Latest / Pod Save America / Biden’s Final Warning

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Biden’s Final Warning · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
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  Speaker 2: Dan Pfeiffer, right here in Los Angeles.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: This is where everyone wants to be this time of year, right?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: That is true. Welcome to our beautiful city. On today's show,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the Gaza ceasefire deal that
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Biden and Trump are both taking credit for and whether
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: it will actually hold. We'll get into the Senate confirmation
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: hearings for Trump's impeccably qualified cabinet picks, especially Pete Hegseth
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and Pam Bondi. There's also a last-minute scramble to save
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  Speaker 2: TikTok before the ban goes into effect this weekend. And later,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I talked to Ben Wickler about his candidacy for DNC chair.
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  Speaker 2: But first, this is officially our last show of the
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  Speaker 2: Biden administration. And on Wednesday night, the president delivered his
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  Speaker 2: farewell address from the Oval Office. The speech is a
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  Speaker 2: tradition for outgoing presidents, and so is including some kind
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  Speaker 2: of warning to the country. Biden certainly did that in
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  Speaker 2: his address. Let's listen.
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  Speaker 3: Today.
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  Speaker 4: An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power,
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  Speaker 4: and influence. And we've seen it before, more than a
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  Speaker 4: century ago. But the American people stood up to the
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  Speaker 4: robber barons back then and busted the trusts. I'm equally
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  Speaker 4: concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex
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  Speaker 4: that could pose real dangers for our country as well.
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  Speaker 4: Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation,
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  Speaker 4: enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling.
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  Speaker 4: Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking.
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  Speaker 4: The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and
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  Speaker 4: for profit.
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  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, come on offline. I was pleasantly surprised that
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  Speaker 2: Biden chose to focus on economic inequality, wealth concentration, took
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  Speaker 2: one last parting shot at our new tech oligarchs. What'd
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  Speaker 2: you think about that choice?
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  Speaker 3: I loved it. I had two thoughts. First was great.
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  Speaker 3: And second was what took you so long? I think
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  Speaker 3: if Biden had talked like this more, I'm not saying
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  Speaker 3: it would have changed the political outcome of this race,
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  Speaker 3: but this has been a problem for a very long time.
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  Speaker 3: And that sort of populist rhetoric was a big part
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  Speaker 3: of his campaign when he ran and then became largely
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  Speaker 3: absent in his presidency. I mean, These speeches, and I,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: this morning, because I hate myself, I watched the Carter speech,
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  Speaker 3: the George H.W. speech, the Trump speech, the George W.
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  Speaker 3: Bush speech, the Obama speech.
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  Speaker 2: You really do hate yourself.
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  Speaker 3: I did it on 2x speed. And they're all incredibly,
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  Speaker 3: most of them are incredibly boring, the speeches. And most
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  Speaker 3: of them, they follow a very specific pattern of thanking
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  Speaker 3: the American people for giving them the privilege to be president.
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  Speaker 3: thanking their staff members. Even Trump thanked Mike Pence in
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  Speaker 3: his video. Only 14... I forgot that.
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  Speaker 2: Did Trump... Didn't he skip a farewell?
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  Speaker 3: He released a video. Oh, right, right, right. But it looks...
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  Speaker 3: When you watch it on YouTube, it looks just like
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  Speaker 3: the other ones because he's standing in the East Wing
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  Speaker 3: doing it. And then they talk about the terrible situation
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  Speaker 3: they inherited. They tout their accomplishments. And then they end
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  Speaker 3: by saying, this is where Trump did not do this,
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  Speaker 3: that they are going to return to the only job
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  Speaker 3: greater than president. Citizen. Citizen. Um, and so Biden doing
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  Speaker 3: something like Eisenhower did in his speech and which I
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: did not watch and Obama did it. His is do
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: something a little more interesting that it actually acknowledges what's
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: happening in the country. I mean, the George W. Bush
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  Speaker 3: speech is just like on another planet. Like you would
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: never know that the economy was an absolute freefall. He
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: spent like 22 words on the economy.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, talk about people who left office with a
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  Speaker 2: poor approval rating.
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  Speaker 5: 31%.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like middle of financial crisis after a bailout,
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  Speaker 2: plus after years of the Iraq war.
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  Speaker 3: And Katrina and everything else. But I think it was
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  Speaker 3: important that Biden acknowledge something that's happening in the country
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  Speaker 3: and did deliver a warning that is going to feel
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  Speaker 3: very prescient when three days after you're listening to this podcast,
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is putting his hand on the Bible to
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  Speaker 3: take the oath of office, surrounded by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg,
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  Speaker 3: the head of TikTok, the billionaire class.
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  Speaker 2: You forgot Elon.
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  Speaker 3: Of course. Elon will be holding the Bible.
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  Speaker 2: The three richest men in the world will be on
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  Speaker 2: the dais at the inauguration, like sitting there with members
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  Speaker 2: of Congress and the cabinet and the other presidents, just
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  Speaker 2: the three richest people in the fucking world.
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  Speaker 3: And I think there is something for Democrats here in
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  Speaker 3: a message going forward. I would not use the term oligarch.
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  Speaker 3: I would not talk about busting the trusts or the
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  Speaker 3: robber barons.
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  Speaker 2: Did you see Brian Stelter had tweeted that one of
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  Speaker 2: the top search terms after Biden's speech was, what is
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  Speaker 2: an oligarch?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I did not see that, but I'm not surprised.
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  Speaker 2: On a positive note, people were tuning in. Less positive,
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  Speaker 2: didn't know what oligarch.
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  Speaker 3: If people have to Google the primary part of your message,
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  Speaker 3: it's probably a change. I mean, it's fine for Biden
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  Speaker 3: is speaking to history here. He's not trying to persuade people.
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  Speaker 3: voters per se in this moment, so that's a fine
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  Speaker 3: choice for him to use. But Donald Trump is putting
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  Speaker 3: more than a dozen billionaires in his government, in his cabinet,
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  Speaker 3: on the Doge Commission, in his White House. And I
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  Speaker 3: think the idea that Donald Trump Republicans have a government of, by,
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  Speaker 3: and for the ultra wealthy in this country is a
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  Speaker 3: message that Democrats should latch onto, and Biden helped set
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  Speaker 3: the stage for that.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think that the I mean, it's a farewell address,
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  Speaker 2: so you can only do so much in a farewell
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  Speaker 2: address when you have a bunch of other territory to cover.
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  Speaker 2: But I do think that there is a there's a
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  Speaker 2: roadmap there for Democrats. And, you know, and Biden, you know,
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  Speaker 2: was even able to say, we're not trying to punish
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  Speaker 2: rich people. We're trying to make sure that they pay
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  Speaker 2: their fair share and that they don't like control everything. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, that seems like a it seems
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  Speaker 2: like a message that people would be receptive to. What
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  Speaker 2: do you think about the speech overall?
