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AOC Loses to the Gerontocracy · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I know what you're thinking. Dan and I together on
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: a Wednesday, not a Friday. Is there a polling emergency? No.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Turns out only for Ann Seltzer.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: We are here together because Friday's episode is our annual
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Pundi show where all four of us debate the worst
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: takes of the year, including ours. Then we're off for
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: the holiday break. So Dan and I thought we'd do
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: one last normal episode here in the very abnormal year
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: of 2024. Are you as excited as I am, Dan?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: John, I was just so worried that my takes were
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: just going to be stuck in the fridge for weeks
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: and I had to get them out before they started
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to smell. I know.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you don't put them on social media as much anymore.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So I know I should, but because you're smart, because
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: you're smart, I watch what happens to you on social
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: media and it's an object lesson. You're a walking scared
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: straight for your own podcast.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Offline canary in the coal mine. Um, okay.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: So we are going to talk about how house Democrats
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: voted to, uh, pass over AOC for the top job
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: on the oversight committee, uh, and whether it says anything
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: about the party's broader strategy over the next few years.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: We also potentially have some good news. There's reportedly an
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: effort afoot to stop Democratic fundraising spam.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: How about that?
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: And then later, you'll hear my interview with Cecilia Munoz,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: a 20-year veteran of the immigration fight, about why she
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: thinks Democrats lost their way on the issue and how
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: we can build a majority for real reform. But first,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: we have talked a lot in recent weeks about Trump's
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: revenge tour and how scared his critics should be. Looks
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: like we're starting to get our answer. On Wednesday, House
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Republicans released a 128-page report that unsurprisingly tries to pin
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: the blame for January 6th on Democrats instead of Donald Trump.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: People would be surprised to learn that. But Republicans' quote,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: top finding was this, quote, former representative Liz Cheney colluded
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson's attorney's knowledge. Cheney
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering by the
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: FBI and might have broken, quote, numerous federal laws. Cheney
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: called the allegations, quote, defamatory and said that no reputable lawyer, legislator,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: or judge would take this seriously. Someone who is taking
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: it seriously, Donald Trump, who posted at 3 a.m. a
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: statement that started, Liz Cheney could be in a lot
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: of trouble. So, This is obviously bullshit, and we know
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: that it was Cassidy Hutchinson who reached out to Liz Cheney,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: not the other way around. Cheney talked to her in
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: her capacity as a member of Congress, not a lawyer.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: And most importantly, when Republicans criticized Cheney for this meeting
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: months and months ago, maybe years ago, they merely said
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: that she had a, quote, ethical responsibility to have Hutchinson's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: lawyer present for the meeting. Didn't say anything about any
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: laws being broken. But that, of course, was before Donald
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Trump and Kash Patel, the person he wants to run
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: the FBI, campaigned on locking up Liz Cheney and the
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: rest of the January 6th committee. Dan, how serious do
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: you take this threat, not only for Cheney, but for
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: all of Trump's critics?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Incredibly seriously. This is exactly how it happens. You get
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: a pretext for an investigation run by a bunch of
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: political cronies who will do what the authoritarian wants. We
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: see this happen all over the world. And Trump told
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: us it was going to happen. He appointed the people
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: who would follow through on the things he told us
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: he was going to do, and now they are doing it.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly dangerous.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: I also think it's interesting that they singled out Cheney.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: She's a former member of Congress, and they didn't single
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: out yet all the other members of the January 6th committee.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And I think part of that is like, what's scaring
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: me most about it is that it is a concerted
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: strategy If they came out and said, we're going after
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: every member of the January 6th committee and all the staffers,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: and we're investigating all of them, then you would have
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: more of an uproar. But to go after one person
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: who's not in Congress anymore and is now just a
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: private citizen shows that they're going to try to do
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: this so that it doesn't garner a lot of attention,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It feels like we're on the cusp of something very dangerous,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: and most people are unwilling to reckon with just how
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: dangerous it is.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: So Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut agrees he had a compelling,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: if alarming, thread on all of this. He painted a
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: picture where Kash Patel and the DOJ charged Cheney, right,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: because they have the power to do that. And then
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: are the courts going to save her? Judge is going
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: to save her? Well, they can find a jurisdiction with
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: a MAGA judge to try her. And then Murphy tied
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: it to Trump's larger effort to stifle dissent by he's
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: now officially sued Ann Seltzer in the Des Moines Register.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: He is, of course, intimidating media outlets. ABC News, we
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: talked about on the last show, settled for $ 15 million.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Murphy talks about how Trump and his new potential FCC
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: commissioners threatened media outlets to take away their broadcast licenses.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: He's threatened other lawsuits against media figures, media outlets. Whether
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: or not any of this succeeds is beside the point.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Murphy points out, because now, you know, everyone will be
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: scared to say or write anything that Donald Trump doesn't like,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: including put out a poll where he's not ahead or
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: is approverating his law. What did you make of Murphy's threat?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Once again, I think he nails it. The suing of
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Ann Selzer, the Des Moines register, is stupid. Like even
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the most MAGA judge, I think, is going to struggle
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: to find the harm that Donald Trump suffered from a
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: bad poll. in a state that he eventually won by
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: more than he won in 2020 and 2016. So that's just,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: that is pure idiocy. It's almost, it's so dumb. It's
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: almost a cause for relief about how he's going to
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: proceed down this path because he's clearly easily distracted. But
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's important to understand, and you guys talked
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: about this, I thought, very well as relates to the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: ABC news settlement, is you have two problems with media
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: outlets that Donald Trump is exploiting here. One is, Like ABC,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: most of them are run by much larger corporations that
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: have many interests before the government. And particularly in these–
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: whether it's Comcast owning NBC or Paramount owning CBS or–
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post. And the news business
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: is such a minor part and often a money loser
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: for these larger entities that they are not going to
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: take on water on the businesses they care about to
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: get on Donald Trump's wrong side to defend. If ABC
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: News was on its own, an independent company, it would
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: have fought that case to the very end. But because
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Disney has a million items of business before the government,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: they don't want to be in a fight with Donald
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Trump for the next year, for a Part of the business,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it is so small that Bob Iger suggested selling it
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: at a loss a few years ago. And then the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: other media companies don't have the resources to fight these lawsuits.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It is amusing that he's suing Ansel. He's also suing
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: the New Orleans Register, a struggling newspaper that's part of
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: a struggling newspaper chain that does not have the resources
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to do that in any way, shape, or form. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: it used to be, there used to be an old
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: saying that was, you never pick a fight with someone
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: who buys ink by the barrel. You never pick a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: fight with the press because they will beat you in
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: the end. But the press itself can barely afford to
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: buy ink by the barrel right now. And so many
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: of these newspapers or local television stations or other outlets
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: could be bankrupted by just the idea of fighting an
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: absurd lawsuit against Trump.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a New York Times story as well
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: today that sort of dug into why Disney decided to settle.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: And they listed a couple of reasons. One, as we've
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: been saying, and you just said, that $ 15 million for
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Disney is like Trump change compared to what they would
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: have to potentially pay if Trump won and they just
