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"Secret poll results." · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:24
Speaker 1: We are recording this in Des Moines, just hours away
0:27
Speaker 1: from the very first primary contest of the 2020 election,
0:29
Speaker 1: the Iowa caucuses. We've all been driving around the state
0:33
Speaker 1: for the last couple days, trying to hit up as
0:34
Speaker 1: many candidate events as we can and talk to some
0:38
Speaker 1: caucus goers and volunteers. You're going to hear some of
0:40
Speaker 1: those conversations in a bit, and we'll talk about what
0:42
Speaker 1: the race looks like as we head into the final day.
0:45
Speaker 1: But first... We should talk about what appears to be
0:49
Speaker 1: the end of Donald Trump's impeachment trial. On Friday, Senate
0:54
Speaker 1: Republicans voted to make this the only impeachment trial in
0:56
Speaker 1: history where the public was not allowed to hear from
0:59
Speaker 1: new witnesses or consider new evidence. The vote failed 51
1:02
Speaker 1: to 49 with Mitt Romney and Susan Collins as the
1:04
Speaker 1: only two Republicans who voted with the Democrats. A number
1:07
Speaker 1: of Republicans, including Lamar Alexander, Marco Rubio, and Rob Portman,
1:11
Speaker 1: basically said that even if the president was guilty of
1:14
Speaker 1: bribing a foreign government to investigate his political opponent, He
1:17
Speaker 1: shouldn't be held accountable for it. And the rest of
1:20
Speaker 1: them just said he didn't do anything wrong. So the
1:23
Speaker 1: final vote to acquit Trump will be held on Wednesday
1:25
Speaker 1: right after he delivers the State of the Union on
1:27
Speaker 1: Tuesday night. So all's well that ends well, guys. What
1:33
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on the entire Republican Party officially endorsing
1:38
Speaker 1: soliciting foreign interference in our elections?
1:41
Speaker 2: I don't think it's good.
1:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, not great.
1:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, not great.
1:47
Speaker 2: Listen, we should just let you all know.
1:49
Speaker 3: All right.
1:49
Speaker 2: We've been in Des Moines for three days and I
1:51
Speaker 2: got to say, we've been going surprisingly hard.
1:55
Speaker 3: You just made it sound like spring break. Going surprisingly
1:57
Speaker 3: hard to events and council bluffs where we watched Pete
2:00
Speaker 3: do the Q & As.
2:01
Speaker 5: Sure.
2:04
Speaker 3: It's been hard for me to read the stories because
2:06
Speaker 3: I just don't want to read the New York Times.
2:08
Speaker 3: Both sides take and then fly off the handle and
2:11
Speaker 3: tweet for seven hours about it. But It was our
2:14
Speaker 3: best chance probably with like an earned media driven campaign
2:17
Speaker 3: to educate the American people about our corrupt, venal president
2:20
Speaker 3: who abuses power at every chance. Most of the country
2:25
Speaker 3: agrees that he did what we all think he did,
2:28
Speaker 3: which was abuse his power to try to get down
2:30
Speaker 3: on Joe Biden. They don't think it's right, but they
2:32
Speaker 3: want him to serve out his term. We probably hit
2:35
Speaker 3: the limits of a Fox News controlled, you know, right
2:38
Speaker 3: wing media ecosystem. And the rest of it is going
2:41
Speaker 3: to have to be messaging to those people with hate
2:44
Speaker 3: ads and social media and other new, unique ways to
2:48
Speaker 3: get to them because the media filter protected Republicans as always.
2:52
Speaker 4: The Democrats did exactly what they needed to do based
2:56
Speaker 4: on the old rules of politics. They convinced three-quarters of
2:59
Speaker 4: the country that there should be witnesses and the Republicans
3:01
Speaker 4: didn't care.
3:02
Speaker 1: They convinced a majority of Americans that he should be
3:05
Speaker 1: removed from office.
3:06
Speaker 4: Yes.
3:07
Speaker 1: I know there's different polls out here and there. It's
3:09
Speaker 1: not a big majority, but All the polls, if you
3:12
Speaker 1: do all the averages right now, there's a slim majority
3:15
Speaker 1: of Americans who think that the president of the United
3:17
Speaker 1: States should be removed from office.
3:19
Speaker 3: Just to be clear, I was referring to the one
3:21
Speaker 3: out today, the NBC one today, which is 46 said remove,
3:24
Speaker 3: 49 said serve out.
3:25
Speaker 4: But this wasn't a failure. It wasn't a failure of
3:28
Speaker 4: evidence or compelling messaging from the Democrats. They succeeded at
3:31
Speaker 4: convincing the country that there should at least at bare
3:33
Speaker 4: minimum be a real trial. And it's worth exploring, I think,
3:37
Speaker 4: why that did not result in witnesses. Because- A lot
3:42
Speaker 4: of the takes on this has basically been either Republicans
3:46
Speaker 4: are just horrible, like they're just bad people and they
3:49
Speaker 4: don't care, or that they are in the thrall of
3:52
Speaker 4: this cult of Trump. And I think both of those
3:55
Speaker 4: are oversimplistic explanations for what happened. Cory Gardner is not insane.
4:00
Speaker 4: He knows that his best political play is to stick
4:04
Speaker 4: with Trump because the structures of American politics help protect
4:08
Speaker 4: him from the will of the majority. That's why McConnell
4:11
Speaker 4: did this. It's why all these other Republicans did it.
4:13
Speaker 4: And that is a problem that is much harder to
4:14
Speaker 4: solve than just getting rid of Trump.
4:17
Speaker 3: I also think they looked at someone like Elise Stefanik,
4:19
Speaker 3: a congresswoman from New York, who decided to go from
4:24
Speaker 3: being seen as a moderate to full MAGA and just
4:27
Speaker 3: light her hair on fire during the trials with a
4:29
Speaker 3: bunch of other much crazier members of Congress. And it
4:32
Speaker 3: resulted in her raising millions and millions of dollars. So
4:35
Speaker 3: this has become a strategy. for these people to raise
4:38
Speaker 3: as much money as they can from Trump's base as
4:40
Speaker 3: quickly as they can.
4:41
Speaker 2: I also just think, you know, to Dan's point, Tommy's point,
4:45
Speaker 2: this whole time there's been a lot of beseeching of
4:48
Speaker 2: these Republicans why they won't show courage, why won't they
4:51
Speaker 2: show courage, why won't they be brave. And it is
4:55
Speaker 2: a symptom of how broken our politics is that doing
4:58
Speaker 2: the right thing in this case on an issue in
5:00
Speaker 2: which there is broad majority support requires political bravery. And
5:04
Speaker 2: that's because of the incentive structures of right-wing media. That's
5:06
Speaker 2: because of what Trump will do. That's because of where
5:09
Speaker 2: this support for impeachment may be distributed, right? Where are
5:13
Speaker 2: the people who support impeachment? Are they in the places
5:15
Speaker 2: where these senators think they need votes? And the other
5:19
Speaker 2: piece of this too is, you know, I've seen a
5:21
Speaker 2: lot of people talking about how the failure to have
5:23
Speaker 2: witnesses at this trial is a constitutional crisis. It's a
5:26
Speaker 2: constitutional crisis. It's a fundamental failure of the systems, of
5:29
Speaker 2: the levers of power to restrain the executive. And I
5:32
Speaker 2: think that there is some truth to that. But there's
5:34
Speaker 2: a big assumption based into that assertion. And it is
5:38
Speaker 2: not only will these senators fail to do what is
5:43
Speaker 2: necessary to hold Trump accountable, to have basic rules of
5:47
Speaker 2: the road for our elections. It's that there's an assumption
5:49
Speaker 2: that these senators won't pay a political price for it.
5:53
Speaker 2: And we can hem and haw all we want. We
5:55
Speaker 2: can be angry all we want. But thinking more and
5:58
Speaker 2: more about how do we change those incentive structures so
6:01
Speaker 2: that senators can be a check against presidents of their
6:04
Speaker 2: own party, I think it's one of the hardest and
6:07
Speaker 2: biggest challenges we face for one of our two parties.
6:11
Speaker 1: We just got to vote them out. Look, I do
6:13
Speaker 1: think this is a problem, or it should be a
6:15
Speaker 1: problem for some of these Senate Republicans. At the end
6:18
Speaker 1: of the day, and we've said this before, a number
6:21
Speaker 1: of these Senate Republicans who are up in 2020, Collins, Tillis, McSally, Gardner,
6:30
Speaker 1: they're going to run campaigns saying that they're an independent
6:33
Speaker 1: voice in Washington, that they're not completely tied to Trump.
6:35
Speaker 1: They can't do that anymore. This is now, I mean,
6:38
Speaker 1: there's a million examples since Trump has taken office, why
6:41
Speaker 1: this is no longer the Republican party, but the party
6:43
Speaker 1: of Trump, but this is sort of fine. The final
6:45
Speaker 1: nail in the coffin of that, um, that they, they
6:49
Speaker 1: cannot distance themselves from Donald Trump and his behavior and
6:52
Speaker 1: his approval anymore. And for Tommy, you're right. Like if
6:56
Speaker 1: the calculus was, we probably can't distance ourselves anyway from
6:59
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So, We might as well stick with them
7:01
Speaker 1: and then at least get the fundraising out of it
7:03
Speaker 1: and at least get the base support out of it.
7:06
Speaker 1: But we've been talking about the politics of all this.
7:07
Speaker 1: I think it's worth just noting how serious the consequences
7:11
Speaker 1: of what just happened are. It has now been, there's
7:16
Speaker 1: been a stamp of approval by the United States Congress
7:19
Speaker 1: that any president who has enough votes to make sure
7:22
Speaker 1: that he's not convicted in the Senate can solicit foreign
7:25
Speaker 1: interference in an election, can investigate, an American citizen for
7:29
Speaker 1: no reason whatsoever can launch a political investigation, whether it's
7:33
Speaker 1: your political opponent, whether it's a private citizen, doesn't matter.
7:35
Speaker 1: They're not going to hold the President of the United
7:37
Speaker 1: States accountable for that kind of behavior. And even some
7:41
Speaker 1: senators who think it was an abuse of power, or
7:43
Speaker 1: who at least think it was wrong or inappropriate, think, well,
7:46
Speaker 1: it's wrong or inappropriate, but I guess there's nothing we
7:48
Speaker 1: can do to hold him accountable. Or they refuse to
7:50
Speaker 1: hold him accountable.
7:50
Speaker 2: And they then say, well, that's what the election is for.
7:54
Speaker 3: But of course.
7:55
Speaker 1: He's trying to rig an election.
7:56
Speaker 2: If he can rig... If he can rig the election
7:59
Speaker 2: to win, how are we supposed to rely on the
8:01
Speaker 2: election as a means to check the president?
8:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, heads Republicans win, tails Democrats lose. Like, that is
8:05
Speaker 4: the system that has been set up here. I was
8:07
Speaker 4: really struck by— Lamar Alexander was on Meet the Press this morning,
8:10
Speaker 4: and he was supposed to be— It's.
8:13
Speaker 1: Fun watching these guys answer questions, by the way. That's
8:16
Speaker 1: the only satisfying thing from all this.
8:18
Speaker 4: And he obviously did the wrong thing, but he was
8:21
Speaker 4: one of the rare Republican senators who said that Trump
8:24
Speaker 4: actually did something wrong.
8:25
Speaker 6: Yeah.
8:25
Speaker 4: But so Chuck Todd was asking about this and he said, well,
8:29
Speaker 4: instead of calling, if he wanted an investigation to buy,
8:31
Speaker 4: instead of calling Ukraine, he should have called the attorney general.
8:34
Speaker 4: which is also an abuse of fucking power.
8:36
Speaker 3: I know, I know. You can't do that. You can't
8:39
Speaker 3: do that. You can't call the Attorney General and say,
8:41
Speaker 3: investigate my opponent. It doesn't work that way. Oh, my God.
8:43
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton had a fucking conversation with Loretta Lynch on
8:46
Speaker 1: a tarmac, and it was the biggest scandal for a
8:48
Speaker 1: fucking couple weeks.
8:49
Speaker 4: And he wasn't president.
8:52
Speaker 1: That was seen as inappropriate. A hello conversation. And now
8:55
Speaker 1: they're saying, oh, well, not foreign governments, but he could
8:57
Speaker 1: have just called up Bill Barr and said, investigate Joe Biden. Well,
8:59
Speaker 1: guess what? That would have been fine.
