbers down, which could help
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: us in the midterms over time. But they just did
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: not have a ton of tools to actually do it
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: because there is now this– the connection between public opinion
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and governmental action has been severed in the Republican Party.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like we're having a crossover week, Dan.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I'm really enjoying it. Because I think I asked you
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: this question the other night, but now I'm curious what
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: you think now that it's passed. Because now it's passed,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: and I think they had a— although it's passed, I mean,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Jeffrey's doing what he did was good. You've seen some
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: sort of action and excitement among House members who really
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: showed up. What do they do now, like this weekend
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and the next couple of weeks? Because The key thing
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: to your point is it's– what is it, 42%, 43% only?
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: No.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: And also in every poll you see, the more people
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: learn about it, the more they hate it. So it's
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: like there is huge opportunity in informing people more. But
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: what does that look like in this media environment?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I think there's no easy answer. I want to stipulate that.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I am very sympathetic to all the people who have
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: our former jobs working for all these members. It's not easy.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: We didn't have TikTok in our age. We didn't have TikTok.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It's just it was a different world. We could actually
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: get attention by going to the traditional media. Now it's
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: very hard to reach people. And the people who don't
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: know about the bill are people who either passively consume
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: news or actively avoid political news. And so reaching those
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: people is very hard. I think what this means is
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: that we're going to have to talk about it all
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It's even when we're not getting attention about it. We
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: need people with big platforms to talk about it. We
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: need the people within the party with the biggest platforms.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: And that includes our former boss. That includes the P
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: all the people who, who have inkling of running for
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: president in 2028. It includes the former vice president and
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: our nominee have to be out there talking about this. We,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: those people have not really been on the playing field yet.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And so, Our biggest megaphones have not been talking about
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: it because we will win this battle from public opinion
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the more people know about it. Because even just as
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: it's gotten more attention over the last six weeks here,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: as the House has said it'd be considering it, it
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: has gotten less popular. And one thing I think should
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: give everyone some confidence in the Navigator research polling, among Republicans,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: among Republicans, as I said on your show the other night,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the poll, the bill is 10 points less popular now
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: than it was six weeks ago. And so there is like,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: if we talk about it, we can actually do it,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: but it's going to have to be more than it's
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: going to, we're not going to, there's not gonna be
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: one single thing that does it. I think this is
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: one of those times where it's just like repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: right into the campaign cycle.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And I think the, um, I mean, this reminds me
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: a lot of 2018. I don't know if it reminds
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: you of 2018. Um, just because, um, That was a
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: campaign all about health care, that cycle. That was when
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Democrats won back a lot of seats, won back the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: 40-something seats, I think. Pelosi became speaker again. And it
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: was about Republicans' efforts to take things away. And now
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: it's like they're actually taking things away. But it was
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: very focused, to your point. And again, the media environment
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: was very different then, so it's more challenging. But more
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: than I looked this up, they had more than 50%
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: of the ads post labor day were about healthcare. I mean,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: it wasn't about 20 topics, right? That's my point. And
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: we got a long time till the midterms, but it
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: is sort of a modern day lesson.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I agree with you. It's like, We were able to,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: with a measure of pretty significant discipline across the party,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: which is notable in a party that's not always disciplined,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to really focus on the idea that they cut taxes
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: for rich people and were going to try to pay
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: for it by taking your health care away. The slight
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: difference here that I think makes this a little more
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: challenging for us is because of the different media environment,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: because people were so dialed into political news back then,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: everyone knew the Republicans tried to take the ACA away
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: because of the famous moment with John McCain and the
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: thumbs down. We still had the capacity for monocultural political
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: moments back then. And so there was context. So you
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: knew that. So when you saw an ad or heard
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: a politician say they did it, you actually knew it happened.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And the hard part here is most people are not
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: going to know that Republicans voted to take Medicaid away
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: at the outset. So when you see the ad or
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: you hear the politician who you're instantly skeptical of, If
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: you don't have context for that attack, you're more likely
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: to dismiss it, which is why the work now matters
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: for when the campaign kicks off. The goal should very
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: clearly have a baseline measurement of what public awareness is
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: of several provisions of the bill, including Medicaid cuts. And
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: then where is it six months from now? Where is
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: it eight months from now to actually know if we're
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: making gains on that front?
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: I realize this is your show and not mine, but
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I do think you're one of the smartest people in politics.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you one more question or we
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: can talk about it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Since you framed it that way. Yes, go ahead.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: Tell me. You better be smart or I've built up
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: what you're going to say. The other thing that I
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: think is challenging in a different way now, and Trump
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: has always been a liar, but now it is like
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: everybody's lying. He's lying. Like that report the other day,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: a couple of days ago about how In the caucus meeting,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: he said there are three things you can't touch, Social Security,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: something else, and Medicaid.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Medicare and Medicaid, yeah. And somebody in the room, like
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: a Republican member, was like, we are touching Medicaid. And
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: it's like, is he lying to himself? He's not a
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: policy wonk, but you have to be basically dead not
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: to see what the cuts are. It's like, how do
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: you combat that? Because it is pushing this complete gaslighting
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: into the public. And that's what the Democrats are fighting against.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: This is the part where we're going to need to
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: use individual stories of people.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Right.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Because people are going to be more likely to believe
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: people than politicians always. Like if I was working on
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: campaigns for 2026, instead of shooting like slickly produced well
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: lit TV ads of, you know, people to camera talking
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: about what these Medicaid cuts for me of them. I
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: would have people recording videos, vertical videos on their phone.
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: So it looks like a FaceTime call.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Because that's how people consume information now. And they're very, they're,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: the more slickly produce something is the more skeptical they
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: are of it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Because they don't trust the news. They don't trust politicians.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And so I think we're going to need, really need
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: individual people because they'll be, people don't really trust Donald Trump.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Outside of his base. They don't really trust Democrats either,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: but they might trust someone from their community talking to it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So that's sort of, I think, how you would have
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: RPs, as we used to call them.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: RP, where it always comes back to the real people.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Real people.
• 23:33
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• 24:53
  Speaker 2: All right, let's shift gears a little bit to what
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: happens now. First and definitely most important, Here's what the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: bill will actually do. And I want to say this
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: because all of you are going to be at 4th
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: of July barbecues. You can be with your friends and family.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: That is an opportunity for you to talk to them
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: about what's in this bill. So let's do this. 17
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: million people will lose health insurance over the next 10 years.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: More than 300 hospitals will be at serious risk of
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: closing the doors entirely. More than 3 million people will
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: lose their food assistance because of new paperwork requirements for
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: SNAP benefits. Individual household energy bills will go up by
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: $ 170 over the next 10 years. and more than 800,000
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: clean energy jobs will be lost by 2030. And all
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: of that is to pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: benefit the ultra wealthy and large corporations. Jen, other than gaslighting,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: is there any way the Republicans could actually sell this
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: piece of shit to their constituents?
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Well, this sort of goes back to what we were
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: just talking about. And you can kind of see a preview,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: and it's good to know how they're going to sell it, right?