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: didn't need the headache. And so in some ways it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: a business decision and it almost makes sense as a
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: business decision, right? But then they were worried about a
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: jury in South Florida and a judge in South Florida
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: because that's MAGA territory now. So they were worried that
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't get a fair hearing And then they were
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: worried reportedly that it would go all the way to
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: the Supreme Court. And, you know, you've had Clarence Thomas
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: on the Supreme Court and others say, maybe the Supreme
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Court precedent on press freedom, like the foundational case, Sullivan,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: that allows for freedom of the press and has the
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: standard of actual malice for libel and defamation suits, that
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: maybe it could get overturned. And I think that just
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: shows not only like, how screwed we are with Trump
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: and what he's doing, but with the fact that the
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: judiciary has been tilted so far right over the last
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: several years. Yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And just another point on why this was a business
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: decision for ABC is the way they structured the settlement.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: It's a tax write-off because it's a contribution to Trump's
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: future foundation, which just notable, ABC News is giving $ 15
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: million to fund a monument to the most anti-press president
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: in American history. But they get to write the taxes off,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: so that's cool.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was interesting to me that Senator Murphy
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: did this thread because he's a U.S.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Senator, Democrat.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: It's not like us talking about it on Pod Save America.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: I sort of wonder, there's a lot of people sort
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: of sounding the alarms, raising awareness for all this. I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: don't know what to do about it. I mean, there's obviously,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: just thinking about Cheney again, right? I think this is
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: obviously another argument in favor of Biden issuing preemptive pardons,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: not just for Cheney, but for other members of the
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: January 6th committee and staff, as well as potential Trump targets,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: the Department of Justice. But I think there's like a
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: broader strategic question here. We have talked a lot since
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: the election about how Democrats in the broader pro-democracy movement
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: can't just spend our time being defenders of institutions and
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: that we have to talk about things that directly impact
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: voters' lives. I can't imagine a fight to defend Liz
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Cheney or ABC News or the Des Moines Register fits
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: into that category. But I think we would also agree
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: that a show trial against one of Trump's opponents or
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: lawsuits that are completely frivolous and baseless against media companies
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: is crossing a pretty dangerous Rubicon. So what do we do?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: That's a very tough question, John.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie. I know.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Because I wanted to use the example because I feel like,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: you know, we've all become very comfortable to be like,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Democrats can't defend the status quo and we can't defend
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: institutions and we got to be the party of reform, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: And then something like this happens. It's like, okay, so
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: do we just say, well, that's pretty scary, but I'll
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: see you later.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I think you cannot see that you can't walk away
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: from such an important fight. You absolutely cannot do that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: And because walking away from that fight even if you
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: can't win it, even if you have limited levers to
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: pull as Democrats do here, sometimes in politics, oftentimes in politics,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: fighting and losing is better than not fighting at all.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And I would put this in that category. I think
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: there are three parts of what Democrats would do here.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: The first is we have to do everything we can
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: with the limited power we have to fight Trump, vote
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: against his nominees, use legislative tactics that we have to
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: try to expose them to longer debates or a longer process.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: or more investigation, or whatever it is. And use our
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: bully pulpit, as small as it may be. Second, we
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: have to focus on how we get more power. And
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: that is to realize that the most important thing that
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Democrats can do over the next two years here is
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: take back the House in 2026. That is a very
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: doable thing. So take back the House in 2026, focus
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: on state legislator and the governor's races in 2025. But
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: wherever we can get power, we have to get power.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Because that allows us to create additional bulwarks against Trump's
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: offenses here, but also sends a message to other Republicans
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: about the dangers of Trump if the voters are rejecting
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: it at the ballot box. And the third thing we
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: have to do is we have to not just be
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: against Trump. We have to be for stuff. That's the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: one thing that got lost in the last resistance is
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: that we opposed everything Trump did. We thought our best strategy,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and it was a successful strategy in the moment, was
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: to shine all the spotlight on Trump, let him show
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: the public why he was unfit and dangerous, and then
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: reap the rewards. That was sufficient to win the House
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: and the Senate and sneak through a very, very close
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: White House victory in the middle of a pandemic. But
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: it's clearly not enough to win again. It's not enough
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: to actually build a governing majority in this country. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: so we have to have an agenda. And it is
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: within that agenda that we must demonstrate that we are
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: not defenders of the status quo. That must be an
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: agenda that is populist in broadly defined, populist economically, but
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: also populist in the sense that in the classic term
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of we are reformers of government, right? We are looking
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: to get to deal with corporate influence, money and politics,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: concentrated wealth. And if we can do all of those things,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: we have a shot here.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I completely agree.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: And on that note, I also think it matters how
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: we frame these fights when we take them on. And
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: so what does the average person care about the Des
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Moines Register or ABC News backing away from Trump? What
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: do they care about Liz Cheney on trial or someone
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: at the DOJ or Merrick Garland or whoever? Well, Donald
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Trump over the next couple of years is hanging around
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: with a bunch of billionaires and they are going to
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: try to enrich themselves at every possible chance to They're
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: going to take every possible chance to enrich themselves. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: they're going to try to screw everyone else, take away
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: your health care so they can pay for tax cuts
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: for rich people, all kinds of corruption. You're going to
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: have to pay more in prices. And they want you
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: not to know about it. They don't want any critics.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And then when they do this, when the press tries
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: to report about it or when someone tries to complain,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: a Democratic politician or anyone else, they want to throw
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: them in jail or they want to sue them. And
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: so they want a country where They can get away
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: with whatever they want and enrich themselves and screw you
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and have no one find out about it. And I
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: do think that like just it's subtle and it's nuanced,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: but I think how we frame these fights matters. And
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: so that it's not necessarily about our democratic institutions under attack,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: but it's about Trump trying to get away with a
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: lot of shit with a lot of with Elon Musk
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: and all of his billionaires around him.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about Democrats who are dealing with their own
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: congressional drama. On Wednesday, House Democrats voted to give 74-year-old
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Jerry Connolly of Virginia the top Democratic spot on the
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Oversight Committee instead of 35-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, widely regarded as
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: one of the party's best messengers, certainly the one with
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: the biggest reach.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: The vote was.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: 131 to 84. Connolly has been a longtime member of Oversight,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: which is primarily responsible for investigations, though he did sadly
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: announce in November that that he has esophageal cancer. This
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: means the Democrats will be replacing 61-year-old Jamie Raskin, who
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: will now be the top Democrat on judiciary, with someone
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: even older. Though, as Connolly ally Congressman Don Beyer said,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Jerry's a young 74, cancer notwithstanding.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It's quite a quote.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Dan, on last Friday's episode, we were both encouraged by
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: reporting that AOC basically had the votes to get the gig,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: and we're pretty excited about it.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: What do you think happened?
