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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage? · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, Cricket listeners, there's a new show hosted by Scott
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Galloway and Jessica Tarlov that we think you'll enjoy. It's
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: called Raging Moderates. I was just on it a few
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: weeks ago. It was a lot of fun. We talked
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: about the election and what's next for Democrats, and Scott
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and Jessica are just fantastic. It was a really fun conversation.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Raging Moderates is a podcast for those who reside somewhere
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: between the center left and the center right, and it
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: can be found wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Cool. On today's show, Joe Biden delivers his final foreign
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: policy address to kick off his last week as president.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about the speech and his farewell tour. I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: can't believe it's the last week.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: split you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I made it more of like.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: You're going to miss him. Oh shit, Trump's coming. Yeah,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: it's happening.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It's real.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about the latest in the precarious marriage
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: between MAGA and Big Tech with Mark Zuckerberg doing more
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Trump ass kissing on Joe Rogan. and Steve Bannon making
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: new threats to Elon Musk. Then I talked to Ken Martin,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: chair of the Minnesota DFL, that's the state's Democratic Party,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: about his bid for chair of the DNC. But first,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the fires in Los Angeles are still burning. As of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: this taping on Monday afternoon, the Eaton Palisades and Hearst
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: fires have burned over 36,000 acres. To put that in context,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that is a larger area than the entire city of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. More than 12,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: That's just so far. That number will probably go up.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: The fires have taken the lives of 24 Angelenos. Fortunately,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that number is expected to go up as well. As
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: we are recording this, the winds have subsided, which has
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: allowed firefighting crews over the weekend to contain more of
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the blaze, but really bad, powerful new winds are expected
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: throughout the week, especially Tuesday and Wednesday, creating dangerous conditions
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and the possibility of new fires. Of course, The continued
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: danger has not prevented Republicans from politicizing recovery efforts and
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: spreading misinformation, such as Vice President-elect J.D. Vance's claim on
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Fox News Sunday that some of Los Angeles' reservoirs have
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: been dry for decades. But the worst reaction has come
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: from Trump and a growing number of Republicans in Congress
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: who are already talking about placing conditions on disaster relief
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: sent to California. Here's Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, Wyoming Senator
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: John Barrasso, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty and Speaker Mike Johnson.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: Why should other states be bailing out California for choosing
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: the wrong people to run their state?
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: We shouldn't be. They got 40 million people in that
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: state and they voting these these imbeciles in office. You
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: go to California, you run into a lot of Republicans,
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: a lot of good people, and I hate it for them,
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: but they are just overwhelmed by these inner city woke
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: policies with the people that vote for them. They don't
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: deserve anything, to be honest with you, unless they show
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: us they're going to make some changes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: And before we put funds into place, we've got to
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: find out exactly how we're going to hold these leaders
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: accountable and what sort of policy changes are required.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: There's going to be hearings.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: There's going to be requests of Congress. There can't be
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: a blank check on this.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: I think there should probably be conditions on that.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: That's my personal view.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Tommy Tuberville, a real expert in putting imbeciles into office
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: from the state of Alabama, which I believe is the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: state that is, it's number 12 in states that are
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: most dependent on federal aid, the small state of Alabama
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: compared to the 40 million people in California, which I
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: do think contributes quite a bit to the country's gross
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: domestic product.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And far more tax dollars leave California, go to the
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: federal government, then come back.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Also just so racist, these inner city woke DEI initiatives.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Like, well, what are you trying to say, Senator?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I can't tell.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: If you really listen to the criticism, I was just
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: listening to our good pal Chris Christie. He was on
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Brian Kilmeade's radio show, going off on Newsom and the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: fire response. None of these people, though, have any... They
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: haven't really paid attention to any of the details.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: None.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So they don't have any actual criticisms. They're just like,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it's a disaster and the woke policies did it. It's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a woke fire. It's shorthand, lazy bullshit. And as we're
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: going to get into, there are absolutely... real critiques that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you can level towards various officials about the fire thing,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but they're not interested in that.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: So Mike Johnson, actually, the next sentence that he says,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: because he's walking down the Capitol, he says, there are conditions,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: and he throws out there forest management, water management. It's like, okay,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: this is a disaster, an emergency right now. California needs money.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Right now.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what it means to put conditions
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: on California.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Nor does Mike Johnson.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Nor does Mike Johnson.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Or any Republican.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: It's like, no more woke. You got to ban woke.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And you better stop doing those things we're making up
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: about you doing. All those things that aren't happening, they
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: better stop right now.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've come to expect this from Trump. I
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: do think it's alarming that Republicans are now just open
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: to punishing disaster victims unless the elected Democrats who represent
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: them just embrace Republican politics. Is that what we're in
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: for for the next four years?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: It seems like it. I remember there was the story
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: from 2018 where a bunch of Trump's national security staff
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: had to show him vote totals from Orange County, California,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: before he would agree to funds for fire relief. So
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: this is not surprising for Trump. I guess we shouldn't
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: be surprised that Republicans are following suit, especially the worst
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: of the worst, like Tommy Tuberville. But it's a problem.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: You would like to think that doing something like this,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: exploiting people in an ongoing way, disaster would be seen
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: as beyond the pale, or at least there'd be some
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: kind of like mutually assured destruction, lest the next Democratic
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: president say, actually, no one should live on the coast
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of Florida ever again. And unless you agree to my
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: random policy areas, we will not fund any insurance for you.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. When did Joe Biden ever attach political
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: conditions to disaster relief or Barack Obama or George W.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Bush or like any president before Donald Trump? In addition
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: to that 2018 episode, I had forgotten that in October
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of 2020, Trump did deny a federal aid request from California.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: At the time, there were 21 active wildfires in the state.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Four million acres had already burned. 31 people had died.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And Newsom had asked for federal aid. Trump rejected it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And then Newsom called Trump and pleaded his case. And
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I think Kevin McCarthy, who at the time was, you know,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Republican leadership in the House and from California, I think
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he got Trump to turn around and then Trump signed
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the disaster relief assistance. But he tried to do this before. Yeah.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, there are Republican members of Congress in California.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Nine House Republicans. They better speak up.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: There are.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: It is especially galling when you see different people like DeSantis,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: but a bunch of them that have called for conditioning
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: aid to Democratic areas on either side of their state
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: desperately needing aid after a disaster. We have had disasters
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: in Florida, in In Texas, we just went through these
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: terrible floods. In North Carolina, Republicans understand the need for
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: aid in an emergency and are completely for it on
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: either side of crises that affect Democratic states.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And I will say, so far, the only Republican I've
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: seen that has opposed attaching any kind of conditions is
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Tom Tillis, Senator, Republican Senator from North Carolina. And he said,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: just before we started recording, put yourself in their shoes.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: We were just dealing with a hurricane here. We wanted relief. Like,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: so would they, which is a completely normal thing to think.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: He's a decent person.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: The other thing is, it's not just like you're punishing
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: all the libs in California. Donald Trump got 6 million
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: votes in the state of California. That's a lot of votes.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That's probably more votes than he got in a lot
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of different states that he won.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also like the ideological part of it is
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: just beside the point, obviously. But like disasters, a big
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: disaster in California, it affects the whole country. This is
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: a huge port. This is a huge part of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: American economy. A disaster in North Carolina affects the whole country.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: The whole idea is we help parts of the country
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: rebuild because it helps all of us. We are all
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: better off when we know that in a disaster, if
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: there's something that happens to our town, our community, our state,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: that the resources will come in that come over the
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: top of what you could do locally because that protects
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: all of us.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Well, presumably he'd like the Republican Party to do better
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: in California going forward. So maybe don't punish it now.
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Also, like, Say Gavin Newsom personally went to every reservoir
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and drained it so he could drink all the water himself.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Thirsty boy, yeah, sure.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So he could keep it by his house so he
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: could have extra water. Why does everyone else get punished
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: for that? It is fucking insane. It is an insane
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: thing to do. One condition the Republicans are discussing is
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: tying wildfire aid to the debt ceiling. On Monday morning,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Politico reported that over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, a group of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: House Republicans and President-elect Trump explored tying disaster relief with
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: extending the debt limit as a way to overcome internal
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Republican divisions that would likely sink any bill containing a
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling increase. They, of course, don't think that they
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: can get the debt ceiling increase with just Republican votes
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: because you get the Chip Roy's of the world who
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like want trillions of dollars of cuts before they ever
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: vote for a debt ceiling increase. Apparently, House Speaker Mike
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Johnson was not in attendance at the dinner, so no
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: final decision has been made, but wouldn't be surprised if
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they move forward on this. What do you guys think
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of the idea? Do you think Democrats, House Democrats would
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: support it?