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: Or not sell it, how they're going to talk about
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: it and defend it. I mean, they've clearly tried to
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: lead with things like no tax on tips, right? Which
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: is not a bad thing. I'm not against that. But
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: as if that's the driving big thing out of this bill.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: And the challenge is they have continuously said there are
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: no cuts to Medicaid here. And you have to explain.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: So it's like you have to explain that they're making
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: it arduous paperwork, that people aren't going to be able
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: to fill out and complete, and that's going to knock
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people off Medicaid. And there's this particular
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: tax cut that helps people be able to pay for Obamacare.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: It's like that's a lot to explain. So I think
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: people should assume that they're going to try to continue
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: to gaslight people. And the Democrats— need to make it
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: as simple as possible, as you've done. I mean, we
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: talked about this the other day. It's like it's got
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: to be they're taking they're getting rid of your health
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: care and taking it away so that they can give
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: It's like if you're explaining Arjo's paperwork, you're losing. You
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: should assume they are going to gaslight people and they
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: are will lie. And so it's like being prepared for that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to, I sort of think about
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: this in a couple of ways. There's like one, what
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: does a politician say on the stump or goes over that?
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: How do they say that? Then there is like, how
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: do people who like regular activists, volunteers, people who just
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: care about democracy, talk about this stuff in conversations with
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: their friends and family? Because my operating theory of politics
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: is that those conversations are now the forefront of political communications, right?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: What you and I used to do by like, dialing
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: up reporters and getting stories in the New York Times.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Now what really happens is you tell people how to
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: talk about these things and they go talk about them.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: And I just want to make one point on Medicaid.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: This is where the gaslighting has been incredible. It's all
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: about work requirements. And the idea that the Republicans are
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: selling is that there are a bunch of able-bodied people
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: who are sitting at home collecting Medicaid checks. And that
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: is not true. But let me just explain how we
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: know that's not true. No one gets a Medicaid check
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Medicaid does not mail a check to you. If you
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: are eligible for Medicaid, you go to the, you go
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: to the doctor, you go to the hospital, you get
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: a cancer treatment, you see a doctor about a broken arm,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, Medicaid pays the bill. So the only
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: way we're saving money on Medicaid is not to stop
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: sending Medicaid checks to people who don't need them. It
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: is people not getting healthcare, right? Or making these people
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: pay for healthcare themselves, which many of them can't do
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: because they qualify for Medicaid. And so just– and like
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: on the work requirement thing, like that is the one
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: part in the polling that polls very well. Just we
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: have to– like one just factual point here is that
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: the point of these– Arkansas did this. When Arkansas put
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: work requirements on Medicaid, employment did not go up.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Right. Ezra Klein and Matt Iglesias made this point on
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: their podcast.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Didn't prompt people to go back to work or whatever
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: they were describing.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Because there were not people who were being lazy. It
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't solve your problem to not get a paycheck if
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: you were just going to the doctor when you're sick.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Like it doesn't, this is not, like they're trying to
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: treat this like Ronald Reagan's mythical, pretty racist idea of
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: welfare queens just sitting at home collecting welfare checks. That's
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: not what this is. It's about keeping people from going
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: to healthcare. But in Arkansas, I think the number is
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: 95% of the people who fell out of the program
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: because of the work requirements already had jobs. They were
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: paperworked out of their own healthcare because you have to
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: fill it out once a, you know, whatever it is,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: depending on the state, once a week, once a month,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: once every six months. And people, you know, they fill
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: out the wrong form. They don't fill it out on
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: time and they lose their healthcare. And so we're just
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: keeping for having healthcare. And I think just if you're
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: talking about Medicaid with people, people are going to use
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: this work requirement thing. And I just want people to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: have the information to actually talk about it in a
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: way that persuades people.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And I think the separation of how people talk
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: about it with their friends and neighbors, which is the
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: most important question for Versus what people say on the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: stump is a really important one. Georgia is another example
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: of this where they have put work requirements in. It
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: did not work in the same way it didn't work
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: in Arkansas. I don't even think they're doing it anymore.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Or it was like stopped by some courts. So which
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: tells you kind of a whole lot about the absurdity
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: of using that as the baseline of your program.
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: All right. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, there's
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: the question of deficits.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: This is something Republicans love to say.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: They care a lot about. They're very pearl clutchy about it.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It usually sounds something like this. Let's take a listen.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: The number one threat to our nation right now is
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: our debt. It's not China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: It's the debt. You know, America's still the greatest country
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: in the world, but it won't be for much longer
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: if we don't solve the debt problem we have.
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: If we don't get our debt in order, we're less safe.
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: The national security risk we have right now is our
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: national debt.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: Our national debt is larger than the gross domestic product.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: We're going broke. And I think the American people are
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: looking for adult leadership. They're looking for leaders to come
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: to Washington, roll up their sleeves, and stop spending money
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: we don't have.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: That's the soothing tones of Ted Cruz.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Just always.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: He's always on a chalkboard.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, he is annoying in audio. He's annoying in video.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: He's annoying in real life. 2D, 3D, in every way
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: is annoying. Most of these people you heard there just
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: voted for a bill that Congress's own accounting pros say
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: will add more than $ 3 trillion to the deficit for
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: no reason. And they're all celebrating. Were these people full
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: of shit then or are they full of shit now?
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, both?
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, both. It's always both, yes.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's always both. You know, one of my colleagues,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: do you know who Steve Bannon is? He's very smart.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: He writes a lot. He's great. He wrote this thing
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: this morning that I appreciated. I think you would from
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: working in government so much. It's like, what are you
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: trying to solve when you do your signature? Most presidents
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: are like, what problem can I solve? I ran on
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: the problem to solve it, or I entered government... And
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I inherited a problem, right? Barack Obama inherited a financial crisis.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: He also was concerned about the millions of people who
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: didn't have health care. Let's go solve those problems, right?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: And that is what he focused on, which is a
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: very clear objective. Joe Biden, you know, he inherited COVID.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not like Trump created it, but, you know,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: it's like he was in the middle of a COVID crisis.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: It's like the most framing thing to me in some
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: ways is like Trump is like, what problem should I solve?
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Rich people. need more money. That's the problem he's solving.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: All the things we're talking about in terms of the impacts,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: like the cuts to SNAP benefits, the cuts to Medicaid,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: these onerous work requirements, that is all a sideshow in
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: order to solve the problem that he has identified as
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: the biggest problem for his signature legislation, and that is
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: rich people need to pay lower in taxes.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: These people keep saying, to your point of gaslighting, that
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: the deficit's not going to go up. Scott Besson has
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: said that we're going to grow our way out of this, right?