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Reportedly, Nancy Pelosi was lobbying for Jerry Connolly, a longtime
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: ally of hers, in part because he is an ally
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: of Pelosi, but also because I think she believes in
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: the seniority system, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most bananas decisions I've ever seen
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: in my life. It's just such a misunderstanding of what
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: matters in politics. Picking seniority over the ability to deliver
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: a message... is exactly how we've gotten this mess to
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: begin with. It's how we end up with a gerontocracy
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: of leading the Democratic Party that cannot communicate clearly or
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: in any sort of modern way that it reaches the
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: actual voters who decide elections.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Can I just say, Nancy Pelosi obviously has still, even
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: though she's not speaker anymore, a lot of sway over Democrats,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: but she's not speaker anymore, or minority leader in this case.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: 181 Democrats voted for Connolly. And, you know, if you're
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: sort of a younger, newer Democrat to Congress? Is it
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: really like lobbying from Nancy Pelosi that's going to sway
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: your vote? Do you think there was anything else at
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: play here?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Look, someone, a very experienced Capitol Hill person once described
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: to me the politics of leadership elections in the House
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: as akin to how decisions are made in high school
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: student government elections, where it's all about cliques and friendships
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: and relationships, and there's no collective interest at play here.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And I think that's part of what happened here. Obviously,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: when they first came into Congress, there was a lot
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of tension between AOC and members of the quote-unquote squad
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and other members of Congress. I think that there are
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: people who do value seniority because at a time when
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: 90-some percent of incumbents get reelected all the time, you
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: can rise to power simply by staying alive. I mean,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: just if you just say you're a lot of people
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: will have not and will have not had a competitive
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: election since their first primary and are not going to
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: have another one for the foreseeable future. And so they
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: can one day become the ranking member or the chair
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of something simply by exercising and eating well.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is crazy, as do you.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: But let's give the arguments for Connolly their due here,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: because there's plenty of Democrats talking about why the party
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: did what it did. Retiring Representative Annie Custer, who heads
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the centrist New Democrats group in the House. said some
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: of her vulnerable members had concerns about AOC's record of
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: supporting primary challenges to her colleagues, even though AOC promised
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: to stop doing that as part of her campaign for
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the role. There also was a fear, apparently, about her
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: going too hard at divisive cultural issues. According to Politico,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, age 84, made the case for
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: seniority on behalf of Pelosi. And basically his argument was
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: being senior shouldn't mean you automatically get the job. though
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: it should at least be a tiebreaker between qualified candidates.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Congressman Lloyd Doggett, age 77, said, I think that there
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: are challenges in totally abandoning the seniority system here because
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: if seniority is not the rule, money becomes the rule.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: What do you make of all those arguments?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: It's like I said, seniority is essentially a participation trophy
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: for members of Congress, right? You just have to be
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: there and you eventually get something.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: There is value in experience, particularly leading substantive committees in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the majority, someone who knows what they are doing. Do
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I really care if the chair of the Ag Committee
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: is an amazing communicator or not? Not really. No one's
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: ever going to see that person on camera. You would
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: have to go searching for that person. There is one
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: role where communications matters the most, or two roles, I guess,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: where communication matters the most in Congress, and it is
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: on the Judiciary Committee and in the Oversight Committee. And
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: so let's use our brains and try to think strategically
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: about who we should put in those positions. I'm sure
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: there are members who are mad, who are friends with
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Elliot Engel or other people who have lost primaries, who
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: are mad at AOC and other people who support the
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: primary shelter. I'm sure that's the high school lunchroom politics
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: at play here. But the idea that somehow she is
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: a problem for vulnerable Democrats is insane. You think the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: NRCC is going to just forget she's a member of
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Congress and not run ads against her? It is true
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: that Jerry Connolly is unlikely to show up in any
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: ads against vulnerable members of Congress. That's because no one's
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: going to know who he is. He will never get attention.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, I have nothing negative to
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: say about Jerry Connolly because I, like 99% of Americans,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: have no idea who he is.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It is almost impossible for a member of Congress to
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: get sufficient attention to actually be heard by voters who
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: decide elections. There is a list of one member of
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Congress in the Democratic caucus who meets that test, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: it is AOC. The best job for someone who can
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: actually get attention is to be the ranking member on
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: the oversight committee when these fucking MAGA goons are using
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: this committee to try to do things like gin up
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: charges against Liz Cheney. And AOC, she is good at
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: what she says is good. She has a good message.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: But what is even more important than that, because there
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: are a lot of members who are pretty good messengers,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: what distinguishes her from other people is she can actually
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: get attention. She understands how to communicate in a modern way.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: The fact that Republicans hate her and are triggered by
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: her is a plus. Because it means that there will
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: be conflict around the things she says, which means they
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: will get more coverage. It just, it is.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: We are just making a decision to not be heard.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly how we got into this mess.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Politics is a war for attention. AOC can get attention.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: She has proven that when she has attention, she can
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: deliver a more compelling message than most people in the party.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: But she's going to be denied that for a series
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: of very dumb, self-defeating reasons.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I will say two things here too.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Like there, I think, there is some angst among a
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: lot of House Democrats that I think is quite misplaced, where,
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: you know, I think they're like, oh, squad, unpopular with
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the broader electorate, you know, DSA, all that kind of stuff.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: I would say that AOC, particularly over the last several years,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say she has moderated her message
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: or anything like that, because I do not think that,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: but I think she has been very smart about especially
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: in recent years on which battles to pick, how to
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: talk to voters, open to people who have different opinions.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I think that like, she's just, she's very, very thoughtful.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And she's like, really? I mean, I was always impressed
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: with her, but she's impressed me even more the longer
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: she's been in Congress.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So that's number one.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Number two, I think from her perspective, like, whether she's
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: the top Democrat on oversight or not, she's going to
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: get hurt, right? Like there can be a fucking five
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: hours of hearings on C-SPAN that no one will ever see.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: And if AOC picks up her phone and does an
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Instagram live, she's going to reach more people. And she's
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: still going to be on oversight, right? Because she was
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: on oversight before. And if they're fucking smart, Jerry Connolly
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: and others on oversight, you know, during these hearings, she'll
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: be given plenty of time to speak.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: So that'll be okay. What really bothers me about it, right?