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  Speaker 3: I thought it was good. It was in the vein
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  Speaker 3: of the other speeches that I watched this morning. It
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  Speaker 3: followed that pattern. I think on one level, it's like
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  Speaker 3: you want Biden to wrestle with what has come, the
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  Speaker 3: consequences of some of the decisions he made, just the
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  Speaker 3: scary prospect that all Americans are facing by what's about
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  Speaker 3: to come with Donald Trump. That, I think, is sort
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  Speaker 3: of an impossible ask to Well, in that speech, right?
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  Speaker 3: Obama did something very different than everyone else. He gave
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  Speaker 3: a much longer speech. He went to Chicago, did it
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  Speaker 3: in a crowd. He viewed his message. He did all
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  Speaker 3: the other things. He was glad to be citizen. He
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  Speaker 3: touted his accomplishments. He talked about what he inherited, but
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  Speaker 3: also tried to give people hope that if you do
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  Speaker 3: the work of politics, you could bounce back from this.
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  Speaker 3: That was not really the cards for Biden. It really
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  Speaker 3: wasn't for anyone else who's ever done this.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I think for Biden, it was a good speech. We
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  Speaker 3: can critique some of the more flowery language that may
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  Speaker 3: not have landed. But once again, people are going to
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  Speaker 3: read this in the future as opposed to watch it
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  Speaker 3: in the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Someday soon, I will have some constructive criticism for all
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  Speaker 2: Democratic politicians and staffers about speech writing and speech giving.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, one, you haven't been holding back on that.
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  Speaker 3: Are you announcing a book?
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  Speaker 2: No, I'm just watching Biden's speech again. And the reason
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  Speaker 2: I'm saying this is this is not a specific critique
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  Speaker 2: of Biden, but it's something that has been bothering me
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  Speaker 2: for the last several years and thinking about how we
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  Speaker 2: are now in a pretty awful situation. the Democratic Party,
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  Speaker 2: and there's a lot that the Democratic Party has to fix.
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  Speaker 2: And I do not think if everyone in the Democratic
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  Speaker 2: Party started suddenly giving great speeches that all our problems
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  Speaker 2: would be solved at all. But as you know, because
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  Speaker 2: you have written books about this, the way we communicate
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  Speaker 2: with each other has changed dramatically. The way we consume
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  Speaker 2: what politicians say has changed dramatically over the last decade even.
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  Speaker 2: And the way that politicians speak has not changed. Just
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  Speaker 2: you talking about how, yeah, well that, you know, typical speeches,
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  Speaker 2: farewell addresses have followed this pattern. It's like, you're right.
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  Speaker 2: They have, but Donald Trump is supposed to be president
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: for the second time. The country made its worst person
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  Speaker 2: president twice now. And so maybe, maybe it's time for
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  Speaker 2: some out of the box thinking on, uh, on the
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  Speaker 2: way that we communicate and maybe the like stayed sort
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  Speaker 2: of his sweep of history, uh, Speaking like we're trying
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  Speaker 2: to get into the history books and not like we're
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  Speaker 2: trying to communicate with people, maybe that style of speaking.
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  Speaker 2: is something that we should get rid of or something
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  Speaker 2: we should maybe think twice about. And again, again, this
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  Speaker 2: is not just a Joe Biden thing. This is a
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  Speaker 2: most democratic politicians thing. And I think if you cannot
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  Speaker 2: communicate effectively and capture people's attention, we are in a,
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  Speaker 2: we are in a war. for attention, for people's attention,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: against figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who are
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  Speaker 2: so shameless that they will basically say or do anything
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  Speaker 2: to get people's attention, to get people to notice them.
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  Speaker 2: So that's what we're competing against. And we're competing against
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  Speaker 2: them with a bunch of Democratic politicians who still speak
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  Speaker 2: like they're press releases.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, yes, I would actually argue that we
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: should almost entirely stop giving speeches. But I think we–
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  Speaker 3: I'm dead serious about that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, but I think that, yes, in the way that
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  Speaker 2: you're defining speeches, I think that we need to– like,
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  Speaker 2: Democratic politicians need to over-communicate, like, need to communicate more.
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  Speaker 2: I think that for good or for ill– and I
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: think it's probably for ill– Americans got used to, during
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  Speaker 2: the first Trump term, their president being in their face
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  Speaker 2: all the time. A lot of people didn't like Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump being in their face, but enough did that they.
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  Speaker 3: I think they felt like that in the Obama– Era two.
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  Speaker 3: That what? That Obama was around. He was omnipresent in
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  Speaker 3: your life.
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  Speaker 2: He was.
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  Speaker 3: In your culture, in your media.
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  Speaker 2: But even then- you remember times when the public and
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  Speaker 2: the pundits were like, we haven't heard from Barack Obama yet.
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  Speaker 3: Don't get me fucking started.
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  Speaker 2: As the guy who had to write shit? Yeah, me neither.
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  Speaker 2: But even then, and Barack Obama was out there a
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  Speaker 2: lot and it still wasn't enough. But the idea that
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: we were just going to keep doing the same thing,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: speaking the same way, using the same cliches, using the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: same poll-tested lines, using the same phrase. We know that
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: a message of sort of a harder-edged populism, talking about
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  Speaker 2: the tech oligarch. It's a good message, but the way
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  Speaker 2: it comes out, and I actually think Biden, I think
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  Speaker 2: that the writing around the, aside from the use of
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  Speaker 2: the word oligarch, the writing around that was strong. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it was good. And it didn't sound like, if I
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: hear fucking bottom up, middle out one more time, I'm
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: going to throw my phone out the window because I
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  Speaker 2: don't think anyone knows what that means.
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  Speaker 3: And you're sick of writing it so many times during
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  Speaker 3: the Obama re-election campaign?
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  Speaker 2: I did not write that during the time.
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  Speaker 3: Middle out versus top down, you wrote that a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, bottom up, Middle out, first of all, middle out
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  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. Bottom up makes sense. Top down makes sense.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Neither of them are very creative, but they at least
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: make sense. Middle out doesn't make any sense.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know what got you? 312 electoral votes or
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: whatever it was.
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  Speaker 2: No, we're going to go back and look at the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: speeches afterwards. Anyway, anyway. But that brings up a good
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: point because I'm not saying this is like, oh, Barack Obama.