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I was relieved that we could help Donald Trump solve
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: a political problem for himself. You know, as I watched
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: the flames creep closer to my home and my business
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: and where all my friends live, I thought to myself,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I really hope there's any silver lining here. It can
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: be that we solve this Freedom Caucus political problem for
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: It's a win.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So it's called the silver lining.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: So I think that's pretty galling about this too. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the reason Johnson's wasn't there is that this was a
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: specific meeting. This was a meeting with Republicans from New York,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: New Jersey, California, who are specifically interested in raising the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: cap on state and local tax deductions. The reasons that
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: that's interesting is that was one of the ways they
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: helped get the cost down on the original Trump tax cuts.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: There's a state and local deduction that helps people from
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: high tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And Trump is in this meeting with these guys and
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: they're like, This cap affected our people. And Trump was like,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Nobody told me that. So this
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: is a meeting of a group of House Republicans trying
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: to figure out a way to make the debt problem worse.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: That's the goal of this meeting. And in order to
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: make the debt problem worse, which is what this group
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: of people wants to do, they need either Democratic votes
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: or they need the votes of people that have not
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: been opposed some of the time. a group of people
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that have never in their time in Congress voted to
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: raise the debt limit. They've never done it.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Some of them ran for Congress just to oppose debt
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: ceiling increases.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And so fundamentally what that meeting is and what a
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: lot of this is, is an admission that Republicans are
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: fucking stuck, that they have to raise the debt limit.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: They don't have the votes to do it. And they're
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out some way out of it. Mike
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Johnson also talked about the possibility of the condition for
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: California tying it to raising the debt limit, which is
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: just a way of saying they don't think they can
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: do it, as Tommy was saying, without Democratic votes.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I reached out to a couple of members of
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Congress to see if this was gaining currency. And they
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: were like, I'm not sure about the debt ceiling piece
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: of this, but they do think that conditioning aid is
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: gaining a lot of momentum, even though no one seems
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: to know what the conditions are. I mean, we're like
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: half joking, but like if you look at Twitter, it's
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: like half of the attacks are Donald Trump Jr. saying
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: that like DEI initiatives are the reason there were 100
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: mile per hour winds. And then there's the Trump stuff,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: which is like forest management and the smelt fish, which
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I know you and Dan talked about Thursday and I
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: refuse to learn more about because it's so stupid.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: It's all you need to listen to. Even Gavin Newsom said,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: all you have to do is listen to Pod Save
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: America to find out about.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: The smelt fish.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the aid is conditioned on opening up
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: a pipe between Fresno and Laguna that doesn't exist.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: There's a hope there, which is like, so now Trump
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: is expected to come out here next week and he's
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: going to talk to Newsom. You could see a situation-
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: We're in the stupidest timeline we have been for a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: long time where all of this is bluster. Republicans go
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: on shows. They have to sound tough. That's what they do.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Trump goes out. He talks to Newsom and he's like,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I knew some was OK. And we came to an
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: agreement and they're going to and the condition is like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they're going to. they're going to study forest management or
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: they're going to make some bullshitty thing to like.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Gavin should make a giant faucet and do like a
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: grand opening, like key to the city, ribbon cutting type thing.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Let this sink in kind of thing. Yeah, so that's
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the best case scenario and by no means clear that
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that will happen.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Right, well, it's hard to even like, this is an emergency.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: The disaster relief needs to come quickly. And so it's like,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: what is it, a condition on California doing some reforms?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: That seems impossible. How is that even going to be enforced?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So it seems more about like some kind of restriction
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: on the money that everybody can declare victory on.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: That would be the hope. Yeah. They just want to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: say that they punished the libs in California. That's that's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: what they're going to do. They now control everything. They
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: control Washington Republicans. So they need enemies. They need villains.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: That's their reason for being. And so California is going
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to be a big punching bag. Probably New York's going
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: to be a big punching bag, too.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: They just got to find the libs wherever they can.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And that's going to.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Be Greenland, Panama, California, California.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's about right.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Los Angeles. Yesterday, the New
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: York Times resurfaced a 2021 interview with Los Angeles Mayor
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass, where she promised to, quote, not travel internationally.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Very specific pledge that Bass broke last week when she
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was in Ghana as the Eaton and Palisades fires broke
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: out in Los Angeles. This comes after Los Angeles Fire
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Chief Kristen Crowley told Fox 11 Los Angeles on Friday
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that under Bass's leadership, the city had failed her and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: her department by not providing enough funding to her department.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: curious what you guys think of the local response so far.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think the anger is warranted towards LA officials
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and Mayor Bass?
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I think 90% of being mayor is showing up. And
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: when you're out of town, when something like this happens,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: you are going to get people very angry. And I
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: think that's pretty justifiable anger, especially when this was not
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: totally predicted, these fires, not the scope and scale, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: the conditions that led to them were known in advance.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And some of the reporting on On Mayor Bass's absence
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: notes that Mayor Hahn, who was the mayor of Los
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Angeles on September 11, 2001, was in D.C. when the
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: 9-11 attacks happened. He got stranded there for three days
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and voters punished him for it. And he lost reelection.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I read that. I had no idea about that story
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: because I didn't live there at the time. But he
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: took the he got the first flight that left the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: East Coast back to the West Coast after 9-11. He
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was on that first flight. He was gone for a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: couple days.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: He says 60 hours.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: 60 hours. And it was still like one of the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: reasons he, it was used against him for like the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: rest of his career.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Do you know who became, who was the acting mayor
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: in his absence? Who? Alex Padilla. Huh. Our senator.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Look at that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So whether or not the mayor should have gone
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: on the trip, I think it's pretty clear that she
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: should have come back once the warning started coming in Sunday.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: They were pretty grim.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she left Saturday. The extreme warnings were Sunday. There
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: were warnings before that on Friday. There were some pretty
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: dire ones on Saturday too, yeah.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I do not think she should have been away during
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: this time. What I think is like, what I was
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: like trying to, it's so hard to understand what's going
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: on now. There's so much noise and you sort of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: step back from it and there's this debate about Karen Bass.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: There's this, I think, very reasonable and important debate to
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: have about how we manage fires in California, water management
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: in California, building policies in California, all valid, all important.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: I think there's an important debate to be had after
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: this crisis about the way in which accountability is broken
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: up and divided between Los Angeles as a city and
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles as a county that I find quite stupid
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: and anti-democratic and makes it very hard to figure out
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: who is responsible and allows a lot of people to
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: pass the buck. But I also think the kind of
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: right-wing propaganda, blaming everything on woke, plus some of these
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: debates that are ultimately, I think, incidental to what unfolded.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Also.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Obscure that this has been an extraordinary response. There has
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: been an amazing success of local government in the face
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: of unprecedented wildfires to get resources there. These people on
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the lines for days without end getting in face of
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: climate worsening fires. They're not responsible for people building houses
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: on the hills. They're not responsible for 30 years of
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: forest mismanagement. They're not responsible for long-term water policies. They're
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: there trying to figure out how to put this out.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And the utility companies getting power back in a bunch
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of different places all at once. There's a lot of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: good in the response, too, that I feel like has
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: been completely obscured. I saw on social media people sharing
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: videos of a helicopter or plane dropping water and missing
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: a building and being like, here it is, their perfect
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: example of California and and why liberal government has failed, right?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Here we have it once again. These liberals can't do it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: You need private firefighters. You need a Rick Caruso, whatever
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: it is. And it's like, guys, these are people doing
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: their best. And from where we were a few days
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: ago to where we are today, they did an extraordinary job.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: I think the firefighters are some of the most courageous
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: people in all of public life. And the fact that
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: they do this day in and day out, and like
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: you said, love it. I mean, these guys were men
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: and women were working 30-hour, 40-hour shifts straight, battling fires
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: in this extreme heat. In some cases, they didn't have water. Now,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I do think.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Some of them haven't slept in a week.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Days.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: We were with Newsom at the command center, like, talking
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: to some of the firefighters there, and they're like, this is...
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: One guy is like, I've been doing this for 40,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: 50 years. This is the worst week of my life.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why when you've, like, Don Jr. tweeting that, like,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: DEI initiatives and the firing of a couple white male
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: fire chiefs is the reason. Like, that's so insulting to
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: all these firefighters out there doing their job. Now, I
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: do think there is a debate that should be happening
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: about the speed of the response, pre-deployment, why some of
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: these fire hydrants ran out of water. And I think
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Newsom is trying to get to the bottom of that,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: but other people need to too. There's also an argument
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: about the fire department's budget, whether it should have been
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: $ 800 million, $ 900 million. I have no idea. But it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: a huge problem for Karen Bass that the fire chief
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: is saying they needed more money and they were refused. Again,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I'm also sympathetic to the idea that no fire department
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: in the world could deal with four massive forest fires
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: at the same time, especially in a hundred mile per
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: hour winds. But clearly there were some decisions made that
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: hindered the response. And I think we need to get
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of them and also think there has
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: been a void in terms of just local communication. Like,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you guys, but like the 700
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: person press conferences just don't really do it for me
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: when I'm looking for clear leadership.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Neither did the several false emergency alerts that went off
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: on our phone. In fact, when we were recording an
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: episode of something on Friday or Thursday, a bunch went
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: off and it was like terrifying people. One went off
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: at four in the morning. For people who were like
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in Pasadena area, right near the zone. So like it
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: could have been them evacuating.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And by the way, yeah, I just done that too. Like, yes,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: false alarms, very scary. You do enough false alarms, people
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: aren't going to take the real one seriously.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: That's the huge, of course. Here's my thing. Like, of course,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: when a disaster strikes, there's going to be plenty to praise,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: plenty to criticize about the response. And as you guys
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: both pointed out, there are plenty of debates to be
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: had in Los Angeles and around Los Angeles and state
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of California about water, fire, all that stuff. The challenge
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is we can't have those debates publicly in an information
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: environment where you're getting these bad faith attacks from the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: right and all this misinformation. And so it's so difficult
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to have like rational conversations and look, this is, we're
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: going to have more, there's going to be more disasters
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and they're going to be more frequent now because there's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: climate change. And if we are not able to, when
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the disaster hits, first focus on, okay, how do we
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: put out the fires? How do we take care of everyone?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Then figure out, okay, what happened? What did everyone fuck up?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Who's to blame, right? Like, I don't want to make
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the scene like we are, I'm certainly not interested in
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: being partisan or not criticizing someone just because they're a Democrat,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I don't give a shit, right? Like if it turns
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: out that like Karen Bass really fucked up or Gavin
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Newsom fucked up, whoever it is, be the first to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: criticize that person, you know? But like you do have
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to figure out the information and it's hard to do
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in the fog of war, which is where we're at
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: right now. And I don't know, you just gotta like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: it's just so hard to do that in this environment.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Well, like I think Newsom said this to you, some
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: version of like the truth requires some patience and requires
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: some time. We're in the middle of it. We're in
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the middle of it. And the fact, look, pre-deployment problems.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Surely we will learn ways to do this better. Some
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: of it will be personalities, individuals who made mistake. Some
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of it will be structural, which is much less interesting
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: and people don't give a shit about, which will probably
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: ultimately have been even more important. But just the fact
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that these terrible fires raged. is not in and of
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: itself a sign that the government failed just because it
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: looks bad on TV. So much of this is about
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: what looks bad on TV. I don't want to defend
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Karen Bass. I found it shocking that she went to
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: France for the Olympics three times, which I learned from
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that article. Three times.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of times for Olympics.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Not enough croque, madame.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, I have been looking for this too. Like
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it's so far, I haven't seen anyone with experience in
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: fighting fires or dealing with water issues make the case
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that extra firefighters or one more water reservoir, one was
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: offline at the time being repaired, would have done anything
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to change the fact that it was mostly severe winds
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and the inability to get the helicopters in the air
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that were primarily responsible for the devastation, the Palisades and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: in Altadena, right? Like I'm open to, if someone can
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: make that case, like maybe that's wrong, but I haven't
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: seen that. And so That's the main thing, right? That's
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the main problem. And then everything else is really important
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to figure out as we move on.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: But in the interim, you're seeing tweets with millions and
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: millions of views saying, because Karen Bass was out of town,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: the acting mayor didn't declare an emergency declaration, which is
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: why Biden didn't get the water dropping Navy helicopters into
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: the air until Wednesday. And you read that and you're
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: like- I got many people said that to me.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: You sent me this tweet. And I got friends were like,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: why weren't the helos there? Why went the Navy dropping
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: planes there?
