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Transcript

"We won.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the gang is all here to talk
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: about the best news we've had to discuss on this podcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been defeated and Joe Biden will be
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the 46th president of the United States. Kamala Harris will
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: be our next vice president, the first woman to hold
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the office, as well as the first black woman and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the first Indian American. This all became apparent early this
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: morning when Biden's vote count passed Trump's in Pennsylvania and Georgia,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and later when Biden's lead grew after more ballots were
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: counted in Arizona and Nevada, mathematically sealing off Trump's path
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to the presidency. When all is said and done, Biden
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: will likely have 306 electoral votes and the second largest
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: popular vote margin since the 1996 presidential election.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Fellas!
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Overall reactions, thoughts, feelings, tears of joy.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It's overwhelming.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: It's overwhelming. I keep thinking about Joe Biden. Look, nobody
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: deserves to be president, but Joe Biden has been trying
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: to achieve this job for several decades now. And when
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: you think about how much that period of time has
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: humbled him, when you think about all the personal tragedy
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: that he's gone through with his family and more recently
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: with Beau's passing, I just found myself this morning waking
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: up and thinking about what it must be like for
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: him to have achieved this moment. The sort of bittersweet
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: nature of it, the journey that he's been on, the
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: fact that his core decency and kindness as a human
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: being is seemingly what got him elected. It's a lot
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: to process. We've all been dreaming of this moment for
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: four years. I literally can't believe it happened. And when
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: this sentimental part is done, I'd like to do some
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: score settling. So just put a button in this. Dan,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: what do you think?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: What's your thoughts?
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: It's hard to believe it's happened. We've waited for this
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: for so long. People all around this country have worked
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: for this for so long. People started organizing the day
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: after Trump won in 2016. And the fact that it
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: is here. And there's just so much to think about.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: Tommy's exactly right. I thought about how Joe Biden feels
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: about this. The fact that his son, Beau, as he
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: was dying, talked to Joe Biden about running for president
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: and what that means. I thought about all the people
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: who have been so afraid about what Trump would do
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: to them over all these four years. And the idea
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: that there might be some reprieve from that. It's just
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: as it is a truly overwhelming thing. Like normally when
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: we do these podcasts, like I look at the outline
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: and I'll make some notes about things I would say.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And today I just wrote, be happy.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Like, that's just, this is a, this is a huge,
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: gigantic thing. We were at a pivot point in this
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: country and we made the right choice against all of
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: the odds. And it's just fucking great.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That's why I took no notes too, Dan. It's not the, uh, Hangover.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't either. We'll all have more formed thoughts next week.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: We'll have smarter points to make, I'm sure. We'll be
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: more articulate. But for today, this pod is just going
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to be whatever jumps into our heads.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: I also just I think this will be very sentimental.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I'm emotional.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: I am having trouble talking. And I think it's, you know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: I remember when we started talking about this four years
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: ago and the fears that we had and the concerns
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: that we had about just how much damage someone like
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump could do, whether our institutions were up for it,
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: whether people were up for it, whether cynicism would take hold,
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: whether we'd be able to mount enough of a response,
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: a concerted response over years. This felt like a stress
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: test for democracy. Every single day, it was a new threat,
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: a new a new assault on our institutions, a new
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: bit of misinformation, a new sign that Republicans would capitulate.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: And through it all, people showed up at protests. They
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: showed up to vote. They showed up in massive numbers here.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: They organized and they volunteered. And the threat against our institutions,
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: the threat of the damage that could do, the threat
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: that Donald Trump could do to our culture, they were
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: all very, very real. And the fact that we can
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: say here now that we were able to defeat this incumbent,
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: that we did it with the most votes ever cast
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: in history is such an incredible achievement. It's an incredible achievement.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: And I think it took a few days for that
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: to sink in, in part because of how the votes
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: were counted, in part because Republicans went to such great
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: lengths to make counting those votes so hard. But I
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: hope everybody allows it to sink in today, that this
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: was an extraordinary achievement. We managed, in the face of
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: encroaching authoritarianism, encroaching fascism, to beat it back with the
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: power of democracy. There's a lot of work to do.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of the problems that Donald Trump took
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: advantage of that remain. There's two elections in Georgia we'll
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: have to fight, but I hope everybody takes the time
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: to feel incredibly grateful and proud And I'm thankful for
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: the fact that we were able to do this together
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: because it was harder than we thought and we won.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've all been on campaigns. We're campaign staffers
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: at heart. So, of course, I thought about how happy
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I was for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: families and all their campaign staff and organizers and volunteers,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: especially since they all had to run a campaign from
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: their houses. They're probably not all together right now, which
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: is really tough. And then I also thought, like, this
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: has been a different campaign because it's been a much
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: bigger campaign in that at least half the country was
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: involved in this campaign. We were all part of the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign at one point because this was such an
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: important election and democracy was on the line. And, Lovett,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking exactly about what you just said.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: When we first did this, my biggest fear was that,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump wins the presidency and people give
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: up on politics, you know, and they think, this isn't
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: worth it. We can't fix this. It's beyond fixing. And
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of things that happened over the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: last four years that I worried would make people even
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: more cynical about politics. And people kept fighting. The people
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: who listened to this podcast kept fighting. Millions of people
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: across the country, people who organized, people who volunteered, they
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: worked so hard and they just kept believing. And in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the days and weeks before this election, what I worried about,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I worried about Trump winning. I worried about sort of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the policy consequences of Trump winning. What do you do
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to our institutions? All that stuff. But I just thought
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: about all the, like just all the people who stepped
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: up and took a chance and what would happen if
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: he won and what that would do to them, what
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that would do to their belief about our ability to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: actually change this country and, um, and defend democracy. And
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: so It is a joy. It's also like a relief.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I've been saying to people, I feel like for the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: last year, the last four years, we've all been on
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a plane that's making a crash landing and the pilot's like, okay,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: we've got this. We're going to be okay. We're foaming
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the runway. Don't worry. We're going to make it. But
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: it still doesn't feel great. even towards the end, even
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: like the last couple of days. It's like, I think
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: we're there, but we're not quite there yet. I guess
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: we're still not quite there yet, but we're close.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: It is the most 2020 way for this to have
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: played itself out. Cause in it, in a normal world,
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: in a normal year with a normal election, they would have,
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: we would have had some disappointment when Florida wasn't going
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: our way or North Carolina wasn't going our way, but
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: they would have quickly called Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, Late,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: they would call the election late in the night. Biden
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: would go ahead in Georgia. We'd be even more excited.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: But instead, it's just this slow rolling process over several
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: days where you just can't have like we have to
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: we have to suffer through that slow process and we
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: have to suffer through it in isolation.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: As opposed to all being together with, you know, all
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: of our friends and family and the Biden staff being
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: together and being some giant event. at the Chase Center
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: in Wilmington for Biden supporters, none of that. But in
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: the end, the same thing happens. Donald Trump loses, Joe
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Biden wins, and we get the opportunity to begin undoing
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: all of this damage and starting to put things right
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: in this country, which is going to take a ton
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: of work. But at least we have this. This was
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: table stakes. We didn't have any chance to do any
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: of that. We had to win this.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: That was the feeling that I had too, that, As
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: we went into the final day of the election, we
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: talked about it before, what it would look like if
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump won. We tried to be really, to make
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: sure people weren't complacent no matter what polls said. But
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: I remember, I felt going into the final days, like
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: whatever happens this election, we can take on every single
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: challenge that comes up out of it. We don't win
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: the Senate. We can win that fight. We go up
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: in a run-offs in Georgia. We can fight that fight.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: These are fights that we know how to fight. We
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: can tackle anything as long as we win the White House.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: As long as we win the White House, we have
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: a fucking chance. And, you know, John said this about,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: you know, not feeling, not feeling like it's a victory,
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: feeling like it's a relief. I do think that's right.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: I do think that's, that's how it feels because we
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: went through something really tragic and really awful and it's,
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: and we're going to be going through it for a
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: long time.