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Because if the economy grows, you get more tax revenues,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and therefore the deficit comes down. But here's the thing, right?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: This is a very important point. One, it's BS. It
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: didn't work last time.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Nope.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Or any time.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Republicans use an accounting trick that they love to use
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: called dynamic scoring. This is getting very nerdy, which I
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: know you appreciate.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I love it. Dynamic scoring is one way in which
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the Congressional Budget Office, the bean counters, are supposed to
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: factor future growth into it. So if something they project
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: is going to grow the economy 3% or whatever else,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: they will then take the new additional tax revenue that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: will come from that and subtract out the cost of
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the bill, making it cheaper. Well, guess what? They finally
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: got to use dynamic scoring here, and it made the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: bill more expensive because they believe this bill, the CBO
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: believes this bill is going to slow down growth because
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: it's going to raise interest rates. And so it's going
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: to make it worse. And just this idea, like you
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: and I were around when Washington DC lost its mind
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: about debt and deficit and thought we were going to
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: become Greece and all of this. And at the exact
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: moment when the government was trying to, we're trying to
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: get out of a financial crisis, we're trying to create jobs,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden we're worried about deficits. That
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: was a time which interest rates were close to zero.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Now we're at a time of inflation. Interest rates are high.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: So the cost of that $ 3 trillion is massively more
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: expensive than it was when Obama passes the Recovery Act,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: when Biden and Trump pass the COVID rescue bills. So
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: this is like, this is going to have real, real consequences.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: And so I guess my political question is, do you
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: think people care about deficits and should Democrats make this
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: a part of their message?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: First of all, somewhere Brian Deese and Jason Furman's hearts
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: are singing because of your explanation of that. I will
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: just say, I don't think the Democrats should make this
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: about deficits.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Every poll I've seen, but you tell me polls are imperfect,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I know, does not rank that as the high thing.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I think it can distract from the other pieces, which
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: is like, what are you taking away from people's lives? Healthcare, benefits, nutrition,
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: things like that. Where I do think there's maybe opportunity
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: is like the hypocrisy piece, I suppose, right? Like this
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: person And there are certain districts where this may work.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: So maybe it's district to district. But that's my gut.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: But you may not agree with me, which is always interesting.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I want to ask this question because
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I am workshopping this in my head. Like, no question
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: taking food and health care away from people is top
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: of the list.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: No question. There are voters who care about this. There's
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: like it came up. It would show up in polling
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: in the 2024 election in some way, shape or form.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And so. There's at least some segment of voters where
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: we should be making that message too, right? And I
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: think there was some benefit in branding the Republicans as
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: fiscally irresponsible as we were able to do to the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Republicans in the George W. Bush era when they were–
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: because Clinton– I mean, now we're heading down memory lane here,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: but Bill Clinton in the 90s actually got us out
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: of deficit, got us in a surplus. George W. Bush
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: then spent all of that surplus on a tax cut
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: for the mostly benefit of the rich and then on
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: a really stupid war in Iraq for a very long time.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: And then Obama inherited these huge deficits. So I think
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: there's some benefit in branding the Republicans as such. I
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: also think that there's going to be massive consequences down
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the line for debt this large with interest rates this high.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: And it's important that people know who did this. So
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: that's maybe more of a little bit of a long
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: game because the next Democratic president, hopefully in 2029, is
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: going to inherit a gigantic shit show because of this.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: No doubt. I wonder, because in the polling– Who cares
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: about it most? Is it age specific? Is it independence?
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Or is it geographic? I don't know. I'm just curious.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I'd have to dig deeper. It has traditionally been self-identifying
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: moderates and independents. And a lot of times it comes
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: from a pox on both your houses' views of the parties.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: They spend money. We have gotten a lot of those
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: former deficit voters just because the I think there were
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: probably more traditional college educated suburban voters who've come to
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: our coalition, but there are, there are some, and I
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: just think it's one thing we should just like think about.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: We have to, there's like a fine line. Like you
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: don't want to embrace the austerity politics that we don't like.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: So that when we actually get an office and we,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: cause we do things responsibly, right.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Inflation reduction act paid for the affordable care act paid for.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: But you don't want to like people, people lost their
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: minds about this before. And we don't lose their minds again.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: But I do think we, Republicans have to own this.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And I think there's probably some value in that. But
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: like I said, I'm workshopping it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: It's interesting. I mean, we'll also see because it's like,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: you know, Abigail Spanberger, who's more on the moderate side,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: running to be governor of my state. There's a Michigan
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: primary in the Democratic set. Like some of these things
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: are going to be workshopped also in these races, which
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: will be kind of interesting to see, too. And I'm
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: also wondering about if there are things like you're saddling
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: your grandchildren with debt. You know, it's like, who are they?
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: So I don't know. I'm interested in the outcome of
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: your workshop. I don't know if there's going to be
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: a podcast on that, but we'll listen.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: If there's a silver lining here, it's that retaking the House,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: which already seemed to be somewhat in sight, now seems
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: even more plausible. We've both worked in wave elections that
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: tend to be about one really big issue driving public
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: opinion around the country. You mentioned what 2018 was about,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Republicans- took the House in 2010 around the Affordable Care Act.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: When you were at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: it was about the Iraq War. Do you think this
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: bill could qualify as one of those issues that drives
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the election?
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. Because I think that if you look
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: district by district, and I know there's lots of data
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: and lots of groups are wisely pulling this data out there,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: you can tell the story of the direct impact. I mean,
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: David Valdeo... has like the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: in the country, right? That alone is an argument in
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: that district. And there are ways to, and this is
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: like the DCCC days, it's like make it very localized
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: and specific and about real people and the people it's impacting.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: And it's about taking something away. So I think it
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: could be, we don't, I mean, it is 18, are
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: we 18 months, seven, six?
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I'm not a math.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: We're more than a year. We're more than a year.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not a math expert, but like we're more than
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: a year, almost a year and a half away. Lots
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: of things could happen, but I still think this could
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: be the like defining topic that is hammered home. And
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: a lot of these districts, at least in putting challengers
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: on the map, in some ways, too, who are running
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: against people who voted for this. But that's just my gut.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this should make winning the House easier.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: It shouldn't even make winning the Senate plausible.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Because Republicans just, they launched a full frontal assault on
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the core of their coalition, right? This is the working
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: class voters who are going to suffer from this bill
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: are their voters now. And it's not just– this is
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: not– there's a lot of like when are the– this
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: is a lot of thing you see on Twitter or
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Blue Sky from Democrats. It's like when are the MAGA
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: base going to realize that Trump is fucking them over?
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, they're the MAGA base, right? They're for
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: him for a reason.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: They're buying his merch. They're buying alligator Alcatraz hats.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know. They're not going to take off their
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: alligator Alcatraz hat, their Gulf of America hat. But the
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: people who are really like– and they will suffer in
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: this and they will probably find a way to rationalize
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: it because maybe they care about something more than their
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: own personal financial interest, right? Maybe it's abortion or just
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: general– they fetishize fascism. I don't know. Whatever it is
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: that gets them there. But the people who moved from
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: like Biden to Trump from 2020 to 2024 or the
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: people who did not vote in 2020 who voted for
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Trump in 2024, those people are– more working class, more
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: less likely to go to college, more likely to be
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Black and Latino than your average voter. They're more likely
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: to be younger. And all these people are the ones
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: who are going to suffer most. And so if we
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: can actually communicate with those people, which is one of
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the great challenges as we've talked about throughout this podcast,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: it could be something that not just delivers the House,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: in my view, it could actually fundamentally be a political realignment.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: No party has ever done to their voters what the
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Republicans have just done to their voters. Like this has
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: never happened before.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: No.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: It's an unprecedented moment in American politics and could have
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: unprecedented consequences.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, politically brutal vote. And even as there is a
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: delay in the implementation of some aspects of the Medicaid
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: portions of the bill, we're already seeing there was a
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: story today about a rural hospital in Nebraska that's closing.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: And we will see that. And those type of outcomes...