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  Speaker 2: If Barack Obama came back today and gave all the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: same speeches that he gave when he was president, when
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: he was running for office, I don't think that would
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: fit the moment either. Like, we just have to update
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the way we communicate. We have to do it in
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a more organic way, authentic way, conversational. It's just the
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: style of political speaking. And honestly, for a lot of
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Republicans not named Donald Trump, they have the same problem.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's not just a Democratic Party problem, but
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  Speaker 2: it's just you're not reaching people this way.
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  Speaker 3: I was judging this in the context of.
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  Speaker 2: For sure.
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  Speaker 3: Joe Biden, right, who is not going to, has proven,
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  Speaker 3: of course, as president, he's not going to be the
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  Speaker 3: person to radically change how Democrats communicate.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: And I was judging it. I also think, like, this
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: speech is something for the president to do on their
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: way out. It is, every president has done it, at
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: least in modern era. It is valedictory. It's a chance
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: to put your, usually if you're on your way out,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: in most cases, there are some exceptions, really just Reagan, right?
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  Speaker 3: Where you are leaving ascendant, you have served two terms
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and you're being succeeded by someone in your own party.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Most times you are dealing, you've been served a shit sandwich.
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  Speaker 3: You lost, you're leaving incredibly unpopular, your successor lost, and
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  Speaker 3: it's just your chance to just go out and say
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: something without anyone yelling at you while you do it.
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  Speaker 3: And then Biden did that and judged under that, he
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: did a good job.
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  Speaker 2: Look, my expectation was that he was going to go
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  Speaker 2: do his like, I'm the guy who did X, Y,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: and Z and did all of his accomplishments and that's it.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: And the fact that he took the time to do
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: a warning to the country and talk about that, I
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: think that surpassed my expectations. And so again, this was
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: not a critique of Joe Biden specifically. It's a critique
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: of Democratic speech giving, which is a problem that goes
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: beyond Joe Biden now that he's off the scene.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Once again, just state my take that I think we
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: should get rid of 99% of speeches.
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm good. So since this is our last
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: time talking about Joe Biden for a while, how are
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: you thinking about his legacy and how his presidency will
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: be remembered?
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, as I've talked about on the show before,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I'm from Delaware. Other than the four years of Trump's
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: first administration, Joe Biden has been my senator, vice president,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: and president my entire life. I don't know a time
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: when Joe Biden wasn't representing me in office. You and I,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: we worked with him. He is incredibly decent to me personally,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: very supportive of my career. He was always so proud.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: There was another Delawarean in those meetings in the White
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: House always. And I will always be grateful to him
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  Speaker 3: for that. His legacy is obviously very, very complicated. He
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: did a lot of really good things. And most important
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: on that list is he came out of retirement in
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: 2020 to run and defeat Donald Trump. And I'm not
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: sure there's another person who was running who would have
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: accomplished that for us. And, but because that was the center,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and he said, that's why he came out. It's because
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: of Charlottesville and the healing soul of the nation and
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: all of that. And then when he got in, he
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: did a lot of really, really good, important things. Absolutely.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: It's not as historic as the Biden talking points would
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: tell you when they were, you know, his, where his
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: allies compared to FDR and LBJ. That is not the case.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: A lot of those things are also at risk. And
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: that's why the legacy is unwritten, because we don't, you know,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: will the climate suspending that is so important that if
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: we actually, that we may look back decades from now,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: incredibly grateful to Biden for doing it, will that survive?
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Will the infrastructures, will those bridges actually be built? You know,
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  Speaker 3: we don't know that. And that's true for every president
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: when they leave. That was true for Obama. Would the
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Affordable Care Act survive? But the ultimate thing here is,
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: is that His legacy is clouded because he was unwilling
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: to listen to the American people who were telling him
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: in the loudest voice possible not to run for reelection.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: And he stuck it out and insisted that he was
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: right and everyone else was wrong to the point where
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: he ended up having to drop out of the race
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: with 100 some days to go, making it almost impossible
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: for a Democrat to win this election. Now, the Democratic
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Party is now in the worst political spot it's been
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: in in decades. Donald Trump, who Joe Biden came out
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: of retirement to kick out of office, is now back, stronger,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: more popular than ever before. And all of that is
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: not Joe Biden's fault. It's not his fault that we
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: have inflation. I actually think he handled inflation as well
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: as anyone could in this situation. It's not his fault
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: that he was bad luck to be president during a
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: great global anti-incumbent wave. But on the one thing he
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: could control, which was whether he should run for re-election,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: he made the wrong decision, and the country reaped the
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: consequences of that.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: I mean.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: I think he is a tragic figure in that this
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: is a man who persevered as a public servant through
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: unimaginable loss until he finally achieves his lifelong dream of
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: becoming president at almost 80 years old, an age where
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: he was too old to do the part of the
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: job that has become maybe one of the most important
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: parts of the job, which is communicating effectively with the
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: American people. And he was always a mediocre communicator, you know,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: throughout most of his life. And then when, by the
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: time he got to be president, he, his age made
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: it even worse. And it's difficult because, you know, back
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: to all of our conversations about like how Kamala could
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: have separated herself from Biden during the campaign. Aside from Gaza,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: which we're about to talk about, I don't have a
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: lot of critiques of Biden's like legislative or policy decisions
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: during his presidency. In fact, he did just a lot
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of things that I very much support. I'm very grateful
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to him for doing that. But to my point about
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: speeches and stuff, I do, you know, this is this
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: job in this information age is a performance. It is
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: about communicating. And it's about telling people a story and
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: it's about breaking through the noise and it's about commanding
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: people's attention. And Joe Biden, because of his long experience
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: in Washington, was very good at building coalitions and knowing
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: how Congress works. And that showed in his presidency. But
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: the storytelling part of the job and the communication part
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: of the job, it was never his strongest suit. And
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: by the time he got there, he was, you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: he was slowed down by age. And then, like you said,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: couldn't see that it was time for him to step aside,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: you know? So that's, and it's like, he is the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: guy who saved the country from Donald Trump and the
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: same guy who made it possible for Trump to return.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And that is just, I mean, that talk about tragic
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: figure right there, you know, like he's, he's got that
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: achievement and then he has to live with the, and
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: we all have to live with the other part. So
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: It's tough. But like you said, there are, you know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: largest infrastructure bills since Eisenhower, trillion dollars in spending. You know, unfortunately,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: all the projects, a lot of the projects haven't been
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: completed yet. But hopefully years from now, we'll look back
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: at roads, highways. bridges, everything else and say, oh, that
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: was like what Eisenhower did. Biden did that too. Same
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: thing with climate. If it's not overturned, $ 35 insulin and
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: lower prescription drugs for seniors ended the war in Afghanistan.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: even though it was a chaotic withdrawal.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Got us out of the pandemic.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Got us out of the pandemic.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Better than any other country in the world.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's the other tragedy there too, is that
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: he led us out of the pandemic, but he wasn't
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: able to help us overcome all of the economic, political, cultural,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: even psychological consequences that came from the pandemic. Inflation, crime, migration,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: growing distrust of institutions. All of those problems that were
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: there before the pandemic, but the pandemic accelerated. And I
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: don't think any, I don't know if any president in
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: his position could have helped us overcome that, but we
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: are very much dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: And that was an unfortunate place for him to be in.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: And again, not his fault, but.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, presidents usually you lose reelection for reasons that
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: have little to do with how they communicate, how they campaign,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: or even really how they govern. It's the environment around them.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: It's what, it's what failed Carter. It was why George H.W.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Bush lost. And I think that's largely true for Biden,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: except for the one thing he could control, which was
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: whether he ran for reelection or not. And he made
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: the wrong, a tragically wrong decision there.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: But it was a, like I said, it was a
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: good speech last night. And there's a lot of good
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: things he did for the country that I hope survive
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the next administration. And, you know, grateful that Joe Biden
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: has given this country 50 plus years of public service.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Because we could be, had Biden not done this, we
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: could be sitting, likely, had he not run in 2020, likely,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: right now, we'd be talking about the end of eight
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: years of Trump.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, that doesn't sound so bad.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, wait till J.D. Vance is sworn in.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: If we were all still here. J.D. Vance is sworn
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: in on Monday.