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And you read it and you think, okay, this is
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: a person who seems to have had a big job
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: in local LA politics. And then you think for five
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: seconds to yourself and you're like, Joe Biden doesn't have
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: access to special magic helicopters that can fly around with
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: tons and tons of water and a hundred mile power winds.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: This is clearly nonsense. And the disaster declaration stuff, like
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: 99% of that is about getting resources or funding to
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: an area hit by a disaster after the fact, not before.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It's Elon Musk who has been doing some good stuff
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and like setting up Starlink and helping around here with
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: some of the cleanup. But at the beginning... the beginning
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: of this was going on, Alex Jones, this whole video,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: this like 40 minute video where he said that the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: fires were part of a larger globalist plot to cause
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the collapse of the United States. And Elon responds to him, true.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: It's, for the most part, the climate change hero, Elon Musk.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: It is like sort of the mirror image of the
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: kind of conspiratorial mindset like that, whatever, that's fucking nuts. And,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: but like, no, most people do not believe that the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: government is responding as a conspiracy to hurt California.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: But I think like, The mirror image of people assuming
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: that there is some kind of conspiracy that explains everything
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: is in a crisis like this. It can't just be bad.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: It has to be because people have failed us. There
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: has to be individuals who are responsible. There has to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: be someone to blame right now because I can't handle
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: the uncertainty. of just knowing that people are doing their
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: best and it's not working. It has to be something else.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It has to be more about a human failure.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Which is a very human impulse. And I think it's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: just magnified in an age where we just see way
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: too much information and way too many people who pretend
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to be experts.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: And just bad actors and people who should know better.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Elon Musk knows better. He understands the impact of climate change.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: For him to reply to Alex Jones and boost that guy,
• 24:06
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• 26:35
  Speaker 1: On Monday afternoon, President Biden kicked off his final week
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: in the White House with a speech before the State
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Department defending his foreign policy legacy. Biden made the case
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that the United States has strengthened its alliances in the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: face of authoritarian aggression and weakened its greatest adversaries, Russia, China,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and Iran. The speech marks another stop on Biden's farewell tour,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: which included an exclusive interview with USA Today last week
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and an upcoming televised address to the nation on Wednesday evening.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip of Biden's foreign policy speech.
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he'd conquer Kiev.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: In a matter of days.
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: The truth is, Since that war began, I'm the only
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: one that stood in the center of Kyiv, not him.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Putin never has.
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: My administration is leaving the next administration with a very
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: strong hand to play. And we're leaving them an America
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: and under pressure, an America that once again is leading,
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: plans and visions.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what'd you make of the speech? Anything surprising or
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: missing that was notable?
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: So I think, I'm curious what you guys think. I
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: think even pretty highly engaged voters are going to remember
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: like two to three things you did on foreign policy.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: I think for Obama, it's going to be bin Laden operation,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: probably maybe the Syria red line. The more charitable version is,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: you know, Paris climate accords or the Iran deal. Right.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Like a few things.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Big things. I think like bin Laden for like most.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Bin Laden's number one.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: For medium info voters. Yeah.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Bin Laden's number one. I think so. I wish it was.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe Iran deal.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Different. I wish it was. Winding down the war in Iraq.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: New start or a Cuba normalization or some of the
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: other stuff we did because, you know, but I think
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: it's probably those bigger things. And for Biden, I think
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: the list of things that he's going to be remembered
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: for on foreign policy are the Afghanistan withdrawal, Gaza. and
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: then something about Ukraine. And I think what's hard for
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Biden in this speech is that while I think that
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: ending the war in Afghanistan was objectively the right thing
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: to do in a risky political decision, it will be
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: remembered as a failure. But the Gaza piece- Because of
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: the withdrawal. Because of withdrawal. But the Gaza piece, the
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: war is just an unmitigated disaster. And despite Biden's sort
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: of bigger picture claims in the speech that we've you know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: he's restored our standing in the world and diplomacy. I
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: think Gaza has hurt our diplomatic standing and it's made
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: us less safe. Like his own NCTC director, the National
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Counterterrorism Center said, anti-American sentiment driven by the war in
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Gaza is at a level not seen since the Iraq war.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: And groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting on that sentiment,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: issuing the most specific calls for attacks on America in years.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: So it's like this speech seemed like they kind of
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: wanted to pull out Gaza and make it an afterthought
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: when I really think it's going to be the center
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: of his foreign policy legacy, especially when, you know, there's
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: reporting last week, the Lancet, very prestigious medical journal, they
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: did a study of the death toll in Gaza in
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: the first nine months, and they found found it to
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: be 40% higher than the official count from the Hamas
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: health ministry. So I think like the story about this
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: war is going to get worse and worse over time.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: And there's just the tone and tenor of how they
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: talk about it has not changed. I think obviously you
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: do these speeches because you want to change that narrative.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: You want to talk about the investments in technology and
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: and alliances and climate change and rallying the world on Ukraine.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: And I think he deserves a lot of credit on Ukraine,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: but even that section felt a little bit divorced from
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the current reality, which is that Russia has gained momentum
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: on the battlefield and the Ukrainians have a very uncertain
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: future with Donald Trump coming in. So I get why
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: you do this speech, but I think, you know, it didn't,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that it's gonna be effective.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: It was sort of striking that you could imagine Joe
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Biden giving a very, very similar version of the speech
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: had Kamala Harris won. And like I came away from
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: it like he says, overall, we have reinvigorated people's faith
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: in the United States as a true, true partner. Is
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that true? Have you done that? Do you think that's
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: where people are right now as they watch you hand
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: the keys over to Donald Trump, even if there is
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: some truth to the fact that you have reestablished relationships
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: and had the achievements that you're describing today? you live
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: in a world where your presidency will be bookended by
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and all the damage and policy changes that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: that brings. And you can try to pretend otherwise, and
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: you can subtly or not so subtly kind of hint
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: at trying to create kind of like political leverage on
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Trump about the position he'll enter the office in, the
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: changes that Joe Biden has made. But the speech largely
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: seems to ignore the fact that we're about to transition
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: to someone who is going to do great damage to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: our policies internationally and our reputation.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I think that Joe Biden and his administration are not
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the first to want to hammer home their accomplishments. Every
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: administration wants to do that. I think what they have
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: done is a lesson for future administrations, hopefully future Democratic administrations,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that ignoring reality and just sort of like not wrestling
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: with the challenges that are still there at the end
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: of your presidency, your mistakes, your failings, your shortcomings, some
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: maybe which even if you don't believe... you were at
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: fault for them, acknowledging them, wrestling with them in a speech,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: talking to people about them is still the best way
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to either change people's minds or at least let people
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: know like where you are on the issue. To me,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it felt like there's, there's no theme, there's no story
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to this speech. There's no, it was like a Senate
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: floor speech to his Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you know, colleagues.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And it just, it struck me to what you said, Lovett,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: it's like since the election, we're all in a bit
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: of denial that Donald Donald Trump won, right? We're all
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: sort of, it's very different than in 2016. We've talked
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: about all the reasons, but we're all in a bit
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of denial. We're all sort of, we haven't quite grappled
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: with it yet, but he's the president of the United
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: States and he hasn't grappled with it really. It's a weird,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and I don't think Kamala Harris really has either. Like
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: no Democrat really has. It's just very, it's a weird
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: feeling to have the president of the United States give a,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and maybe the speech Wednesday night, the Oval Office address
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: will wrestle with some of this and sort of the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: future of democracy. But I was trying to, I'm like,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: What would a speech have been that really would have
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: sort of addressed some of these larger issues? And I
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: think it would have been him like talking about Gaza
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and what happened in making his case on Gaza and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: talking about the fact that as proud as he is
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: of what we did with Ukraine, the future there is
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: very uncertain and talking about how he's so proud of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: making the decision on Afghanistan. but yeah, the withdrawal and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the way it went, he's always going to think about that.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And he's always going to remember that, you know, like
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: there's just, there was no nuance or subtlety or even
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: just like a little daylight and like, yeah, we had
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: some problems.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: There's, there's a refusal to give critics an inch and
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: entertain their, their criticism as valid. And just on Gaza,
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: like it came up first obliquely in, in the context
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: of him talking about how the administration rallied a coalition
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: to prevent attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And it's like, Mr. President, why are the Houthis attacking
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: ships in the Red Sea? It's because of the war
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: in Gaza. And then when you finally get to the
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Gaza section, 20 minutes into the speech, he says, Palestinians
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: suffered terribly in this war. They've been through hell. So
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: many innocent people have been killed. And there's just no
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: effort to sort of contend with the fact that they
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: were killed mostly by American weapons that we gave the
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Netanyahu administration. And while you could defend a military intelligence
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: response to the war in the very early months, 15
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: months later, we're still, you know, just hoping for a
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: ceasefire that has been eluded his grasp over and over
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: and over again so yeah i think there's a divorce
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: from kind of the the horrors of what.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: People see yeah it's also you know okay you're describing
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: your accomplishments but we're seeing donald trump take office here
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: we're seeing right-wing movements rising around the world what have
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: you learned about that like i don't need you to
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: take on your critics i understand not wanting to engage
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: with them but like What have you learned about being president?