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Is that It just, this gets to your point, it
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: reveals a mindset among Democrats that they are missing that
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: attention is the only thing that matters right now. Or
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: not the only thing that matters, but attention is the
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: first thing that matters. Because if you cannot get attention
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: in this media environment, your message cannot be heard. And
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: if your message cannot be heard, you cannot persuade people.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: If you can't persuade people, you can't win. If you
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: can't win, you can't cover. So, like, I think that
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party has still not figured out how important
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: it is to get attention and what is required to
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: get attention. And even if you're a more moderate member,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: what's required to get attention is not, I'm sure some
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: of them think, just yelling and screaming about Republicans and
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: showing the most outrage and this or that, like, Look,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: it's tough. You've got to be creative. You've got to
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: talk like a normal fucking human being and not like
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: a politician who's been there for 40 years. And by
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: the way, I don't just want to make it an
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: age thing. There's old politicians who know how to communicate.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: There's young politicians.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Bernie is an example of that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: And there's plenty of young politicians who are unbelievably boring
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: and do not. Just to be very honest. So it's
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: not necessarily about age. But everyone needs to know that
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: if you cannot get attention... and attention is not like
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: putting out your press releases and giving your board a
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: press conference and doing something at the, whatever, like then
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: you're just not going to be heard and we're just
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: not going to win. So even though Democrats don't control
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: the White House or Congress, we may actually have more
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: leverage to fight back than people might think. As we've
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: mentioned before, Speaker Mike Johnson will have an incredibly narrow
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: margin in the House next year, which will require nearly
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: every House Republican to support him on nearly every vote
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: if Trump and Republicans want to get anything done, at
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: least legislatively. And right now, Johnson is already struggling to
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: get that support. He is currently trying to pass a
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: bill to keep the government funded for just three months,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: giving up on a full year. He's just trying to
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: do three months. But all the usual MAGA troublemakers in
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: his caucus are once again threatening to oppose the bill
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: because it's not crazy enough for them. Unfortunately, one of
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: those MAGA troublemakers, unfortunately for Johnson, one of those MAGA
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: troublemakers is now Doge Master Elon Musk, who weighed in
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: with a tweet saying, this bill should not pass, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: another with a photo of a huge stack of printed
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: out papers that are supposedly the bill, with the caption,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: ever seen a bigger piece of pork? It's also funny,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: by the way, that Fox and Friends broke this news
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: about Elon Musk to Mike Johnson. live on air. And
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Johnson had to say, well, I know where Elon stands
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: on this. And he knows where I stand. And they
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: called me last night. And he knows what a tough
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: spot I'm in. And we just need to wait till
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is in charge next year. And then everyone
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: will get in line. But the question is what Democrats
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: will do, not just in this fight, but in next
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: year's funding fight, the fight on taxes, immigration, energy, all
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: the fights that are coming up in Congress next year.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Do Democrats use their leverage to extract concessions from Johnson,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: in this case in exchange for helping him keep the
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: government open, or do Democrats just sit back and let
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Republicans fail? Because, you know, like I said, even if
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: he gets the votes for this three-month funding bill, which
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: he may in the end, he's going to have to
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: do this many, many more times when Trump is president.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: What do you think Democrats should do here?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: My understanding, and my understanding equates to my having read
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Punchbowl this morning, is Is that Democrats actually did a
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: pretty good job of getting a bunch of concessions from
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Johnson in this bill. Like Johnson understood that he was
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: going to need a bunch of Democrats to vote for
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: this to get it passed. And he's given them a
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: bunch of things. If we wanted to play good, but
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: probably like kind of hackish politics right now, we would
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: make a giant issue of the fact that there is
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: a pay increase for members of Congress in this bill,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: the first one in 15 years.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And that is deeply unpopular. And I am willing to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: bet that this was a– I'm just guessing here. So
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: don't hold me to this. But I'm guessing that this
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: was sort of a bargain struck between all the leaders.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Because every member wants– no one wants to say it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And when members run for leadership, they often say they
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: will support a pay raise. And substantively, we should actually
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: pay members of Congress more. But if you wanted to
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: find an issue that would galvanize people against the Republican Party,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: the pay increase would be one of them, even if
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it is not the most substantively responsible thing.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: We would do.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: And we should say why there's an argument for paying
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: them more. And it comes from like some Democrats, liberals, progressives.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: And it's because basically we have a system now where
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: because members of Congress are paid the salaries they are,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: you have to be like independently wealthy, which especially many
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: members of the Senate are, in order to run for Congress.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Because a lot of these guys, it doesn't matter that
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: they have a low salary for Congress because they're rich otherwise.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: But if we want people to go to Congress who
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: are working class who represent the incomes of most people
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: in this country, then it needs to be a little
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: more attractive as a salary.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And if people, it just, I would just add one
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: more thing. That is people will look at that salary
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: and be like, that's a lot more than the median
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: American makes.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: That is absolutely true. But you also have to have
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: two homes in this situation. You have to maintain a
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: residence in your district and you have to have a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: place to sleep in Washington state, which is why some
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: people actually sleep in their office, but that's probably not
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: particularly viable. They particular for people with families.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: But anyway, so that's one thing that's in there.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: But I was going to say, going forward, so let's
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: get through the, if this bill, as I understand it,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: pretty good for Democrats, then we should do what we can,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: get across the finish line, take the wins we got
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: in here. And then next year, we should be– Hakeem
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Jarvis should hold all his votes until he gets what
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: he wants. At least for the first few months, it's
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: going to be a one-seat majority most likely, presuming that
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Trump's nominees get confirmed and head to that and leave
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the House. So until those special elections happen, see why
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: they one seat majority. And so use all that leverage
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: possible to get as much as we possibly can. Or,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: you know, look, I am usually- Are you calling for
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: a shutdown? Are you about to call for a shutdown?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Are you going to shut down the government?
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to shut down the government. But just
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: for discussion purposes, right? We've talked about shutdowns and what
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Democrats can do in using their leverage in the context
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: of Trump's president, Democrats control the Senate. Trump's president, Democrats
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: control the House. Biden's president, Republicans.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: In the Congress.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: We are now going to have a situation where Republicans
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: control everything. They control everything. Every level of power, they
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: are in charge of the House, the Senate, the White House.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump has more power than any president has ever had.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Got a Supreme Court that he has shaped. And I
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: wonder if next year, when some of these bills come up,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of especially like the tax bill, which I'm
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: sure most Democrats will vote against anyway. But again, you
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: can imagine a scenario where, you know, the tax bill
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: is going to be a must pass bill, right? Because
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: the Trump tax cuts are set to expire next year.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: And so Trump wants to, of course, double down on
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: his tax cuts, not just renew the tax cuts, but
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: also like make the corporate tax rate even lower, give
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: a bigger tax cut to corporations. You could imagine a
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: scenario where because Mike Johnson may need Democratic votes that
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: we extract some concessions and get some good middle-class tax cuts, right?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Beef up the middle-class tax cuts. Or you can imagine
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Democrats saying, look, you guys run Washington. You have all
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: the votes. You have powerful Donald Trump here. And we're
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: not going to sit here and help you gut people's
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: health care, take away their health insurance so you can
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: give tax cuts to rich people. Like, you find the
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: votes for that. Because we're not going to stand for that.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: This is an important distinction you're making. I was answering
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: that question in the context of government funding.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think it depends on what's in
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the funding bill, too. But if that funding bill, which
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I imagine it will be under full Republican control, is
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: gutting a bunch of priorities for Democrats and it's going
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: to hurt a lot of people. If they throw like
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Medicaid funding in there and they gut Medicaid funding or
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: they gut the subsidies for the ACA that Democrats got
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: to do. Instead of compromising so you get a little
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: bit more of the subsidies and maybe you save a
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: little bit more of the Medicaid cuts, I also think
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: you could be like, look, they want to fund the government.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: They want to pass something that's going to keep the
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: government open but screw people.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Who are going to lose their fucking health care. Go
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: for it. You find the votes.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: So let's take these things. This is a relatively and
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: surprisingly interesting conversation about congressional strategy.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying my best. I'm trying my best.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Let's do the government funding first. Now, the way this
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: is going to play out, there's obviously going to be
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: some House versions of the bill. The Democrats are going
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: to be terrible because they're going to have to keep
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: going further to the right to get every person from
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Barry Laudermilk, who I discovered existed yesterday, to, you know.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: He's the one who put out the report to Target Cheney.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's an amazing name. But what eventually will come
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: back is a bill that got at least seven Senate
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Democratic votes.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And so they're like, in that case, and that is
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: probably a Thune-Schumer negotiation to get something that gets a sufficient,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: a large number of senators that then comes back to
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: the House. And then that is something that is probably,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: unless something has gone horribly wrong in the Senate, is
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: something that we would probably be okay with, or as
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: okay as we could possibly be in comparison to a
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: shutdown when the Republicans control all the levers of power. Now,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: on the tax bill, this is incredibly important. No Democrat-
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: should vote for the tax bill. Certainly coming out of
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: the House.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: We should say none. Not a single one. Now, there
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: may be one person who breaks, but that should be...