9:00
Speaker 4: Now I wish shit is happening.
9:02
Speaker 2: Now I wish Bill Clinton had... just harangued Loretta Lynch
9:05
Speaker 2: on the tarmac to get more investigations.
9:08
Speaker 3: I just think, you know, a lot of people on
9:11
Speaker 3: Twitter and other places have been hoping and praying and
9:13
Speaker 3: saying out loud that they think Republicans will do the
9:15
Speaker 3: right thing. And I just think it's not a Trump
9:17
Speaker 3: era problem. Like, it's just a historical misread of what
9:20
Speaker 3: Republicans always do in a situation. Like, when Barry Goldwater
9:23
Speaker 3: ran and was seen as a crazy, fringy, shockingly right-wing candidate,
9:27
Speaker 3: Richard Nixon went all in to support him, knowing that
9:30
Speaker 3: he needed their base next time when he wanted to run.
9:32
Speaker 3: And it was a brilliant strategy that helped him get elected. Like, rinse,
9:35
Speaker 3: repeat on these things. They're always going to appeal to
9:38
Speaker 3: the most fervent part of your base.
9:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. The only way out of this, and this is
9:42
Speaker 1: the transition to our next topic, is defeating as many
9:47
Speaker 1: elected Republicans as humanly possible. That's it. That's the only
9:50
Speaker 1: hope here.
9:50
Speaker 4: And then doing something very aggressive after you have it, right?
9:53
Speaker 3: That's right.
9:55
Speaker 4: The reason we end up in this situation is structural
9:58
Speaker 4: political advantages for Republicans. And if Democrats get into power,
10:02
Speaker 4: they have to take aggressive action for structural political reform, right?
10:04
Speaker 4: This is a different conversation if there are two Democratic
10:06
Speaker 4: senators from Washington, D.C.
10:08
Speaker 3: In the Senate.
10:09
Speaker 1: And this is why the presidential race is obviously the
10:12
Speaker 1: most important thing, and we're focusing on that all the time.
10:14
Speaker 1: But Flipping the Senate is also incredibly important, too. You know,
10:19
Speaker 1: Brian Schatz always tweets at least a couple times a week,
10:21
Speaker 1: pick a Senate race, adopt a Senate race. We need
10:24
Speaker 1: to keep the House. We need to flip the Senate.
10:26
Speaker 1: And we need to take the presidency, and the party
10:28
Speaker 1: needs to come together, no matter who wins this nomination.
10:31
Speaker 1: So votesaveamerica.com, which is another plug for that, which we
10:34
Speaker 1: just rolled out again last week.
10:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, whenever you see a tweet about what one campaign
10:38
Speaker 3: surrogate sent about another campaign, Delete it. Delete the app.
10:42
Speaker 3: Go to votesaveamerica.com.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Think about how angry you were about this impeachment,
10:46
Speaker 1: about the acquittal, next time you're about to send a
10:48
Speaker 1: tweet about what one fucking supporter said.
10:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, next time Hillary Clinton does a photo shoot with
10:53
Speaker 2: Vogue holding Bernie Sanders' head, just don't buy that copy
10:57
Speaker 2: of Vogue.
10:59
Speaker 3: Don't get involved. You know what I mean?
11:01
Speaker 2: She's on a journey, and she's going to finish that journey,
11:04
Speaker 2: but you don't have to go on that journey.
11:05
Speaker 1: Thanks for putting a fine point on that. Way to
11:09
Speaker 1: bring the temperature down. All right, let's talk about Iowa,
11:13
Speaker 1: where we are. So we were all excited to talk
11:17
Speaker 1: about the final Des Moines Register poll today, but it's
11:20
Speaker 1: been canceled. Just like so many other things.
11:23
Speaker 2: Cancel culture comes for the Des Moines Register.
11:26
Speaker 1: Cancel culture came for the Des Moines Register. After one
11:28
Speaker 1: of the Iowans who was polled said that Mayor Pete
11:31
Speaker 1: Buttigieg was missing from the list of candidates to choose from,
11:34
Speaker 1: that person happened to be a supporter of Pete's. They
11:36
Speaker 1: called the campaign. The campaign called the register. The register investigated,
11:40
Speaker 1: and they decided not to release the poll out of
11:42
Speaker 1: an abundance of caution. Apparently, one of the call operators
11:46
Speaker 1: had enlarged the font size of the list, which cut
11:49
Speaker 1: Pete's name off. But since the list of candidates is
11:51
Speaker 1: constantly randomized every time they call a new supporter, this
11:54
Speaker 1: also could have happened to other candidates. We don't know.
11:57
Speaker 1: But to be safe, they just decided to nix the
12:00
Speaker 1: whole poll. So the polar coaster has malfunctioned. What do
12:04
Speaker 1: you guys think?
12:05
Speaker 3: I love it. It feels like one of those new
12:09
Speaker 3: polar coasters where you flip upside down at some point
12:11
Speaker 3: during a twist and we're just hanging there.
12:14
Speaker 4: Or we fell out. We don't know.
12:15
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, in some ways... Look, I feel really
12:18
Speaker 3: badly for the Des Moines Register. They probably put a
12:21
Speaker 3: lot of money, a lot of time and resources into
12:23
Speaker 3: this poll. They've done heroic work covering like 4,000 campaigns
12:27
Speaker 3: with not a very big staff. So this sucks for them.
12:29
Speaker 3: It sucks for Ann Seltzer, who's meticulous and a great pollster. And,
12:32
Speaker 3: you know, I think it probably speaks to her character
12:34
Speaker 3: and the way she treats her job that she would
12:36
Speaker 3: scrap a poll that probably cost 100 grand. That said,
12:40
Speaker 3: maybe it's good that you won't have a bunch of
12:43
Speaker 3: Iowa Democrats like picking wanting to pick a winner in
12:46
Speaker 3: the very end and going with who they think has
12:49
Speaker 3: momentum in that moment now if you're like an amy
12:51
Speaker 3: klobuchar right and you're banking on a last minute surge
12:54
Speaker 3: or you're uh bernie sanders and you want to you
12:57
Speaker 3: know just put away the field and this poll would
12:59
Speaker 3: have helped you shown that that sucks but i don't
13:02
Speaker 3: know like we all voted without polls before it's okay
13:06
Speaker 3: we survived yeah.
13:07
Speaker 2: I love it i think it's i think it's like
13:09
Speaker 2: fun a bit like There's been this, especially when electability
13:13
Speaker 2: is on everyone's mind, especially when there are so many
13:15
Speaker 2: candidates and nobody really feels like they know what's going
13:17
Speaker 2: to happen. Tommy, in your Iowa series, you talked to
13:19
Speaker 2: Adisu about this, about like, if the purpose of Iowa
13:22
Speaker 2: is to be a place where you can do grassroots politics,
13:24
Speaker 2: is that if that's the value of it, then not
13:27
Speaker 2: doing well in polls, making it harder for you to
13:29
Speaker 2: do well in polls in the future is a dangerous
13:33
Speaker 2: disruption of that process of just letting people decide without
13:36
Speaker 2: the weight of other people's decisions in their minds. So
13:39
Speaker 2: I think it's great.
13:40
Speaker 4: Would this be a good time to talk about the
13:41
Speaker 4: results of our Iowa poll from three days ago?
13:45
Speaker 1: Or there's a new CBS tracker out this morning in
13:48
Speaker 1: Iowa that shows it a little closer.
13:50
Speaker 2: Or why don't we just say what polls we, what
13:51
Speaker 2: we thought it was going to be and just say,
13:53
Speaker 2: say what we hope.
13:54
Speaker 1: You know, instead of data, let's just go with feelings.
13:57
Speaker 1: What do you, what good does that do?
13:59
Speaker 2: No, it's going to be great.
14:00
Speaker 1: Okay. We're going to go with feelings.
14:01
Speaker 4: I have, I have counted the yard signs I've seen.
14:03
Speaker 1: Polls don't care about your feelings. Um, So anyway, no, look,
14:09
Speaker 1: everyone is very excited about it in our world of
14:12
Speaker 1: people who talk about this for a living. But I
14:15
Speaker 1: agree with you guys. I think in the end, if
14:17
Speaker 1: we're down one poll, especially a poll that had such
14:21
Speaker 1: outsized importance, right? This wasn't just any poll. And we've
14:24
Speaker 1: had a lot of polls of Iowa over the last
14:26
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. And a good majority of them have
14:29
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders in the lead. A few others maybe show
14:32
Speaker 1: Biden a little bit stronger. It's still unclear. But It's
14:35
Speaker 1: almost perfect that in a race this unpredictable, that the
14:40
Speaker 1: one thing that was supposed to help predict it more
14:42
Speaker 1: than anything is now not with us.
14:44
Speaker 4: The last remaining political institution that everyone had faith in,
14:47
Speaker 4: the Maresher poll has collapsed.
14:50
Speaker 2: Maybe the military can start doing polls.
14:51
Speaker 4: I mean, it does sort of raise this kind of
14:55
Speaker 4: hard to think about question is this probably happens all
14:58
Speaker 4: the time. It's just this time it happened to happen
15:03
Speaker 4: to a supporter who was well-wired enough in the Buttigieg
15:06
Speaker 4: campaign to call and speak to someone about it. And
15:09
Speaker 4: so maybe all polls are wrong.
15:11
Speaker 3: Great, Dan. Thanks for that.
15:13
Speaker 4: Not our poll, because it's online, so that can't happen.
15:15
Speaker 1: So instead of going into their polls, we're just going
15:17
Speaker 1: to do traditional punditry based on, again, our feelings. But
15:20
Speaker 1: not really, not just our feelings, our experiences, because we
15:23
Speaker 1: have been here.
15:23
Speaker 4: For three days.
15:24
Speaker 1: For three days we've been here.
15:26
Speaker 4: So we are experts.
15:27
Speaker 1: Ask us anything.
15:28
Speaker 6: Yes.
15:30
Speaker 4: I was thinking just.
15:31
Speaker 1: Hey, at least Tommy's been here.
15:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tommy's been here a lot in the whole series.
15:34
Speaker 1: Tommy's been here a lot.
15:35
Speaker 4: The rest of us are the people we have always hated.
15:38
Speaker 4: We have parachuted into Des Moines. We've mostly talked to
15:41
Speaker 4: people who also parachuted into Des Moines, and here are
15:43
Speaker 4: our thoughts on the race.
15:44
Speaker 1: And when we try to get places in Des Moines,
15:45
Speaker 1: we just follow Tommy.
15:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
15:48
Speaker 3: I've been producing you guys.
15:49
Speaker 1: Okay, so, so far, our team has been able to
15:52
Speaker 1: check out events with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg,
15:55
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and Andrew Yang. So let's go through one
15:58
Speaker 1: by one and talk about how we think these campaigns
16:01
Speaker 1: are doing. And let's start with the Andrew Yang event
16:05
Speaker 1: that we went to last night here in Des Moines.
16:08
Speaker 1: Start with Andrew Yang because, as the Yang gang reminds us,
16:10
Speaker 1: sometimes we forget to talk about him so much. So
16:12
Speaker 1: last night in Des Moines, we went to this event
16:15
Speaker 1: at the Marriott. We talked to some people at the event,
16:18
Speaker 1: and we'll let you guys hear that now, and then
16:20
Speaker 1: we'll talk about our own reactions.
16:22
Speaker 7: I am Ashraf, and I am from Iowa City, but
16:25
Speaker 7: I live in Ames, Iowa right now. I've been a
16:28
Speaker 7: Yang Ganger since early 2019, I'd say February. He's the
16:33
Speaker 7: only person talking about automation. Now it's going to take
16:36
Speaker 7: a big amount of our workforce that doesn't go to college.
16:39
Speaker 7: And that's going to really suck. No one's really talking
16:42
Speaker 7: about that. This is my personal opinion. I don't speak
16:45
Speaker 7: for all the people who are supporting Andrew Yang. But
16:50
Speaker 7: I would personally probably vote for Bernie. However, a lot
16:54
Speaker 7: of Andrew Yang supporters are disenfranchised Trump supporters and they
16:57
Speaker 7: do not care about the liberal agenda at all. So
17:00
Speaker 7: they would most likely just leave or like, I don't
17:04
Speaker 7: really think there's going to be a caucus for Trump
17:07
Speaker 7: because he's the only person, but they're just probably going
17:09
Speaker 7: to leave and vote for Trump.