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't gloss over like
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: what we, like the, the, the pain and suffering that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: was inflicted on so many people in this country because
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: of this presidency, you.
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: Know, when you're, when your house is on fire and,
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: You don't stop in the doorway on your way out
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: and turn around and say, wow, I can't believe what
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: we just went through. You're in panic.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: You're in crisis. You get out.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: You get out. You make sure everybody's okay.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: You make sure.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: That you got the dog and the cat and that
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: everybody's okay. And then you catch your breath and you
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: take a second and then you realize what happened. So
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: I think we're just at the beginning of kind of
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: unpacking this.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: That's all.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: It's fun to get to the finish line and realize
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: that so many of the heroes of this story are
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: people we got to meet and spend time with along
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: the way. Like all those organizers out in Iowa who
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: were maybe working for different campaigns who ended up on
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the Biden campaign and like literally delivered precincts and counties
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: for Joe Biden and the reason he won. People like
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: LaTosha Brown, who was on the HBO show in October
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: of 2018, who was organizing in Georgia, was absolutely critical
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: to getting to this result. Stacey Abrams, someone we got
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: to know well. The Positive America World raised millions of
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: dollars for Fair Fight Action, her organization.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: There's just so many people. I shouldn't have listed people
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: because now I'm going to forget people. So many Heroes
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: who just like work their asses off in ways big
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: and small in their own lives and made this possible.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: It's a story about sustained activism.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, Stacey is sort of the avatar for the
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: American people in this, which is she is someone who,
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: after Trump won, took this giant risk as a black
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: woman to run statewide in Georgia, organizes her ass off.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: And then has that stolen from her because our institutions failed?
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: And it would have been so easy for her to
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: just go do something else, to give up, to wait
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: for another race down the road. And she got up
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: off the map the next day and started organizing everywhere.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: And because she did that, Joe Biden is going to
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: win Georgia. And we're going to have a chance to
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: take the Senate with those Senate races. It's exactly who
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: she is and what she did just symbolizes everything that
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: got us to this point where we can defeat Donald Trump.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: It has just been an unprecedented alliance and revival of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: grassroots democracy from people pouring into airports to protest the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Muslim ban, to the women's march, to people going to
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the border about family separation, to the students who started
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the March for Our Lives and the Sunrise Movement and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter in the streets and the organized... I mean,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: it's just, there's so much that's happened over the last
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: four years that it's just beyond... traditional politics and campaigns
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that goes to the heart of organizing in this country.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And so that's a long list of people, as you started, Tommy,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: that we have to thank, that we can't even begin
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: to thank in this one podcast that are responsible for today.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Can I just also add that Florida, it's not you,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: it's me. It was really more of a summer thing.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I just think that it's time for us to move
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: on and see other swing states. I'm sick of your shit.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I'm sick of the way your stupid Don't do that.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: Nope, nope. You know, we got to– Tommy, we're going
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: to talk after this, but I need you to remind
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: you of one important fact, which is– No.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: In 2022– I know what you're going to say. Marco
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: fucking Rubio is up for reelection. And if we could
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: take one thing that we could go work on– We
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: have to, yeah. To go take him down.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Don't be the good angel. Be the devil today. I
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: want to be an asshole.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: You know what– I am offering you vengeance.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I'll take vengeance. I'll take vengeance.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought so many times over the last couple
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: of days about saying this about Florida. And I thought
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: about all of our friends in Florida who work in politics.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And then I thought about Marco Rubio and I was like, okay,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: we're still in Florida.
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: I just want to, and I want to just remember,
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: just as long as we're on the subject of Marco Rubio,
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: because you brought it up. I just want to point
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: out that Marco Rubio, who still does not believe Donald
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: Trump should be allowed to have control over nuclear weapons,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: continues to be his position. decided in the final moments
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: of this campaign to outright embrace Donald Trump's authoritarian and
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: violent tendencies by praising people for trying to run a
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: fucking bus off the road. Marco Rubio, you are fully exposed.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: We saw you hiding for four years. We know why
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: you were hiding. We'll find you. We'll find you.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: That's all. Politically.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Want to talk about Trump, want to talk about down
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ballot races, talk about what's next, but let's start with
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's win. How did he do it? What's his
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: coalition look like? And how did the outcome compare with
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: our expectations? Dan, why don't you start?