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: We have to treat this like Harry Reid treated Social
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Security privatization in 2005, which I know is an incredible.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: You write it. You get the votes. You pass it.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Yours.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: It's on you.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: We're not going to be there. We're not there. We're
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: not negotiating everything. You go do it. And let's see
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: if they can actually get it done. But we are.
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Do not give them anything... for this. And this is
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: incredibly important because we want to shine a light on
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the fact that Donald Trump ran to cut costs. And
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: one of his first acts is going to be cut
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: taxes for the richest people in America.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: No, I, yeah, I look, I've been, I've been thinking
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: about this because you can see even with the government fund,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: that's correct on the tax bill for sure. Even on
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: the government funding bill, you can see a situation where
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Democrats are like, well, we want to, uh, we want
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: to work with Republicans where we agree and, and, you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: extract some concessions and then stand up where we don't
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: agree and, and then Republicans end up keeping the government open,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: but they do a bunch of bad shit in the
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: funding bill, and Democrats go, well, we got this concession,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: and no one knows, because no one pays attention to Congress,
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: and all the people maybe understand about Congress right now,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: or Washington in general, forget about Congress, is, oh, Donald
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Trump controls all of Washington, Donald Trump's in power, and
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: anything that goes wrong, it's Donald Trump's fault. But in
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: order for that to happen, Democrats have to be like, yeah, no,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: they're doing it all themselves.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: What just... Sorry to harp on to keep talking about
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: this because I am shockingly interested in it, but we
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: cannot consider keeping the government open a give to us.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: That is their job.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Which they have done in the Biden era.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: With the debt ceiling, keeping the government open, that is
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: not a give to us because we care about people's lives.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: That is a give to them because they run Washington.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, totally agree.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: All right, finally, we like to cover good news when
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: we see it, which isn't all that often right now.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Something that caught our eye this morning, a piece from
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: our friend Sam Stein at the Bulwark about more than
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: 100 Democrats pushing for reform at ActBlue. ActBlue is the
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: main online engine for small-dollar donations to progressive candidates and
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: causes and Democrats and all kinds of the whole broader
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Democratic universe. It is also, these Democrats argue, a key
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: culprit in all of the fundraising spam and grifty propaganda
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: No-name appeals that drive us all crazy in our text messages,
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: our emails, everything. Some of the changes this group of
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Democratic operatives and staffers all want to see. No more
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: solicitations from shady groups pretending to be official party entities
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: when they're not. No more outlandish promises of a 500%
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: match if you give now and it's so urgent you
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: must give now by the deadline. They also want to
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: see changes to the ways ActBlue sells or shares donor information.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: What do you think? I think this is the least
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: we can do on this.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, in fairness to full disclosure here, I talked
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: to the organizers of this effort several times over the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: last couple of months. I think this is incredibly important.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Good job.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: All I did was read the things, the very good
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: work they did. And I just primarily as someone who
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: has complained loudly about abuses of the fundraising system by
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: democratic organizations and particularly scam packs, which there are a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: lot on our side. This is very important. The problem
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: always is there's a collective action problem where the DNC–
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: like even if the DNC or the presidential nominee or
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: the individual senators were responsible in how they use their lists,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: everyone else isn't, right? And the most donors don't– they're
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: not like counting. Like Hakeem Jeffries has only emailed me
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: three times, but something called Turnout Pack has texted me 7,000
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: fucking times. No matter how many times I hit stop,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: it never works. It's just the Democrats. It's all the Democrats.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: And ActBlue is the one place where you can actually
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: have levers to pull to affect all of this. And
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: so this is all very good stuff. We should do it.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It's so sketchy when you get like, Barack Obama has spoken.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: And it's like a quote from Barack Obama. It makes
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: you think that Obama or Michelle Obama or Joe Biden
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: or Kamala Harris has endorsed this PAC, whatever it is
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: you've never heard of, from people you've never heard of,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: and you've never seen them expend money in any way, shape,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: or form. And so this is a very challenging problem.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: This is a set of reforms that can make things better.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: It's not, it doesn't mean that we're going to stop
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: getting annoying texts, but we may get fewer of them.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: And the ones we get may be better aligned with
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: actual organizations that will, are doing the work we wanted done.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Yes. I will just, I would go beyond this too.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, yes, let's get rid of all the scam
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: packs and, and, and, and, you know, not have not
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: as many of those texts, but like we got to
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: really think about, you know, the people who are, writing
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: these fundraising emails, these texts, like that strategy from the
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: campaigns themselves. And by the way, sometimes the campaigns outsource
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: it to like some digital fundraising, you know, firm or
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: whatever else, like just the language that's used. I mean,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: I fucking start from scratch here. It's like some of
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: the appeals seem ridiculous. Like I, we believe, and we've
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: done this through, you know, Vote Save America here, but like,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: we believe that there is a way to help direct
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: people's donations and figure out where to give that's smart
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: and where it's needed, even in a way that makes
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: sense to people, that doesn't sound like a fucking bot
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: blowing up your phone, and is actually a real fundraising appeal,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: and maybe even use some humor, and maybe just sound
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: a little more authentic. I just think that the entire
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: business of democratic digital fundraising, it could use a real overhaul,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: and that goes just beyond the scam packs.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I don't want to depress you, but They do these
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: things because they test them rigorously and they work.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Right? They are A-B testing. You know, I know.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: They test the open rates. And so when they say like, Matt,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: our segment freaked me out and they.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: Were in like opens the fucking thing. And I, I
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: get that, but like, I don't know. I, I, I do.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: I think that the testing is different from the like, okay,
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: It's going to get some money, but how many people
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: is it going to turn off?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Well, it's all short-term, right? It's all short-term.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: No one is thinking– because all these campaigns only care
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: about their list through Election Day, so they will burn
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: it to the ground. And all they care about is
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: their list. They don't think about the fact that the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: people on their list are on 700 other lists. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: so when you're burning your list to the ground, you're
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: affecting all your other Senate colleagues or the DSCC or
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: whoever else. And these are good questions that we should
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: ask the DNC community. Not that the DNC is in
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: charge of all of this, but they do have some
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: influence here. We can talk to them about how they're
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: thinking about this as part of the DNC chair race
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: coming up.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: It's a good idea. Okay.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: When we come back from the break, you're going to
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: hear my conversation with Cecilia Munoz about what it's been
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: like to watch from the inside as the immigration conversation
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: drifted farther and farther to the left. Quick plug before
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: we do that. I know a lot of us have
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: holiday trips coming up, maybe long flights. If you're traveling
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: or you just need to escape from your family for
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: a bit, I don't know why that would be. A
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: reminder that you can binge Crooked's award-winning limited series. Podcasts
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: like Dissident at the Doorstep, about the shocking transformation of
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  Speaker 3: a Chinese civil rights activist into a MAGA figurehead. Killing Justice,
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  Speaker 3: which digs into the mystery of the death of a
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  Speaker 3: prominent Indian judge. And our most recent, Empire City, the
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  Speaker 3: untold origin story of the NYPD, about the secret history
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  Speaker 3: of America's largest police force. which was named one of
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  Speaker 3: the top podcasts of 2024 by Time Magazine, Vulture, and
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: the New York Times. You can find all these limited
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: series at cricket.com slash limiteds or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Cecilia Munoz. Joining us today, she
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: spent two decades focusing on civil rights and immigration at
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy organization before overseeing all domestic
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: policy in Barack Obama's White House, the first Latina to
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: do so. Cecilia Munoz, welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: It is good to see you.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Good to see you too.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: You wrote a piece in The Atlantic called How Democrats
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Lost Their Way on Immigration with Frank Sherry, an advocate
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: like you who ran pro-immigrant organizations for more than three
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: decades and also advised the Harris campaign. I think the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: piece is very much worth a read, and I want
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: to talk to you a little bit about the piece itself.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: But first, for people who don't know your background, can
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: you talk a little bit about what led you to
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: immigration advocacy and ultimately the White House?