17:12
Speaker 8: My name is Caleb Wolf and I'm from Colfax, Iowa.
17:15
Speaker 8: I'm committed to caucusing and I'm a precinct captain. I'm
17:17
Speaker 8: an independent and I have no trouble with voting for
17:19
Speaker 8: a Republican. Honestly, if it ends up going to Sanders
17:22
Speaker 8: or Warren, I'll probably vote Trump. From a financial perspective,
17:26
Speaker 8: I've looked at the numbers that Bernie is pitching. I
17:29
Speaker 8: think they're a little bit sketchy, to be honest. In particular,
17:33
Speaker 8: $ 16 trillion towards the economy and trying to get to
17:35
Speaker 8: zero emissions very quickly seems like a Band-Aid solution. It
17:39
Speaker 8: seems like we're not actually going to be able to
17:41
Speaker 8: get there in a way that is safe economically for
17:44
Speaker 8: our country to still progress economically. relative to like China
17:51
Speaker 8: and other countries. My sister's also a precinct captain and
17:55
Speaker 8: my parents are canvassing for Yang. There's actually, my entire
17:59
Speaker 8: extended family are Yang supporters.
18:01
Speaker 9: My name is Ann, Ann Holt. I'm from Ankeny, Iowa,
18:04
Speaker 9: which is right outside Des Moines. I have been following
18:07
Speaker 9: Andrew all day. My outfit is, I've got blue lipstick
18:11
Speaker 9: because that's Andrew's color. I've got a nice wool scarf,
18:15
Speaker 9: blue and... pink and white because Andrew wears a scarf
18:19
Speaker 9: and I've got a nice vest on and boots on
18:21
Speaker 9: because that's all Iowa and I've got buttons and I'm
18:24
Speaker 9: holding Andrew on a stick. I have an 8x10 picture
18:27
Speaker 9: of Andrew with his math button on and I put
18:33
Speaker 9: it on a stick just because he needs to be
18:36
Speaker 9: on a stick. And not just a stick, a yardstick. Today,
18:38
Speaker 9: this is my fourth event, and altogether I've been to
18:41
Speaker 9: maybe 10 events in the last two months. The favorite
18:44
Speaker 9: part of his platform is, of course, the Freedom Dividend.
18:48
Speaker 9: I believe that the Freedom Dividend will solve, or try
18:51
Speaker 9: to solve, a lot of the problems that we have today. Poverty,
18:54
Speaker 9: I can't buy this, I can't buy that. And it
18:58
Speaker 9: also rewards homemakers and caretakers a value. Well, what am
19:05
Speaker 9: I going to do with $ 1, 000? I've thought about that
19:07
Speaker 9: in my head. I want to keep the $ 1, 000 in
19:10
Speaker 9: the economy. I want to do things that I normally
19:13
Speaker 9: wouldn't do, like get a manicure, get a massage, maybe
19:18
Speaker 9: donate some money, maybe buy supplies for the food bank,
19:23
Speaker 9: things like that. I don't personally need it in my pocket,
19:27
Speaker 9: pocket per se, but I will put the money back
19:29
Speaker 9: in circulation because that's the point of the dividend.
19:33
Speaker 10: I'm a Republican.
19:35
Speaker 9: And I'm jumping the fence to caucus for Andrew. I
19:39
Speaker 9: have caucused in the Democratic before many, many, many, many
19:42
Speaker 9: years ago. So this is a big step for me.
19:44
Speaker 9: This means a lot to me to go from Republican
19:47
Speaker 9: to a Democrat.
19:47
Speaker 1: All right, so what'd you guys think of the Yang
19:49
Speaker 1: gang experience last night?
19:51
Speaker 3: Love it.
19:52
Speaker 2: So Andrew Yang is very charming and he has a
19:56
Speaker 2: great presence on stage and he has a incredibly strong message, whatever,
20:02
Speaker 2: you know, there's a reason he has survived this race
20:05
Speaker 2: with a good, solid amount of support. passed a lot
20:09
Speaker 2: of people that others thought were going to be front runners.
20:11
Speaker 2: We're going to have a shot at the nomination. Two
20:13
Speaker 2: things that I appreciated a lot about seeing him. One is,
20:17
Speaker 2: you know, he talks about economic issues. Yes, he has
20:20
Speaker 2: a very like, you know, 30,000 foot view case about
20:24
Speaker 2: automation and the changing economy and how that led to Trump.
20:27
Speaker 2: But when he actually gets to talking about economic issues
20:30
Speaker 2: and how it affects towns, he says things that you
20:32
Speaker 2: don't hear other people talking about. He says, has the
20:35
Speaker 2: mall by you closed? You know, what do you do
20:37
Speaker 2: if you lose your job working retail and there's not
20:40
Speaker 2: a job to replace it? He speaks very specifically about
20:44
Speaker 2: problems and changes that people can see.
20:47
Speaker 1: In their communities.
20:48
Speaker 2: And I think that that's really valuable. And whether or
20:50
Speaker 2: not he's the nominee, I hope we see other candidates
20:52
Speaker 2: talk that way too. The second piece of it was,
20:56
Speaker 2: I thought there was a really emotional way that he
20:57
Speaker 2: talked about the, what does he call it?
21:01
Speaker 3: The freedom dividend. What does he call it?
21:03
Speaker 2: The thousand dollars a month, the check. And it was
21:05
Speaker 2: talking about the ways in which we don't reward or
21:07
Speaker 2: value work like coaching Little League, volunteering in your community,
21:11
Speaker 2: being an activist, taking care of an elderly parent or
21:14
Speaker 2: a child with a disability, and that work currently in
21:17
Speaker 2: our society isn't valued and isn't paid for, but with this,
21:20
Speaker 2: you could receive an income for doing that kind of work.
21:22
Speaker 2: And I found that really moving and a part of
21:24
Speaker 2: the case for a universal basic income that I hadn't
21:27
Speaker 2: heard him make before. And so I just genuinely was
21:30
Speaker 2: moved by the emotional way he made that case.
21:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like... Five minutes in, you get the
21:34
Speaker 3: appeal of Andrew Yang. He's funny. He's charming. He's personable.
21:37
Speaker 3: He talks like a human being. You could tell that
21:40
Speaker 3: people just liked him. I mean, I think he diagnoses
21:43
Speaker 3: a lot of the challenges we face economically. I think
21:45
Speaker 3: he loses me a little bit when he blames it
21:47
Speaker 3: entirely on automation or when he literally says like, you know,
21:50
Speaker 3: when the robot truck armies will soon be upon us,
21:53
Speaker 3: like half joking, but not really. I also wonder if
21:55
Speaker 3: the UBI, this freedom dividend is both uh, not enough
21:59
Speaker 3: for people who would lose, they lost a job and
22:02
Speaker 3: are really struggling and way too much money for us
22:04
Speaker 3: to afford because it's not means tested. So like, those
22:06
Speaker 3: are some of the challenges, but you, you get why
22:08
Speaker 3: people like him. Uh, the event itself was big and rowdy.
22:11
Speaker 3: It was probably like half out of state people that
22:13
Speaker 3: happens in Des Moines events. There's a lot of political
22:15
Speaker 3: tourists here right now, present company included. Um, but like,
22:19
Speaker 3: I think no one's worked harder in the closing days
22:22
Speaker 3: and Andrew Yang in Iowa, he did a 17 day
22:23
Speaker 3: bus tour, four or five stops a day. His campaign
22:27
Speaker 3: success is a testament to the power of his message
22:31
Speaker 3: and him as an individual. I hope he has a
22:33
Speaker 3: bright future in the party. I hope the party finds
22:35
Speaker 3: a way to bring all of his voters into the
22:38
Speaker 3: party and welcome them with open arms and not make
22:40
Speaker 3: them feel excluded in any way, because there's a lot
22:43
Speaker 3: of energy there.
22:45
Speaker 4: I was struck by the crowd. Even granted that, like
22:48
Speaker 4: in every event we've seen, there are a lot of
22:49
Speaker 4: political tourists, but It was a very different crowd than
22:53
Speaker 4: a typical Iowa crowd or any of the other Iowa
22:56
Speaker 4: crowds we've seen on this trip. Younger, the most diverse
22:59
Speaker 4: crowd by far. And a lot of people who, when
23:04
Speaker 4: Andrew Yang asked who they had caucused for, there were
23:06
Speaker 4: people who had caucused for Trump last time. There were
23:07
Speaker 4: people who had not caucused at all. And he has
23:09
Speaker 4: definitely struck something with people who were disenchanted with, quote unquote,
23:13
Speaker 4: politics as usual. And there's a lesson there. The rest
23:16
Speaker 4: of the Democrats can all learn from that if Andrew
23:18
Speaker 4: Yang does not end up being our nominee. And I think, Thomas,
23:20
Speaker 4: I hope we welcome the Yang gang with open arms
23:23
Speaker 4: into the Democratic Party.
23:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my thought, too, is that I hope
23:27
Speaker 1: every Democratic candidate or whoever the eventual nominee is listens
23:31
Speaker 1: to an Andrew Yang stump speech because I hadn't really
23:35
Speaker 1: listened to him. I mean, I've seen him on the
23:36
Speaker 1: debate stage. I've heard clips before, but I hadn't listened
23:38
Speaker 1: to a whole speech. First of all, I thought he
23:40
Speaker 1: was very funny. That was one of the funniest speeches
23:41
Speaker 1: I've heard from any candidate this cycle. He's self-deprecating. He's charming.
23:45
Speaker 1: He speaks like a normal human being, all those things
23:47
Speaker 1: that we were just saying. I agree with Tommy that
23:51
Speaker 1: I think it's not just automation that's the source of
23:54
Speaker 1: all of our economic problems, though it is certainly a
23:56
Speaker 1: big part of it. I have some issues with universal
23:58
Speaker 1: basic income as well. I think there are other ways
24:02
Speaker 1: to sort of address those same challenges.
24:04
Speaker 11: But.
24:05
Speaker 1: It struck me that his speech was speaking to something
24:08
Speaker 1: very big that's going on. And it's a speech that
24:11
Speaker 1: could reach people who don't pay attention to politics very closely.
24:16
Speaker 1: And it sort of speaks to this feeling of anxiety
24:20
Speaker 1: and malaise in the country that a lot of people
24:22
Speaker 1: feel that like sort of, you know, their kids aren't
24:25
Speaker 1: going to have the same future they did and that
24:27
Speaker 1: things are getting out of control. And it's not just
24:29
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump or our politics, but it's something deeper
24:32
Speaker 1: than that. And I was sort of trying to listen
24:35
Speaker 1: to that for all of the candidate speeches, whether they
24:37
Speaker 1: hit on that. And he certainly did, more so than
24:39
Speaker 1: most of the people I heard from. It was a
24:42
Speaker 1: long event. It did go on for quite a while.
24:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would, you know, look, it's a little late
24:46
Speaker 2: for this note, but I would say he gave an
24:48
Speaker 2: incredible 35-minute stump speech, but he spoke for about an hour.
24:54
Speaker 3: My note to every campaign would be to ditch the
24:57
Speaker 3: majority of your pre-show. We don't need two videos. We
25:00
Speaker 3: don't need several warm-up speakers. It's true for Bernie. It's
25:02
Speaker 3: true for others. It gets redundant, and it gets very long.
25:05
Speaker 3: It's a whiny little note, but it's like, I'm not
25:07
Speaker 3: sure what the value is to you for keeping people
25:09
Speaker 3: in a space for two hours instead of one.
25:11
Speaker 1: Look, it's a note we always used to get to
25:12
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, too.
25:13
Speaker 4: He didn't listen. I'm sure there are many staffers telling
25:16
Speaker 4: him this.
25:17
Speaker 2: Do you remember in the last days before the 2008 election, caucus.
25:21
Speaker 2: I remember going to Hillary Clinton events and being like,
25:25
Speaker 2: she's speaking for an hour and 15 minutes. And then
25:28
Speaker 2: Obama was doing the exact same thing. They want to
25:30
Speaker 2: hit everything because they're getting all these questions and want
25:33
Speaker 2: to make sure they touch every single thing that they've heard.
25:35
Speaker 4: And they're tired. So they're kind of on autopilot and
25:37
Speaker 4: just every word that they've ever said before comes out.