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: He won by generating a massive amount of turnout. There
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: was a gigantic blue wave here. It was also met
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: by a red wave, but there's a giant wave of turnout.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: He turned out Democratic base, Massive African-American turnout all across
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: the country. And he was able to get support from independents,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: some moderate Republicans, and a lot of the voters who
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: supported third-party.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Cancer in 2016.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: He was able to do that because he had a
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: broadly appealing message that was also motivating. And also the
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: party stuck together at no point that I can remember
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: in my life, whether it was Bernie Sanders or AOC
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: or everyone else. knew that Donald Trump was an existential
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: threat to this country. Joe Biden, even if you didn't
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: agree with him on everything, was the right person to
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: be president at that time and they worked their asses
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: off for it. And it's something I think the entire
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: party should be proud of.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: I'd also just want to add one thing to that too,
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: which is I think if the votes were counted in
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: the order that they received, what we would be saying
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: right now as of this recording is that Joe Biden
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: rebuilt the blue wall, which was in hindsight more of
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: a blue divider, a blue picket fence.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: One of the first shades, yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Like those dividers in gyms, you know, that always have
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: a door for assemblies. But and Georgia and Arizona. And
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: we would be talking about the fact that Joe Biden
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: managed to expand the map. Pennsylvania, you know, we take
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: this thing of counting votes and turn it into a
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: story because it's a we're prone to drama because it's
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: interesting because it's how the news is covered and not
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: the fault of people who cover it. This is how
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: the information is given out. And we're all on fever
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: in a fever pitch to find out what happened. But
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I The answer is revealed. It is not, you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden doesn't take the lead. What happens is the
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: lead that was always there is revealed. Joe Biden won
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: everywhere and all over at once. We're just finding out
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: slowly and not in the right order because the Republicans
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: in the state of Pennsylvania set out to make it
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: both wrong to count ballots before the vote and wrong
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: to count ballots after.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, stipulate here, there is a lot
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: we don't know about who voted for which candidate and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: why from a demographic perspective, because exit polls are usually, um,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: bad and not very informative after an election specifically after
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: this election, when there was so much voting by mail
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: versus voting in person. So there's a lot of people
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: who will delve into this over the coming weeks and month.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: We should wait until we get sort of better data
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to make, to draw any conclusions. I realized that's not
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: stopping Twitter because that's Twitter, but, um, What we can
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: determine is we can look at, you know, sort of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: county results and states and which way they flipped. And,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you know, this was in many ways a continuation of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the 2018 map. We flipped Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona statewide
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: like we did in 2018. This time we added Georgia,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: which we came close to doing in 2018. The major
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: difference was Democrats turned out in a huge way in 2018.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And in 2020, because Trump was on the ballot, Republicans
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: also met our turnout. And so in all those states,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: it was a little closer. In some of those states,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: it was a little closer. And we had trouble in
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: some of the House races that were sort of on
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the fringe of the coalition in 2018. But that's basically
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: what happened. We saw, again, suburbs, cities and suburbs became
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: even bluer. Rural America and the exurbs became redder. And
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that was, we're still a very divided country as we
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: were in 2016, as we were in 2018, as we
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: are again in 2020. But fortunately, like we were able
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to win because as much as Republicans turned out their
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: base and then some, we met that turnout with enough
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of our own.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: I do think we need to also, I think we
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: actually failed to internalize something after 2018. We did win
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: in a wave, but I think in places like Texas
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: and elsewhere, I think some of the places where it
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: was very close, I don't think we ever fully realized
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: countenance just how much of a turnout machine the Republicans
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: have produced.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: We've talked about this before, but Ted.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: Cruz, Ted Cruz, worst personality, you know, in a tough
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: category in the Senate, managed to turn out millions of people.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: Beto hit his number, but Ted Cruz did better than expected.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: So I think we need to really kind of unpack
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: this Republican turnout machine and accept it as part of
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: our challenges in the next few years.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: That's all.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: John, listen, I agree with you that we shouldn't take
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: our cues from Twitter. But something I saw on Twitter
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: that was interesting was Tom Bonior of Target Smart pointed out.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: That we- That's real data.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: That's real data.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: We were getting smoked when it comes to voter registration
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: during the pandemic. And then after the George Floyd Black
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Lives Matter demonstrations, there was a huge spike in voter registration.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: So I do think that's a piece of the story,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: but it does totally cut against months and months of
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: mainstream media narrative about how that was going to drive
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: voters away somehow from the Democratic Party. And it was
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: just interesting.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: One other question that may be kind of unique to
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: this election. I'm just curious what you guys think. It's
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: just Republicans kept knocking on doors, right? And Democrats didn't
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: do it as much because of the pandemic because we
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: were responsible and didn't resume until later. I wonder how
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: much that made a difference.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I do too. And I think we don't know enough yet.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I would love to like have A bunch of people
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: do research into that. I have no idea. I'm trying
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to be very careful in drawing conclusions at this stage
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: about the election. I think there'll be plenty of time.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And I think it's somewhat problematic that you see a
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: lot of fights and debates already based on information that
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: we just don't know is real yet.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: There'll be tons of time to confirm your priors. Tons
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: of time.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: And there's just like a lot of confusing information in
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: the facts we do have, which is vote totals to date.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: When you look at polling, why would it at all
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: be possible the polls would be mostly right in Minnesota
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: and then very off in Wisconsin, a state that is
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: very demographically similar? In most cases, Biden outran down-ballot Democrats
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: and Trump underperformed down-ballot Republicans. But that's not true across
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: every state either. And there are third-party candidates at the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Senate level that mess that up a little bit. The
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: main Senate race is mind-boggling on about 100 different levels
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: it has to be unpacked. So we should not look