• 21:56
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• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Biden opened his farewell address by talking about
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the ceasefire deal that was reached this week between Israel
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: and Hamas that would lead to the release of 33
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: hostages in the first phase, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: allow for more humanitarian relief in Gaza 15 months after
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the war began. Israel's cabinet will vote to ratify the deal,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: the first phase of which is set to start on Sunday,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: though there were reportedly some last-minute hiccups on Thursday. And
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: since you may be wondering, why are John and Dan
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: talking about foreign policy? Fear not. our pal Tommy is
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: here to set us straight. Hey, guys. Hi, Tommy. Good
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to be here on Thursday. Yeah, welcome to the Thursday pod.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Danny, you want to riff on the Friday pod?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You want to riff on the war in Gaza?
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I have a series of follow-ups for you, so let
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: me hear what you got.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: That's fun. Tommy, aside from what I just said, what
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: else should we know about the deal and how it
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: came together?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think you make an important point at
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the top, which is that the Israeli government has not
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: voted on the deal yet, and a far-right member of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the Netanyahu coalition just announced he might remove himself from
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the government. So, Things are pretty precarious. Tony Blinken said
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it should start being implemented on Sunday. That would be
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: good news, but let's hope it's right. But I think
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: there's just a lot of uncertainty in this deal currently,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and a lot of it could fall apart before we
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: get to the end of phase three. You outlined phase one,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: which is six weeks, and is the part that is
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the most fleshed out with this gradual release of prisoners,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of hostages, I should say. And then the Israelis should
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: could release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli troops pull
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: back from population centers. Palestinians get to go home and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: then aid gets surged into the strip. But phases two
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and three have not been finalized yet. Those start getting negotiated,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I think, on the 16th day of phase one. So
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: phase two is likely to include the return of all
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: hostages by Hamas in exchange for more prisoners and the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: full withdrawal of Israeli troops. And then the third phase
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is reconstruction. But You know, Joe Biden views this as
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a deal that will permanently end the war. I don't
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: know that Netanyahu thinks of it in the same way.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Throughout this negotiation, he has tried to reserve the right
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to restart fighting at the time of his choosing. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: right wing lawmakers that are part of his government coalition
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: want that to happen. So a lot is up in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the air right now.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: You said that a minister has said that he might
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: remove himself from the coalition. Does that screw with the deal? Like,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: do they need everyone? How does that work?
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I think Netanyahu should have the votes to get it
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: through a security cabinet and the full cabinet. But I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: just don't know right now.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: It's sort of in flux.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Is that who has to approve it as the cabinet? Yeah,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: there's two different votes.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I think there's a security cabinet vote and then a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: full sort of government cabinet vote.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned Biden. He's taking credit for the deal.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Trump is also taking credit for the deal. I've read
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: reporting that suggests both deserve some credit.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: So in a lot of the reporting on the deal,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you'll see these background quotes from Israeli or Arab diplomats
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: saying this deal only got over the finish line because
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of Trump. Now, obviously, that is a very self-serving quote.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: If you're like a Netanyahu.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Official or someone sitting in Qatar or Egypt because you
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: want to curry favor with the incoming administration, not the outgoing.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: But I do think Trump deserves some credit here. A
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: lot of this basic framework of this deal, the three phases,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the sequencing, et cetera, that was on the table eight
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: months ago. And This time in these last couple of days,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it seems like Trump, through his, you know, Steve Witkoff,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: his new emissary, was able to apply or willing to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: apply pressure on Netanyahu's in ways that Biden was not.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And I also think that if Trump had said, BB,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: stick it to Biden, don't give him a deal. Let's
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: not do this until I'm officially president. That's what had happened.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So that part, I think Trump really does deserve some
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: credit for. That said, Biden's team negotiated this whole plan.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And that's not a small thing because it's the phasing
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and the sequencing for how the hostages get released and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: where Israeli troops withdraw from and when, like it's complicated stuff.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And getting Hamas and Netanyahu on the same page on
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: anything is going to be complicated. So Biden's team, they
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: did the diplomatic spade work. I think he also deserves
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: credit for bringing Donald Trump into the talks. You know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: like Biden could have said, I'm going to try to
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: like go it alone these last few weeks. I want
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: 100% credit for this.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: But he didn't do that.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: He, I think, reportedly in that Oval Office meeting with Trump,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: said to him, let's do this together, let's try to
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: get this done. And that, along with pressure from Trump,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: seems to have made the difference. It's also just worth
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: pointing out that when Biden introduced this deal in May
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of last year to now, a lot has changed. Hamas
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: has decimated, Hezbollah has decapitated, Iran has weakened. And then
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: on top of Trump putting pressure on the Israelis to
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: do this deal, there's also just the reality that Netanyahu
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: can say to the far right, hey, I know you
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: hate this ceasefire, but Donald Trump's going to give us
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: anything we want going forward.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask from Netanyahu's perspective, like, why
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: would he be more persuaded by Trump than Biden?