25:39
Speaker 3: This is the part of the campaign where they're tired
25:41
Speaker 3: and they're like emotional. I think Andrew Yang broke down
25:43
Speaker 3: at an event recently talking about what it's meant for
25:45
Speaker 3: him to campaign in Iowa. His wife came forward in
25:47
Speaker 3: this really brave, moving way to talk about dealing with
25:50
Speaker 3: a sexual assault when she was pregnant. And it was
25:52
Speaker 3: clearly like she had been, the way that news had
25:56
Speaker 3: been treated and respected meant something to him. And he
25:58
Speaker 3: talked about that last night. So it's like, I'm really
26:01
Speaker 3: glad we went to the event.
26:02
Speaker 1: Me too. Me too.
26:12
Speaker 5: All right.
26:12
Speaker 1: So the first event we went to when we got
26:14
Speaker 1: here was Friday afternoon. We went to a Pete Buttigieg
26:17
Speaker 1: event in Council Bluffs. So let's hear a little bit
26:21
Speaker 1: from that.
26:21
Speaker 12: I'm Kate Kovars from Council Bluffs, Iowa. I'm 17. I'm
26:24
Speaker 12: a senior in high school, yeah, because I will be
26:27
Speaker 12: 18 for the election.
26:27
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
26:28
Speaker 3: So I get to.
26:29
Speaker 10: Caucus, yeah.
26:29
Speaker 3: You're a precinct cat.
26:30
Speaker 1: Yes.
26:31
Speaker 3: That's a big responsibility.
26:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.
26:33
Speaker 3: Can you tell us, like, what your responsibilities are that night?
26:36
Speaker 12: So, essentially, I have to be there at, like, 5
26:38
Speaker 12: o'clock and help people get checked in, make sure that
26:41
Speaker 12: everyone is comfortable with the process. I've been training a
26:44
Speaker 12: lot of people leading up to it, making sure that
26:46
Speaker 12: they're comfortable with the process. And when we get in there,
26:49
Speaker 12: I'm basically, like, the leader of Pete's Corner. Like, I'll
26:51
Speaker 12: set up.
26:53
Speaker 2: I will....
26:54
Speaker 12: Lead the charge, if you want to put it that way.
26:57
Speaker 12: Make sure that everyone has their preference cards filled out,
27:00
Speaker 12: knows the rules, make sure everything runs smoothly.
27:03
Speaker 3: And then your team fights the Biden people?
27:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, all the other people.
27:08
Speaker 3: Fist fight?
27:09
Speaker 5: Well, no.
27:11
Speaker 12: You know, I'm feeling pretty confident. I've met a lot
27:13
Speaker 12: of people. I've been canvassing for a couple days now
27:16
Speaker 12: in our precinct, and there's a lot of support. A
27:18
Speaker 12: lot of people are ready to see Mayor Pete, so...
27:23
Speaker 12: For a lot of people, he was kind of the
27:24
Speaker 12: candidate on the edges of the stage for a long time,
27:26
Speaker 12: but he never really was that for me. I knew
27:28
Speaker 12: from the get-go, I was like, that's my guy.
27:30
Speaker 3: Would you say your name for us?
27:31
Speaker 6: Darlene Kofod.
27:33
Speaker 3: Darlene, when did you choose Pete and why?
27:38
Speaker 6: I didn't choose Pete until later, probably around Thanksgiving time
27:43
Speaker 6: of this year. I went to one of his town halls.
27:50
Speaker 6: As a boomer, I fell in love with him.
27:52
Speaker 5: Really?
27:52
Speaker 6: Yeah. And I don't mean it romantically.
27:55
Speaker 13: No, no.
27:55
Speaker 4: He's America's favorite grandson.
27:58
Speaker 6: Well, partially, but his rules of the road are what
28:02
Speaker 6: my generation grew up with. Civility, decency, knowing how to
28:08
Speaker 6: agree to disagree. We called it being an adult. You've
28:13
Speaker 6: got to remember, I'm an old hippie chick. I grew
28:16
Speaker 6: up with activism.
28:17
Speaker 3: Right. So Joe Biden doesn't give you that same feeling
28:21
Speaker 3: of someone that would restore civility like Amy Klobuchar, they
28:24
Speaker 3: don't do it for you?
28:27
Speaker 1: I'm genuinely asking.
28:28
Speaker 6: Politics as usual is their problem. They've been there how
28:32
Speaker 6: long and done what?
28:34
Speaker 10: My name is Haley Kreitzinger and I'm from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
28:37
Speaker 10: We have a lot of things in common when it
28:39
Speaker 10: comes to concerns about the country and I love the
28:43
Speaker 10: fact that he is of a younger generation and can
28:46
Speaker 10: reach more people that way and I think it's time
28:48
Speaker 10: that We do get someone with a more new attitude
28:54
Speaker 10: about how this country should be ran. And I think
28:57
Speaker 10: that he's perfect for it. I think that he talks
29:00
Speaker 10: about what he wants to get done and not what
29:02
Speaker 10: everybody else is doing wrong.
29:04
Speaker 14: And I take it you're committed to caucusing for Pete?
29:06
Speaker 10: I'm so committed.
29:08
Speaker 2: And when did you make up your mind?
29:10
Speaker 10: Probably after I actually got to ask him a question
29:13
Speaker 10: and he answered it and looked me in my eye
29:15
Speaker 10: and you could tell it was sincere and and he's compassionate,
29:19
Speaker 10: and I think that he just understands what a lot
29:21
Speaker 10: of people are going through and everybody else just pushes
29:24
Speaker 10: it aside. I've loved him for a long time, but
29:27
Speaker 10: being able to actually talk to him and find out
29:30
Speaker 10: some of the issues that we've both had growing up
29:33
Speaker 10: with certain with certain things like being gay. And there's a,
29:37
Speaker 10: there's a connection there with people that have these interests
29:40
Speaker 10: in these things that they want help with. This is
29:42
Speaker 10: my first caucus.
29:44
Speaker 4: All right.
29:44
Speaker 1: So, uh, Dan, what'd you think of Pete's message?
29:47
Speaker 4: Pete's message is very familiar to us. He has been
29:49
Speaker 4: incredibly disciplined this entire campaign. It comes through in every
29:52
Speaker 4: answer on a debate stage. You know, he's been omnipresent
29:56
Speaker 4: in the media for well over a year now. And so, uh,
29:59
Speaker 4: We've seen it. I think– and we'll talk about this
30:02
Speaker 4: as we talk about Warren and Sanders and Biden and
30:04
Speaker 4: everyone else. But everyone has come to an electability message
30:07
Speaker 4: at the end here trying to explain how they could win.
30:09
Speaker 4: And the thing I was struck by about Pete's message
30:13
Speaker 4: is he's reading the stage directions out loud where he's
30:16
Speaker 4: basically saying, I'm the head and the heart candidate. You
30:21
Speaker 4: can love me, but I can also win. And I
30:25
Speaker 4: think I mentioned this to you guys, but I was
30:26
Speaker 4: talking to someone– who was thinking about running for president.
30:28
Speaker 4: I was trying to explain to them that that was
30:30
Speaker 4: the lane given this field was to be the head
30:32
Speaker 4: in the heart candidate, the electable candidate who gives you passion.
30:36
Speaker 4: But never in my mind did I ever consider you
30:38
Speaker 4: would say those words out loud. You would just communicate it.
30:41
Speaker 4: But I would say to Pete's credit and his great success,
30:44
Speaker 4: it may be that in, and he's very savvy about
30:48
Speaker 4: media in this area, that maybe in this era, you
30:50
Speaker 4: can't get nuance through. And so you just have to
30:53
Speaker 4: tell people directly the thing And, but it like, other
30:57
Speaker 4: than that fact, it's the Pete message that took him
31:00
Speaker 4: from zero to a top tier contender and it has
31:03
Speaker 4: worked and he has stuck to it.
31:04
Speaker 1: I will say just on that note, you know, we
31:07
Speaker 1: often talk about how voters have become pundits and for
31:10
Speaker 1: voters who have become pundits, Pete is a very appealing
31:13
Speaker 1: candidate because he does speak right as they're sitting there calculating, okay,
31:18
Speaker 1: who is the best, most electable person? Who's the best
31:20
Speaker 1: person to win? What's the message to win? Like he
31:22
Speaker 1: sort of just spoon feeds them. And he did that
31:26
Speaker 1: in that event. He said, you know, Vice President Biden
31:28
Speaker 1: says we need to go backwards. Bernie Sanders says we
31:30
Speaker 1: need to go all the way left or it doesn't count.
31:33
Speaker 1: I'm trying to tell you that we can, you know,
31:36
Speaker 1: do both and look to the future. And so he
31:38
Speaker 1: sort of has an in-between vibe there.
31:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so explicit.
31:42
Speaker 3: It was so explicit.
31:42
Speaker 2: He's like, he might as well have gotten up there
31:44
Speaker 2: and said, I know you like Elizabeth Warren, but you
31:47
Speaker 2: don't think she can win. And I know you think
31:49
Speaker 2: Joe Biden can win, but you're not sure he's going
31:51
Speaker 2: to be the best kind of president. Here I am.
31:54
Speaker 2: Pete Buttigieg, the perfect person for everyone in Iowa who
31:57
Speaker 2: feels that way. Like all he needed to do was
31:59
Speaker 2: say their names. He said everything but their names, which
32:01
Speaker 2: I thought was interesting.
32:03
Speaker 3: I think he said Biden and Sanders.
32:04
Speaker 4: He said Biden and Bernie.
32:06
Speaker 13: Yes.
32:06
Speaker 2: But well, he said Biden in another place. He didn't
32:08
Speaker 2: explicitly link Biden to the you don't want him to
32:10
Speaker 2: be president and explicitly link Warren to I don't think
32:13
Speaker 2: she can win. But that is clearly the subtext of
32:15
Speaker 2: what he's saying. You know, watching Pete, you see someone
32:18
Speaker 2: who's incredibly smart, who's thought very hard about the best
32:22
Speaker 2: path for him to win. I think about what he
32:24
Speaker 2: said to Axios, where he talked about how you're, you know,
32:27
Speaker 2: why he's in this race and the space he sees
32:29
Speaker 2: for himself in it. And then there's just this question, like,
32:32
Speaker 2: does he bring the kind of heart, pathos, gut energy
32:36
Speaker 2: and enthusiasm when he's up there? And it's like all
32:39
Speaker 2: the pieces feel there, but there's this, a little bit
32:42
Speaker 2: of it feeling like somebody saying all these things without the, like,
32:47
Speaker 2: you know, when you go see Bernie, you just see
32:49
Speaker 2: someone who is incredibly passionate, intense and engaged in what
32:52
Speaker 2: he's saying. And with Mayor Pete, it's almost there, but
32:55
Speaker 2: it just feels like he's 90% pushing the words forward,
32:58
Speaker 2: I guess.
32:58
Speaker 3: That makes sense. I thought the positioning of the message
33:00
Speaker 3: was probably the smartest of any candidate in this close,
33:03
Speaker 3: which is Biden is the same playbook. Bernie is a revolution.
33:07
Speaker 3: What I'm proposing is actually the most dramatic increase in
33:10
Speaker 3: healthcare in history. What I would be proposing is the
33:13
Speaker 3: greatest increase in access to affordable college education since the
33:17
Speaker 3: GI Bill. These are huge, big things Don't let them
33:20
Speaker 3: tell you that we need to go maximalist. And I
33:22
Speaker 3: think that probably appeals to a lot of people. Intellectually,
33:25
Speaker 3: that appeals to me. I think you might love it
33:27
Speaker 3: that the question is whether the messenger and the message
33:30
Speaker 3: are all going to fit together in a way that
33:32
Speaker 3: makes them decide to take the plunge. It was the
33:35
Speaker 3: event we went to. So Council Bluffs is two hours
33:37
Speaker 3: away from Des Moines. It's basically eastern Omaha. It's like
33:40
Speaker 3: 2 p.m. on a Friday. There were maybe 300 people there.
33:43
Speaker 3: Very conspicuously older crowd. Lots of seniors. And that, again,
33:47
Speaker 3: could have been because it's a work day in the
33:49
Speaker 3: middle of the day. but not a bad size by
33:51
Speaker 3: any means. Some of the people we talked to, like,
33:53
Speaker 3: they clearly liked that he is not seen as divisive.
33:58
Speaker 3: I think he's run a very good Iowa campaign. I
33:59
Speaker 3: think he's got a good team. I just have no
34:01
Speaker 3: clue where he will land in this closing results.
34:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he said this morning, he did, you know,
34:08
Speaker 1: full round of Sunday interviews this morning, and he said, obviously,
34:11
Speaker 1: we need to do really well. You know, his campaign's
34:14
Speaker 1: been saying, like, that they need to place at the
34:17
Speaker 1: top in Iowa. What do we think, like, I guess,
34:20
Speaker 1: what does Pete need to do to continue on after Iowa?
34:24
Speaker 4: I think, other than winning, right? Winning is definitely good.
34:29
Speaker 4: I think the second best place for Pete is to
34:32
Speaker 4: be ahead of Biden.
34:34
Speaker 1: What if it ends up Bernie, Warren, Pete, Biden?
34:37
Speaker 4: I don't want to fast forward this conversation, but I
34:41
Speaker 4: think they're all going forward. I think none of the
34:43
Speaker 4: top four will be out of this race before South Carolina.
34:47
Speaker 3: It feels like a muddle forward.
34:49
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, let me flip that then. What if it's Bernie, Warren, Biden,
34:53
Speaker 1: or Biden, Warren, and Pete's fourth?
34:55
Speaker 4: If Pete is a distant fourth, I think he would
34:57
Speaker 4: still compete in New Hampshire. He was leading New Hampshire
34:59
Speaker 4: polls like a month ago. He has the money to
35:01
Speaker 4: do that. It's seven days from now.
35:04
Speaker 3: So why not?
35:05
Speaker 15: Right.
35:05
Speaker 4: And that's the typical path. There's very few people who
35:08
Speaker 4: actually accumulate delegates here actually drop out after Iowa because
35:12
Speaker 4: Iowa and New Hampshire are so close. For all of them,
35:16
Speaker 4: the thing that is interesting is Bernie, Warren, Pete clearly
35:20
Speaker 4: have the ability to raise enough money to stay alive
35:24
Speaker 4: through South Carolina. Biden has not yet demonstrated the ability
35:28
Speaker 4: to raise that much money, but he is the only
35:30
Speaker 4: candidate who must stay through South Carolina because that is
35:33
Speaker 4: what he has designated as his firewall. So I think
35:36
Speaker 4: absent a very, very disappointing show for Pete, I think
35:38
Speaker 4: in particular, you're going to see all four most likely advance.
35:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:42
Speaker 2: All right.
35:43
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Elizabeth Warren, who we saw briefly on
35:45
Speaker 1: Friday night. where she greeted some volunteers at a bar
35:48
Speaker 1: in Des Moines right after she flew in from Washington.
35:51
Speaker 13: Yeah, my name's Ingrid Gronstal Anderson. I live in Des
35:53
Speaker 13: Moines currently. I'm from Carroll, Iowa, originally.
35:56
Speaker 16: My name's Margaret Acosta-Weirich. I'm from Iowa City originally, but
35:59
Speaker 16: I live in Des Moines now.
36:00
Speaker 13: I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic
36:03
Speaker 13: Party about electability, and I think that if 2016 taught
36:08
Speaker 13: us anything, it's that electability, no one knows what that means.
36:10
Speaker 1: It's a myth.
36:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a myth.
36:12
Speaker 13: We elected the least electable person.
36:14
Speaker 1: We.
36:16
Speaker 13: Not me personally, but the collective us. So I think
36:20
Speaker 13: picking a candidate by trying to guess what other people
36:24
Speaker 13: are going to want is not a super successful strategy.
36:27
Speaker 13: And I think that Senator Warren has a mix of
36:31
Speaker 13: a vision with really practical policy chops behind it. Both
36:36
Speaker 13: of us are attorneys, and so we actually look at
36:38
Speaker 13: the plans and look at sort of the substance behind it.
36:42
Speaker 1: What she's saying.
36:43
Speaker 13: And I think she really checks both of those boxes
36:46
Speaker 13: as a vision for change, but an actual implementation strategy
36:50
Speaker 13: to do that.
36:51
Speaker 16: Yeah, the actual plans, having actual ideas behind how we're
36:54
Speaker 16: going to accomplish things. Other candidates, I feel like, have
36:57
Speaker 16: given us sort of fairy tales about what we can
36:59
Speaker 16: accomplish if we just vote for them. And that's not
37:02
Speaker 16: enough for me. I need to know what your plan is.
37:03
Speaker 16: I need to know how you're going to accomplish these things.
37:05
Speaker 16: And she's the only one I felt like who gave
37:07
Speaker 16: me really solid answers at this point in the race
37:10
Speaker 16: who stole a lot.
37:11
Speaker 13: And I think that one thing I've heard from all
37:13
Speaker 13: the Democrats that I've talked to who are planning to
37:16
Speaker 13: caucus is whoever the candidate is, they're going to work
37:20
Speaker 13: their asses off to try to get them elected. So
37:22
Speaker 13: I think there's some unity in the party in that respect.
37:25
Speaker 13: You know, I had like two seconds with Senator Warren
37:29
Speaker 13: and my one question I had for her was, how
37:31
Speaker 13: is Bailey? And she said, he's a very good boy.
37:35
Speaker 16: We agree.
37:35
Speaker 2: He's a very good boy.
37:36
Speaker 4: He's a very good boy.
37:36
Speaker 17: Wally Pora, Mission, Kansas.
37:39
Speaker 13: Angela Walsh Fisher, Roland.
37:40
Speaker 5: Park, Kansas.
37:42
Speaker 17: Well, I think obviously 2020 is a very important election,
37:45
Speaker 17: and we have to do whatever we can to change
37:47
Speaker 17: how things are going in Washington. And Elizabeth Warren, I think,
37:51
Speaker 17: is the candidate to get it done, honestly, and to
37:54
Speaker 17: beat Donald Trump.
37:55
Speaker 18: And I like her vision and her plans.
37:58
Speaker 5: And, you know, we're from Kansas. It's traditionally a red state.
38:01
Speaker 5: But we've seen, you know, we were able to elect
38:04
Speaker 5: Sharice Davids to Congress. And so we're very happy about that.
38:08
Speaker 5: And we feel like in Kansas, a woman can win.
38:11
Speaker 5: So we feel like she's the candidate for us.
38:14
Speaker 18: Yeah, I mean, I think we can't predict who's going
38:16
Speaker 18: to be electable. And you see a lot of misogyny
38:19
Speaker 18: and racism and trying to... project who will be, quote unquote, electable.
38:24
Speaker 18: And I think if you look at 2018, it was
38:26
Speaker 18: the year of the woman. I think we're going to see.
38:29
Speaker 19: It again in 2020.
38:31
Speaker 1: I'm Taylor Larrick.
38:34
Speaker 20: I actually met the local organizer back in March and
38:39
Speaker 20: introduced her to Ian, and now both of us are
38:41
Speaker 20: planning on caucusing for Elizabeth, and we actually.
38:43
Speaker 3: Volunteer with the campaign, too.
38:46
Speaker 21: I think, like, the progressive agenda is really important to me, that, like,
38:48
Speaker 21: now is the time that we need to do something. Like,
38:50
Speaker 21: that's a very historical point in history, I feel like,
38:53
Speaker 21: of just needing.
38:55
Speaker 4: To, like, not have politics as usual.
38:57
Speaker 21: Like, we can't, you know, have the same things going on. Like,
39:00
Speaker 21: in terms of, like, corruption, like, it was a big draw, like,
39:03
Speaker 21: in her plan and her, like, campaign for me, at least. And, like,
39:06
Speaker 21: I think she has, like, the tactics and, like, the
39:10
Speaker 21: plans and the coalitions and, like, you know, general, like,
39:13
Speaker 21: just good, like, wholesome, like, intentions to, like, execute those
39:19
Speaker 21: and make them happen?
39:20
Speaker 20: You know, it's interesting, and you definitely learn how to
39:23
Speaker 20: talk to the media. For example, I was at the
39:27
Speaker 20: Liberty and Justice celebration dinner back in November. and I
39:31
Speaker 20: got interviewed by the Daily, the New York Times Daily.
39:34
Speaker 20: But unfortunately, I did not make it into the final cut.
39:38
Speaker 20: Everybody in the final cut was, I think, over 60
39:40
Speaker 20: years old. So I guess don't sleep on the youth vote. Thanks,
39:46
Speaker 20: Michael Barbaro.
39:47
Speaker 5: So.
39:49
Speaker 1: Warren didn't really give much of a speech. She kind
39:51
Speaker 1: of just thanked everyone because she wanted to spend most
39:54
Speaker 1: of the time at the bar doing a selfie line.
39:56
Speaker 1: We're actually going to go to a Warren event today,
39:58
Speaker 1: so we can actually hear the whole stump speech. Tommy,
40:00
Speaker 1: you've spent probably the most time with her staff from
40:04
Speaker 1: your On the Ground in Iowa series. What are they
40:06
Speaker 1: thinking right now? What's their path on Monday here?
40:10
Speaker 3: I think they've been deeply frustrated by the amount of
40:13
Speaker 3: time she's had to spend out of state for impeachment.
40:15
Speaker 3: And so she did this really quick event at a
40:18
Speaker 3: bar very cleverly, I think, to just get some news
40:21
Speaker 3: footage of her in the state that could get on
40:23
Speaker 3: the local news the next morning and on the internet,
40:26
Speaker 3: just to show some momentum, show that she's back. She's
40:30
Speaker 3: in Indianola right now, which is where we all saw
40:32
Speaker 3: Bernie the other day. Bernie had a couple hundred people.
40:34
Speaker 3: I'm told that there's a thousand people at this Warren
40:36
Speaker 3: event now. She's going to do a big rally in
40:39
Speaker 3: Ames later this afternoon, which is north of Des Moines
40:41
Speaker 3: and Des Moines in the afternoon. I think her team,
40:45
Speaker 3: they don't know what's going to happen like anyone else,
40:46
Speaker 3: but they feel incredibly confident that they invested in the biggest,
40:52
Speaker 3: baddest organizing team earliest, and that there's more command and
40:56
Speaker 3: control over that organization than, say, Bernie's, which is more
41:01
Speaker 3: a strategy where you empower volunteers to do things on
41:04
Speaker 3: their own. So they're incredibly professional. They're organized. In some ways,
41:09
Speaker 3: they remind me of our campaign in 2008.
41:11
Speaker 4: That's what I was going to ask you.
41:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like doing this Iowa series, part of
41:15
Speaker 3: the reasons I loved it was Getting to know all
41:18
Speaker 3: these FOs was great, but it also, you know, these
41:19
Speaker 3: were our friends in 2008. So it felt like going
41:24
Speaker 3: back in time.
41:25
Speaker 1: One of the things that someone on her campaign told
41:28
Speaker 1: me when we were at the bar is a group
41:31
Speaker 1: of voters that they're particularly counting on are people who
41:35
Speaker 1: did not participate in 2016, but voted in Iowa in 2018.
41:42
Speaker 1: And people who were, you know, like a lot of
41:44
Speaker 1: you who are listening to this podcast, inspired to start
41:47
Speaker 1: getting involved in politics because of the election of Donald Trump,
41:50
Speaker 1: and are new voters, and have been organized in the
41:52
Speaker 1: last couple years, and participated in the 2018 midterms, and
41:55
Speaker 1: a lot of these special elections around the country. And
41:58
Speaker 1: they think that that group of voters in Iowa, you know,
42:01
Speaker 1: if turnout's bigger, maybe they're not showing up as much
42:03
Speaker 1: in the polls, that those people could help put them
42:06
Speaker 1: over the top. So I thought that was interesting.
42:09
Speaker 4: It is an interesting... sort of math question for them, right?
42:13
Speaker 4: Which is there were 80,000 more people who caucused in
42:16
Speaker 4: 2008 than caucused in 2016. Who are those people?
42:20
Speaker 3: Who do they support?
42:21
Speaker 4: Are they people who were for Obama and then just didn't,
42:25
Speaker 4: were felt less engaged eight years later, who then have
42:28
Speaker 4: been reawakened by Trump? Like if we end up with
42:32
Speaker 4: a caucus turnout like 2008, which a lot of people
42:33
Speaker 4: are expecting, who makes up that gap between 08 and
42:38
Speaker 4: 16 is the most important question of this whole thing.
42:40
Speaker 3: I think they're also just betting on it. There are
42:42
Speaker 3: people who will go into caucus night worried about her
42:44
Speaker 3: quote-unquote electability, and if they see a big crowd of
42:47
Speaker 3: people in her corner, that will eliminate those concerns.
42:50
Speaker 4: The other thing I've been struck by is we've just...