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: What have you learned about America?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: You could have done, and even if you wanted to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: not get into the Gaza of it all, you could
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: have done a speech about sort of the rising authoritarian
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: movements around the world. What you learned over the last
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: few years, bring in Trump, talk about, like you could
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: have done a whole, there could have been a number
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of interesting speeches that weren't just like, here's all the
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: amazing things we did. you're all wrong. We did the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: best we could. We did great stuff. And that's it.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And maybe, you know, you don't go to the hardware
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: store for milk. And like, I guess I'm not going
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: to get anything from Joe Biden beyond America's best days
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: are ahead. And maybe that's all we can really expect
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: from him at this point. But it's like, this is
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: a dark moment for this country. It will be a
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: dark few years for this country. Pretending otherwise just makes
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: you irrelevant.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: And just look, any sort of conversation about legacy or
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: accomplishments is It's impossible to really have right now. The
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: end of the story is unwritten. Donald Trump might unwind
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: some things. He might not. I mean, a lot of
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: this happened to Obama. The Iran deal went away. The
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Cuba opening went away. There's a lot of things that
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: we're really proud of that Donald Trump fucked up and
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: that could happen again. And so I understand taking a swing,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: but I agree with you. I don't think it's convincing
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: to talk about sort of AUKUS and, you know, alliances
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: in the face of, yeah, in the face of. you know,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: handing the keys over to Donald Trump.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of talk about alliances, but alliances are
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: a means to an end. And it's not just like
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: we have alliances and alliances are great for that reason, right?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And so like, what are the larger goals? And I
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: was thinking about as he prepares to deliver this final
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: farewell address, like how he could do that in a
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: way that I would find inspiring or at least comforting,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you know? I do think like he could frame it
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: as like, here are the fights that I took on.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Here's where we made some progress, right? Here's where we
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: weren't able to.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And then here's a path forward for everyone. Here's why
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I'm still hopeful. And some humility, some recognition of where
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: we are now. You know, you could imagine. And look,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: it is a like you said, it's just he's in
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a tough, tough situation right now because Donald Trump won
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and it was a fucking mess. And so I get that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm being very harsh. I also think that's like
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: this is not a moment where we like no speech
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: can resolve our frustrations, hope, anger, fear for what's about
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: to come. And that's an impossible position.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: It's also just there's some things that we all know
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: are kind of stump speech lines, though. And the conclusion
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: about how he's never been more optimistic about the future
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: for the United States and the kind of whispering and
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: the yelling about how there's nothing beyond our capacity as
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: a country. He must believe that in his bones, which
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: is why he says it all the time. But boy,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it could not have felt more hollow in this moment,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: given what we're about to go through.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I'm a pretty hopeful, optimistic person. I can tell you,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I've definitely felt more optimistic.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: Many, many times. Several points.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: 43 years on this earth, I could tell most of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the years I felt more optimistic than this one.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: It's just like, yeah, it's just sort of like, we're
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: going backwards, man. We're going to face it, whether you
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: can or not.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And part of the reason, this is not just to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: beat up on Joe Biden. We do that a lot now.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: But like this is for other Democrats, by the way,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: who are going to run for president again next time.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Like we cannot just do the happy talk here. And
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: that's not to like we don't want to bring everyone down.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: But in order to inspire people and to get everyone
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: to be hopeful again, you have to acknowledge the reality.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: You have to grapple with what we're dealing with right now.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Can I make the nerdiest analogy I've ever made in
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: this show?
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: We're going to have to debate that. You just set
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: the bar pretty high.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: So in Star Trek Next Generation.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Good start.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while. And every once in a while,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: there's an episode where they go to the battle bridge.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: And basically, the bridge is where they have their kind
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: of highfalutin conversations. There's a conference room off the bridge
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: where you sit and you talk about the nature of
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: life and what it means to be a spacefaring people.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: But every once in a while, the ship gets so
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: fucked up and so many people are dead and something
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: is so broken that they got to go to the
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: battle bridge. I just think we need a battle bridge mindset.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: That's all I'm getting at. We've been defeated every which way.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: A bridge-surrection?
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: People have blown, yeah, exactly. A bridge-surrection. We're in the
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: battle bridge. The shit is at the fan. The saucer
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: is separated. That's the energy. Pods of America, brought to
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• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, before we jump to the interview, some quick news
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: about our new MAGA oligarchs. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg followed
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: up his announcement that the company would abandon fact-checking, content moderation,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and DEI initiatives by sitting down with, who else, Joe Rogan.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: It was a wide-ranging two-hour interview that included plenty of
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Trump ass-kissing and complaints that content moderation is just too difficult.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: I think you start one of these if you care
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: about giving people a voice. You know, I wasn't too
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: deep on our content policies for like the first 10
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: years of the company. It was just kind of well
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: known across the company that we were trying to give
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: people the ability to share as much as possible. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: kind of think in 2016, in the aftermath, I gave
• 40:38
  Speaker 7: too much deference to a lot of folks in the
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: media who were basically saying, okay, there's no way that
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: this guy could have gotten elected except for misinformation. People
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: just felt like the fact checkers were too biased.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 40:51
  Speaker 7: It's something out of like, you know, 1984, one of
• 40:54
  Speaker 7: these books where it's just like, it really is a
• 40:57
  Speaker 7: slippery slope. And it just got to a point where
• 41:00
  Speaker 7: it's just, okay, this is destroying so much trust, especially
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: in the United States to have this program. If the
• 41:06
  Speaker 7: US tech industry is going to continue being really strong,
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: I do think that the US government has a role
• 41:14
  Speaker 7: in um, in basically defending it abroad. And that's one
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: of the things that I'm optimistic about will, will happen
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: in this administration.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Tommy, you listened to the interview over the weekend. First, why?
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And second, what started to you? Yeah.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Long drive.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Time to kill.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: My takeaways were this was, it was an interview for
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: an audience of two, Joe Rogan and Donald Trump. Uh,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: and I think in that sense, it was a very
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: effective one for in terms of his spin, but it
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: was just so fundamentally dishonest. I mean, Zuckerberg acts like
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: he is a brand new CEO who just took charge
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: at Facebook and is mopping up all the slop created
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: by his predecessor, not the guy who founded the company, right?
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: He's like a newborn baby viewing everything with fresh eyes
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: and his new stylist. And it's just, but this idea
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: that he was not involved in content moderation decisions for
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: the first decade, I'm sorry, what were you doing then?
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: That is such bullshit. Or the idea that Facebook was
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: founded on free speech. No, you were ranking hot girls
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: in your dorm and then you wanted to get rich. Like, well,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: we can't stop with these fairy tales. But mostly he's
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: mad about government regulation and he points to two inflection
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: points as really kind of like learning moments. One is
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: the 2016 election and Facebook's role in the way they
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: got criticized for Russian disinformation on the platform and then COVID.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: And on the 2016 election, it was instructive because he
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: talks about, he says, upon reflection, I gave too much
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: deference to people in the media who said there was
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: misinformation because, you know, and I wish I hadn't done that.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: The point being that he believed the media when they
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: said that only through misinformation could Trump have been elected.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: But those of us who were paying attention at the time, remember,
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: That's not how it all went down. His response two
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: days after the election was to call it crazy to
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: suggest that Russia could have influenced the election. And then
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: fast forward to October of 2017, Facebook then says that
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: the Russian posts could have reached up to 126 million Americans.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: And just to be clear, I don't think Russia is
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: why Hillary lost, but the strongest data point that they
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: were a factor came from Facebook. So his whole narrative
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: there is total bullshit. obviously very mad about whatever the
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Biden team did during COVID. He's very mad about Biden
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: saying that people were getting killed because of information on
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: Facebook that was leading to vaccine hesitancy or whatever. But
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: the whole thing is just a naked attempt to position
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: the company for the Trump era. And more broadly, he
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: says zero self-awareness. He criticizes Apple for not innovating since
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: the iPhone. This is a company that just steals features
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: from Snapchat.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And then buys Instagram. If you want to count the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: goggles or whatever. Yeah, those are going good. I guess
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: he's innovating.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: And then at one point he's complaining about trust in
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: the media and influential people. And he says, quote, the
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: whole cultural elite class needs to get repopulated with people
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: we actually trust. We agree, Mark. That's why we want
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: you to go away. So it's a very frustrating listen,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: but he wins over Rogan like that.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: He also had some interesting things to say about masculinity,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: a subject on which he is, of course, the foremost authority.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Let's listen.
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: Just I think a lot of the corporate world is
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: like pretty culturally neutered. There's something, the kind of masculine
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: energy I think is good. I think having a culture
• 44:22
  Speaker 7: that like celebrates the aggression a bit more has its
• 44:27
  Speaker 7: own merits that are really positive. Just like having a
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: thing that I can just like do with my guy
• 44:32
  Speaker 7: friends and like.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: And we just beat each other a bit.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: It's good. It is good.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I just wish we could beat each other more.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Keep beating it.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Dear diary, you'll never believe it. We were just in
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: the studio and it felt like a normal day. Maybe
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: it was what was happening in our city.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Just, just, just, it's nice. We can beat each other. Um, whoa, what,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: what is that? So it's starting to me. It's like
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: so obvious and transparent that it's just, it's like sloppy.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, no, first of all, love, love advice on
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: masculinity from someone dressed by a stylish to look like
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: East Brunswick's coolest bar mitzvah DJ.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, I mean, I, I was trying to figure
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: out what this even really means. Like the corporate culture
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: has been neutered and I think it means yelling at
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: employees is actually, I think it's a lot like less
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: like wait, cause there's a sort of, I think like
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: kind of corporate. Idea, right. That like feminine structures are
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: more flat and collaborative and male structures are more hierarchical
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: and aggressive.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: And I think they, like, they feel like, this is, like,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: all Me Too post, I don't know, this is, like,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: post Me Too, post BLM language backlash.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Part of it.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Mark Andreessen, Peter Thiel, sort of, like, techno-authoritarianism, like, the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: strong must survive, and we, a few really smart people
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: must run the world, and they have to be strong
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: and masculine and smart.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's also, like, such a silly thing, but, like,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: you know, it really reminds you of 1984 and the
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: slippery slope. No slippery slope in 1984. You're right there
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: in it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: 1984 and books and other books.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: The Clock Strikes 13.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Books like that. Yeah, books like that.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: But 1984, you're never, there's no, you're in it. You're
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: just in it. You actually never get the slope. You're
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: at the bottom of it.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: Who set the corporate culture at Facebook, Mark?
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Who decided that Facebook was going to do content moderation
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and monitor COVID-19 And COVID vaccine misinformation. They said they
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: were going to do it. And then when the government
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: reached out, the government was saying, hey, you have a
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: policy on this. So we wanted to point out things
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: that are violating your policy. They came up with the policy.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's a there's something that there's a
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: there's a freedom that comes from being like Trump or
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: wanting to be in Trump's good graces. And people talk
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: about the ways in which it's sort of all like
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: that you just have to kind of basically, you know,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: agree with Trump and then you're in his favor. But
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: there's a subtle way in which I think what you
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: also get to do is pretend that there are no
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: hard choices in life. And Zuckerberg does that a bit
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: in this interview where he acknowledges that there are difficult
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: decisions and some filters have more false positives and more
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: false negatives. But what he's doing here when he talks
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: about COVID, he talks about misinformation in 2016, he's not
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: acknowledging the trade-off. There was a ton of misinformation on Facebook,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: whether it helped or hurt or mattered, I don't know.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: There was a ton of dangerous misinformation on COVID, right?