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: at the exit polls. We should not draw big conclusions.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: We're already having a debate in the House about whether
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: we were too progressive or not progressive enough. And we
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: just don't know the answer to all the things. And
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: the truth is probably it's going to be different answers
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: to different situations and candidate-specific issues and turnout specific issues
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: related to how votes are counted and cast in that situation.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: So we do have to take a little bit of
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: a deep breath before we do the deep dive analysis
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: of what worked and what didn't for us. And right
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: now we can just celebrate and be happy because Joe
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: Biden's going to be the next president of the United States.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Well, and I do want everyone to know who might
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: be looking at the results still and thinking, God, it
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: was still too close, right? Like it was still too close.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: We were a polarized country, closely divided before Donald Trump
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: ever stepped onto the scene. And we will be after.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That is the unfortunate reality of American politics right now.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And there's a million reasons why that we can get into.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: But when all is said and done, 306 electoral votes
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: is a lot of electoral votes. And the popular vote margin, again,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: like I said at the beginning, is going to be
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: larger than any popular vote margin since 1996. The biggest
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: popular vote margin could be Barack Obama in 2008. This
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: will probably be number two between 1996 and now. 2000, 2004, 2012, 2016.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Like this is kind of as big as it gets.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And I know we all think, well, it's Donald Trump.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: He should have caused some break in the system where
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: suddenly there was like a 60-40 majority or 70. It's
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: just that's not going to happen. And it's probably not
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: going to happen without Donald Trump on the ballot.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: Well, I do think it's like it's worth pointing out.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: We all recognize that Donald Trump was a symptom of
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: a set of problems. That's what we said from the
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: very beginning. Problems in the economy, problems in politics, problems
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: in the media, problem in our culture. Those problems weren't
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: solved over the last four years. They are still right there.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: They are still right there. And so I do think
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: we should, I think, be sad to see that someone
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: like Donald Trump could still get so close to holding
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: onto power. That should be something that motivates us. That
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: should be something that challenges us to think about ways
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: we can attack some of these problems in our politics,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: these deeper cultural problems and rot in our politics. But
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: that doesn't mean we shouldn't be proud, incredibly proud of
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: the achievement of removing him.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: I think the other takeaway from this election, though, is
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: we're viewing this through the prism of the Electoral College,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: which we should because that's how you actually win the presidency.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: And where we had success and where we did not
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: in the Electoral College matters for how we win in 2024.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: But if you're looking at this holistically about how the
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: country responded, it is worth, I think, just pointing out
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: that the takeaway from this election is that we are
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: a center-left country. with a center-right political system. If this
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: was just a straight popular vote election, this would be
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: a massive repudiation of Donald Trump and everything he stands for.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: But it's not.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Donald Trump. He is, as we all expected,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: refusing to concede at this moment. We're recording this at 11.30 a.m.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: on Friday, Pacific time. He, his family... His biggest Republican
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: sycophants and his MAGA media goons are spreading conspiracies that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the election has been stolen. Not true. That ballots have
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: been cast illegally. Absolutely not true. They have been filing
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: lawsuit after lawsuit, most of which have been laughed out
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of court. Some of the crazier assholes, your Steve Bannon's,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: your Alex Jones's, your Newt Gingrich's have tried to incite
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: violence and called for the imprisonment of various government officials,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: election officials, poll workers, everything you'd expect.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Steve Bannon called for a beheading. Two of them, actually.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: He did. He called for two beheadings. Dr.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Fauci and the head of the FBI, he called for
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: them to be beheaded. So, again, not ISIS. Steve Bannon.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Yep. Got him suspended from Twitter. Got his video taken
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: down from YouTube. And, by the way, he's also still
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: under federal indictment.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: And his lawyers quit. His lawyers quit.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: His lawyers quit.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: We don't want to work for you anymore. The beheading
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: thing was the final straw for us. Should there have
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: been other straws?
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Perhaps.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: What do they call that?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Vanilla ISIS?
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: So, um.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So Trump, we haven't heard from him yet today, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: he gave quite a press conference yesterday. It was both
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: sort of insane and trying to undermine the integrity of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the election and like dark and authoritarian and sad and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: pathetic and low energy at the same time. And then
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: we're not going to play a clip from that because
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: fuck that guy. But here's a clip of Jake Tapper
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: on CNN right after Trump finished his press conference. What
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a sad night.
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: For the United States of America to hear their president
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: say that, to falsely accuse people of trying to steal
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: the election, to try to attack democracy that way with
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: this feast of falsehoods. Lie after lie after lie about
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: the election being stolen. No evidence for what he's saying.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: Just smears about the integrity of vote counting and.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: State after state.
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: When he wins a state, it's legitimate. When he loses,
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: it's because the vote is being stolen from him.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: It's not true.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It's ugly.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: It's frankly pathetic. The president, for example, he assailed vote
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: by mail. Why, he asked, why are the vote by
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: mail ballots so overwhelmingly in favor of Joe Biden? We
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: all know the answer. It's because the president told his
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: supporters not to vote by mail. So Democrats did it
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: overwhelmingly and his supporters turned out in droves on election day. Look,
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: President Trump has always been transparent about the smears and
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: lies and strategies of falsehoods. We knew he was going
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: to do this. We knew he was going to claim
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: votes by mail were not real. But he's wrong. It's
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: a lie. He's lying about the election. He's smearing the
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: American people. He's smearing people who are working at polls.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And it's a disgrace.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: We knew that the president was not going to lose
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: graciously if he lost. But but frankly, watching him flail
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: like this is just it's just pathetic.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So we are right now in a moment where and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: this hopefully will just be temporary. The networks have not
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: called the race officially for Joe Biden. Donald Trump and
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: his minions are out there peddling as much disinformation as
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: possible to try to sow doubt about the results. because
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that's what they do, because they're losing. How serious is this?
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: What do we do about this in the days and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: weeks to come? Tommy?