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: The stories have to be told as to why it's
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: closing and why people have to drive three hours and
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: why people can't get cancer treatments or treatments for all
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: sorts of things. But we'll start to see those. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: those are things that do hit home.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: We have to make Republicans own everything that is wrong
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: with the health care system here. I think a lot
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: about when we were in the White House in 2009.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: And people, like this is the thing that was showing
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: up in focus groups all the time, is people were
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: so mad at Barack Obama for raising their taxes.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: And it's like, no, we gave you a tax cut, right? No,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: we cut your taxes. But they were getting their taxes
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: raised by their state and their county and their city
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: to meet budget shortfalls.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: And they just assumed that they were blaming us for it, right?
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: So when people aren't getting the– when the hospital closes,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the people aren't getting the services they want, they should
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: own healthcare inflation, right? That this is going to raise costs.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: They should own, frankly, all inflation at this point. That's
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: on us to do it. But if we can do that,
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: then I do think it can– It will obviate the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: challenge of the fact that they've delayed these cuts.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: The flip side of this anti-incumbent wave, if it does materialize,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: is it can sometimes feel like all you have to
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: do is get out and vote and it'll take care
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: of itself. But given that many of us live in
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: safe districts, we're going to need to be really focused
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: on particularly flippable seats. The good news is we're going
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: to have a really powerful story to tell in those places,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: as you and I have been talking about, Jen. I'm
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: just going to give some examples from our friends here
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: at Vote Save America to show how we can win
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the House. I'm going to start with Gabe Evans in
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Colorado 8. He represents the northern Denver suburbs. He won
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: by less than 2,500 votes last time. And under this
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: bill that he just voted for, nearly 30,000 people in
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: his district will lose access to health care and food assistance,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: and nearly 1,000 energy jobs could be lost. Marionette Miller-Meeks
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: in the First District of Iowa, she represents Iowa City,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and she won by a grand total of 799 votes
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: last She has been so bombarded by people that she
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: turned off her social media tags and comments. And in
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: her district, nearly 25,000 people lose access to health care.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Nearly 29,000 people will lose access to food assistance. And 1,300
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: energy jobs could be lost, and there's one rural hospital
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: in danger of closing all because of that. Then David Valdeo,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, in California, 22. He represents Bakersfield. He
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: lost a seat in 2018 after voting for Trump's first
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: tax cuts, but then won it back in 2020. 65,000
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: people in his district could lose access to their health care. 60,000
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: households could lose access to food assistance. And 3,612 energy
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: jobs could be lost. He just fucked over his district
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: in a truly epic way. And so if you people
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: listening here want to learn more about who we can
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: target and what we can do to take the house back,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: go to votesaveamerica.com.
• 44:57
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  Speaker 2: All right, Jen, one last topic on the politics here.
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  Speaker 2: Elon Musk is still seriously on one about the bill.
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  Speaker 2: He wrote on the social media site that he owns,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: that every Republican who campaigned on cutting spending and then
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: voted for this bill, quote, will lose their primary next
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: year if it's the last thing I do on earth.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: He also wrote, if this insane spending bill passes, the
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: American party will be formed the next day. Our country
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: needs an alternative to the Democrat Republican unit party so
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: that people can actually have a voice. Do you think
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: the American party is a thing at all and should
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: we give them until Monday since Friday is a federal holiday?
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: You know, we're graceful people, so we'll give them till
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Monday or I will, I don't know about you. Um, Look,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: here's the thing. The guy has a lot of money.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: He knows nothing about politics. See Wisconsin state Senate race
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: where he wore a cheese hat and threw tens of
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars at it and the liberal justice won.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: And they struck down the abortion ban in.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Wisconsin this week. And elections have consequences. There's an example.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: But in terms of the party creation, as you know
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: very well, it's very hard to create a third party
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: or to run on third party. I mean, think about
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: like the Libertarians or the Green Party. They're on a
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: never ending battle to get on state ballots because state
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: laws are all different.
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: So he'd have to not just have money. It's like
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: a full-time plus job to try and attempt to do
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: something like that in terms of creating another party. I
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: think you also have to get, I looked this up
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: today because I like to prep, is like an advisory opinion.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: You have to get an advisory opinion from the FEC
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: to like, my point is, it's really hard to actually
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: do that. The other thing this reminds me of is,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: God bless the Howard Schultz period of time when everybody
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: was like, We need somebody who, like, we need a
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: party and a person who's not from either side, who
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: can just speak to the middle. People say that, what,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: every cycle? Wasn't there, like, a Joe Manchin theory at
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: some point in 2020? Anyway, that never works. There is
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: not actually appetite for that. Elon Musk is certainly not that. Um,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: but it reminds me a little bit of that. We're like,
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: maybe the talking point sounds good on paper for a
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: second until you see Elon Musk's name attached, but also
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: it's really hard to start a third party and do
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: it actually.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk is more likely to colonize Mars than he
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: is to build a viable third party.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Should we root for that? I mean, who's for him
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: colonizing Mars?
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Have at it. Sorry, Mars. It's on his agenda.
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: You can have him. Hopefully he goes.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the world's richest man could have a huge impact
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: in congressional primaries. Do you think he actually does anything here?
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: It's what's so hard to know. And so my theory,
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: which is quite dark and conspiratorial, but here we are,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: is that Elon Musk kind of already has what he wants.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, he has all this data, right? There's been
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: tons of stories about this. This is what he wanted
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: from Doge. Doge still has access to all this data.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: It's data on private sector companies. It's data on competitors.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: It's data on the American people. So I'm not totally
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: clear if he's just like fucking with Trump, right? And
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: maybe he just like throws in some money in a
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: couple of races to piss Trump off if he's still mad.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's my where my gut is. I just it's
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: hard for me to envision him giving huge amounts of
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: money to like 50 congressional candidates. But we'll see.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: He would need, to maximize his impact, he would need
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: to create a super PAC to spend the money. Because
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: he can only give a couple thousand dollars to each
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: primary candidate. And so there are lots of rich people
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: who could do that. Ultra wealthy people could do it
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: to every candidate you care about. So being the world's
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: richest man doesn't really help that way. You need a
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: super PAC. And who's going to run that super PAC, right?
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: Is there.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: What happened last time was he wanted to elect Trump,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: so a bunch of pro-Trump operatives went to him and
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: found a very easy way to separate him from his money.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Who's going to do that this time, right? I just–
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: it seems like he wants the attention more than he
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: wants to do the actual work. So, I mean, if
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: he wants to beat some of these people and make
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: them lose their primaries, but who's running against them too, right?
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Who's the moderate– because we're talking about beating them. Who's
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: the pro-Doge Republican who's running in Wisconsin 3 or whatever else?