42:53
Speaker 4: This is all anecdotal Peggy Noonan yard sign bullshit, but
42:58
Speaker 4: everywhere we've gone, we have been... Are you feeling struck
43:01
Speaker 4: by that?
43:01
Speaker 2: No, I'm just... I think you're going to make the
43:03
Speaker 2: same point as me.
43:04
Speaker 4: I have been struck by how many.
43:08
Speaker 4: Warren and Pete, out-of-state volunteers we have run into everywhere
43:12
Speaker 4: we go. And like, obviously you're out of state. And
43:14
Speaker 4: Bernie too. But for those three have been the most dominant.
43:18
Speaker 4: And now obviously your out-of-state volunteers cannot caucus for you,
43:21
Speaker 4: but it is a sign of both your general enthusiasm
43:25
Speaker 4: among your supporters and your organization that you can put
43:27
Speaker 4: together these out-of-state efforts that people are coming in and
43:32
Speaker 4: knocking doors and making phone calls. And there's like, you
43:34
Speaker 4: see in the bars of Des Moines, real enthusiasm for
43:40
Speaker 4: those candidates.
43:41
Speaker 3: I think with Warren, though, they've had people in smaller
43:44
Speaker 3: towns building organizations very early on. So I think their
43:47
Speaker 3: strength is broadest. But APNYB never fails you.
43:53
Speaker 1: What is that?
43:53
Speaker 3: Anecdotal Peggy Nooney on Yardside Bullshit.
43:57
Speaker 2: Let me throw a pundit question at you guys, which
43:59
Speaker 2: is this. Obviously, if somebody comes in a distant fourth,
44:02
Speaker 2: that is very bad. There are bad outcomes that can
44:05
Speaker 2: happen to people. So that caveat aside.
44:07
Speaker 1: This is top-notch analysis.
44:08
Speaker 2: No, here's my question. That was a caveat. That's not
44:11
Speaker 2: the analysis yet. And it's not even analysis. It's a question.
44:13
Speaker 2: You're going to do the analysis. That's the beauty of
44:15
Speaker 2: a question. Because there's this sort of expectation around Bernie's surge,
44:20
Speaker 2: and because Elizabeth Warren had this surge like two months ago,
44:24
Speaker 2: and it sort of dropped a little bit, is she
44:27
Speaker 2: poised better than anyone else to... have a surprise that
44:31
Speaker 2: would be good for her? Is there anyone else better
44:32
Speaker 2: positioned that if they do well would gain more from
44:35
Speaker 2: it than Elizabeth Warren?
44:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know anyone. I think that among the
44:39
Speaker 1: top four, among the top four, obviously, I sort of
44:42
Speaker 1: think it's any of the three that aren't Bernie. Like,
44:45
Speaker 1: I think if Joe Biden, after all these polls showing
44:48
Speaker 1: him sort of lagging and people thinking, and we're going
44:51
Speaker 1: to get to Joe Biden in a second, like, doesn't
44:53
Speaker 1: have the best organization, you don't see a lot of enthusiasm.
44:56
Speaker 1: If suddenly Joe Biden is like second or first in
44:58
Speaker 1: the caucus, I think Joe Biden gets a huge boost
45:00
Speaker 1: from that.
45:01
Speaker 3: That's true.
45:01
Speaker 1: I agree that Warren gets a huge boost as well.
45:03
Speaker 1: And Pete, by the way, like we were just talking about,
45:06
Speaker 1: if Pete comes in second place or Pete wins or,
45:08
Speaker 1: you know, like that's any of those.
45:10
Speaker 4: Any winner is going to get it. Any winner other
45:12
Speaker 4: than Bernie is going to get a gigantic boost. Bernie
45:14
Speaker 4: will also get a boost, but it's just, it is the,
45:17
Speaker 4: like in the 538 out, like their model of, the
45:23
Speaker 4: bigger the surprise of the victory, the bigger the bounce.
45:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should just pause on this, which is to
45:27
Speaker 3: say you don't necessarily have to win Iowa to be
45:30
Speaker 3: seen as a winner coming out of Iowa because of
45:32
Speaker 3: the expectations game, where if you surprise people with your
45:36
Speaker 3: finish or you're seen as doing well among a constituency
45:39
Speaker 3: that's important, that can let you spin out a narrative
45:42
Speaker 3: that helps you going forward.
45:43
Speaker 4: The thing to watch out for is whoever comes in
45:46
Speaker 4: fourth spinning the three-way tie for a second.
45:49
Speaker 2: I guess the reason I say that is only because
45:51
Speaker 2: it feels like a lot of her challenges have been
45:53
Speaker 2: around this sort of a slight downtick in her polling
45:58
Speaker 2: after the kind of healthcare sort of issue sort of
46:00
Speaker 2: plagued her for a few weeks, plus the electability question
46:02
Speaker 2: that's plagued her for a while, so that overperforming for
46:05
Speaker 2: her sends such an important signal.
46:07
Speaker 4: I think overperforming for her could bring back... Like, she's
46:10
Speaker 4: the only candidate who has had voters and then lost them, right?
46:14
Speaker 3: And so.
46:15
Speaker 4: There are these people who left her to go to
46:16
Speaker 4: Bernie or left her to go to Pete or someone else.
46:19
Speaker 4: And if she were to exceed expectations and become the
46:22
Speaker 4: story coming out of this, you could get some of
46:24
Speaker 4: those people back. The hard part is that the State
46:27
Speaker 4: of the Union is Tuesday and the impeachment trial ends
46:30
Speaker 4: on Wednesday. So the winner of the Iowa caucus or
46:34
Speaker 4: the proverbial winner of the Iowa caucus will get less
46:37
Speaker 4: attention on the two most important days for that person
46:41
Speaker 4: than would otherwise happen.
46:42
Speaker 2: Shame on you for racing the John Delaney supporter who
46:44
Speaker 2: left him, came back, left him, came back, and finally
46:47
Speaker 2: left him.
46:52
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Joe Biden. Michael and Elijah
47:01
Speaker 1: went to his event in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. We're
47:04
Speaker 1: going to see him here in Des Moines later today
47:07
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Let's listen to some of the folks that
47:11
Speaker 1: Michael and Elijah talked to.
47:12
Speaker 22: Arlene English, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I'm a longtime Biden supporter.
47:16
Speaker 22: I think a lot of that stems from his foreign
47:19
Speaker 22: policy experience and gravitas. I think we're seeing a lot
47:23
Speaker 22: of things in foreign policy that are unraveling unnecessarily. And
47:28
Speaker 22: I feel like we've got a lot of work to
47:30
Speaker 22: do to get our credibility back. I would not be
47:33
Speaker 22: nervous with Warren. And I like her a lot. And
47:38
Speaker 22: I like what she has to say. But I'm not
47:41
Speaker 22: sure the country's ready for it. But I wouldn't be
47:44
Speaker 22: nervous with her. I would be nervous with Bernie.
47:47
Speaker 19: Yeah, James Jeltsin from Anamosa, Iowa. Originally, now I'm living
47:51
Speaker 19: in Marion. I spent 30 years in Hollywood and 20
47:55
Speaker 19: years in Iowa City. I'm a caucus captain. Don't take
47:59
Speaker 19: no rocket scientist to figure out he's the most qualified.
48:02
Speaker 19: I mean, if that means anything anymore. For one thing,
48:05
Speaker 19: we can't go on like we're going on now. That's
48:08
Speaker 19: quite evident.
48:09
Speaker 6: And.
48:10
Speaker 19: So I talk to people and say, look, be reasonable here.
48:14
Speaker 19: Don't shoot yourself in the foot. And that's what's happening.
48:18
Speaker 23: My name is Kim Sleazer, and I'm from Marion, Iowa.
48:21
Speaker 4: My name is Addie Sleazer.
48:23
Speaker 23: I am still undecided. I thought I was decided, and
48:26
Speaker 23: then I watched the impeachment hearings this week, and I
48:30
Speaker 23: was super disappointed. And I'm veering to Joe now. I
48:34
Speaker 23: was going to caucus for Pete. But I'm concerned that
48:38
Speaker 23: we need to have somebody as our candidate that knows
48:41
Speaker 23: the system and can really dig in and get.
48:44
Speaker 3: Us a victory.
48:45
Speaker 23: I guess I need to feel comforted a little bit that,
48:49
Speaker 23: first of all, he's not going to bend and break
48:53
Speaker 23: to what's coming. Whoever is running against Trump, it is
48:56
Speaker 23: going to be ugly. And I'm disappointed in that because
49:02
Speaker 23: I think we're a better country than that. But I'm
49:05
Speaker 23: just not sure there are a lot of people that
49:07
Speaker 23: could stand up to Trump, and I'm hoping he can
49:09
Speaker 23: tell me something today that will make me believe that he.
49:11
Speaker 2: Can and that he can win.
49:13
Speaker 23: I was just telling a group of people outside, we've
49:16
Speaker 23: been going now since June, and it's it's an amazing
49:21
Speaker 23: experience and I feel so honored. it almost chokes me
49:25
Speaker 23: up because it's so grassroots democracy and I love being
49:29
Speaker 23: a part of that and I'm a teacher and so
49:32
Speaker 23: anytime I can learn something and take kids with me
49:34
Speaker 23: to learn and so taking my children with me has
49:37
Speaker 23: been such a moving experience for me as an American
49:42
Speaker 23: but also just to see them learn like they have
49:45
Speaker 23: and meet the candidates and see the candidates interact with
49:48
Speaker 23: them has been really inspiring for me This is not
49:52
Speaker 23: my first caucus year, and I've done this before, but
49:55
Speaker 23: this is really the first time they've been of age
49:57
Speaker 23: where they could go with me and understand what was happening.
50:00
Speaker 23: And I told Addie, too, I know that there's been
50:05
Speaker 23: some talk for years and years and years that we're
50:07
Speaker 23: going to lose our first in the nation status. And
50:10
Speaker 23: I think maybe we should, because this is such a
50:14
Speaker 23: great experience. Why shouldn't every state, or more than Iowa,
50:18
Speaker 23: get this chance? Because it is so extraordinary. And to
50:22
Speaker 23: meet the candidates in person, I was at Barack Obama's
50:26
Speaker 23: first rally in Cedar Rapids when he ran. And just
50:32
Speaker 23: seeing that come full circle, I mean, extraordinary. So although
50:36
Speaker 23: I love the experience, I wish other people could also
50:40
Speaker 23: take part in it and take their kids.
50:42
Speaker 1: Okay, so Biden for me is sort of the big
50:44
Speaker 1: question mark, maybe of all these candidates, because we, you know,
50:50
Speaker 1: like I said earlier... Anyone you talk to here in Iowa,
50:53
Speaker 1: they say they probably have the weakest organization of the
50:56
Speaker 1: top four candidates. You don't see a ton of enthusiasm.
51:01
Speaker 1: And yet, you know, he could be the candidate that
51:05
Speaker 1: a lot of people decide to come home to in
51:07
Speaker 1: the end. A lot of undecided people might say, oh,
51:10
Speaker 1: I think Joe Biden's the most electable. I'll give my
51:13
Speaker 1: little anecdote. When I was flying here, I was sitting
51:16
Speaker 1: next to an Iowan on the plane, and he said,
51:19
Speaker 1: I've been undecided this entire time. I really like all
51:22
Speaker 1: the top four or five candidates. I could go with
51:24
Speaker 1: any of them. I'll vote for any of them as
51:26
Speaker 1: the nominee. It's fine. It's great. He's like, but when
51:28
Speaker 1: Joni Ernst came out of the Senate impeachment trial and said, well,
51:35
Speaker 1: now we just heard about Joe and Hunter Biden. It'll
51:37
Speaker 1: be interesting what Iowans do about this. And she gave
51:39
Speaker 1: that bullshit fucking talk. he was like, that made me
51:43
Speaker 1: decide I'm going to actually caucus for Joe Biden.
51:45
Speaker 3: I heard that from an Iowa state senator that I
51:49
Speaker 3: ran into last night who said that at her very
51:51
Speaker 3: progressive church, there were a lot of people saying that
51:54
Speaker 3: Joni Ernst really pissed them off and sent them to Biden.
51:56
Speaker 5: Yeah.
51:57
Speaker 1: And, you know, when I first heard people opine that
51:59
Speaker 1: that might happen, I sort of rolled my eyes like,
52:01
Speaker 1: is that really going to push people towards him? But
52:04
Speaker 1: this guy was like, yeah, it really pissed me off.