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I think you should take every effort
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: to steal an election seriously, but that doesn't mean that
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: it's particularly feasible. I mean, what they're talking about seemingly
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: is contesting allegations that might reduce Joe Biden's win at
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: the margins in Pennsylvania. They've got the judicial watch people
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: suggesting that they have video or someone who's going to
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: say there were backdated envelopes of ballots at the post
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: office in Philly or something like that. I mean, good
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: luck doing that to 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 ballots or whatever
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the margin is. So, like, I don't know. I'm not
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: going to take it that seriously. I just want to
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: say that our dear friend Ben LeBolt that we all
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: worked with on the 2008 campaign and in the White
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: House campaign. One time he got a really whiny, obnoxious
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: email from a reporter and he replied with just an
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: image of a mime just crying in agony, just an
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: agonized mime. And when I was watching Donald Trump yesterday,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: all I could think about was Ben's inbox and that
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: very sad mime because it was the most pathetic bullshit
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I've ever seen. And I guess I'm just not going
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: to sweat this legal bullshit too much.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Dan, what's your take?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I agree with Tommy.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: I'm not worried about, yeah, Donald Trump lost. We can
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: stop worrying about everything, I guess. I'm just kidding. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: am not super worried about Donald Trump actually stealing the election.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: What is really going on here is an effort to
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: delegitimize the Biden presidency to suggest that he stole it
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: in the same way that ultimately that was at the
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: heart of birtherism. It was to say that Barack Obama
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: may have won all of these votes, and that's pretty clear,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: but He never should have been president because his presidency
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: was based on a lie. And so that's what they're doing.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: And I do think it's important for us to try
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: to step out of our shoes as people who think
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: about politics all the time and follow politics and think
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: about it in the context of people who don't. Like
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: I was talking to my mother-in-law called last night and
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: she was incredibly concerned that Biden wasn't going to win
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: because she's looking at the screen and Joe Biden is
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: behind and Pennsylvania. He's behind in Georgia. The margin in
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Arizona is getting narrower. And if you're not someone who
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: is super steeped in politics and you're not on Twitter,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: because if we're on Twitter and we're seeing John Ralston
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: tell us that Nevada is fine and we're seeing Dave
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: Wasserman go through and explain how the trajectory that Biden's on,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: but the television networks are being In their mind, super
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: responsible in saying– in leaving out– they're sort of– they're
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: kind of explaining the math but they're not really saying
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: that this is almost certainly going in this one direction
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: because they don't want to call the race before they
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: are quote-unquote allowed to do that. And so I do
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: think there are a lot of people who probably woke
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: up this morning quite confused that now everyone is saying
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden is going to be the next president. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: so I do think that there is this information vacuum
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: that is being filled potentially with misinformation that's not going
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: to change the outcome of this election, but will have
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: implications for American politics going forward.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And what's the best way to fight that? Because I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: think that the I totally agree with that. You know,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I've had we've all had a million texts from everyone like,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: is he winning? Is it going to be OK? What's happening?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Even people who are pretty engaged in politics and follow
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: this pretty closely. And look, it is particularly confusing this
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: year because so many people voted by mail. And so
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: everyone knows the reason that the mail ballots in many states,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania specifically, Wisconsin and Michigan, were not counted. before the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: day of the election, even though they arrived the day
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: before the election or weeks before the election, is because
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Republican legislatures in those states said, no, you cannot count
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the ballots until election day because they did that in
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: order to then sow doubts about the results of the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: election while the ballots were counted later. That is what
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: has happened.
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think. I think that we should separate
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: two things, though. Like, I do agree that there is, like,
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: confusion about, you know, because I think some of the
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: major networks are being responsible. But ultimately, like, that's okay, right?
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: Because those networks will call it for Joe Biden. I
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: think we've had a little bit of an experiment between,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: you know, the Fox News news side has been largely responsible, right?
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: They called Arizona pretty early. The Fox News, you know,
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: primetime has been ridiculous, as always. Sean Hannity wants to
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: do a redo in Pennsylvania. But I do think, you know, John,
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: you said that we're polarized. That's, of course, true. But
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: the news environment isn't polarized in the sense that there
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: are these kind of two opposing sides. There is a
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: vast firmament of kind of, you know, center and, you know,
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: center left news organizations, mainstream organizations that are reporting responsibly.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: And then there is this right wing echo chamber from
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: Facebook to the Fox News opinion side, often the Fox
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: News news side that creates this alternate universe. Now, in
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: this case, we have been, I think, in a slightly
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: better position because Fox News has behaved more like CNN
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: than it has behaved like Fox Business. That has really
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: protected us. But what we see, right, is like my hope,
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: my hope in this is that there may be the
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: confusion people have will be resolved when the major networks
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: call it for Joe Biden. And hopefully, you know, the
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: Trump misinformation not backed up enough by mainstream outlets will
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: mean that the kind of the fever swamp of conspiracy
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: theories will be kind of contained. That can still be dangerous, right?
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: People are showing up and banging on the doors of
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: vote counting places. But that's a really small group compared
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: to the damage that can be done if what Trump
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: is doing is embraced by a larger segment of the
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Republican media apparatus.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think what everyone needs to know when
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you get asked by friends and family about this, like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is going to win More than enough votes
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to be the next president of the United States when
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: every single vote is counted. That is a mathematical certainty
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: right now. And like you were saying, Tommy, even some
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of these lawsuits from the Trump campaign, even if they
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: were successful, they would shave votes off at the margins.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's margins in these states, while they initially appeared
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: close because the votes weren't all counted yet, are going
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to be big enough to avoid, except maybe in Georgia,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: possibly in Wisconsin— To avoid any kind of recount. And
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: like you said, Dan, last episode, like 99% of recounts
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: don't change the vote, especially when we're talking about 10, 20,000
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: vote leads. In Pennsylvania alone, he could have 100,000 vote lead, right?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And so like, we're going to count the votes. They're
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: going to be counted by nonpartisan election officials and poll workers.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And the winner of the votes in states that add
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: up to 270 electoral votes is going to be the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: next president of the United States. That's going to be
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Donald Trump and a bunch of judges
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of Republican politicians and state legislatures are
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: not going to pick the next president. The people are
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: going to pick the next president with their votes when
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: we count them. That's what's going to happen. And so
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: everyone should feel calm about that. And I do think
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that like what Donald Trump and his goons are trying
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: to do now is sort of so panic and worry
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and make us afraid because that's all they have. And
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: we shouldn't be afraid. We should be confident we're going
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to win. Well, how many, my question is like, we've
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: been seeing, Republicans say a whole bunch of different things
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: over the last 48 hours. Like, how many rats are
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: going to stay on the ship here? Because it does
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: seem like there's a couple scurrying off.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: How many rats are going to run for president in 2024?