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I have– Right.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: This is like, I don't know who that vote, like,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: who is that candidate? And like, who is the pool
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: of people who are like, I want Elon Musk to
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: really take more control here. I don't know where that exists.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about immigration quickly before we go. Trump took
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: a trip to Florida for a photo op at the
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: so-called Alligator Alcatraz, the new migrant detention center built by
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis in the middle of the Everglades. It's basically
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: a political stunt. The discussion yielded by the visit was
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: about as high-minded as you'd expect. Let's take a listen.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: cops that are in the form of alligators. You don't
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: have to pay them so much. We're going to teach
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: them how to run away from an alligator, okay, if
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: they escape prison. How to run away.
• 51:32
  Speaker 7: Don't run in a straight line.
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: Run like this.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: And you know what?
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Your chances go up about 1%.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I think our viewers at home should know that this
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: is air-conditioned facilities, so if any of the news claims.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: Are keeping them out in the hot, humid South Florida,
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: that is wrong. It's probably 62 degrees in there. Or 72.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: Biden wanted me in here. He wanted me. It didn't
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: work out that way, but he wanted.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Me in here.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: It's a lot to unpack there. Alligators make good cops.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: That's my favorite line.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Is any of this helpful beyond Trump's base, do you think?
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: Well, here's what's kind of interesting over the last six months,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: to me at least. Where, like, Trump was... you know,
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: winning on the border argument, right? And keeping us safer
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: on the border. And then when you started to see
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: what he was doing under the guise of insane lunatic
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Stephen Miller and his 3,000 a day goal of arresting
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: migrants and kidnapping them and kicking them out of the country,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: people don't like the individual things, right? So it's like,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: including deporting people, including Kilmer Obrega-Garcia, including pulling people off
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: the streets. It's like, this is not what we want
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: the border to be safe, but we don't like all
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: of these things. And so alligator Alcatraz, I don't know,
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: I guess maybe his base finds it funny. Maybe his
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: base finds it to be a continuation of him. Like
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I'm being tough on the border. I'm sending people here.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: it's hard for me to envision it being appealing beyond that.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like the cruelty is the point, the
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: joking about putting people in a place that's surrounded by
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: snakes and alligators. It's also, I mean, what struck me
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: about this is like, it's very much in the vein
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: of I'm a strong man. I'm so powerful. I'm going
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: to use the military to go in LA and look,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I have all these dangerous reptiles. I mean, it's so bizarre,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: but all these dangerous reptiles who are going to prevent
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: migrants from being free. And meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: people that they are arresting, pulling off the streets, pulling
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: from their kids, pulling from their parents are people who
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: are not don't have any criminal record.
• 53:40
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: It's like so it's this it's this language that doesn't
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: even match. They're not going after the people with criminal
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: records because they're harder to get. So to me, it's
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: just all of this. I'm going to like beat my
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: chest strongman tactics that he resorts to all the time.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think there's probably a ton of strategy here.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I think he probably thought the idea of– like he's
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: obviously obsessed with Alcatraz. He thought the idea of alligators
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: eating escaping migrants probably seems appealing to him in some way.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Like the impact of it– I don't think it has
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: much of a political impact. You're exactly right. His numbers
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: on immigration have gone down. They're now almost as bad
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: as his numbers on the economy, which is like a
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: real problem for him over the medium term at least.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: What it does is it soaks up attention, right? Like
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: this is the kind of thing– this is what– Ron
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: DeSantis was frankly very good at before he embarrassed himself
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: on the national stage for the Republican primary. And Trump
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: is doing the same thing, which is just like I've
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: done something that's going to dominate attention for a day.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Probably takes attention away from the bill that was passing
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: at the time. You could just– like these are the
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: kind of clips that go viral on TikTok, right? Both
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: from people loving Trump for doing it, always in this
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: cool and funny, and people making fun of him for
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: doing it or hating on him for doing it. And
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: so she kind of soaks up attention, but it's like,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's gross and disgusting and cruel and everything else.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: But I think the political impact of it's probably pretty limited.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Well, he went there also the day after the Senate
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: passed the big ugly bill. So like that is telling.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: He wanted to talk about alligator alcatraz more than he
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: wanted to talk about his signature legislation.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because like in a different world, a president would
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: go do an event somewhere to, you know, build momentum
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: on the passage of your signature legislation to get it
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: through the house. And instead he went to a place
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: to talk about how to, how to run into zigzag
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: to avoid getting eaten by an alligator. Something I was
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: taught at an early age when I went to visit
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: my grandmother in Florida.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, tough lesson.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: There weren't a lot of alligators by her apartment complex,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: but I do remember my grandfather teaching me that.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: Dan from Delaware, living the tough life as a child.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: In the mean streets of Boca Raton where my grandparents
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: retired too.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Okay.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: One potential inmate at Alligator Alcatraz is Zoran Mondami, New
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: York City's Democratic candidate for mayor. Trump this week threatened
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: to denaturalize and deport Mondami if he defies ICE. Mondami
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: then fired back on Wednesday. Here's a sampling of that
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: back and forth.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: We'll have to arrest him. Look, we don't need a
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: of the nation. A lot of people are saying he's
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: here illegally.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: You know, we're going to look at everything.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump.
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: said that I should be arrested, he said that I
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: should be deported, he said that I should be denaturalized.
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: Less so because of who I am, because of where
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: I come from, because of how I look or how
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: I speak, and more so because he wants to distract
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: from what I fight for. I fight for working people.
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: I fight for the very people that have been priced
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: out of this city, and I fight for the same
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: people that he said he was fighting for. It is
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: easier for him to fan the flames of division than
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: to acknowledge the ways in which he has betrayed those
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: working class Americans.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: What did you make of his response?
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Very good. I mean, he is an incredibly gifted communicator,
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Mamdani is, which is kind of stating the obvious. What
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: was very smart about it is he didn't take the bait.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: And he called it out for what it is. And
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: that is exactly the right tactic with a bully. That's
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: what people should do if, I mean, I will say
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: from personal experience, being attacked by Vladimir Putin, you got
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: to punch him back and call him out for why
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: they're calling you out. And that's exactly what he did.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: The Republican Party, it's a state the obvious. I know
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: you guys have talked about this. They want to make
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: Mamdani out to be the symbol, right, of every Democratic candidate.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: He's an insanely gifted communicator, a huge star. His politics
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: would not work in every district in the country just
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: to state the obvious.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: He's not trying to say that, nor is that what
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: he's conveying. But that's what they're trying to do. And
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: I also am betting Trump. I mean, Trump wants Eric
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: Adams to remain mayor. So there's like lots going on here.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: But include, and obviously all of that is like gross
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: dog whistle stuff. But I think that's a good model
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: for when you're attacked by Trump, call him out for
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: why he's attacking. He attacks people he thinks are effective.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: That's why he attacks them, right? He doesn't go after,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes weak people in the primary, but he
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: attacks people that he sees as kind of a, he's
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: seen them around too much. But yeah, I thought it
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: was really good. What about you?