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe some things got swept up in that net that
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: now in hindsight, they think maybe went too far and
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: maybe was not correct, but didn't need to be taken down, whatever.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: But there was dangerous misinformation. That was a very real issue.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: And if you're going to do less of that, as
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: you said in your own video, that there will be
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: worse and terrible things you now see on Facebook as
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: a result. There are trade-offs here. You built this platform.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: And Tommy, to your point about him not thinking about
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: content moderation, I think it actually is like a kind
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: of more damning thing to say, to believe him. Because
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I do think whether it was Twitter, Twitter did not
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: start as a platform for people to share their political views.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: It wasn't about what you thought. It was about what
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: was happening. It was supposed to be about sharing where
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: you are. Facebook was about a post. I mean, obviously
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: it was about ranking hot faces, but like it was
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: not about politics. It was about posting about your life
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: and your community. They have all been continuously over and
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: over again caught off guard by what happens when politics
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: and celebrity intercede until they're into their platforms. And then
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: they built something so big they couldn't control it. If
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you build a building and you're like, sorry, it's too
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: big to make sure it's safe, nobody gives you credit
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: for it. But they build something too big to be
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: made safe.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Also, he's getting rid of content moderation at the time
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: that they also announced that they're bringing back politics on Facebook.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: They're turning the politics knob on again.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: And they're getting rid of all their DEI initiatives and stuff.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, what's so frustrating about this, if you've been
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: paying attention to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook over the last
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: 20 years, like every few years, he does something like this.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: He apologizes for something and he has a new revelation
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: and basically they turn like happy to glad and some
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: corporate governance policies and kind of like bend whichever way
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the political winds shift them. But we also know that,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: you know, there were most of the moderation was done
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: in the United States. There were other countries where there
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: was no moderation, like in Myanmar. where Facebook was used
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: to foment a genocide and played a pretty key role
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: in horrible ethnic violence. So the idea that there's some
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: revelation that they should just do less. I mean, I
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: wasted a lot of time today in my prep and
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: I read his 6,000 word letter to the community, Mark
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Zuckerberg's from 2017. where they talked about how accuracy of
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: information is very important. Our approach will focus less on
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: banning misinformation and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information,
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: including that fact checkers dispute an item's accuracy, blah, blah, blah.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: It's like- I guess he wasn't really involved in that. Yeah,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: we're just relearning the same things over and over again.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Well, that was interesting too, because I remember he was
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: criticized from the left because he wasn't taking posts down.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: He was just going to demonetize them or lower them
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: in the rankings. I can't remember.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they algorithmically made it so they were less shared,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: but they also got yelled at for taking down newsworthy
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: videos related to Black Lives Matter. They took down a
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: famous photo of a little girl who had been hit
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: with napalm in Vietnam, remember? So they overcorrected in some ways.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: And so I have sympathy for just how hard this
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: problem is, but I just have no sympathy for how
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: transparent this is, an attempt at getting just in Trump's
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: good graces.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: To our previous conversation about Biden acknowledging reality, this is
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: also happening right here, right? Like, content moderation is difficult.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Like you just said, we talk about this on Offline
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: all the time. If he had come out and said, hey,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: we've tried all these different ways to moderate content. None
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: of them please anyone. It's too hard. We're going to
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: try this. What like acknowledge that you just couldn't do it,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: that the problem is too hard. Probably would have still
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: gotten criticism from all sides. I get that. But like,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: this is all just bullshit. This is just like, uh,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, don't throw me in jail, but also like
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: maybe I've been red pilled. Uh, and, uh, you know,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Kevin Roos of the New York times, his piece on
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: this suggested that maybe like Zuckerberg's views have been like,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe he has been radicalized since 2020, which, you know,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: good for him.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: I think there's some evidence in Kevin's piece from sources
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: he talked to that maybe Mark Zuckerberg is becoming a Republican.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: But there's also just a wave of tech giants like
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: the Daily had a great piece on Mark Andreessen today
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: in Silicon Valley generally and how they shifted away from
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Democrats to Republicans. And the gist of it is like
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: you're saying before, I love it. To be a part
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: of the MAGA movement, you have to jump through one hoop.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: which is to say you support Donald Trump in everything
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: he does and says. The Democratic Party, we set up
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: an infinite number of hoops that you also have to
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: jump through. And if you screw one up, we'll slap
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: the shit out of you. And all these guys got
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: the shit slapped out of them multiple times publicly for
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: things they said, things they did. There's this piece in
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: the Andreessen story about when Zuckerberg and his wife announced
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: that they're giving away 99% of their money to charity organizations.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: And they were criticized for doing it through, I think
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: it was like a for-profit entity or something. I don't
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: even remember all the details, but.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: They all feel like- I remember thinking that was bullshit,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: that criticism.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but right. They all feel like, you know, we
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: want to be called geniuses. We did the right thing.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: We played by your rules. We used your language and
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: we did your training initiatives and, you know, you still
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: hate us. And so, okay, now we're going to try
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: something new.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: There's a part in the interview where he said that,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: you know, that he, that they felt in some way
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: kind of attacked by the Biden administration.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: And he thought that like.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, like, you know, we're, we're American, you're supposed to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: be on our team. We're in a world here and
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: we're supposed to be fighting other countries and other countries, tech, tech, uh, uh,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: platforms and other, and other, and that at least Donald
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Trump wants America to win.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Which did feel like a kind of something. It reminded
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: me of what I'd heard over the years from various,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: like kind of high up tech people, which is that like, yeah,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: our companies are making mistakes, but you don't want to
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: regulate them. You don't want to break them up because
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: we're actually in a fight with China. We're actually in
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: a fight with these other countries. And I think that
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: that is sincerely, sincerely.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't, he doesn't like content moderation policies from
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: other countries.
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: Like in some cases, there's obviously there's a competition with China.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: I don't like the Chinese communist party. I do think
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: they lean on that as a, as a cudgel, like
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Mark Andreessen isn't as worried about, you know, the AI
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: race with China as he is about making a lot
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: of money off of Bitcoin. Right. And I, and I think,
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: With Zuckerberg, I do think there is a lesson in
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: this story, in this broader flight of tech people to
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party that Democrats should learn and maybe about
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: how we talk to people we disagree with. Because I
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: was talking to another tech person back in the day,
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: and I remember this person telling me that he had
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: been protested during COVID. And I said, why did they
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: protest you? He's a pretty low-profile tech guy. And he's like, well,
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: billionaires shouldn't exist or something. And I think that that
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: moment where a bunch of people came to this person's
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: house and who founded a pretty prominent tech company that
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: I knew kind of tangentially radicalized him. And this guy
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: ended up giving tens and tens of millions of dollars
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: to the Republican Party. And I think there's probably a
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: pretty direct line between his perception of how he was
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: treated by Democrats and where he ended up.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Again, there's a difference between what might be the morally
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: right or feel like the right thing to do and
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: what is the most effective thing to do for the
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: larger cause.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Before we jump to the interview, some housekeeping. Crooked's friends
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: at Vote Save America Action and Crooked Ideas have set
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: up a disaster relief fund to benefit those impacted by
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the horrific wildfires here in L.A. It's super easy for
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you to make one donation that's split among incredible charities
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: doing really important work for our neighbors and our first responders.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: If you donate to the fund, it gets split between
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the Latino Community Foundation, offers financial assistance, housing assistance, emergency
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: translation services, for people in heavily Latino communities here in
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles affected by the fires. There's the Los Angeles
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Regional Food Bank. There's the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: There's the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. There's the
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: California Community Foundation Wildfire Relief Fund. Those are the five
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: organizations we have now. Usually in these relief funds, sometimes
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: we change out the organizations. Or add. Or add, right?
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: We talk to the local partners on the ground. Thanks
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: to all of you, we have raised nearly... $ 100, 000 for
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: these groups so far. Nearly $ 100, 000. We've done relief funds
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: just like this before, most recently for Hurricane Helene relief.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: We also did it during the pandemic. We've done it
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: many times. For some reason, a bunch of right-wing media
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: people and Republican operatives spent the weekend accusing us and
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America of running a scam and stealing money
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: from fire victims in our own fucking city and soliciting
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: people's contact info so we can do political fundraising, all
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: of which... has made me angrier and more upset than
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: anything in a really long time, and that's saying a lot.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Their claim is that because the relief fund is run
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: through ActBlue, which is also a democratic fundraising platform, that
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: ActBlue takes 4% of the donations for themselves and then
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: uses your contact info to spam you for candidate fundraising.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: This is complete bullshit, and anyone who bothered to do
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: even the most cursory Googling would have found that out.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: The relief fund is run through ActBlue Charities, which is
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: a tax-deductible charitable organization. That is a 97% rating on
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Charity Navigator, by the way. The 4% fee goes to
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the banks and credit card companies for processing your online donation,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: a type of fee that every charitable organization has to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: pay banks and credit card companies if they accept online donations.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: The only way to avoid that fee is by dropping
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: off cash at the organization yourself or writing a personal check.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: And your contact info, which you obviously have to provide
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: if you're making a donation... is never used by us
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: to solicit donations for candidates. We don't add you to
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the Vote Save America list. You opt into Vote Save
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: America or you sign up for Vote Save America. That's it.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Could you donate directly to the organizations I just read
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: by going right to their websites? Absolutely. You're free to
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: if you want. They would, by the way, still be
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: paying the processing fee.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody's got to pay the credit card fee. This
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: was like over the weekend. We were just facing this tiny,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: insignificant example of how... Anything that is happening in the
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: world gets fed into this like meat grinder of information
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: because it's just like everyone asks us, where should we donate?
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: How should we help? And so the team vets organizations
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: puts them in an easy place and you can donate
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: the money and the money gets sent to those groups.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: And we don't take a cut.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: We don't take any money from it.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: And we talk to the groups. The reason the groups
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: like it is because we have a big platform and
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: big reach. And a lot of times for local orgs,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: not for like the Red Cross or something like that,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: but for local organizations in whether it's in North Carolina
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: for Helene or here. They appreciate that we have this
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: big reach and this big community, right? Millions of people
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: listen to this podcast every week. And so they're like, oh,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: this is great. Yeah, this helps us.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: And then it's like, no, you're stealing the money.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: No, we're not.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: We're not taking a cent from these donations. But then
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: it's like, you're actually doing it to get the email addresses.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: It's like, hey, guys, we ask people for their email
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: addresses when we want people's email addresses. You think we
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: watched our city catch fire? We're like, this is a
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: great opportunity to set up a charitable fund so that
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: we can harvest email addresses for future political campaigns.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: That was what I thought as I was loading my
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: two small children into the car and escaping Los Angeles
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: because I was worried that we might burn. Yeah, that's
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: what I was thinking. What scam could we set up?