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just think like he knows he has
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: four years of dealing with this guy and Trump's out
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: there tweeting there will be hell to pay, apparently by
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: both sides. And so he knows that, like, I think
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: he knows he was not in the best graces with
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Trump when he committed the mortal sin of congratulating Joe
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Biden for winning the election in 2020. It took a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: while to crawl back from that being in the doghouse.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And so I think Netanyahu was like, look, he can
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: say to his right-wing members of his coalition, look, we'll
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: give him this one. If I decide to restart the war,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Donald's not going to stop me. And if we want
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: to annex the West Bank, that's on the table now. Because,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of Trump's biggest supporters like Miriam Adelson,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: who gave him Tens, if not hundreds of millions of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: dollars for his campaigns want the West Bank to be
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: annexed in the next few years. So he just knows
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: he's on better footing with Trump.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Tell me, why do you, I mean, the closest historical
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: analogy to this from American political perspective is the Iran
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: hostage situation where they waited until Carter left for Reagan
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: to negotiate the release. He'd obviously been back channeling a
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: little bit during the election. Why do you think Trump
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: was willing to do this now as opposed to just
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: take full credit five days from now? I know it's weird, right?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Like in a way he kind of split the difference
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: because they're announcing it now, but I think the release,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: if it starts on Sunday, right, that's kind of timed
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: along with the change of power.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So it's it.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But I assumed he would do the same thing, which
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: is just wait, try to try to draw the Jimmy
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Carter comparison directly. I would also imagine that Trump doesn't
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: feel like Joe Biden is looming largest president right now.
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: No, no.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like he's stealing his spotlight a lot.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: No, that's right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: And Trump has been dispatching his many friends and surrogates
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to the Middle East and to all sorts of countries
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to have conversations about work that should be getting done
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: by the current president. So yeah, he doesn't mind stepping
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: on him.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Does this make you look back at Biden's record in
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Gaza and decisions in Gaza any differently?
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: It makes me feel frustrated that more pressure wasn't brought
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to bear on the Israelis earlier. There are people who
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: are smart, who I respect, who will argue with me
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that that never would have mattered, but I don't agree.
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It seems like it could have tried, you know?
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Good to see you.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Good to see you, Tommy.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Dan, you want to riff a little? I think I
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: did my riffing. Come on, man.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: You want to do a tight five on Biden's farewell address?
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Tommy?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Nagorno-Karabakh?
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: What else?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Tech oligarchs?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: They're bad. Don't like them. Tech oligarchs, bad. What the.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: What do we think about the wobbly Statue of Liberty
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: as an analogy, as a runner?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: You know, we didn't get to that, Dan.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Because John and I both decided to just have a
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: disquisition on communication in the modern age.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: And I wanted to make this point, though, that Biden
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: opened the speech with this story about the Statue of Liberty.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: He came back and closed with that as well. I
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: know that John Meacham has helped with Biden's speeches. It
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: felt very Meacham-coded, the Statue of Liberty open and close.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But it also reminded me of Reagan's farewell address. Reagan's
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: farewell address is famous for the story at the end
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: with one of the boat people from Vietnam who says like,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: waves at an American sailor and says, freedom man or something.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: It's actually a beautiful story at the end of Reagan's farewell.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the end of Reagan's farewell address. And it seemed so
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: much like that, that it's like sometimes when you're, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: this is part of my point, when you're writing speeches
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: only for history, and so therefore you look at older
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: speeches from other presidents, the trap is, and we fell
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: into the trap as well in the Obama White House
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: at times, the trap is that you write in a
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: way that sounds like an older speech. speech and a
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: president that's like a historic president.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Ask not.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. What Joe Biden gave you for you. It's
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the ask not disease.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: It's the Kennedy cosplay that plagued the Democratic Party for
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: four decades.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And you know what? Everyone who goes to Pondahawk in Normandy,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: they do the same thing because there's a lot of
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Reagan cosplay and Kennedy cosplay.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: And now there's Obama cosplay.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: And now there's Obama cosplay.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, yeah, somewhere outside of a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: wet market in DC, someone picked up a pangolin and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: it evolved and morphed into an Obama cosplay.
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Is it too soon for fucking... For wet market jokes?
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: For a COVID joke?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Fine.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: You can cut that if you want. Thanks, Tommy.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Two quick housekeeping notes. Our friends at Vote Save America
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: and Cricket Ideas have set up a disaster relief fund
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: to benefit those impacted by the horrific wildfires here in LA.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Super easy for you to make one donation that's split
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: among incredible charities doing really important work for our neighbors
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and first responders. We have raised almost $ 200, 000 for these
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: great groups so far, thanks to you. And you can
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: learn more and make a tax-deductible donation at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. Also,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: check out the latest episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: You might have heard MAGA leaders blaming diversity, equity, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: inclusion for the wildfires and basically for everything else lately.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: This isn't new. Many companies are also rolling back DEI programs.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: As the new Trump administration approaches, Stacey and NYU law
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: professor Kenji Yoshino tackle the myths, legal arguments, and share
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: why DEI isn't the problem, it's the solution. Tune into
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: this episode now on the Assembly Required feed.
• 33:59
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• 35:15
  Speaker 2: All right. The Senate has been busy this week holding
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: confirmation hearings for Trump's cabinet picks. Secretary of Defense nominee
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Pete Hegseth had his on Tuesday. Attorney General nominee Pam
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Bondi went on Wednesday, as did Secretary of State nominee
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Lil' Marco Rubio. John Ratcliffe for CIA director, former Real
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: World star Sean Duffy for transportation secretary, oil industry CEO
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Chris Wright for energy, Project 2025 author Russell Vogt for
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: budget director, billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Besant for treasury,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: and so many more. But the main events this week
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: were the Hegseth and Bondi hearings. Here are some highlights
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: and lowlights.
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: Admittedly, this nomination is unconventional. The nominee is unconventional. just
• 35:58
  Speaker 8: like that New York developer who rode down the escalator
• 36:03
  Speaker 8: in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president. That may
• 36:09
  Speaker 8: be what makes Mr. Hegseth an excellent choice.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Have you been involved in discussions about using the active
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: duty military inside the United States?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Senator, I am not yet the Secretary of Defense.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: If confirmed, I would be party to any number of conversations,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: which I would not.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Reveal what I have discussed with the President of the
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: United States.
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: Are you aware of any factual basis to investigate Liz Cheney?
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: Yes or no?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Senator, that's a hypothetical, and I'm not going.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: To answer that.
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night?
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: Have any of you guys asked them to step down
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: and resign from their job? And don't tell me you
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: haven't seen it because I know you have. And then
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: how many senators do you know have got a divorce
• 36:55
  Speaker 7: before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to
• 36:58
  Speaker 7: step down?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, showing up for a vote drunk. It's,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: you know, commanding the greatest army in the world and
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the nuclear triad.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Could use a nuclear triad without Tommy.