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I took really seriously was interesting
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: is Trump is obviously attacking him for who he is, right? Yeah,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: of course he is. Trump cannot fathom the idea that
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: a 33-year-old immigrant could be the mayor of his home
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: city like that. Something must be awry, illegal, rigged. It's
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: the same reason he had to believe that Barack Obama
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: had cheated on his birth.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Certificate, right? Was actually a Muslim from Kenya.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Or whatever it was. His brain cannot factor the idea
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: that someone like Zoran Mandani could beat the pants off
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: of someone like Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary. It
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: doesn't work that way. So it has to be something else.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: So it's all gross dog whistle stuff. What is just
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: interesting is just, and this goes to, I think, his
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: talent as a communicator. And it really is, I think,
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: a model for progressive politicians is he is laser focused
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: on his working class advocacy and his populist positions. Because
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: what he did was racist. What he did was jingoistic.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: what he did was offensive, but he took it and
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: he pivoted right to the idea that he's attacking him
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: because he's, because Andami is tough on Trump's friends, the billionaires,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: that he, like it just, it's just the way that he, like,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying I know what the right answer here is,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: because other people can handle this differently, but it's notable
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: to me that Mondani, who's like, everyone's talking about how
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: he can't run all these places. He's a problem for
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: the Democrats. How he specifically avoided identitarian politics and went
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: right to his populist economic argument, which is what every
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: centrist Democratic consultant would argue you do, right? And he
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: did it. I thought he did very well. He's clearly very,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: very talented. And I took note of how he handled it.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: And I think other people could learn some lessons from it.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's a model for anyone, no matter where
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: you fall on the political spectrum.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could do that if you're running... Against Dave
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Valdea or any of these other people I mentioned. Those
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: exact words.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And that being laser focused on working people
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: and how you talk about it. And yeah, I think
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: that was a very good. And what I mean, as
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: you know, is not the working people message is exactly what.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: The message would be. It's mainly being a member of
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Socialists of America.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: It's like, and he's a proud member and that works
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: for him. And obviously he just crushed Andrew Cuomo. It's like,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: but he's not, if you ask him and I've asked him,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: It's not like he's saying everybody should run as a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: democratic socialist. That's not what he's saying. So my point
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: is he's not saying that, but the Republican party is
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: trying to make that be the case or that be
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: the perception. But yeah, I think that was a very
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: well handled response.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: One last thing before I let you go. Paramount, the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: parent company of CBS News announced on Tuesday that it
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: will pay $ 16 million to settle Trump's lawsuit over the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview. Payment will cover Trump's legal
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: fees and the balance will go to his Presidential Library Foundation,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: which I'm sure will be used to buy books.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Obviously.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: As a reminder, this is a totally frivolous lawsuit over
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: a segment of an interview that Donald Trump wasn't even
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: a part of. But Paramount has a big merger in
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: front of Trump's goons and seemed to think it had
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: to pay up. Jen, just as the TV professional on
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: this podcast, can you explain what 60 Minutes did and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: didn't do with the Harris interview?
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: So correct me here if I get any aspect wrong. Basically,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: they did a lengthy interview with her and they edited
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: down the interview and they used a portion of the interview,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: a smaller portion, that they aired on a different CBS show.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: And Trump's issue or the issue they argue is that
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: they made that edit down made Harris look better. I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: think I'm getting this right here if I remember all
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: the details. Now, it it prompted through this process, CBS
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: to release the full transcript and everything from the interview,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: which actually, when you look at the full context of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: the interview, she actually looks better in the full context.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: She doesn't look amazing in either one, but like she
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: looks better in the full context than she does in
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: the edited down. That's the kind of the irony here,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: but that's what it is. Now you and I have,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: been a part of, I mean, how many interviews did
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Barack Obama do with Steve Croft?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Um, so many, at least once a year.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't even know. And they were like
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: often hours long and they would be edited down. This
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: is kind of the normal course of business. And, and,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: you know, Republican candidates would do hours long interviews with them.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: McCain probably did Romney, all these people, it's 60 minutes.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: They only have so many minutes, even in the 60 minutes. Um,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: so it's pretty standard, uh, fair for networks to do
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: when they interview any big guests. Any taped interview, you
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: edit it down.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is an entirely frivolous lawsuit that every single
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: legal person on either side of the aisle thought CBS
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: would easily win if they had gone to trial. It
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: probably would have never gone to trial. It would have
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: been tossed out by a judge. But because they truly...
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: This is just... Can't emphasize this enough. They have a
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: merger before the FCC. The FCC, run by Trump's goons...
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: has to approve that merger. The owners of Paramount will
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: get billions of dollars if that merger goes through. If
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: it doesn't, they're actually in huge financial trouble because of
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of pending debt that the Paramount Corporation has.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: And they feel like they have to pay tribute to Trump.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: They have to give him $ 16 million to have a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: pretty standard merger approved. And this comes on top of
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: ABC paying a similar amount of money Walt Disney Corporation
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: paying a similar amount of money to settle a lawsuit
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: involving George Stephanopoulos. And we're really sort of, I guess
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: my question for you based on that is, how discouraging
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: and dangerous do you think this settlement is?
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, the message it sends to people
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: like Trump and his lawyer goon squad is not, it's
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: over and we've settled it. It's, you're a good target
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: to watch what other interviews people are doing and see
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: if we can target more. I mean, this is what
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: you see with law firms or with universities. They don't
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: stop when you acquiesce. They keep going because they know
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: you're a target for it. This is like, you know,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: so there's that. What concerns me, and you and I
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: worked in media for so long, it's like, is that
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: you never know what's happening in the editorial meetings, right?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: And while the editorial meetings are not linked to the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: legal judgments, right? But what you don't know is like,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: what edict is coming down from any of these places
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: to the editorial leadership? about how they're supposed to be
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: covering the Trump administration. And it's not to suggest, it's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: not as obvious as go on TV and say Trump
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: is great and the best president in history. Like that
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be authentic. It's like, what stories are killed, right?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: What stories aren't pursued? I mean, remember Bill Owens from
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: 60 Minutes also resigned like just this year. What stories
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: were killed there? What were the frustrations about? So the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: piece that concerns me is the obedience in advance that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: you don't see, right? And most people don't know, like