52:05
Speaker 1: And it made me think they're scared of Joe Biden.
52:07
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, look, If Joe Biden was running
52:10
Speaker 3: a really nimble campaign, the fact that Donald Trump is
52:14
Speaker 3: being impeached because he was so scared of running against
52:17
Speaker 3: Joe Biden would be a pretty great issue for you, right?
52:20
Speaker 3: If you were really being nimble and able to make
52:22
Speaker 3: that the focus of your electability message. We'll see if
52:24
Speaker 3: they've achieved that. I've always wondered if late-breaking caucus goers
52:29
Speaker 3: will decide that they're going to default to what they
52:32
Speaker 3: believe electability means and that it's the former vice president
52:34
Speaker 3: of the United States over other candidates. We shall see.
52:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
52:37
Speaker 4: I mean, there has been sort of this running debate
52:41
Speaker 4: in political circles between a lot of people who think
52:44
Speaker 4: the Biden campaign has been underperforming, right? Just in the
52:48
Speaker 4: basic nuts and bolts of politics. Do you have enough
52:51
Speaker 4: precinct captains? Are you doing a good job fundraising? Are
52:54
Speaker 4: you leveraging your media opportunities in the right way? And
52:56
Speaker 4: the Biden campaign, who has been very confident in how
52:59
Speaker 4: they've been doing and saying, that a lot of the
53:02
Speaker 4: people who were overly obsessed with Twitter and overly engaged
53:04
Speaker 4: are not focused on the real things that matter. And
53:06
Speaker 4: I think we're going to get the answer to that
53:08
Speaker 4: question on Monday night.
53:08
Speaker 2: I would just say, you know, there's Joe Biden, the brand,
53:13
Speaker 2: there's Joe Biden, the candidate, there's Joe Biden, the campaign.
53:16
Speaker 2: It seems to me that where Joe Biden in the
53:19
Speaker 2: polls is right now as a front runner or near
53:21
Speaker 2: front runner, depending how you look at it, has been
53:23
Speaker 2: about Joe Biden, the brand, not Joe Biden, the candidate,
53:26
Speaker 2: and not necessarily Joe Biden, the campaign. Whether that is
53:29
Speaker 2: enough is, to overcome the incredible organization and more enthusiastic
53:34
Speaker 2: volunteers of other campaigns. We just don't know. Nobody knows.
53:38
Speaker 2: Before we knew that the Des Moines Register poll had
53:39
Speaker 2: been shredded like late night Enron CPAs, we were talking
53:47
Speaker 2: amongst ourselves about it. And the question we had as
53:49
Speaker 2: we were kind of trying to guess the numbers was
53:51
Speaker 2: the Biden number was the hardest one to predict because
53:54
Speaker 2: we just honestly don't know.
53:57
Speaker 4: I would add one more factor to the dimension before
53:59
Speaker 4: it is Joe Biden the person. And put aside whatever
54:02
Speaker 4: you think about his debate performances or the state of
54:04
Speaker 4: his thumb speech is Democrats love Joe Biden. They know
54:07
Speaker 4: Joe Biden. They think he is, without a doubt, and
54:09
Speaker 4: they are correct, a truly decent human being. And when
54:14
Speaker 4: you're making a decision in these moments, that is going
54:18
Speaker 4: to be, whether it's at a caucus site in Iowa
54:20
Speaker 4: or in the voting booth down the line, that's going
54:22
Speaker 4: to help him a lot. Because when people are choosing
54:24
Speaker 4: between people they like, Joe Biden is in that conversation
54:27
Speaker 4: and they know him well.
54:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:29
Speaker 3: I think the challenge for Biden is if we have
54:31
Speaker 3: sort of a muddled finish where there's a bunch of
54:33
Speaker 3: people clumped together and no clear winner, if he can't
54:37
Speaker 3: raise money quickly and online without doing events and coming
54:40
Speaker 3: off the trail, that's going to be very hard. And
54:42
Speaker 3: he's been burning through money fast. Yeah.
54:44
Speaker 4: He has $ 9 million in the bank and no demonstrated
54:47
Speaker 4: ability to raise money quickly. And you can't really afford
54:50
Speaker 4: to leave the trail now that the voting starts because
54:52
Speaker 4: you've got seven days in New Hampshire. You've got another
54:54
Speaker 4: 10 days till Nevada and then 10 days till South Carolina.
54:57
Speaker 4: And you can't due to a five-day swing in California
54:59
Speaker 4: to raise money.
55:00
Speaker 3: Bernie just rings that online cash register.
55:02
Speaker 2: And just one more uncertainty in all of this is,
55:04
Speaker 2: let's say Joe Biden does underperform in the Iowa caucus.
55:06
Speaker 2: What does that mean for the strong polling he's showing
55:09
Speaker 2: in other states? Will that change or will it remain
55:11
Speaker 2: the same? And just, I don't think anybody can confidently
55:15
Speaker 2: say what will happen.
55:16
Speaker 4: And specifically in the African-American vote, because as long as
55:18
Speaker 4: he maintains that commanding lead among that community, he is
55:23
Speaker 4: the at least the co-frontrunner to be the nominee because
55:27
Speaker 4: that is the path to accumulating pledged delegates is through
55:31
Speaker 4: primarily African-American congressional districts where you can net serious numbers
55:34
Speaker 4: of delegates where people are splitting them in more diverse
55:38
Speaker 4: districts around the country.
55:40
Speaker 1: Finally, let's talk about the frontrunner in Iowa right now,
55:42
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. We went to his event in Indianola on Saturday.
55:46
Speaker 1: Our team also went to the Bernie Sanders Bon Iver
55:50
Speaker 1: concert in Clive on Friday night. So let's hear from
55:54
Speaker 1: some people there.
55:55
Speaker 11: My name's Marona Bebe. I'm from Cedar Falls, Iowa.
55:58
Speaker 2: Burke Wallace from Waverly, Iowa.
56:00
Speaker 11: Well, I was really drawn to his consistency at the end.
56:04
Speaker 11: I was actually pretty torn between a handful of the
56:08
Speaker 11: candidates up until fairly recently, and that's really what it
56:12
Speaker 11: came down to because a lot of the policies that
56:14
Speaker 11: a lot of the people have been introducing are fairly similar.
56:17
Speaker 11: I just feel like Bernie is more trustworthy because he's
56:20
Speaker 11: been saying the same stuff for years and years and years. Yeah,
56:24
Speaker 11: I'm definitely not One of those people who's Bernie or bust,
56:27
Speaker 11: you know, I'm going to support whoever is the Democratic nominee,
56:31
Speaker 11: regardless of who it is. Obviously, I have some people
56:34
Speaker 11: that I prefer over others, but at the end of
56:36
Speaker 11: the day, I just don't want four more years of Trump.
56:40
Speaker 2: No four more years of Trump.
56:41
Speaker 24: After I come back from being abroad, I'm definitely, whoever
56:44
Speaker 24: is the Democratic nominee, that's who I'm going for.
56:47
Speaker 14: Sophia Rodriguez, and I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. I was
56:50
Speaker 14: kind of struggling between the two of them, but I
56:52
Speaker 14: think since I.
56:53
Speaker 3: Have a history.
56:55
Speaker 14: Well, Bernie Sanders was the politician that really got me
56:58
Speaker 14: involved in politics back in 2016. So I feel like
57:00
Speaker 14: I have a loyalty to him. And I think that
57:04
Speaker 14: Bernie Sanders has more charisma to him to say. So
57:08
Speaker 14: I just, I would prefer to see him as my president,
57:10
Speaker 14: but if not, I'd love Elizabeth Warren as well. So
57:13
Speaker 14: Bernie and Warren have such more progressive ideas and values
57:15
Speaker 14: where I feel like Biden or Pete Buttigieg are much
57:18
Speaker 14: more moderate candidates where they can appeal to They're very moderate.
57:21
Speaker 14: They could easily be Republicans, to say so. And I
57:24
Speaker 14: think that Bernie and Warren just bring so much more
57:28
Speaker 14: progressive ideas. So that's what gets me going.
57:31
Speaker 1: My name is.
57:31
Speaker 4: Derek Eden, D-E-R-E-K-E-A-D-O-N, and I live in West Des Moines.
57:37
Speaker 4: And who are these folks who are here with you?
57:39
Speaker 24: This is my daughter, Aubrey, who's seven, and on my
57:42
Speaker 24: shoulders is Maddox, who's four.
57:44
Speaker 4: Do you plan on caucusing on Monday?
57:47
Speaker 7: Yes.
57:48
Speaker 2: And do you have your mind made up that you're
57:49
Speaker 2: doing it for Bernie?
57:51
Speaker 4: I'll be caucusing for Bernie. I endorsed him a couple
57:54
Speaker 4: weeks ago.
57:55
Speaker 2: I used to work for Julian Castro's campaign.
57:58
Speaker 24: I've just been really impressed with his consistency and excited
58:03
Speaker 24: to see what happens on Monday. You know, at a
58:04
Speaker 24: certain point, I think in October, my wife asked, well,
58:09
Speaker 24: you know, I don't think Julian's going to be viable
58:11
Speaker 24: in our precinct. And he might not make it all
58:13
Speaker 24: the way through Iowa, so who are you going to
58:15
Speaker 24: caucus for? And I think a lot of Iowans that
58:21
Speaker 24: consider themselves progressive, the choices seem like Bernie or Warren.
58:25
Speaker 24: To me, Bernie's kind of consistency, especially on Medicare for All,
58:31
Speaker 24: kind of his authenticity with working class voters, it really
58:35
Speaker 24: resonates with me, my background. And I think the energy
58:40
Speaker 24: that we're seeing from his campaign, all the people here,
58:43
Speaker 24: all the new people that he's bringing in, that's what.
58:45
Speaker 3: We need as Democrats.
58:47
Speaker 24: For too long, we've been going after this small segment
58:50
Speaker 24: of the electorate, swing voters, and we need to expand,
58:54
Speaker 24: in my opinion.
58:56
Speaker 4: My name is Olivia George.
58:57
Speaker 1: I'm from Des Moines.
58:58
Speaker 11: My name is Autumn Ellisor.
58:59
Speaker 15: I'm from Des Moines.
59:01
Speaker 3: Marissa Dumont from Des Moines.
59:03
Speaker 15: Bernie's stance is on almost everything aligned with my personal beliefs, and, like, effectively,
59:08
Speaker 15: I just decided, like, I can either hope that you
59:12
Speaker 15: know like we can achieve all these radical things that
59:15
Speaker 15: Bernie thinks that we can or I can kind of
59:18
Speaker 15: like be defeatist and go for a more moderate candidate
59:21
Speaker 15: and I chose to hope and.
59:22
Speaker 11: It's working out really well so that's what's up.
59:25
Speaker 15: When Bernie was our age he was doing what we
59:27
Speaker 15: were doing and like He was out in the streets,
59:29
Speaker 15: he was getting arrested, and I feel like a lot
59:32
Speaker 15: of us really resonate with that.
59:34
Speaker 11: And also, Bernie.
59:36
Speaker 15: Has, without fail, been unwaveringly supportive of solving issues that
59:44
Speaker 15: face young people particularly. I don't have health insurance. I
59:48
Speaker 15: don't know if I'm going to be able to pay
59:49
Speaker 15: off my student loans. So I feel like he understands
59:52
Speaker 15: issues facing us, and he's willing to address them.
59:55
Speaker 7: All right.
59:55
Speaker 3: Hi, what's your name and where are you from?
59:58
Speaker 2: Michael Barbaro from Brooklyn, New York.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: And why are you here today?
1:00:04
Speaker 4: I wanted to attend a Bernie rally in order to
1:00:08
Speaker 4: better educate myself as a podcaster.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: So, you know, my thought listening to Bernie's whole stump speech,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: which is the first time I heard his speech in
1:00:17
Speaker 1: its entirety, is it was a speech that was not
1:00:22
Speaker 1: just for his supporters, but for most Democrats in the party.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: Whatever you think of Bernie Sanders, if you just heard
1:00:29
Speaker 1: that speech in isolation, he talks about why electability is important,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: why beating Trump is important, why Trump is the most
1:00:36
Speaker 1: dangerous president of our time. He goes through a list
1:00:38
Speaker 1: of issues. He talks in big value statements about those issues.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Nothing seems too radical or too left. It actually seemed
1:00:47
Speaker 1: like a speech that a mainstream Democrat could like, which
1:00:49
Speaker 1: made me think Bernie is... thinking about maybe past Iowa
1:00:54
Speaker 1: and what it would be like to try to win
1:00:55
Speaker 1: the Democratic nomination.