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: There will be a few reasonable rats. I think a
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: few rats will let it drift away. But there is
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: the entire MAGA industrial complex is going to stick by
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: this guy because he's their cash cow. I mean, that's
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: how I'm thinking about this. You see these goobers like
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Harlan Hill or all these Fox News hosts or You know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: these like super right wing guys, they get paid because
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: they incite a bunch of Donald Trump cultists and they
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: get them to buy their products or subscribe to their things.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: That's why Alex Jones is showing up in Maricopa County
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: to berate people with the recount. Right. So, like, I
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: don't know. I think there's going to be some scary
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: fringe people acting out. But I think over time, like
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Mitt Romney's come out with a pretty strong statement pushing
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: back on some of the worst things Trump has said.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: He's been an outlier in several instances. To his credit. Sorry, Dan. But,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: you know, I hope we'll see a couple more like that.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: I also think you see like there's there's the kind
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: of the mealy mouth statements that are like, I believe
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: we should count all legal ballots and no illegal ballots.
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: It's like, all right.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what we are doing.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: And you know it.
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: So you just want to stay out of this. That's
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: where that's where that's McConnell. This, of course, that's where
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: Ivanka landed. uh, yeah, before she, uh, lands in a
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: restaurant where, uh, she is stared at with so many, um,
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: vicious looks that she has to leave because, um, they're
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: burning holes in her, uh, Couture, you know, yeah.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Thanks Tommy. Couture.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Thanks Tommy. Yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Found it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: Couture.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: It's a word I use a lot.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: I think on the, I'm not gonna let the Mitt
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: Romney thing go by because if you are lucky and
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: you get a, and there's like, there's a special decoder
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: slide that you put over a statement, you can find
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: the word Trump in there because otherwise you can't. Um,
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: But I think what's coming– like there's going to be
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: a lot of people, a lot of sort of never
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Trump pundits who kind of sat between– the people who
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: wrote in Ronald Reagan in their ballot or whatever, who
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: are going to think there is some coming battle for
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: the heart of republicanism. And that's not what is coming.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: What is coming is a battle for who gets to
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: be in charge of Trumpism once Trump is gone. And
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: that's going to be between Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: and some number of Trumps probably.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: But I do think there has been this sense that,
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: you know, Mitch McConnell and these other people have not
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: parroted Trump's conspiracy theory. Some of them even said count
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: the votes like these people love America.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Well, fuck that.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: But you do not get to pass voter suppression laws,
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: put out misinformation for years, be in charge of gerrymandering,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: rig Supreme Courts to steal elections and then get to
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: be a defender of democracy.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: That is not what is happening here.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Real quick on that point, the press has been great
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: about pushing back on baseless allegations of voter fraud. They
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: need to maintain that tone the next time Republicans try
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: to pass a voter ID bill or any other voter
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: suppression legislation. We need to be in favor of democracy
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: and letting people vote. And we need to not use
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: baseless voter fraud claims as a way to allow Republicans
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: to pass these voter suppression bills. It drives me crazy.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I just think like, You don't have to believe that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Republicans are going to not protect Donald Trump and believe
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: in his conspiracies because of, you know, they suddenly found
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a conscience or they're doing it out of the good
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: of their heart.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Like just from a pure political perspective, he's a fucking
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: loser now.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: They don't need him.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: They don't need Donald Trump anymore. You saw like the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: New York Post even was sort of like throwing him
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: under the bus with the headline that like Donald Trump
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: gives sad speech, baseless conspiracies. Like you said, the MAGA
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: fringe is going to be there. Someone else is going
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to take the place of Donald Trump or maybe Donald
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Trump will hang on or maybe it'll be his fucking
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: kid or something. It's going to be a force to
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: be reckoned with and it's going to be a dangerous force,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: maybe the most dangerous force in our democracy. But like
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: a lot, you know, part of it, we're going to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: talk about sort of down ballot races, Republicans, Democrats, did
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: well enough in other races that, you know, I think
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: some of them, I don't know that they're going to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: be like jumping to Donald Trump's rescue. And look, there's
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of theories going around. Like what if the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the Pennsylvania state legislature seat Trump electors, even
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: though Joe Biden won the state, like they already put
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: out a statement saying they're not considering that everyone should
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: be aware and like on guard in these last couple
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: of days, but sort of the, the, the most alarming
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: conspiracies of what Trump might do have so far not
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: come to pass because some Republicans are saying, yeah, we're awful,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: but we're not going to go that far.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think like in the early vote counting,
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: I got these kind of fevered texts from friends saying,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: I hear that they're going to stop the vote. That's
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: not stopping the vote's not a thing. And now we're
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: doing the same thing around the legal challenges. There's plenty
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: of there's plenty of real threats we should worry about.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: Not saying we shouldn't be concerned about some of this bullshit,
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: but like, let's be worried about the real things we
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: see coming down the pike. And I also just want
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: to make one very, I don't know, I would say
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: late night CNN style joke in the style of like
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: something like James Carville adjacent, which is they could, a
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: lot of these people spent four years worshiping Trump like
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: he was a Pharaoh, but that does not mean they
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: want to be buried in the pyramid.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what happened with the Senate and the House.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats flipped two Senate seats, lost one, which leaves us
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: too short of a tie breaking majority, which thanks to
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: two runoffs in Georgia and an undecided race in Alaska
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: is still not out of reach. In the House, Democrats
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: have retained the majority, but it will be narrower thanks
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: to a Republican gain of at least eight seats with
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: a few races left to call. What do we know
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: about what happened with the House? I haven't talked about
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that yet.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: We don't like it.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: We lost seats?
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we think it's bad.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Dan, why did it happen?