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So I'm the daughter of immigrants and the wife
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: of an immigrant. And I've been working on immigration really
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: since I was a graduate student, first as providing services
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: to immigrants. I ran a legalization program back in the 80s,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: which is the last time we legalized undocumented people in
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: significant numbers. And so I've kind of been doing policy
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: and advocacy ever since. It's kind of fundamental.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: To who I am. In your piece, you and Frank write, quote,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: we believe that immigration has become a losing issue for
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Democrats over the past decade because elected leaders have followed
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: progressive advocates to the left beyond the political space available
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: to them. Voters feeling unheard and frustrated may have squirmed
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: at Trump's racism and radicalism, but they also saw him
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: as someone who took the problem seriously and was trying
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: to address it. Now, I've seen, I shared the piece.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: You can imagine a lot of response. I'm sure you're
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: getting a lot of response to it. I've seen a
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: lot of activists and a few immigration reporters argue in response.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Biden relied on some Trump era policies to keep out
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: the huge influx of migrants and asylum seekers during his
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: first term. And then Kamala Harris ran on a border
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: proposal so tough that it was written by a conservative Republican.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: So how does that qualify as elected Democrats following progressive
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: advocates to the left?
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: So I think it's pretty well understood that the Biden
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: administration was slow. I think voters saw the Biden administration
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: as being slow to respond to the situation at the border.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: I'm obviously close to the folks in the Biden administration.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: I know they worked incredibly hard. I think they ultimately
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: landed on some pretty thoughtful policy and policy which turned
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: out to be pretty effective in the end. But by
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: the time they got there, it was too late to
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: persuade voters that they were serious and they had endured
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: by that point years of hammering away at how much
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: of a crisis this is and all of the crazy
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: tough ways that Donald Trump was going to address it.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: And the thing which is uncomfortable I think both in
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: the advocacy community and therefore uncomfortable for the administration, was
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: saying out loud that they believed this was a thing
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: that needed to be controlled. It is really, really easy
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: to push back on immigration enforcement. I spent a lot
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: of years of my career doing it as well. It
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: is really hard to have a vision for how enforcement
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: should happen. And politically, for a Democrat in office, It's
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: a world of pain if you stand up and say,
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: this is how we should enforce the law. But at
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: the end of the day, especially because the situation at
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: the border is unlike anything we have experienced before in
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: our history, I think the public expects their leaders to
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: have a theory of the case for how to do
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: it and to be assertive about it. And I think
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: I have a lot of praise for the Biden administration
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: and a lot of affection for the Biden administration. But
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: I think it was pretty clear that he didn't want
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: to talk about this issue until he had to because
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: it's a world of pain. But at the end of
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: the day, I think we need to accept that the
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: American public expects its officials to bring order and fairness
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: to the border. And I think if we can be
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: persuasive that we can bring order and fairness to the border,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: the American public is also prepared to be really to
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: be generous. And that's why. In the Obama years, the
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: comprehensive immigration reform frame won the majority of the public
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: by a lot, had tremendous public support. And that's why
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: we argue a balanced approach that includes a theory of
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: the case for how to manage the border, along with
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: a path to permanent status for people who are here
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: illegally and openings and legal immigration. That's a balance which
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I think can win the public, but won't. For the
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: time being, we have lost the public on this issue.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Democrats have lost the public. And that's a catastrophe.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: So what do you think President Biden and Vice President
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Harris could have done differently over the last four years
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: to deal with the border in a way that more
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Americans would have supported?
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: I think ultimately the policy formulation that they landed on
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: is a really good one. We know that it's effective
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: because actually the pressure at the border, the number of
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: folks entering unlawfully has gone down. But they didn't start
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: talking about it until too late. So I think an
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: aggressive approach that said from the beginning, we recognize that
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: this is a challenge. Here's how we're going to handle
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: it in the region, in the hemisphere. They actually adopted
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of really solid policy to give people the
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: ability to get to safety without making the dangerous journey
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: to the United States. They created mechanisms to move people
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: from entering In between ports of entry and channeling them
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: to ports of entry, they got a lot of pushback
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: for doing that. But ultimately, that allowed them to regulate
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: how many people come in a day. They got there,
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: but they got there kind of late. And they were,
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: I think, reluctant to make a forceful case, in part
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: because if a Democrat makes a forceful case, you get
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: a lot of pushback from within the family. And so
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: I think the mistakes were not so much policy mistakes. They,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: I think, started from the point of view that they
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: did not want to talk about it. I think the
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: sense was any day that this is the thing in
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: the news that we're talking about is a bad day.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: And I think that was the mistake.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: It's funny because last night as I was preparing for
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: this interview, I sort of went back on the whole
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: timeline of everything that happened in the Biden administration around immigration.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: And because, you know, some people are arguing, look, They
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: used Title 42, which Trump had used right from the
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: beginning of the administration. Title 42 is a public health
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: provision that allowed both the Trump administration and Biden administration
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: to turn away migrants and asylum seekers because of COVID.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: And so they had that in place.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: And then after that was taken away, then they tried
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: to do the border bill. And then after that, they
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: finally arrived at the executive action that essentially closed the
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: border that's resulted in many fewer crossings. But when I
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: look back at like Biden's statements and speeches and remarks,
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: it really, there was almost nothing. I mean, when he
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: announced a new measure, he would talk about it, but
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: like not much in the state of the unions, not
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: like any kind of big immigration speeches. And it does
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: seem like even as we talk about what the right
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: message or wrong message was, there just wasn't much of
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: a message at all. And on an issue that ended
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: up being, you know, the number two issue for most
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: voters and not just Republican voters, that seems like a
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: missed opportunity to say the least.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean, the argument that Frank and I are
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: trying to make in the piece that we wrote is
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: that Democrats should lean in. And I think the instinct
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: that has taken hold is to run away from the issue.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: But there is history. that demonstrates that when the frame
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: is who's going to be tough, this is Donald Trump's frame, right?
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: Who's going to be tough as opposed to not tough,
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: that we have a hard time competing with that. But
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: the frame that works for Democrats is leaning in and
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: with an approach that actually solves the problem. When the
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: frame is fix it versus chaos, Democrats tend to do well.
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: And we have been having this debate on Donald Trump's
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: frame for way too long. And the way to move
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: it back to our frame is to lean in and
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: with a theory of the case on how to address this.