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: In the room.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Someone's going to be like, he doesn't actually command the nuclear.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Did you think you used that correctly? Because I'm not
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: so sure.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think I did. But you know what? No
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: one's asking me to be secretary of defense.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Not yet. Not yet.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: An unconventional choice, Pete Hegseth. You know who else would
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: be an unconventional choice? Someone I just meet on the
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: street outside the studio. I'm not going to make them
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: secretary of defense.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I can hear the hearings 48 years from now. It's like,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: he's just a podcaster. He runs a mid-sized media company.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: How could he manage 3 million people, including the world's
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: greatest army?
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: It's just unbelievable. So all of these yahoos are getting confirmed, right?
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: It seems like that. I think if there's one yahoo
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: who may not get confirmed, and I really want to
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: put the emphasis on May, it's Tulsi Gabbard. I think
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: we have to see what happens in that hearing. We
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: have to see what's going on there.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: But I really think- I read somewhere that she's been-
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: She's been changing minds among Republican senators.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you were going to have to place
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: a wager, you would place a wager on a Republican
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: being confirmed by the Senate. But you really should put
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: the Hegseth confirmation hearings in a time capsule to try
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: to explain this moment in American political history to future generations. Yeah.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, here you have the Senate Armed Service Committee
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: is like the most august of Senate committees. There's often bipartisanship.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: They.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Of all the Senate committees, they're the most willing to
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: buck a president, even of their own party, mainly because
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: they are sort of in the thrall of the Pentagon.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: So here you have this committee of all committees, just
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: in the Republican majority of that committee, just greasing the
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: skids to confirm a cable news weekend host who has
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: a range of reported personal conduct issues, including drinking on
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: the job, to head the Pentagon. It is absolutely insane.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: No one's asking tough questions.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: In the drinking on the job allegations, this is from
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: like last I saw, 10 sources talked to NBC or
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Fox employees who were saying that they were concerned about
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Hegseth being drunk in the morning.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: But even, let's just say, let's even, let's say he's
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: never had a drink in his life. None of them
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: all like just lived a perfect life. He's still woefully
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: unqualified for this position.
• 39:19
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: And yes, he served in the military, but- He's not
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: getting nominated for this. He didn't get nominated for this
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: because he served in the military. He got nominated for
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: this because he was on TV on the podcast. favorite
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: TV program.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: On the weekend edition of the president's favorite TV program.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if it's week or weekend. He's watching
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: the whole time. You think Donald Trump's missing Saturday and
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Sunday Fox and Friends?
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Up until this moment in his media career, his biggest
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: job was to show up quickly if Steve Doocy got
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: the flu. Like that.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Steve Doocy's, we should just refer to him as Steve
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Doocy's understudy.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Steve Doocy's understudy. And it's just, it's like so much
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: about like polarization and negative partisanship because if you, Joni Ernst.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: At least it's not a dangerous time for the world. Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing that is so fucking galling
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: about this is you have all these Republicans who all
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: throughout the campaign talk about how dangerous the world is.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Our enemies are on the march. China, Iran, or surely
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: ever before.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: And it's not all bullshit, by the way. It's like,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: you've got, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, all cooperating more
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: than they have. It's a very dangerous time in the world.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: And it's, you know, like we've been competing with China
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: and they are like, it is, it's pretty scary out there.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And we're sending Pete Hegseth.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: You just cannot believe all these things about how serious
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: the threats are. And also believe that Pete Hegseth, the
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Fox News weekend anchor, who's never managed an organization of
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: more than 100 people, with a laundry list of personal
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: conduct concerns should be the Secretary of Defense. It's absolutely absurd.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Which also, by the way, is the Democrats on the committee,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: like I thought we played, that was Alyssa Slotkin that
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: you heard in the middle there. That was the highlight
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: of our highlight and low light reel. The rest were
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: low lights. But I thought she did a fantastic job
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: and she talked about, you know, whether he would follow
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: in order to shoot protesters, American citizens in the leg
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: as Donald Trump tried to ask his last secretary of
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: defense to do, Mark Esper, around the George Floyd protests.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: So she had a great line of questioning. It was sober.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: It was calm. It was, you know, but like they
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: were getting into the questioning of him about the affairs
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: and like Tim Cain's asking him about adultery. And I'm like, honestly,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: That's not my biggest problem with Pete Hegseth. My biggest
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: problem with Pete Hegseth is he's not qualified to run
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: the U.S. military.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: I think the... Kane's line of questioning was about his
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: infidelity over the course of his life. The questions around
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: the sexual assault allegation against him are 100% relevant to this.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Because sexual assault in the military is a huge problem.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Sexual assault is a problem anywhere.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: So the question is how the Democrats do, I guess.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: And I think.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: One, I think these hearings are sort of ridiculous now.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that they matter much.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: They don't. I mean, this is a sad, depressing thing
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: to say, but like so much else in politics right now,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: they only serve for the bread and circus-like entertainment for
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: highly engaged political junkies who made up their minds months ago.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Now, I do think that's only because of the way
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: the votes are in the Senate right now. If Democrats
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: had held the Senate and we had 51 seats- I
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: think these hearings would be a bigger deal, right?