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: you and I do, that that's where the discussions are had.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, questions that are asked in the White House
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: briefing room often come from down, from like corporate news
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: people in different places. They're not always invented by the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: reporters in the room. Sometimes they are, you know? And
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: that's the piece that's concerning. What decisions are made about
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: what stories get to be on the air and how
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Trump is covered? And that no one will ever be
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: able to see. It's disproving a negative. So that's the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: piece that I think about a lot.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: And if you're someone who doesn't really care about media
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: or thinks that traditional media or corporate media is doomed,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: there is one other consequence of this, which is Paramount
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: also owns Comedy Central. And they are reportedly delaying the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: latest season of South Park because they're afraid it's going
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: to make fun of Trump and upset them and upend
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: the merger. So it's like, we're even allowing Trump to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: make programming decisions at Comedy Central for fear of upsetting
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: our Mad King. So I've just leave people with that notion.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. When we come back from the break, you'll hear
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: my conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna about what Democrats should
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: be doing in this moment. But two quick things before
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: we do that. If you haven't subscribed to Friends of
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• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: We've got a new episode out this week that goes
• 1:06:21
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• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: takeaways from Zoran Mondani's win in New York City. Subscribe
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  Speaker 2: Joining me today to talk about the shit show in
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: the house over the last 24 hours is Congressman Ro Khanna. Congressman,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: welcome back to Pots of America.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: Well, Dan, that's a perfect summary. As I flew back
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: Tuesday night and just watched one by one Republicans cave
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the night, predictable, but still sad
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: to see.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as you were watching it happen, did you have
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: hope that they might hold, or did you know they
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: were always going to fold? Were you watching the arms
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: get twisted? Set the scene for us a little bit.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I figured they would fold. I've been
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: through the story too many times, and the fear is palpable.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, I... had done a war powers resolution
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: with Thomas Massey to keep us out of war in Iran.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: And Massey was targeted by not just Donald Trump's tweets,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: his top lieutenants, the people who won the presidency. Donald
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: Trump says, I'm going to put you in charge to
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: take out Massey. And that was a chilling signal, not
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: just to Massey, but to every Republican. I mean, they
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: are in moral fear of being singled out by Donald Trump. But,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: you know, when we had the vote that Tuesday or
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: two nights ago, or I guess last night, it was
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: 10 p.m. And, you know, there were about 10 Republicans short.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: And I thought, OK, you know, it's going to take
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: them a couple of days. But they just kept that
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: vote open all night. And you heard about the different
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: deals they were making with Republicans promising them that they
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: would get further cuts in a future reconciliation bill, promising
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: Trump would do some executive order. And one by one,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: you saw them basically folding and the terrible result we
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: saw this morning.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: It's like we have come to, you know, like I
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: thought they were going to fold. We've seen this. We've
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: seen this play several times now in the Trump era.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: But when you like step back from sort of the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: insanity of this moment, what they just did really seems
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: totally off the wall. You have one and two ones. One,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: these members said 24 hours earlier they would never vote
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: for this bill. They declare, unless I get changes, I'm
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: never voting for it. They called it a piece of shit.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: They were all over it. They got no changes. It's
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: the exact same.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: Text that came back from the Senate.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: They all voted for it. On top of that, all
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: of the polling says the bill is incredibly unpopular. Every
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: person seems to imagine this is going to make it
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: harder for them to win to keep power, and yet
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: they did it anyway. In your conversations with Republicans who
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: are watching them, do they believe their own bullshit here,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: or is this really just sort of fear of Trump?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: It's fear of Trump. They're in the Tom Tillis situation, right?
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: Tillis knows that he can't win the general election voting
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: for these Medicaid cuts. And so he's holding out, holding out,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: holding out and probably positioning himself better for the general election.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: And then Donald Trump basically tweets out that I'm going
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: to support a primary challenge. And within 12 hours, Tillis says,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: I'm not running for reelection. I mean, you got to
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: look if Barack Obama tomorrow decided to endorse a primary
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: challenge against me. I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't quit.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: It's unbelievable. It's like Trump doesn't support you and your
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: career is literally done. I think these folks knew that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: they were between a rock and a hard place. If
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: they voted no, they were done. And so they're rolling
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: the dice and they're they're counting on basically being able
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: to mislead the American people. They pushed out a lot
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: of these cuts to 2020, late 2026, 2027. And they're
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: hoping they can skate by before the cuts really impact people. Now,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: I don't think that'll be the case. States will do
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: anticipatory cuts, but that's that's the bet they're making.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: You know, we've talked a lot on this podcast over
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: the last several weeks about the cuts to Medicaid, the
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: cuts to SNAP, the tax cuts for the rich, the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: clean energy jobs that will be lost. But I feel
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: like every hour I'm learning about another terrible thing in
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: this bill. Somehow I did not realize that they eliminate
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: direct file for the IRS in here, making it so
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: much harder for people to file their own taxes. What
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: are some of the other things in this bill you
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: think people should know about that may not have broken
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: through to people?
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: Well, they make it very hard for people who are
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: paying back their student loans to get loan forgiveness. You know,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: there are programs where if you make every monthly payment
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: for 25 years, the government will forgive those loans. They
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: take that away. If you're a doctor or a nurse
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: who's doing public service, there are programs that will help
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: you with student loans. They take that away. If you
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: come on hard times and you can't make a payment,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: there are things that were there to help you. They
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: take that away. They got funding for university science research
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: in there. They are, of course, the most cruel parts
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: of taking away the health care and the food assistance.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: But just to put this in perspective, George W. Bush's
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: tax cuts were awful and skewed towards the very rich. But, like,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: everyone got something. And Trump's first tax cuts were also
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: skewed for the very rich, but everyone got something. You know,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: you were poor, working class, you got something. This is
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: the first time in modern history where while the rich
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: are actually getting tax breaks, the working class and the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: poor are getting screwed, like they're being worse off. They're
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: losing money while the rich are getting more money. And
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: it's literally unbelievable that they all voted for this, especially
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: because the candid truth is more of the working class vote.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: move to their direction, and they're shafting them to help
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: the people in my district. I mean, it's just, when
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: you look at the distribution of what this bill is
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: going to do, it's shocking.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting, because this is the pipe dream, right?