1:00:56
Speaker 4: I thought it was very notable that very early in
1:00:59
Speaker 4: the speech, he made it 100% clear that if he
1:01:02
Speaker 4: was not the nominee, which he hoped he would be,
1:01:03
Speaker 4: he would get behind whoever that person was, which if
1:01:06
Speaker 4: you're on Twitter, you understand the surrogate war context for that.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: But he's addressing a concern that some number of Democrats has.
1:01:14
Speaker 4: He does it very early, and it was very smart,
1:01:17
Speaker 4: I thought.
1:01:17
Speaker 2: It was also explicit. It was just such an explicit
1:01:19
Speaker 2: call to unity. It was And it's what you say
1:01:21
Speaker 2: when you think you're going to win, to John's point.
1:01:24
Speaker 2: He also said, talked about Medicare for all, and he
1:01:26
Speaker 2: said it in a way that I, maybe he says
1:01:29
Speaker 2: it this way on the stump. He doesn't, he hasn't
1:01:30
Speaker 2: said it in this way exactly in the debate. He said,
1:01:32
Speaker 2: we're going to improve and expand Medicare to all. And
1:01:36
Speaker 2: I found it to be just a subtle distinction in
1:01:38
Speaker 2: how he talks about Medicare for all. But, you know,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Medicare for all as a phrase is, you know, we're
1:01:44
Speaker 2: all well-versed in it.
1:01:45
Speaker 3: We've heard it a million times.
1:01:46
Speaker 2: But if you're just listening to somebody talk about this
1:01:48
Speaker 2: as an issue, not as a a shibboleth, not as
1:01:53
Speaker 2: an indicator of where a person is in the ideological
1:01:55
Speaker 2: wars online. He was describing it in the most practical,
1:02:00
Speaker 2: moderate-sounding way you can describe single-payer health care.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: I also think we sometimes forget that Bernie has been
1:02:06
Speaker 3: able to prepare for this day since 2016, and that's
1:02:09
Speaker 3: a real head start. I mean, there's a lot of
1:02:11
Speaker 3: really good, well-run campaigns and great staffers out there on
1:02:15
Speaker 3: other campaigns, but in some way, I felt like the
1:02:18
Speaker 3: last several weeks I've spent with the Bernie people, they
1:02:21
Speaker 3: seem the most confident. They seem like they've been thinking
1:02:23
Speaker 3: through things for a long time, doing things in non-traditional
1:02:26
Speaker 3: ways when it comes to the media. They're kind of
1:02:28
Speaker 3: the most ready for prime time right now. The number
1:02:31
Speaker 3: of surrogates they've had in the state this past couple
1:02:34
Speaker 3: of weeks that are high wattage, they had 7,000 people
1:02:37
Speaker 3: watching Vampire Weekend and Bernie last night. They had AOC
1:02:40
Speaker 3: last week. Surrogate events don't mean that all those people
1:02:44
Speaker 3: are going to caucus for you, but The Bernie folks
1:02:47
Speaker 3: told me that of the 800 or so people that
1:02:50
Speaker 3: went to her AOC's Iowa City event, they got 300
1:02:55
Speaker 3: additional volunteer shifts out of those people. So that adds
1:02:59
Speaker 3: up over time. And they're also telling press about a
1:03:03
Speaker 3: specific focus on Latino voters because 3,000 Latino voters in
1:03:08
Speaker 3: Iowa caucused, but there's 50,000 registered Latino voters. And if
1:03:11
Speaker 3: you can close that gap, that's a huge number of
1:03:14
Speaker 3: new people. And Bernie actually does well with Latino voters.
1:03:17
Speaker 3: So they've been, they have a strategy. They've been thinking
1:03:19
Speaker 3: about it. We'll see if they can execute. We'll see
1:03:22
Speaker 3: if I'm just being spun. Very possible, but it's impressive
1:03:25
Speaker 3: to see them.
1:03:26
Speaker 2: Not Tommy, not Tommy Vitor.
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I do want to say one, one last thing before
1:03:31
Speaker 1: we go about how the results are judged on Monday night.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: If you've listened to Tommy series, you know that the
1:03:38
Speaker 1: Iowa democratic party will, for the first time, they're going to,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: it's basically going to be four different results. The results
1:03:44
Speaker 1: of the first alignment, the results of the final alignment,
1:03:48
Speaker 1: which is when anyone who doesn't meet that 15% threshold
1:03:52
Speaker 1: sort of realigns to their second choice candidate. They will
1:03:56
Speaker 1: release the state delegate equivalents and then the number of
1:03:59
Speaker 1: pledged delegates to the conventions. So obviously there could be
1:04:03
Speaker 1: different winners among all those different categories. What do you
1:04:06
Speaker 1: guys think, what should matter the most as we are
1:04:10
Speaker 1: judging the strength of these different campaigns heading out of Iowa?
1:04:14
Speaker 4: Delegates should matter because that's how you get the nomination.
1:04:17
Speaker 4: I think the raw number who has the most votes
1:04:23
Speaker 4: will probably be the one that gets the most attention.
1:04:26
Speaker 4: Because even though delegates do matter, Iowa represents a tiny
1:04:30
Speaker 4: percentage of the overall delegates you need to reach the
1:04:33
Speaker 4: majority of pledged delegates. So it's a drop in the
1:04:35
Speaker 4: bucket relatively. So the person who gets the most votes
1:04:38
Speaker 4: will be seen, I think, by a lot of press
1:04:40
Speaker 4: as the person who wins Iowa. It's also likely it's
1:04:42
Speaker 4: the same person who succeeds in all of those.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:04:46
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:04:46
Speaker 3: I mean, look, the winner of the nomination is the
1:04:49
Speaker 3: person who gets the most delegates period.
1:04:51
Speaker 13: Right.
1:04:52
Speaker 3: And so the Iowa democratic party and Troy price and
1:04:54
Speaker 3: his team have done a great job preparing for this day, uh,
1:04:57
Speaker 3: have been really trying to focus reporters attention on state
1:05:00
Speaker 3: delegate equivalents, uh, and the ultimate pledge delegates that will
1:05:03
Speaker 3: come out of Iowa. That said, if there's a split result, say,
1:05:07
Speaker 3: let's say Andrew Yang gets the most raw vote total
1:05:11
Speaker 3: and Bernie wins the delegates. Of course, the Yang campaign
1:05:14
Speaker 3: would spin that they had the most votes. And who
1:05:17
Speaker 3: is going to hear that spin and say, no, no, no, no,
1:05:20
Speaker 3: this state delegate equivalent thing, which me, Tommy Vitor, having
1:05:24
Speaker 3: worked in Iowa for over a decade, still can't understand
1:05:27
Speaker 3: or explain to you is more important, right? So like,
1:05:30
Speaker 3: it could be kind of a muddled mess. Now, if
1:05:31
Speaker 3: someone runs away with it, it won't be a problem.
1:05:34
Speaker 3: But look, credit to the Iowa Democratic Party for trying
1:05:36
Speaker 3: to release more data and be more transparent. But it
1:05:39
Speaker 3: does leave more avenues for spin. You can also see
1:05:41
Speaker 3: the Pete campaign trying to focus people on counties in
1:05:46
Speaker 3: Iowa that went from Obama to Trump and make that
1:05:49
Speaker 3: an electability narrative, which is clever. But we'll see if
1:05:52
Speaker 3: that works.
1:05:53
Speaker 4: Expectations, I think, is going to determine what happens, right?
1:05:56
Speaker 4: Like if someone else wins the raw vote total and
1:06:01
Speaker 4: Sanders wins delegates, that other person is probably going to
1:06:04
Speaker 4: get a bigger boost, right?
1:06:06
Speaker 13: Right.
1:06:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, I think you're right. The campaigns
1:06:10
Speaker 1: will be able to spin different results as good for them,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: and they should, right? I do think as we leave Iowa,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: it's good for everyone who's sort of been paying attention
1:06:19
Speaker 1: to a primary for the first time to remember that
1:06:21
Speaker 1: it is a race for delegates. Because we went through
1:06:25
Speaker 1: this back in 08 too, where sometimes the Clinton campaign
1:06:28
Speaker 1: would say, oh, we won. bigger states with more populations,
1:06:32
Speaker 1: you know, and then we'd say... We had to say something.
1:06:35
Speaker 1: Which is true, you know. But what happens is.
1:06:37
Speaker 3: We had to say something.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: And it's fine to spin however you want to spin,
1:06:41
Speaker 1: but everyone, we'll say this a million times between now
1:06:45
Speaker 1: and the convention, it is a race for delegates. The
1:06:47
Speaker 1: person with the most delegates wins the nomination. And obviously,
1:06:53
Speaker 1: if you get a majority of pledged delegates, you clinch
1:06:55
Speaker 1: the nomination, but we also could end up with a
1:06:57
Speaker 1: situation where you get to the convention and someone has
1:07:00
Speaker 1: a plurality of delegates, right?
1:07:03
Speaker 4: That's highly likely.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: That's highly likely with this many candidates. And it would be,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: at least in my opinion, pretty fucking crazy to have
1:07:12
Speaker 1: the person who won the plurality of delegates, who has
1:07:14
Speaker 1: the most delegates, to not have that person, that candidate,
1:07:17
Speaker 1: win the nomination. And so the way the delegates are
1:07:20
Speaker 1: allocated is different in each state, and it's weird, and
1:07:23
Speaker 1: it's not like the Republicans in a lot of states
1:07:25
Speaker 1: where it's just winner take all, so just keep an
1:07:27
Speaker 1: eye on the candidate delegate totals as we go from
1:07:31
Speaker 1: state to state because those are most important.
1:07:32
Speaker 4: This is sort of the advantage of having Iowa first
1:07:34
Speaker 4: because it is the only state where you get delegate
1:07:37
Speaker 4: answers at the same time. And every other state, which
1:07:41
Speaker 4: just runs a primary, the AP or whoever just calls
1:07:43
Speaker 4: it and it says, you know, Clinton wins X state.
1:07:48
Speaker 4: And it takes a long time to get the congressional
1:07:50
Speaker 4: district by district data to determine delegate allocation. We had
1:07:53
Speaker 4: this problem for us in Nevada.
1:07:55
Speaker 1: Famously in Nevada.
1:07:56
Speaker 4: In 2008. Where they called the state for Clinton. Even
1:08:00
Speaker 4: though it was a caucus, she had the most raw vote.
1:08:02
Speaker 4: And then a few hours later, we did the math,
1:08:05
Speaker 4: and it turned out that we had won this congressional
1:08:08
Speaker 4: district up in the northern part of the state, and
1:08:11
Speaker 4: we actually netted more delegates in there. But it was impossible.
1:08:14
Speaker 4: It was very hard to spin the.
1:08:15
Speaker 3: Reporters on that.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: Well, and that's what's important is because if that happens
1:08:17
Speaker 1: in– it might not happen in Iowa. It might happen
1:08:19
Speaker 1: in Nevada. It might happen in some other state. Someone
1:08:21
Speaker 1: winning the popular vote, but another candidate winning one more
1:08:25
Speaker 1: delegate than that doesn't mean it was rigged or unfair
1:08:27
Speaker 1: or anything like that. That's the way this is. And
1:08:30
Speaker 1: everyone signed up for this ahead of time, knowing the rules.
1:08:33
Speaker 3: This is not rigged. These are the rules. And I
1:08:35
Speaker 3: do think that's an important distinction.
1:08:36
Speaker 14: Yeah.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, we will record one more bonus pod on
1:08:44
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning right after this. after we know the results
1:08:47
Speaker 1: of Iowa. And yeah, we'll talk to you then.
1:08:49
Speaker 2: Listen to this episode pretty quick because it turns into
1:08:52
Speaker 2: a pumpkin.
1:08:54
Speaker 3: And listen to my Iowa series. What's wrong with you?
1:08:55
Speaker 3: Hurry up.
1:08:56
Speaker 2: Listen to Tommy's Iowa series.
1:08:57
Speaker 3: Please.
1:08:58
Speaker 2: I'm sorry about my joke about Vogue. It was probably
1:09:00
Speaker 2: too much.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: Bye, guys.
1:09:03
Speaker 5: Bye.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
1:09:09
Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
1:09:13
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
1:09:16
Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
1:09:20
Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
1:09:22
Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.