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not, it's, I don't know that they're, yes,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: it would be a big, if the fate of the
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: nomination was actually in play here, then yes, they would
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: be a bigger deal. I'm not sure people would pay
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: any more attention. They would have, like right now, it's
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: like low stakes gladiator combat just for people to see
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Democrats beat up Pete Hegseth, Republicans beat up Democrats for
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: beating up Pete Hegseth and doesn't serve a huge purpose.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: The one critique I think I would make of the
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Democrats in this, and like, I used to work for
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: the Senate leadership. I know how hard it is to
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: manage these things. Senators have very strong views on the
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: questions they should ask. And it's not like you can
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: whiteboard this out in Chuck Schumer's office and everyone's going
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: to do the right thing. That's not going to happen.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: But they're still thinking about this in a more traditional
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: hearing where if you can just trip up the nominee
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: to say one wrong thing, you could flip votes. And
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: that's just not how it works in this Republican Party.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So the better use of time is to use your
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: questioning to try to elicit or to focus on one
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: specific narrative. And I think that got lost a little bit.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: And it's hard because it's like, Democrats have some time,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: you do your thing. And then a Republican just goes
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: on about it, like Mark Wayne Mullen about drunk senators
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: for a while, then you come back. But if you're
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: on a different topic, it's very hard to lay out
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: a coherent thread. So I think maybe simplifying or shortening
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: the topic areas of concern would be something that I
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: would recommend in some of these hearings going forward, like
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Again, I don't think it works for everything, but a
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: good rule of thumb is, The line of questioning or
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: the message or whatever it may be should have something
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: to do with the person's potential effects on people's lives
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: going forward. So much, you notice, I mean, it's like,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: this is why the talking about how dangerous the world
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: is and whether he is the person equipped to lead
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: the United States military in a very dangerous world. That's
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: something that would at least if someone was paying attention,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: someone was forced to watch like us. We get them thinking, oof,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: this is kind of scary. Do I want this guy
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: in charge of the military? Because it might affect me,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: you know? And I don't know that we've quite gotten
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: there yet. I think same thing with the Pam Bondi hearings.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: By the way, it's bizarre that Pam Bondi is now like, oh,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: she's going to be a slam dunk because Matt Gaetz,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: who is the only one who's gone down, and that's
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: because the bipartisan House Ethics Committee concluded that he paid
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: for sex with an underage woman. Um, that's the only
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: reason he went down.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, she's only going to get like three more
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: votes than he did. Right.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. Uh, but so now Pam Bondi seems great,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: even though she was like a, they were asking her
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: about being a registered foreign agent for the government of, uh, Qatar. Cool. Uh,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: she was, she still wouldn't say that Biden was, uh,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: legitimately elected. She just said that he is the president. Uh, she,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: you know, hinted that there's fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: just crazy shit for an attorney general to say, wouldn't promise.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: To not prosecute Liz Cheney or Jack Smith. She said
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: she's not familiar with Donald Trump saying that the January
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: 6th rioters are hostages or patriots. She wasn't familiar. Didn't
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: hear that. Missed that.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I'm sure we're going to be able to find footage
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: of her at a rally where he said that.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: And like she does all this and all the Republicans
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: are like, yep, she's in. Slam dunk. Great.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: All of them. This is how it is. Like it
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: is total fealty.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: But I do think even like pressing her on the
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: big lie stuff and you believe the elections, it's like, okay,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: you're going to say, hey, you believed that Donald Trump
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: won the election. She's going to say, no, I didn't.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Or she's going to not answer the question. And then
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: we're going to go back and forth. What are we
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: getting out of it now? I don't even know. Yeah, that's... Unbelievable.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And like Marco Rubio going to sail right through. Yeah,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's like Marco Rubio. But he's like a legitimate,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: like a Republican wins and a Republican gets their cabinet.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio is a perfectly legitimate- Senators usually get confirmed.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Also, by the way, I said this to
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: you earlier, but I was looking at the resumes of
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: all these people because knowing that all the cabinet picks
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: are getting in, you don't pay as much attention to it.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: But Chris Wright, this guy's going to be the energy secretary,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: literal oil industry CEO.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: It's on the nose. It's very clear.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: The treasury secretary is a billionaire hedge fund manager. Man.
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: Definitely.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Just nothing. Pure populism.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Champion of the working class.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, yeah. They're a workers' party now,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: the Republicans. Oil executives and hedge fund billionaires in the cabinet.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: Cool. All right.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: We'll see. Let's see. They've got it covered. They're going
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: to fix the country. That's what they promised. They are
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: selfless patriots who could be making even more money than
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: they already have, but they have decided to take a leave.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: to help fix the country. So I am eager to
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: see what results.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I would just say that I am going to
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: check the price of eggs, bacon, gas, groceries, and median
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: rent in this country at 1201 on Monday.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: And we should do like an update every couple of weeks.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: 100%.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: He, he owns it. I mean, that's one of the
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: questions that was asked in the Scott Besant hearing was,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: do you believe that Donald Trump is as responsible for
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: prices as Joe Biden was? He obviously didn't answer that question,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: but that is an opera. That is a central question
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: to our political strategy going forward.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: For sure. All right, before we get to my interview
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: with Ben Wickler, we got to talk about TikTok, which
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: is set to be banned in the U.S. unless the
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Chinese-owned video sharing app is sold to an American owner
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: by January 19th, which is this Sunday. We are recording
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: this Thursday afternoon. By the time you hear this on Friday,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: it's also possible the Supreme Court may have handed down
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: their decision. It does not seem like the Supreme Court's
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: going to save TikTok from the oral arguments. We've talked
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: about this before, but we shall see. The ban, which
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: passed last year with a huge bipartisan majority, does allow
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: a 90-day extension of if there's a potential sale. Biden
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: administration says they're not going to delay the ban because
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: they don't think they can because they don't see a
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: potential sale. But the incoming Trump administration says they intend
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: to find a way to extend the deadline and get
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: that deal. This is according to Trump National Security Advisor
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Michael Waltz, who said, quote, It's been a great platform
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: for Trump and his campaign to get his America first
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: message out. But at the same time, Trump and conservatives
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: don't want the Chinese communists getting their passwords, getting their data.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: and being able to overly influence the American people. Again,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: horses out of the barn on that one. What do
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: you think? Will Donald Trump protect the right of every
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: American to have Chinese spyware on their phone?
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I think he is going to try as hard as
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: he can to succeed here. He understands the politics here.
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: He understood it very deftly in the 2024 campaign when he,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: after the law was passed, he came out and opposed it.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: And he wants to be the person who saved TikTok
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: for the 60% of voters under 30 who use TikTok Yeah.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: For the 170 million Americans who use TikTok on a
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: monthly basis. And the TikTok ban is quite- Many of
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: whom voted for him. The TikTok ban is quite unpopular.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: When the law passed, it was 50% support of the
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: TikTok ban. It's down to less than a third of Americans.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: It's 10% of TikTok users support it.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Which is a, as I said, six in 10 voters
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: under 30 who use it. The politics here are terrible
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: for Democrats. Even though this was a bipartisan bill, even
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: though it's very important to note Donald Trump tried to
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: shut down the app himself when he was president, the
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: way it has played out over the last year or
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: however it's been is Joe Biden wants to shut down
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: TikTok and Donald Trump wants to save it. And that,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: I don't think, you know, we're on TikTok, like we
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: look at it, but we like most people, particularly people
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: in politics, particularly the senators and Congress people about this
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: do not understand what this means. Shutting down TikTok for
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of younger Americans would be like when we
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: were younger, a president decided that cable TV was going
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: to disappear on a random Sunday. It's how they get
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: their sports. It's how they get their news. It's how
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: they stay in touch with their friends. It is how
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: they follow. It's their entertainment.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Completely wrong information about the world around them.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Well, you know what also doesn't get great information? Cable news.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: So it's like cable TV doesn't either. And, It is
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: a much bigger deal than I think a lot of
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: people in politics think about because most people in politics
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: don't actually use TikTok. And in the passing of it,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: the Democrats and Republicans involved did just an absolutely miserable
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: job of justifying the ban.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. I said this at the time.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: You can't say, it's really, really bad. Trust us, but
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: we can't tell you why. No one trusts you. And
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: so if we're in a situation where Donald Trump saves it,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: it's going to be to his political benefit, no doubt.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: You got to hand it to Xi Jinping.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: You do. And the Chinese Communist Party. Because if this
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: is an op, they fucking nailed it. They created an
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: app that has completely addicted young Americans. And when you
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: try to take away something that someone's addicted to, they're
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: going to be pretty fucking pissed. And that's what they're
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: doing now. And without a reason that, like you said,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: makes sense to people. And now what's happening is, a
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: lot of young people are like going over to, what
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: is it, Red Note? Yes. Which is like.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: That's a little on the nose, if you will.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: It's like the servers are in China. It's like run
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: by the party. It's not just influence, you know? And
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: they're over there and then now you're starting to see
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: people be like, oh, you know, what's wrong with the
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Chinese government anyway? Like it seems like they're Things are
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: going pretty well over there and food is cheaper than
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: it is here in America. I mean, it's just, it's wild.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Was Tiananmen Square, eh, was that real? I don't know
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: if that was real. Are we sure that wasn't, those
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: weren't paid actors? Like that's the kind of shit that
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: we're getting now.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, I am willing to believe that TikTok is
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: as dangerous as everyone says it is, even if they
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: won't tell us why. Like that, knowing what we know
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: about governments and what China, the sort of things China does,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: that makes sense to me. But you really should have
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: solved this problem five years ago.