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: But we use ActBlue because our audience is used to
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: using ActBlue. And reducing friction in these things and making
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: it easy for people to donate is a great way
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: to get them to actually donate. If you're sending people
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: to a bunch of different websites, they're just going to
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: tap out and not end up completing it.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And I just want to say, the reason we even
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: bring this up, it's not a bunch of random... MAGA
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: trolls online. Like this, the number of accounts, right? Like
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: National Review, the Free Beacon, the Washington Examiner, all the
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: right-wing rags were all over this. Republican operatives who should
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: know better because they've been in politics were attacking. It
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: was insane. It made me actually think, it's like a
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: longer conversation, but just Twitter has really become like something
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: that it was not before with the right-wing accounts there.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And when they jump onto something, it goes so far
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: and so fast that it suddenly goes beyond your control.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Here's the good news on all this. is that most
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of the money, I just said almost $ 100, 000 was raised,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: most of the money came in after Saturday, which is
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: when this whole thing got kicked up online.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was what I was hoping. That was how
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I reassured myself. I was unfolding. I was like, oh,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: this is generating attention for the fund, and maybe people...
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: in our audience or outside of our audience that would
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: understand that this is fucking bullshit. We'll see this. It's like, oh,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: these are great organizations that are helping on the ground.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: They're great organizations. And so please donate votesaveamerica.com slash relief.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Or if you're scared off by that, you can go
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to the individual organizations. Just write down the names and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: go to their website. Just donate because people need the
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: help here. That's all.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: Don't care how you donate. Just if you can do.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: But you should feel very happy to do it through votesaveamerica.com
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: slash relief.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, chair of the Minnesota DFL,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Ken Martin. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.
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  Speaker 1: It's a big new year.
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• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: So people who listen to this show know that we're
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: all longtime friends and fans of one of your opponents,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler, but we really want to get to know
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you and make sure our listeners get to know you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: and know why you... want this extremely challenging and thankless
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: job as DNC chair, where everyone seems to blame you
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: when things go wrong and credit someone else when things
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: go right. So what made you decide that's the job
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: for me? I want that job.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: Well, let me just start by saying thanks for having me.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: And isn't it a little crazy that this race is
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: coming down to two middle-aged white guys from the Midwest
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: with three-letter first names.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Ken and Ben. Who would have thought, right? Who would
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: have thought?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: No, it's great.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: And Ben's a wonderful friend. He's doing great things in Wisconsin,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: for sure. Look, you know, for me, I've always said
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: being a party chair is a political equivalency of being
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: a fire hydrant, right? You get pissed on by everyone,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: like you said. You get none of the credit when
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: you win, all the blame when you lose. And of course,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: if you're doing your job the right way, you're saying
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: no more than you're saying yes. So by the time
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: it's over, you have far fewer friends. So I'm eyes
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: wide open about this. I've been the chair of the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: Minnesota DFL the last 14 years, came in to this
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: job right after the disastrous midterm elections in 2010, where
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: we suffered, you know, throughout the country, as you remember, John,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: one of the worst shellacans we faced as a party
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: in years. And that was true in Minnesota. We lost
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: a 40-year Senate majority. We lost the state house. We
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: lost the longest held congressional seat in Congress in the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: 8th district with Jim Overstar and many races up and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: down the ballot. I happened to help run a campaign
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: for governor that year where we were successful in getting
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Mark Dayton elected by just 8,750 votes. And so to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: your point, I mean, we had to at that point,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: the morale was low, the finger pointing was high, the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: name calling, the blaming. People, the morale was so low
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: and people were fleeing the party, right? All of our stakeholders, donors,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: progressive partners and allies, candidates, no one wanted anything to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: do with the party. And what it took is when
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: I came in as party chair, it took someone to
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: be able to bring all those groups back to the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: table and realize if we're going to build power again,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: we had to figure out a plan to win.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: And we did that.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: And we got back in power within two years and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: we haven't lost since. And we're in a similar moment
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: right now, right? Where there's low morale, a lot of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: finger pointing, a lot of people trying to place blame. I'm,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: by the way, not here to win the argument. I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: want us to win elections again. And that's what we've
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: done in Minnesota. And so there's a lot of reasons
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: why I'm running. I'm very clear-eyed about what this job isn't.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: It's not a pathway to glory. For people thinking that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: this is a pathway to relevancy, it really isn't that either.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: The next DNC chair has to focus relentlessly on building
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: the infrastructure throughout this country to put us on a
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: path to win again. And so that's why I'm running.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: So there's a story you can tell about 2024 that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Trump's win was narrow. Kamala Harris came close in the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: battleground states. Democrats in the Senate and House and down
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: ballot did better than you might think, given how most
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: people say they feel about the economy and the direction
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: of the country. And then there's a story about how
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Democrats lost ground with nearly every demographic group in nearly
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: every state, especially Latino voters and voters who didn't go
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: to college. And because of that, lost for the second
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: time to a convicted felon who tried to steal the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: last election. Which of those stories sounds more right to you?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I think both are accurate, right? They're both accurate. It
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: was a close election, right? And we think about the
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: presidential race, 114,000 votes swing in three battleground states, and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: we'd be talking about a Kamala Harris presidency right now.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Same with the House races, right? 7,000 votes between three
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: battleground districts. We'd be talking about Speaker Jeffries. So it
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: was a close election. But there's no doubt that what
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: you said, the second part of that is absolutely accurate.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: We lost ground with big parts of our coalitions. And
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: there's a whole host of reasons for that. Many of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: them we don't know at this point. Of course, we
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: know we lost ground with Latino voters. We lost ground
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: with younger voters. We lost ground with working class households,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: with women. We lost ground with every demographic group with
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: just a couple. And I'll get to that in a moment.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: But the reality is, is that we have to figure
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: out the how and why we lost ground. We have
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: to look at ad spend. We have to look at messaging.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: We have to look at our organizing tactics, right? Before
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: we're too prescriptive with the solutions, we have to really
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: dig into why those groups left us. And I would
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: say one of the big lessons from this last election
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: was the spring of 2024, there was research that came
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: out that showed for the first time in American history,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: the perceptions of the two political parties have actually changed.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: The majority of Americans now feel that the Republican Party
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: best represents the interests of the working class and the poor,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: and the Democratic Party is a party of the wealthy
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: and the elites. And the only two groups, by the way,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: just to prove the point that we actually overperformed with,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: were wealthy households and college-educated voters. That is a damning indictment, John,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: on who we are. That's not who we are as
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: a party. We have always been the party that's fought
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: for the working class and the poor. We've always been
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: the party that's fought for the oppressed and marginalized. And
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: so we have a lot of work to do, right?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: And it's not going to change overnight. And the other
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: thing we need to acknowledge, and you know this, you've
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: been involved for a long time, this wasn't a singular occurrence,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: all those groups leaving us. This has been happening underneath
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: our nose for some time, and we have to stem
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: the tide and reverse the tide. We need to get
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: those groups to come back to us.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Well, obviously, you know, we need to wait for more
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: data to sort of dive into the national picture. From
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: your perspective, as someone who's been on the ground in
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Minnesota for for the last decade. Obviously, these trends have
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: happened in every state in the country. Minnesota is no exception.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: You guys have fared, I think, a little better. You
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: have probably higher percentage of college-educated voters than some Midwestern states.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: So you would imagine Minnesota does a little better. But
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: you've probably seen the attrition with voters without a college
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: degree in your state. What do you think has caused it,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: just from your perspective in Minnesota?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll use some personal examples of that. My brother,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: who's a union carpenter, he voted for Obama in 8
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: and 12 and Trump in 16, 20, and 24, right?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: My father-in-law is a beef cattle farmer in Southern Minnesota.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: Same thing, voted for Obama and then voted for Trump.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: So we know that there are people who are moving
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: away from our party. And I think part of the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: challenge- Did.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: You ask them why? What was the change?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: Well, each of them had different reasons, right? And I
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: am happy to get into them. But I think the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: larger point you're making is that we have continued to
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: lose ground with non-college-educated voters. And part of that is,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: I believe, we've allowed our party to essentially devolve into
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: smaller and smaller messages, right, to appeal to different parts
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: of our really big tent coalition. And as a result,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: we've lost the narrative, right? We've lost the thing that
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: connects all of the disparate parts of our coalition. And
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: what is that? Well, I'll tell you. Paul Wellstone, my
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: My first boss in politics understood this. He understood that
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: what connected a corn farmer in southern Minnesota with a
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: steel worker on the Iron Range and a new refugee
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: in the Twin Cities was economics, right? Kitchen table issues,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: bread and butter issues that at the end of the day,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: people are worried about. And let me just give you
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: an example of this. For me, when we talk about
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: working people and labor as an example, we just talked
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: about this the other night. Too many people feel like
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: we only show up when we're asking them for their vote.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: And then we never deliver on the promises we make
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: to actually make a difference in their lives. I think we,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: last year, we were defending the Biden economy, of course.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: And it was a great economy, one of the best
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: economies we've seen in years, right? From a GDP perspective,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: a job growth perspective, from unemployment and real wage growth.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: But the reality is, as we were trying to defend
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden and talk about all these things, we were
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: ignoring the pain that average everyday working people in this
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: country were facing, right? By working class, by the way,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: it's not code for white people. For me, we know
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: that the working class in this country is black, brown,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: and white people who are working their asses off. working
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: harder than they ever have, can barely afford their lives, right?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: And when gas prices are high and grocery prices are high,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: and we're talking to them about the GDP, we've already
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: lost them because we're not acknowledging the economic pain that
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: they're facing. So for me, part of this is getting
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: back to the narrative that connects all parts of our
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: Big Ten coalition, right? And that is a working class
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: agenda that unites everyone, whether you're a corn farmer or
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: you're a new refugee in the Twin Cities.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: I know you've talked a lot about how the Democratic
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Party has a brand problem. You were just explaining some
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: of what it is. How do you go about fixing
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: a party's brand problem? You know, I've heard you say
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: you reject the idea that Democrats need a wholesale change
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: in our message. It feels like the different levers you
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: have to pull in changing a party's brand are message, candidates...