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: And I think the good news is the policy part
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: is available now. It's it's right. It's not this isn't
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: an intractable problem. This is a problem with policy solutions.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: But we have to be willing to talk about them
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: and embrace them. And they include enforcement, which is uncomfortable.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: But obviously, that's preferable to what we're all about to
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: endure over the next four years.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Yes. And I want to get to that.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: But first, I want to go back for a second,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: because I think a lot of our listeners, a lot
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: of Democrats, a lot of people who just sort of
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: been involved and paying attention to politics sort of started
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: at 2016 when Trump won. And I think the history
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: and the context is really important to this debate to
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: understand where we've been. The most common reaction when I
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: shared your piece was activists on the left who said
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: something to the effect of, well, you and Cecilia, you
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: both worked for the deporter in chief, so we don't
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: really trust you on this issue.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: When you were in the Obama White House, sort of
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: your reaction to the deporter-in-chief criticism and what you guys
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: in the policy part of the White House had to
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: deal with there?
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah. President Obama had the kind of balanced approach that Frank, Sherry,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: and I are advocating for, in that he had a
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: theory of the case that included an approach to immigration
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: enforcement that but also a path to citizenship for undocumented
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: people and expansions to legal immigration. And that was, from
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: the public point of view, the desirable policy, right? 70%, 80%,
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: 85% of the public supported that approach. He also had
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: a theory of the case on how to conduct immigration enforcement.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: I think it's a fair criticism to say that it
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: took us too long to land on the right approach.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: There was a lot of trial and error from 2010 say, 2010,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: when we really started tweaking how enforcement happens, to 2014.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: But essentially, the premise was you have to conduct immigration enforcement,
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: but how you do it matters. And instead of concentrating
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: on people in the interior who have been here for
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: a long time, the priorities should be new arrivals, people
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: who haven't set down roots yet, and folks with serious
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: criminal convictions. And ultimately, that's the... that's the set of
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: enforcement choices that makes sense. That's also the most humane. Um,
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: but because the removal numbers were high and the removal
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: numbers were high because, uh, there were a lot of
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: new entrants that the Obama administration removed, you know, he
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: got named by my former boss, the deporter in chief.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: And that has, that has stuck. Um, and what happened
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: in the advocacy world from that era onward is that
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: folks moved to the left and, focused very heavily on
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: immigration enforcement. And so their request to Secretary Clinton when
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: she was running was to move away from immigration enforcement.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: And she did. She did an interview with Jorge Ramos,
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: which essentially backed away from the kind of enforcement infrastructure
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: that President Obama had outlined. Immigration enforcement was barely mentioned
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: in her platform at all. They extracted a promise from
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden when he was running, to do a moratorium
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: on enforcement, which he did, which he announced, but which
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: ultimately did not withstand legal scrutiny. And the candidates that
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: were running for the Democratic nomination were all asked about
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: decriminalizing border crossings. The entire conversation moved to the left,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: away from immigration enforcement, and created the impression that Democrats
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: were not serious about imposing order and fairness at the borders.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: And I think that has cost us very, very dearly.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: It's not a comfortable subject. Look, you know, I'm a Latina.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I'm an immigration policy expert. This is a very uncomfortable subject.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: But honestly, John, the reason that Frank and I wrote
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: this piece, I feel very strongly. I am not convinced
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: we're going to be able to take our country back
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: from the autocrats if we don't get our arms around
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: this issue. What's happening at the border is happening at
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: a scale that the country has not seen before, ever.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: And it is not a short-term emergency. It is the
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: beginning of what's coming because of climate change and other things.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: If we do not have a theory of a case
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: for how to do this in an orderly way that
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: allows us to welcome folks, but with conditions, I really
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: fear for our ability to take the country back from
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: the autocrats.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I know you and Frank have both made
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: this point, but look, the job of, as you know,
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: very well, the job of an advocate and an activist
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: is to push on politicians, right?
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: It's also the job of the elected leaders to take
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: in that advice and that pressure, but also do what's
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: best for the country and for their other constituents and
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: to build, to continue to garner support so they can govern.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: And one.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: The moment that I sort of realized that things had
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: really shifted in a way that could potentially down the
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: road be troubling is in that 2020 primary. Now, you
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: know this because, you know, how many speeches do we
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: work on, immigration speeches in the Obama White House, where
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Obama would always say, we are a nation of immigrants.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: We are also a nation of laws. And then he
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: would say, we really want people who have been here
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: in the shadows for decades, who were working hard and
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: paying taxes and contributing to the community and have families here.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: We want to give them a pathway to citizenship. And
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: we want to say that if we're going to give
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: you this path, then there's a lot of other people
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: who are going through the legal processes to become immigrants.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: And so you'll have to pay a fine, get to
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: the back of the line, and then we'll give you
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: the pathway to citizenship. So he said that all the time,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: and there was no controversy around that at all, at
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: least the way he said that. And then in one
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: of the primary debates, Joe Biden said, uses that language
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: about getting to the back of the line. And there's
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: this outcry that it was offensive, that he shouldn't say this.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: He had to meet with immigrant groups and Latino groups,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: and he had to like apologize and do these round tables.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking like, this was like, so just
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: standard language. And also now after we just went through
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: this last election and we heard from so many people
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: in focus groups and voters and just, you know, interviews, Latinos, immigrants,
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: recent immigrants who are saying, look, the one thing that
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: bothers me is it took me years to become a
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: citizen in this country. And now someone just came over
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: the border last week and suddenly they get all these
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: benefits and I'm still been waiting for citizenship for 10 years.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: So I do, I wonder why, why do you think
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: the immigration activist community sort of went this route after 2012,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: I guess?