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: Well, we picked up a whole bunch of seats in
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: 2018 where Democratic turnout exceeded Republican turnout. Many of those
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: seats were in districts that Trump won. And you can
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: win those seats when Democrats turn out at a gigantic
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: rate and Republicans turn out at a more standard rate.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: When both sides turn out at a gigantic rate, you
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: run out of voters. We've seen this happen. You pick
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: up a bunch of seats in a wave election and
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: that wave recedes and those members often get left out.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: And that clearly happened here. There are some exceptions in
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: Florida that are worth talking about, but a lot of
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: it was in the more Trumpy districts in purple states.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: And within those districts, there are more people who support
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Trump than support Joe Biden. And when they all come out,
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: that creates problems for Democrats. And also, I would say
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: that this is a dynamic that some people pointed out,
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: which is Joe Biden was getting the support of some
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: Republicans who were uncomfortable with Trump, but those people are
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: still Republicans, and they were more than happy to vote
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: for their Republican member of Congress and Joe Biden. And
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: there was certainly very little of the reverse of that
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: in these Republican areas.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't lose.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: For the most part, blue seats or even purple seats.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: It was some of the Democrats were sitting in fairly
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: red seats. And again, back to the split in the country,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the sort of cities and the suburban gains
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: we made in 2018. It was like the exurban and
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: rural gains that we made in 2018. Some of the
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: seats that when they won, we were like, oh, holy shit,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I can't believe we won that seat. That's a pretty
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: heavily Republican district. Um, and so that does happen. That's
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: not to say like, we should just say, oh, that's fine.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: What are we going to do? Like we have to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: make inroads there, right? Like we have to win those
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: seats if we want a bigger majority. But I think
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: that's why that happened because of the, because of the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: bigger turnout on the R side.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: I also do think like, um, you know, I think
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: one of the things we should, we'll be talking about like, yes,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: to Dan's, to Dan's point, like we live in a
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: center left country with a center right system. that means
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: Democrats have to work harder and get more votes to
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: run the seats that they need. At the same time,
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: we've seen, you know, you look at Montana, a place where,
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: you know, we lost the Senate seat, but like legal
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: weed passes, right? Like you can look across the country
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: and find these incredible victories for progressive policies, and then
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: they don't translate to Democratic votes for Democratic candidates. And
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: I do think that was true in 2018.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: That is true now.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: I do think like thinking about that space between the
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: policy positions that are quite popular and some of our
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: challenges of getting people to vote for Democrats is.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: should be part of the conversation.
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, think about Florida is a great example here,
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: which is in 2018, more than 60% of voters supported
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: re-enfranchising recently incarcerated individuals and elected Ron DeSantis. And in 2020,
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: they voted for Donald Trump and 60% of them passed
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: a $ 15 minimum wage.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Like there is, there is the minimum wage.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Voters are weird.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Voters are weird. They don't fit.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: But there's a lot to try to learn about that.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but there's some but there is something about the
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: Democratic brand, right? Like we should just be honest, but
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: there's something about there's a there's a problem there. It's
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: from misinformation. It's from attacks from what have you. That
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: is part of the problem.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And look, some of these places were still dealing
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: with tough maps. You know, like the one that's really
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: bumming me out is is Iowa one Abby Finkenauer. And like,
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: you know, if that congressional district drops a little lower
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: under Cedar Rapids and includes Iowa City, she wins in
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: a walk. But it didn't. So she didn't.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm really sad about Abby. What is going
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: on in Alaska with Dr. Al Gross? Like some of
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: you may be like, who's that? That was our Senate
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: candidate in Alaska. And they tweeted last night that, you know,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I think something like only 44% of the votes were
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: counted and they believe when all the votes are counted
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: that he'll win.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Who knows?
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: We'll wait to see if the votes are counted. But
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: like that would be something to pick up a Senate
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: seat in Alaska, huh?
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, Al Gross is a man who has killed
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: the bear. He killed the bear. So when he was
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: like 14, I think.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: His campaign slogan was, what one man can do, another
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: can do. That is for, listen, if you got that,
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: thank you. I'm not even going to explain it. Not
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: going to explain it.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: So there's Al Gross hanging out up there in Alaska.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: We're waiting for that vote count. And now we are
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: headed to two runoffs in the state of Georgia. John
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Ossoff versus David Perdue and Reverend Raphael Warnock. versus Kelly Loeffler.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: And those are going to happen on January 5th, I believe,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: are the two runoffs. So who's heading to Atlanta? What
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: can we do to help win those races, guys? First
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: of all, what are our chances? And then what can
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: we do to help make it happen?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Your chances are good. Look, I know we've asked people
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: to donate a lot of time and money to a
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: lot of places. But if you want to try one
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: more time, votesaveamerica.com slash getmitch will now split your contribution
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: to Ossoff and Warnock. I bit down hard this morning
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: and gave till it hurts. And I think they're going
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: to need that money early. And so I would invest there.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Coming soon. Adopt a state, Georgia. Get ready for that, too.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: You'll be able to adopt Georgia. Look, it's so important
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: because there isn't there. To be completely honest, there is
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: an outside shot right now of actually flipping the Senate.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: But there is a shot.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Now, I think the big question, Dan, is what does
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: an electorate look like in Georgia that is a runoff
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: electorate versus a presidential electorate.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: That we just had?
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it all depends, right?
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Sometimes runoff electorates have been very, very, very favorable to
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: Democrats over the last four years. We have outperformed our
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: partisanship in almost every single one of them. We elected
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Doug Jones. came very close to electing John Ossoff, for instance, in,
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: I think, a Republican plus nine district. In deep red
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: districts and state legislative ones, we have done very, very well, Oklahoma,
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: places like that. So it's just a question of whether
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: people are going to organize and turn out. And that's
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: a question that only people can answer for themselves. And
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: so it is very positive. We revert back to what
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: it is like in the pre-Trump era about runoffs. That
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: is problematic because Republicans tend to turn out at a
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: higher rate than Democrats on a more regular basis. But
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: that doesn't have to be the case. And we decide
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: whether that's the case. And so, I mean, it is hard.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: I don't tell anyone that it's easy. John Ossoff got
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: fewer votes than David Perdue. Raphael Warnock did not come
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: close to getting to the 50% number. I mean, it's
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: a multi-candidate field and all of that. But Perdue is
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: a terrible candidate. Loeffler is a terrible candidate. Both Ossoff
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: and Warnock ran very good campaigns. Joe Biden proved a
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Democrat can win Georgia. So it, it is, it is hard,
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: but it is possible. And the, and runoffs is a
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: case where organization and enthusiasm decide the outcome. And so
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: we just have to decide if we're going to have
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: the enthusiasm and the organization to do it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Final thoughts. What is the fight against Trumpism, uh, conservatism, disinformation,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: all the rest of it? What does it look like
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: from here now with Joe Biden as president, a smaller
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: democratic house, but still democratic house and, uh, and. A
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Senate that's up for grabs, but very possibly in Republican hands.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, listen, if we win those two Senate seats,
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: it's an entirely different ballgame for Joe Biden's ability to
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: govern and do things. And so if all the things
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: we talked about for four years that we wanted Joe
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Biden to do, like climate change, like a public option,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: like passing voter reform bills, getting rid of the filibuster,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: we're going to need those seats. So it's a very
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: different world if we can get them.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think, right, fighting to win those seats
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: changes the conversation and becomes one about demonstrating progressive government,
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: the conversation we had in the run-up to this election, right,
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: the opportunity to really attack some of the cynicism that
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: is out there to demonstrate that government can really make
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: a difference in people's lives, to attack that kind of,
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: that deep sense that politics doesn't matter, that both parties
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: are the same, that nothing ever changes, that is so.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Toxic.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: If we do not have the Senate... We have the
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: same challenge, but it's that much harder. And it's our
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: job to make sure that Joe Biden uses every means
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: at his disposal in the executive branch and by pushing
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: Congress to get as much done as humanly possible over
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: the next two years and while fighting like hell to
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: win in 2022.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: We don't have any other option.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: That's all there is.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Dan?