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: sort of messaging infrastructure. What do you think, how do
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: you begin to fix a branding problem?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: Well, first, you need to figure out what that brand is.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: And I think that should be a working class, focusing
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: on a working class agenda, right? So, but we need
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: to spend a lot of time, energy of thinking about
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: specifically what that looks like as it relates to the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: policy prescription. But let me tell you why I don't
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: think it's an abandonment of our message or our policy agenda, right?
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: Think about Missouri. They passed a minimum wage increase, paid
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: family leave, and abortion protections, all by wide margins. Yet
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: those same voters went down the ballot and voted for
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Trump and the Republicans. It seems to me that we
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: see these issues. They're very popular throughout the country, passing
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: in ballot initiative and referenda by wide margins. They're very popular, right?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: Yet those same voters aren't necessarily connecting the dots between
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: the issues that they support that will actually make a
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: difference in their lives and our Democratic candidates. So that's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: not a message problem. It's a messaging problem. We're clearly
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: not connecting the dots for voters. And so let me
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: back up to one of the other lessons we've learned
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: in this election is that the Republicans have done a
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: much better job than Democrats on competing in this new
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: information environment, right? And this is the other challenge we have.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: We allowed the Republican Party to define us before we
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: ever started to define ourselves. Think about this. They started
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: right after the 20 election, John, as you know, the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: Republican Party started beating the hell out of Joe Biden
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: and the Democratic Party in all of these non-traditional information spaces, right?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: And you've heard a lot of folks talk about it,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: gaming platforms, podcasts, streaming services, right? Even online dating apps,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: for God's sake. Anywhere there's an online community, the Republicans
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: were paying micro-influencers to essentially spew out their misinformation and disinformation.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: And we didn't start in any real way our communications
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: infrastructure until the election year. We have to realize we
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: need a permanent campaign, not only a permanent organizing campaign
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: that's talking to voters year round, but also a permanent
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: communications infrastructure that is not waiting until we get to
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: an election cycle to start communicating with voters. We got
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: beat to the punch by the Republicans who realized that
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: we live in a new information environment where it's 24-7, 365.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: And that's where we got our butts kicked. So for us,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: part of this is, of course, the brand. The other
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: part is how we're messaging. The other part of it
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: is making sure we realize 40% of Americans say they
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: avoid the news at all costs, right? Yet they're getting
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: barraged by information. And you know this better than probably anyone, John.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: They're getting barraged by information all the time on their phones.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: So we have to be more sophisticated in how we
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: message and when we stand up all of our operations.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem as well,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: because I do think the Harris campaign told us this.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: that they had a lot of influencers and influential people
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: who were privately for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: didn't want to come out publicly or have them on
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: their platforms or host them on their podcasts. And the
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: reason that they don't is it's a brand issue, right?
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: And I wonder how you get, how you get more,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: you basically got to get the party's brand to be
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: more popular, more accessible and cool, really, for a broader
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: array of people in order to get on these platforms.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: And I wonder how you think about that. And also, like,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: part of this is, you know, the debate about Joe
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Rogan could go forever and it can be very annoying.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: But do you think it was a mistake for Democrats to,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: when Bernie Sanders went on Joe Rogan, to criticize him
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: for going on Joe Rogan and to to not send
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: people on Fox News and to criticize people for going
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: on Fox News? Would you like to see? Do you
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: think that was a mistake?
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: What I would say is I agree with you that
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: we should be in all those spaces, right? And we
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: shouldn't be afraid to go on Joe Rogan's show or
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: on Fox. We should be confident enough in both our
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: values and, of course, our message that we go wherever
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: we need to. You know, people ask me, I'm a hunter.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: They ask me where I'm going to go hunt, right?
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: And they think I'm going to give them my favorite
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: hunting spot or, you know, say I'm going to the woods. No,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: I go where the deer are, right?
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: And you know this.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: We need to go where voters are. And, you know,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: this idea that, you know, we have consultants in D.C.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: still spending or steering so much of our ad spend
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: to broadcast TV. I mean, shoot, I'm 51 years old, John, right?
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: I'm an old man.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: I still read a hard copy of a newspaper. But
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: the one thing I don't do is watch broadcast TV.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know anyone my age that watches broadcast TV,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: yet we still keep spending so much money on outdated tactics, right?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: Of course, I know why, because people make all their
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: money there, but that's wrong. If we want to win again,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: we need to realize we need to go where voters
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: are getting their information. And so that's half the battle, right?
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: And I think that also means we can't be afraid
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: to go to spaces. We're not going, by the way,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: You're not going on Fox News to appeal to Republican voters, right?
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: You're going on Fox News to appeal to independent voters, right?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: You're going on Joe Rogan to appeal to nonpartisans and independents,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: not to just talk to Republicans that happen to be
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: on there. So I understand people when they try to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: criticize someone for saying, well, why would you go on
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: Fox News? You're just going there to try to win
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: over Republican voters? No, that's not the point. There's a
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: lot of people who listen to Fox News that aren't
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: Republicans that we should give them the countervailing opinion. I
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: think part of the challenge with social media right now
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: is given your algorithm, you're only fed the information that
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: you want to see. And so, so many Americans are
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: in this information bubble that they're only getting fed the
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: information they want. And we have to try to find
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: a way, ways to break through that. And that means
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: appearing on, you know, environments and in platforms that might
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: not make sense to the Democratic Party, but makes sense
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: to cut through the noise and give people a sense
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: of what the other side actually believes.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: You're not just a state party chair yourself. You're the
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: president of the Association of State Democratic Committees. What can
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: state party chairs teach national Democrats about winning elections that
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: they're currently missing?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: Well, here's what I would say. State party chairs don't
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: have the luxury to just focus on one race, right?
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: We can't just focus on the governor's race or the
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: top of the ticket. We have to focus on the
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: state legislature as well, as well as other down ballot
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: races for city council, school boards, county boards, etc., And
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: so one of my critiques of the Democratic Party, especially
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: the DNC, is that they focus way too much on
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: federal races. Of course, we've got to win back Congress,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: the Senate, and the presidency. It's not an either-or. But
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: we can't be a national party that just focuses on
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: seven battleground states, right, and some federal races. We've got
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: to be more prescriptive and holistic about how to build
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: power around this nation. That's one thing, again, that the
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: conservative movement in this country realizes. They're not just focused
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: on federal races. They're also focused on school boards, right?
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: And we've seen the dangerous result of our indifference of
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: actually investing in trying to compete in every race in
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: this country as a national party when the conservative movement
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: has taken over school boards and they're banning books and
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: whitewashing history and attacking our children. We cannot afford as
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: a national party to ignore these public policy arenas anymore.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: And so one thing state party chairs can teach the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: national party is that you have to compete everywhere. The
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: second piece is you have to make sure that you're
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: actually building coalitions and bringing partners into that conversation, right?
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: And part of that, to me, state parties don't have
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: the luxury to do this work alone because they're some
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: of the most under-resourced entities in politics. We don't get
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: enough funding from either the national party or from others.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: We are usually the last people getting funding. So that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: means we actually have to be smart in how we
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: spend our money And then build coalitions with allies and
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: organizations on the ground who are working in electoral spaces
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: to elect people who share our values. And so the
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: third thing I would say that state parties do that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: the national party doesn't do, which drives me crazy, is
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: state parties don't just focus on one election cycle. We
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: have to build infrastructure that is beyond just the upcoming
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: election cycle. We have to look to 26, 28, 30
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 4: and beyond, right? And This is one of the things
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: that I have in my plan. I want to write
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: a 10-year plan for the DNC. People think I'm crazy
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: to say that, but the reality is we have to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: not be myopically focused on just this election cycle because
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: what that means is then we're recreating the infrastructure every
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: two or four years as a national party. Look, we
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: are part of a movement, of course, of people who
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 4: are fighting for social justice and economic justice, but political
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: parties have one very clear role, right? It is our
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: only role, and it is to win elections. But to
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: do that, you have to build long-lasting and durable infrastructure.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: That sees beyond just one election cycle. And if you'll
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: allow me to use a hockey analogy, because I'm from Minnesota,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: and Wayne Gretzky, the great one right there in LA,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: said once that you have to skate to where the
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: puck will be, not where the puck is, right? Yet
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: our party just keeps skating to where the puck is.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: Who's looking at the fact that in 2030, our map
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: is going to completely change underneath of us as all
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: the power shifts to the south and the southwest? And
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: who's preparing for that moment right now as we go
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: into 25 and 26? It should be the national party
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: that has a longer-term lens for this work and a
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: longer-term arc on how we do that. So I guess
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: those are the three things that state parties are doing
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: that the national party's not doing.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Why do you think Minnesota got bluer since you became
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: state party chair? And how much of that do you
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: take credit for?
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: I take no credit for it. But let me say this.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: We've had wonderful candidates on the ballot. I mean, I
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: will never claim credit for their victory. But what I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: do claim some amount of credit for is building infrastructure
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: that they've relied on, right? We've built probably the strongest
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: state party in the nation. I'm sure there's others that
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: would disagree, but both from fundraising and building the infrastructure
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: on the ground. Our candidates, for instance, all of them
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: from Governor Walz to Senator Klobuchar to local candidates, they
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: rely on our party's infrastructure. Our turnout machine is second
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: to none, right? In terms of IDing and persuading, mobilizing voters,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: we always have the top voter turnout in the nation.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: If not, we're number two or number three. Most importantly
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: is that our candidates don't have to build that infrastructure themselves.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: They can rely on the state party to actually run
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: the field program so they don't have to do that.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: And I think that's why we've been winning, right? I mean,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of reasons. I mean, but the other
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: part of winning is the fact that our party and
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: our elected officials are delivering on the promises they made
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: to voters, right? And, you know, there's no greater example
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 4: of that than what Tim Walz and our legislative leaders
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: did with the trifecta the last two years to actually
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: you know, focus on an agenda that will help working
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: people that are struggling in this state. And then, you know,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: using the power they had when they had it to
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: make a difference for those folks. And, you know, I
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: think part of the disillusionment, John, with American politics right now,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: as I mentioned earlier, is that folks hear people say
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: one thing and then do another. You know, not to
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: keep quoting Paul, but Paul used to say, you should
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: never separate the life you lead from the words you speak.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: And people see too many politicians in both parties who
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: stand up, right, say one thing just to get your
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: vote and then get into office and forget about them.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: That's why it was remarkable, I think, to see what
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: we've done in Minnesota and in states like Michigan, two
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: very purple states in the Midwest who both had slim majorities,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: and they led in a very aggressive way to deliver
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: on those promises.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: What specifically would you do differently than Jamie Harrison over
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: the last four years? How do you want to change
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the way that the DNC operates?