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: This is what Paul Ryan used to wake up every
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: morning to do, which was to cut taxes for the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: rich and pay for it by gutting Medicaid, and his
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: mind also Social Security, Medicare. But back then, from basically
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: the days of Reagan through the Obama years, when the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: Republicans pushed that policy, the tax cuts were benefiting their
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: voters and the cuts to social services were hurting Democratic voters.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: But that's now no longer the case. Trump actually won
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: voters who made under $ 50, 000. Kamala Harris won the voters
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: who made over $ 100, 000. It just seems just wild to me.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: It's like they have not updated their policy agenda to
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: reflect the shift in their political coalitions. It's like they're
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: waging war on their own voters.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: They literally are. I mean, some of these districts, like
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: Del Deo's district, over 100,000 people, 150,000 people on Medicaid,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: you would think he wouldn't want a trillion dollars a
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: cut to Medicaid. And yet he's voting for those cuts
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: to benefit districts like mine, which has a lot of
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: the billionaires. And I think it's two things. One, they
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: They're counting on being able to lie, basically controlling the
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: media narrative to say, oh, nothing changed. They're the Republicans.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: The Democrats are just exaggerating people being hurt. And they're
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: basically counting on that tactic. And then, too, they haven't
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: calibrated the true populism. I mean, some of the people
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: in their party, actually, like Josh Hawley, have or at
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: least understand why this is.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: Until he voted for it.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: Why this is bad. He still voted for it. But
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: at least he tried trying to get the child tax
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: rate more. At least he gets that this is not
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: smart politics. But a lot of the others, they're not
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: even making an effort to do it. And they hope
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: sheer rhetoric can defy the reality of the policy.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: That leads me to sort of the next question here,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: which is, all the polls show this is very unpopular,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: but they also show that the American people have heard
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: very little about it. There was a poll from Predators USA,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Super PAC, which shows that like a tiny
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: fraction of people could even cite the fact that there
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: were Medicaid cuts in this bill. Why do you think
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: it's been so hard to get people's attention on something
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: as important as this piece of legislation?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: I think just we're in a short attention environment. There's
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: so much going on. There was the bombing in Iran.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: There's Trump's daily assault on immigrants. There's the issues that
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: people are dealing with in their daily lives. And they
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: just look at the headlines on this stuff and they
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: don't really know how it's impacting them. And I think
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: that's going to be the challenge for the Democratic Party.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: We've got two tests. We've got to show how this
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: is actually taking away health care for folks and food
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: assistance for folks. I have real people being telling these stories.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: And be specific of what it's doing now and the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: next year so that people know before the elections that
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: here's actually what's happening. Because they're going to keep saying,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: you're exaggerating, you're lying. You know, see, it wasn't nearly
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: as bad. And they've, of course, tried to stack most
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: of the cuts towards the end of the decade.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: And that sort of gets to my question is how
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: do we, you know, we're heading in these midterms. This
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: should be the central issue of the midterms. But the cuts,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: like the damage to most people is theoretical at that point.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: Have you thought about how we make that case in
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: the context of midterms to make sure that people like
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: Dave Valdeo pay for their sins here?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: So we're just having this conversation. I don't mind revealing it.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: And it's among the California delegation on text. And I said, look,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: we've got to have someone do the analysis of what
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: cuts are going to happen here. starting tomorrow up through
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: 2026 by states in anticipation of the freeze on the
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: provider tax, in anticipation of people having to fill out
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: all this extensive paperwork to get benefits. And then we've
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: got to find stories of folks like that in Valdeo's district,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: in Calvert's district, in Kim's district. I think sometimes Democrats
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 4: campaign too much in abstraction, 17 million kicked off. I
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: don't think that connects. I think we've got to be like,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: here's Susie, who's a two-year-old, now doesn't have health care.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: And by the way, here are the specific people this
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: month who have been affected in Valdeo's district. And we've
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: really got to do our homework. And I'm going to
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: ask the caucus to try to come up with something
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: so we know the timeline of these cuts and know
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: the specifics in these districts.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: You're a proud progressive. Like many proud progressives, I imagine
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: you are quite skeptical of austerity politics. But this bill
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: does add $ 3 trillion in debt. This is a very
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: different environment than other times in which Congress has passed
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: legislation that's unpaid for, like during the Stimulus Act, after
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: the financial crisis of 2008, the rescue package during COVID.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: we're in a time of high interest rates. There are
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: real consequences to just larding up with debt at this
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: exact moment. Is that something you think Democrats should campaign on?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: Yes. I mean, this is absolutely reckless to have 8%
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: of GDP deficits when you have no external shock. I mean,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: it's one thing when you had the Great Recession, when
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: President Obama came into power, or even the pandemic under
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: Trump and Biden, they had to act, or if you
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: have war. But right now, you've got no external shock.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: You've got, as you put it, high interest rates. And
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: the money is for nothing. It's going to people who
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: have capital who are not investing it. We know that
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: the previous tax, Trump tax cuts, people didn't increase business investment.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: They sat on their money. They gave stock buybacks. They
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: wiped off debt from corporations. So you're not getting anything
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: productive from it. And you really run the risk of
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: making all of us poorer as the Fed is forced
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: to buy up these treasuries, as people feel that treasuries
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: aren't the best place to invest. So it is putting
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: a huge burden on young people. And I think ultimately
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: that's really the argument we have to make, which is,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: you know, when you take food away from people and
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 4: you take away health care, the people you're hurting the
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: most are the kids, right? I mean, it's the poverty trap.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: And So you're taking away investment of the kids. You're
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: adding all this debt to these kids, all to basically
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: provide these tax breaks for the wealthy. There's nothing about
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: investing in this country's future, all the empty rhetoric about
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: making America great. You're really bankrupting America's future just to
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: satisfy the whims of the wealthiest in this country.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: For entirely a short-term benefit. It's not even really for
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: gain because we're not It's not like these are new
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: tax– for the most part are new tax cuts that
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: are going to generate growth in the economy. They're just
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: keeping the tax cuts that were passed in place whatever
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: it was six years ago that– or seven years ago
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: that don't– that didn't really generate a lot of growth anyway.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: So we're just really screwing the future for a minimal
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: benefit in the present. Like from a purely– Totally agree.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: From like a policymaking perspective, it makes zero sense. I
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: would just like looking at this thing, it just really
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: is one of the dumbest– things I've ever seen Congress pass.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: It just makes no sense why they actually– I mean,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: I know they want to give their tax cuts to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: their billionaires, and I get that. That's obviously very important
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: to them personally. It's very important to their donors. It's
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: very important to Donald Trump. But just the entire thing
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: put together just is like a very contradictory exercise. They
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: say they want to lower the deficit. They add a
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: bunch of trillion dollars to the debt. They make recession
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: more likely. They cut all the programs people need when
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: recession happens. They ran on lowering costs, and this bill
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: in every way, shape, or form raises costs for people.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: And that's one thing that's going to be, I think,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: a real challenge for us to explain and show people
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: is that how this actually makes their life more expensive.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: And that this is a specific act done by these
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: members of Congress, right?
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean, look, it takes away a lot
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: of the subsidies for renewable energy that's going to lead
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: to higher utility costs. It takes away funding in terms
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: of good paying jobs. I mean, health care, look at
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: the jobs report today. One of the reasons the jobs
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: report was decent is all the growth has been in
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: health care jobs. Who then says, OK, what we're going
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: to do is cut health care so that we can
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: have less health care jobs. And that's the one sector
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: that's generating good paying jobs and sustaining the economy. So
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: there's a lot in it that is going to impact
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: ordinary people's lives. But I think the broader point is
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 4: that the only coherence that Republicans have that I've seen
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: in my nine years of Congress is tax cuts. Ultimately,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: they could dress it up as whatever populism, working class,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 4: we're a new party. At the end of the day,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: there's like one unifying principle. They all vote for tax
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: breaks and those tax breaks are always for the wealthiest.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: And their whole goal is let's starve government. Let's get
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: rid of the New Deal. Let's just make government smaller.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: Who cares about the deficits? We just want to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: And I really think that the Democrats just need to
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: go out there and win the argument to say that's
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: mortgaging America's future. That's not going to help us have kids.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: We're going to have good paying jobs and strong families.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: And that's not what's going to help us lead against
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: China or make us a strong nation in the 21st century.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: We haven't done enough of that. We haven't argued on
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: the economics, on our theory of the case about what's
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: going to make this country strong. I mean, Obama did,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: Clinton did, but we've got to do that again, the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: basics of making the case.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: Congressman Conno, thanks for joining us. Go get some sleep.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: It's been a very long 24 hours for you. I
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: hope you have a great Fourth of July holiday.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: Happy Fourth. Thanks for having me.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ro Khanna for
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: coming on. And Jen, thank you again for guest hosting.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: Everyone check out Jen's excellent show, The Briefing on MSNBC,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: Tuesday through Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern. We'll be back
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: with a new show on Tuesday. Everyone have a great
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: 4th of July and talk to you soon.
• 1:24:21
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