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: I think a couple of things happened. As I mentioned,
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: they focused very heavily on enforcement and that became kind
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: of the center on the situation of undocumented people, which
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: is work well worth doing. And the risks of immigration
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: enforcement to them became kind of the focal point of
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: the move to the left. And we stopped having a
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: conversation that included advocates and folks who were governing or
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: folks who were seeking to govern about how can this
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: actually work? and advocates instead landed in a place where
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: they focused on the trade-offs that were part of the
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: comprehensive immigration reform model, right? The getting to the back
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: of the line, the fact that some people legalized but
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: not everybody, and decided that that was trading off a
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: benefit for some people at the expense of other people,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: and that they, in fact, tossed out the entire comprehensive
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: immigration reform model. And began really to focus pretty heavily
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: on enforcement. And then, of course, there was a heck
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: of a lot of terrible to respond to in the
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Trump years. And that, I think, the response to Trump,
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: I think, contributed to the singular focus of where the
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: advocacy community landed. And look, that is heroic work. It
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: was incredibly difficult work, incredibly emotional work. They took people's children.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: And the advocates that I'm talking about were at the
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: front lines of addressing that. I have nothing but respect
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: for that work and for the people who do it.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: But when you were describing the job of advocates is
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: to push and the job of people who are governing
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: is to govern, when we do it really well, all
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: of those people's jobs is also to be in a
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: conversation about what the policy solution is to the problem
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: at hand. And as an advocate, you are, of course,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: pushing for the best possible outcome, but you're in the
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: conversation And that conversation has really broken down. And as
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: a result, Democrats don't have a working theory of the
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: case that they can say out loud about how to
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: address the border situation. And that's tragic because this Democratic
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: administration is actually kind of doing it pretty well. But
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: we can't talk about it because you get shot at.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned that a lot of this was sort
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: of in relation to the response to Trump. when he
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: won the first time. I think the reason why it's
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: so important now is because there's going to be another
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: Trump term and another potential reaction from Democrats. He seems
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: pretty intent on carrying out mass deportations. He's threatened to
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: use the military, especially in blue states and sanctuary cities
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: that may refuse to help ICE. He will try to
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: end birthright citizenship. He seems ready to go far beyond
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: only deporting undocumented immigrants who've broken the law while in
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: this country or pose a threat to public safety or
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: just arrived here recently. We're looking at deportations of people
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: who've been here for decades, who work and pay taxes
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: and contribute and have family who are U.S.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Citizens.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: How do you think Democrats should react this time around?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: And what lessons do we learn from last time, knowing
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: that this time could be far more extreme than what
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: we saw last time?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's going to be worse. We know that. Maybe
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: not in all the ways that he has promised, because
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: some of the stuff he wants to do is going
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: to be pretty hard for him to do, but it's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: going to be worse. I think the thing we didn't
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: do as well as I would have liked last time
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: is have a consistent narrative that makes it clear. There
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: is a goal that generally the American public agrees on,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: which is to bring order and fairness to this system.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: That goal is valid. We didn't say that. But there's
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: a right way and a wrong way to go about
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: achieving it. And we are about to tell you, we're
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: about to see a lot of what the wrong way
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: looks like. The harms of what the Trump administration is
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: about to do, the greatest harms are likely to be
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: visited on children. I think we're likely to see workplace raids,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: for example. We saw those in the George W. Bush era.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: What that looks like is kids go to school in
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: the morning and when they come back at the end
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: of the day, their parents are gone. So those kinds of,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: we know that that's what happens. We are sadly, tragically,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: about to be able to tell the story to the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: American public about what it costs those families, what it
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: costs those kids, what it costs those communities, and what
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: it costs all of us. That narrative should also include
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: that this is the wrong way to go about accomplishing
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: the country's goals, but there is a right way. And
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: the goal is not the problem. It's how we're going
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: about trying to accomplish it. To lay the predicate for
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: that frame that I was talking about, like Democrats need
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: to own the, we're the ones who know how to
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: fix challenging problems. These guys create chaos and harm and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: they harm really vulnerable people that most of the country,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: I hope, believes we shouldn't be harming. But we have
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: to lean in and we have to be prepared to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: say that the goal that the American people want, which
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: is an orderly and fair system, is legit. Yeah.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: My fear is that they are going to start by,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: they would love nothing more than to pick fights with
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: blue state governors, mayors, over deporting undocumented immigrants who are
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: threats to public safety. And, you know, obviously this is
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: a tiny percentage, but they have made these folks famous
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: in the last campaign. And they would like nothing more
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: than for Democrats to react with outrage to the deportation
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: of immigrants either recent arrivals or people who have, you know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: broken laws and potentially violent criminals here in the United States.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: And I do wonder like how we, part of what
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: I think this conversation requires is us to sort of
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: have the discipline and wherewithal to think about when these
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: horrific stories, much like the ones you just mentioned, when
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: that happens, that we lift up those stories and that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: we don't necessarily overreact when they tried to, you know,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: deport violent criminals that they should deport, because I think that,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: you know, they're going to try to make this about
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: what they've just made the last campaign about.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, and try to force us into a position of
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: appearing to make the argument that no one should ever
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: be deported, ever. And that's not good policy. It's not
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: where the public is, and it's not where we should
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: be either. But you're right that it will require, I think,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: discipline to not have this debate on Donald Trump's terms.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: but to swing the debate back to our terms because
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: we need to win elections and we need to get
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: this policy challenge addressed.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, to that point, I mean, we are so,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: last question on this, like we are so far from
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: having the votes to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And, you know,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: if the filibuster is still around, we would need 60
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: votes in the Senate. I don't even know how Democrats
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: get 60 votes in the Senate at this point with
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: this map. If we get rid of the filibuster, we
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: still need 51 votes. That's still a challenge at this
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: point when you look at the states that are up
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: in the next two elections. What do you think a
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Democrat running for president in 2028 can realistically promise and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: what should they run on, knowing that part of the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: challenge has also been Democrats running on comprehensive immigration reform,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: making these promises, and then they get into power. We
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: don't have the votes, can't pass immigration reform because of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: the Republicans, and then Democrats get blamed for it.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, it's an enormous challenge. It's not a short-term thing.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: We're not going to fix this in the short term
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: because Congress is a catastrophe. I think it starts with
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: having a vision for what needs to happen and being
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: able to persuade the American public that that's the right vision. Look,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: I think we have, honestly, the debate is happening around
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: the extremes. And I think the public really wants there
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: to be a center. And we need to provide it.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: For starters.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: And create the momentum so that it's safe for Democrats
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: to have a conversation about enforcement and safe for at
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: least some number of Republicans to have a conversation about
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: the kind of immigration system that we want to have.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: I fear that we are now in a situation where
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: the kind of permission structure to allow us to get
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: to that conversation requires that we successfully manage the situation
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: at the border. I think... I think that is true
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: now in a way that was not true a decade
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: ago when, you know, in the Obama years, when we
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: passed immigration comprehensive reform through the Senate. The situation at
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: the border was not then what it is now. And
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: the country expects it to be addressed. So I now
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: think that has to be kind of the primary piece.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: But I also think if you can be persuasive that
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: that is manageable, and I do believe that's possible. then
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: I still believe the American public is prepared to have
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: a conversation about a pathway to permanent status for the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: people who are here on temporary statuses or without status
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: at all. And even an expansion of legal immigration. I mean,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: the great irony is the business community knows we need immigrants.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: They know we need more of them. It's not just
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: that we will be cooking our own goose economically if
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: we deport people who are here now. It's that we're
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: going to need more generous immigration for the long term.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: And the business community knows it. They're just terrified of
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: saying anything out loud. So we need to make it
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: safe again to have this conversation. But I think as
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: an advocate or a former advocate, I don't know if
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: the advocacy world would embrace me any longer, but we
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: need to do a better job of listening to where
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: the public is. As a Latina, honestly, I think we
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: haven't even done enough listening to where our own community is.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: As this election shows, And we have to fix that.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: And that requires some humility. I think it requires some
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: listening and willing to make some hard policy choices in
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: order to get to the outcomes that we need. And honestly,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: I really think the fate of democracy in the United
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: States depends on this.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: No, I completely agree. And it's not just something that's
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: happening here. We're seeing it all over the world as
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: we're seeing mass migration, especially from the global south to
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: the north. And so I think A lot of countries
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: in Europe are dealing with this exact same thing. So
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: this is not just a United States problem. Cecilia, thank
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: you so much for joining. Thank you for writing that
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: to try to start this conversation, have an honest conversation.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: I know not easy for you as someone who cares
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: so much about immigration and has been an advocate for
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: so long. But I'm really glad that you and Frank
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: started the conversation as contentious as it may get, because
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: I think we need to have it.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: So thank you. And it was good talking to you.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: All right, that's our show for today.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: Dan, Tommy, Lovett, and I will convene on Friday to
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: hand out this year's pundies, our awards for the very
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: worst takes, and tweets.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: Talk to everyone then.
• 1:08:29
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