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: Well, first is to focus on year-round organizing, permanent campaign.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: Part of the challenge of why we keep losing ground
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: with folks, as I mentioned earlier, is we're only showing
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: up three months before an election and asking for a vote.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: So the first is a year-round organizing, standing up, organizing
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: all the time. So we never stopped having conversations with
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: voters at their door. You know, the first conversation we
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: have with the voter should not be asking them to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: vote for us, but rather, what are your hopes and dreams,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: your aspirations for your community, right? And, you know, and
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: over time build trust and earn their trust so we
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: can actually ask them for their vote. Second thing I
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: would do is really contest every race up and down
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: the ballot, right? We can't be a party just focused
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: on federal races, right? And I get why Jamie had
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: to do it. And they did a lot of great
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: work over the four years he was there. And the
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: infrastructure is much stronger than it was after the 16 election,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: as an example. But I would say this for me,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: we need a permanent campaign. We need to start our
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: organizing and our communications infrastructure much earlier than we ever have.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: And we have to make sure that we are competing
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: up and down the ballot in partnership with all of
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: our 57 state parties all.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Throughout the country.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: So, you know, the other thing I would do differently,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: and I just rolled this out this week, is build
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: a national coordinated campaign table, right? We haven't had a
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: national coordinated campaign at the DNC since the mid-90s. And
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: that's a shame because we're not tapping into.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: What does that look like? Could you- Well, for me,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: it looks like, yeah.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: A coordinated campaign is really bringing, just like we do
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: in Minnesota, bringing our electoral partners and elected officials together
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: at a table that would include allies and partners like
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: labor and reproductive rights groups and environmental groups and You know,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: we have all of these great organizations that are working
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: in electoral spaces, spending time, energy, and money, right? Fighting
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: for economic and social justice, fighting for our party and
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: our candidates who are never engaged in that conversation, right?
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: They're siloed off and they should be brought into the
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: conversation and we should build one plan together where we
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: coordinate our resources and really focus like a laser on
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: how we build power together, right? Unfortunately, right now, we
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: have all these disparate groups out there doing their own things.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: It results in a lot of duplication of effort. And frankly,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: it does not result in us being strategically aligned in
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: a way that helps us all accomplish the same goals,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: which is to elect people who share our values to
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: office so we can actually move our agenda forward.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: What is the permanent campaign and the year-round organizing? Could
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: you give an example of what it looks like structurally
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: in practice and also like where the money comes from,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: because I feel like I've heard a lot of DNC
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: chairs come into the job saying like, we need a
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: 50 state campaign. We need to focus not just on
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: national races and federal races. We need to do down ballot.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: And then when the time comes, understandably, the money ends
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: up going to the biggest, most competitive races in the
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: most important states. And that's just the way it is.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: So how do you, is that, do we need to?
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: more money? Is it just where you put the money?
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: And then how does that year round organizing actually look
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: in practice?
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think this is a very good question, right?
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: And the reality is, is that you have to be
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: intentional about this. And you have to make sure that
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: your donors know that we are, for us to actually
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: turn the page here and build power, we have to
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: have a more holistic approach on it. You can't just
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: focus on seven battleground states, right? What will help us
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: win the presidency is actually winning local races and winning
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: state legislatures and winning gubernatorial races. So the reality is
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: it's all connected. And the second piece is, yeah, we
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: do have to grow the pie. And part of building
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: a coordinated campaign where we're building a permanent campaign is
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: realizing that we're stronger together and we should actually have
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: shared resources where we're focused collectively on a plan to
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: achieve the same goals. And so when you're so disjointed
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: and you're spending money on when the left hand and
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: the right hand aren't talking and coordinating, you're just duplicating
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: effort and wasting resource. So for me, it's just being
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: more holistic about it. And is it going to be
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: a challenge? For sure. Because it won't be the way
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: the DC consultants and others want it to be. We're
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: going to flip the script. We're going to break up
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: this cabal in DC and we're going to do things differently, right?
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: And the model is states like Minnesota, states like Wisconsin,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: states like Michigan, right? States that are building here in
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: the Midwest and winning in very purple states by actually
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: bringing people together and focusing more holistically. Look, if you
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: want to keep losing, keep doing things the way they are. Now,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: as it relates to raising money, there's no state that's
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: raised as much money as I have. In addition to
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 4: raising $ 220 million for my state party, I served on
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: the Harris-Walls Finance Committee, raised over $ 6 million for the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: presidential campaign, did the same thing in 2016. Raising money
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: is not going to be a challenge for me. The
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: most important thing is how we spend it. And if
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: we're not spending it on winning, then we shouldn't be
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: spending it. So here's to all those consultants in D.C.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: I hope they're listening to me because if you bring
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: me a plan that doesn't help us win elections, you're
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: going to have to go pound sand because you're not
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: going to get a contract from the DNC. And that's
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: how we built it here. And it's important not just
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: to help us win, but it's important for those donors
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: who are giving us money to have a sense on
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: how the DNC chair is going to approach this. We're
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: not going to invest in things that don't help us
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: win elections. No more contracts to just line consultants' pockets.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: As I've said, I'm here to win the U.S. house back,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: not help a consultant build a new house.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about the ban on corporate PACs
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: and lobbyist donations to the DNC?
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean, this is a little bit of
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: a challenging one because I do want to get dark
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: money out of Uh, politics, I bet long supported ending
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: citizens United and making sure that we find a way
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: to actually, um, overhaul the campaign finance system. So these, uh,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: campaigns and elections aren't as expensive. I mean, we've spent
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: two and a half billion dollars on a presidential campaign
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: over $ 10 billion, by the way, John, just in 2024
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: spent on the democratic side alone. It's obscene, right? And
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: that's got it. We've got to reverse course somehow. And
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: part of that of course, is, is getting money out
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: of politics generally. But when we say corporations, right, it's
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: a very large term. And this is where I start
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: to get the devil's in the details because, you know,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: technically by the IRS, our labor partners and some of
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: our reproductive rights groups and others are corporations, right? So
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: what are we actually using to define corporations? And what
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: I would say is bad corporate actors are who don't
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: share our values, the DNC should not be taking their money.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: I've been very clear on that. And we don't take
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: that type of money here in Minnesota, and we won't.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: And I think at the DNC, the DNC has to
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: live its values. Where there are bad corporate actors who, again,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 4: who don't share the Democratic Party's values, the Democratic Party
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: should not only not take their money, they should be
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: calling out people who do.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: So who are some elected Democrats... local, state, national, who
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: impress you right now? Who should we be keeping an
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: eye on?
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: You know, I think there's a lot. You know, Maxwell
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: Frost down in Florida. I think Peggy Flanagan here in Minnesota,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: you know, our lieutenant governor. There's a great guy who
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 4: was just elected as the mayor of Tulsa, Monroe Nichols,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: who's a former state representative, right? First African-American mayor. I
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 4: think Sarah McBride in Delaware, who's a great friend. And
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of wonderful leaders that I
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: think there's an amazing bench we have in the Democratic Party, right?
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 4: We've got these great governors like Andy Beshear and Wes
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: Moore and Josh Shapiro and Gretchen.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: Whitmer, right?
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: We've got, and your governor, of course, Gavin Newsom. We've
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: got an amazing bench. But, you know, as I look
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: at this, we've got wonderful Democratic electeds throughout this country
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: that are serving in office right now that don't get
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: the attention they deserved. Because again, we're focused on all
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: the big names, the big governors, and of course, the
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: members of Congress. But there are some amazing leaders serving
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: in local offices that we should be paying attention to.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: Last question. There's been sort of two models for this job.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: There's someone who's going to focus on organizing and being
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes and featuring a lot of the structural issues,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: which you have talked a lot about. There's also the
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: need for a party spokesman, particularly in this moment where
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: we don't necessarily have a leader of the party right
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: now as President Biden gets ready to exit. Would do
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: you think that if you get this job, you'll be
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: doing TV and podcasts and everything and be out there
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: all the time being a messenger?
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: I do them all the time. And it's part of
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: your role as a state party chair, right? And certainly
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: in my role at the ASDC as a vice chair
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: of the DNC, I've done lots of national media. But
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 4: it's not an either or, right? Frankly, I would say
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: we've got this great bench of elected officials, many of
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: them I just talked about, that we should be showcasing
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: and using more, frankly. And if folks think that the
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: next chair of the Democratic Party is a savior, that
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 4: there's someone riding in to save the party, that's the
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: wrong mentality, right? I have a plaque in my office
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 4: that says, none of us are as smart as all
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 4: of us. And Mark Dayton gave that to me.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: I believe it.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 4: At the end of the day, no one has all
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: the answers, right? But the reality is, is we have
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 4: this amazingly rich party of people with great professional experiences
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: and lived experiences that we should be tapping into. And
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: that includes spokespeople, right? I believe we've got mayors. Who
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: better to talk about public safety than mayors throughout the country, right?
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: Who better to talk about natural disasters like what we're
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 4: seeing in LA right now than county commissioners and leaders
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: who have to deal with that? Who better to talk
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: about transportation funding and education funding than governors? And so
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 4: I think we have many spokespeople, and the DNC is
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 4: not the only person who should be the spokesperson for
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 4: our party. But I do think what we need is
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: someone that's going to be really focused on on organizing.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: Right now, what this moment needs is someone who can
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 4: both get the message out, but frankly, focusing on building
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 4: the foundation we need and the infrastructure we need to win.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: Because that's one of the lessons from this last election
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 4: is clearly our comms infrastructure and our organizing infrastructure is
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 4: not being utilized the way it should. And it's not
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 4: being built in a way where it's permanent. And it's
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: part of actually moving and persuading voters.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: Ken Martin, thank you so much for joining Pod Save
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: America and good luck to you in the race.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, John.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ken Martin for
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: stopping by. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: new show on Friday. Stay safe, everyone out there in
• 1:33:15
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