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: Everything that has happened over the last many years, whether
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: about Trump versus Hillary, Trump versus Biden, the battles for
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: ACA and for the Supreme Court and all of that
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: are proxies for a larger fight about whether America is
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: truly going to be a majoritarian democracy. We want a
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: politics that represents the views of the growing, diverse, progressive
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: majority in this country. And Republicans want minority rule. In
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: this fight for democracy... We won the battle this week,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: but the war continues. And to Tommy's point, if we
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: have the Senate, there are a bunch of very big,
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: very important things we can do right away that begin
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: to fix our democracy. Absent the Senate, we're going to
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: have to work really hard. It's going to be more
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: at the state level, more organizing, more building up support
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: for our agenda. But that is what is at stake here.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: We are now able to begin fixing our democracy. because
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: we have elected Joe Biden as president, elected Kamala Harris
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: as vice president, but there is so much work to do.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: And at its core, like organizing voter registration and persuading
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: people to vote for Democratic candidates is the answer. Voter
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: suppression laws, voter disenfranchisement is an enormous structural challenge. The
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: only way we can change it is if we have
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: a bigger majority. The filibuster, huge problem. Only way we
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: can change it is if we have a bigger majority.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: All of these structural impediments to a majoritarian democracy, like
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: you said, Dan, the only way we can change them
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: is by winning bigger majorities, not just at the presidency,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: but at the House level, at the Senate level, at
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the local level. And the only way to do that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: is the work of organizing, volunteering, knocking on doors, and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: actually persuading people who either didn't vote or voted for
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Republicans to vote with us. To change all of the
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: other structural problems of our democracy, we have to do that.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And all of those structural problems remain. And one of
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the biggest ones that should be obvious by now is
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the disinformation environment and the right-wing media ecosystem. A lot
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: of these people who voted for Donald Trump are stuck in,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: and we talked about this with our last change poll,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: are stuck in information environments that are filled with conspiracy
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: and misinformation, and it's making them angry and it's making
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: them afraid. And we have to break through that bubble somehow,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: or else we will never sort of win a lot
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: of these people over. Um, and that's the only, you know, that's, we,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: we just have to win that fight.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: Prevent them from getting into that bubble in the first
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: place too, by the way.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Keep them, you know, like.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: There it is, you know, I, I just, sorry, but like, I,
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: One of the things that was really striking in making
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: calls was how many people said, oh, all my family
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: is voting for Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, but my brother, man,
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: something happened. He wasn't like this. And then all of
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: a sudden he was. We shouldn't underestimate the harm that
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: this does to you. It's not just harm to our politics, right?
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: It's harm to our culture.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: It's cynicism. It divides us.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: It really is this corrosive force that is at the
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: heart of so many of these other problems.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: That's all. One last thought, which is just we have
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: lived in abject terror of Donald Trump in the harm
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: He has been doing to people and could do with
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: the second term that, you know, as we sort of
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: mentioned the topic, we haven't allowed ourselves to celebrate the
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: many ways that the Joe Biden victory is great. It
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: is also remarkable that the vice president of the United
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: States is a woman and an African-American woman and that
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: is historic and incredible and something worth celebrating. And we've
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: all been so scared, anxiously watching for, you know, Clayton
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: County to dump the returns that we haven't even talked
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: about this massive, unbelievable, historic, exciting first. So I just
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: think we should put a button on that and celebrate.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Totally. There's a lot. I mean, you know, we had
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: to talk about all the dangers that still exist and
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the fight that continues. But like, please, everyone, take a
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: moment in this weekend, next week for a while. First
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: of all, like take a breath, take a nap, get
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: some sleep, go outside, get some fresh air. But like
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: celebrate what we did here, not because we fixed all
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: the problems that are facing America and democracy, but because
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: we showed that we can make progress. That's what this
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: election did. And you should feel happy about that, you know,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and you should feel proud about that. And every single
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: person who volunteered, who organized should feel good about that.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I hope our entire our entire staff at Crooked Media,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: this incredible team. everyone at Vote Save America, all of
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: our producers, all of our political team, every single person
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: that works for us, every single person who adopted a state,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: you know, this, this win is, is yours too. And
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I hope everyone feels very, very, we're, we're certainly grateful
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: for all of you and you're the best team around
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: and we, we love you guys and we, we thank
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: you for this. So, and we thank all you guys
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: for sticking with us for four years who, who've listened and,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: and not just passively listened and worried, but like, actually
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: contributed donated made phone calls done all that like you
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: you did something big here and you should be proud of.
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: It one tiny fact that came in while you're recording
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: 1460 people in georgia registered through vote save america the
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: margin in georgia is 1536 votes right like every piece
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: of this every bit of volunteering every donation it mattered
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: in these close places it made a difference yep everything.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Mattered all right everyone we are uh all gonna go
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and Just get some sleep, maybe.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Take a fucking nap.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Take a fucking nap.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: But we will talk to you guys next week. And
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the fight continues.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: Bye.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: Bye, everybody.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: episodes as videos every week.