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: Like waiting until you had 170 million Americans on the
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: app and had them using it for much of their
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: social media existence and then deciding to take it away
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: was just asinine. And here's where we are.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: And the saddest irony is It's too hard to communicate
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: to people how dangerous that might be because of the
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: information environment that has given rise to TikTok. And the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: TikTok has been hell-shaped. I mean, it would be fucking
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: hilarious if it weren't so scary. I agree. I totally
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: agree in the politics. You're 100% right in the politics.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: It's like if you're in the government and you're genuinely
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: concerned about this, I don't know what else you do.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: But at this point, but say like, yeah, of course
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: we want to ban this.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: But you're going to play whack-a-mole with Chinese apps for
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: the rest of time. Yeah. It's like everyone's leaving TikTok
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: to go to less secure Chinese apps to use. And
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: so we're going to come back around next year. We're
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: going to ban Red Note and Lemonade or whatever it is.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: And then they're going to go to another app. We're
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: just going to do it until the end of time.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, the only.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Real solution here is to sell TikTok to US operations
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: and open it back up again. That's the only solution.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: And it does seem like- And it could be sold
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: to Elon Musk.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: That's been floated.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I know. Well, it does seem like
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration is saying, I thought they might just say,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: you know, they could have Pam Bondi, Attorney General Pam
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Bondi could save TikTok by just not enforcing the ban. Now,
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: that only lasts as long as the Trump administration lasts.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: I kind of expected that they might do that. The
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: fact that they are, Michael Waltz there on Fox and Friends, again,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: a show that gives us defense secretary.
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Uh said that uh they are they think that they're
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: going to get a deal like it does feel like
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: they're going to try to but again even if they
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: get a deal if the chinese government doesn't allow for
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: a deal even though they would make even though bite
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: dance the company that owns tiktok would make a fuckload
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: of money if they still say no should tell us
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: something oh.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah for sure should tell us.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Something about how the chinese government the authoritarian government in
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: beijing sees TikTok. If they're like, no, no, no, all
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: this money?
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: No, no, no.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: We're not selling. Why? Don't worry about it. Don't worry
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: No.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: It's not great.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: The whole situation is not great.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: It's not great. It's not great at all. Well, good luck.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Good luck, Donald Trump and the Trump administration. Hope you
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: find a deal. If Elon Musk fucking buys TikTok, I'm
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: going to lose it. We can't. We can't have Elon.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: What is going to make you lose it more? Elon
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Musk buying TikTok or yet another Democratic politician giving a
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: speech about the construction of the Statue of Liberty? It's
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: been a long week for you.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Elon buying TikTok is just a distraction because they want
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: to stop our bottom-up, middle-out strategy. Yeah, it's going to
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: be a long four years, Dan. But maybe our next
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: guest will lead us into the future.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, fucking professional segue. What a segue. Professional.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: When we come back, our pal and a candidate for
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Democratic National Committee Chair, Ben Wickler.
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every January brings you
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• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Joining us today, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: who is currently running for chair of the Democratic National Committee,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler. Welcome back to Pod Save America, pal. John,
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: it's great to be back. So as a Democrat, I
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: feel grateful and excited that you're running for DNC chair.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: As a friend, I'm concerned because it is a thankless
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: job that makes you a punching bag for things that
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: aren't necessarily your fault. You and I haven't talked about
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: this yet, but what was your decision-making process that led
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: you to run?
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: So the night of the election, I felt like a
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: punch in the gut because I had felt the energy
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: all over Wisconsin. I thought we were going to win
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: in Wisconsin, which was my obsession. And then we lost.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: And I remember that night feeling like maybe none of
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: this has had any impact. Maybe this is all for nothing.
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: And then the next day, I got up and started
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: digging through the numbers. And what I saw was that
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: while Democratic turnout had gone down in most states, including
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: all our neighboring states like Minnesota over the course of
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: the election, it went up in Wisconsin. We actually had
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: the highest turnout in the country. And because of that,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: Tammy Baldwin won reelection. We flipped 14 state legislative seats.
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: You know, Trump Republican turnout went up even more. And
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: that's why, that's why we lost, but the work had
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: made a giant difference. And Wisconsin actually was to the
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: left of the national popular vote for the first time
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: in a long time. And I, that led me to
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: start thinking like, what if we could do this everywhere?
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: Like how big the stakes are for people for working
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: people across race and ethnicity all over the country who
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: are about to get punched in the face by this administration,
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: if we can build the kind of strength of a
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: party that we built in Wisconsin across the country, then
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: we can both contain the damage and also make this
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: the beginning of something much better where we actually make
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: this country work for everyone. And that sense of the
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: impact that it can have is why I'm running for
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: DNC chair.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Even though you've been one of the most frequent guests
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: on Pod Save America, I feel like a lot of
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: our audience might think, you emerged on this earth fully
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: formed as the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Can
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: you talk a little bit about what got you into
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: politics in the first place and why?
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: So my godmother is a woman named Ida Deer. And
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: when I was 11, she ran for Congress and became
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: the first Native American woman to win a congressional primary.
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: So volunteering on her race was my first experience in politics,
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: like stuffing envelopes and putting up yard signs. And she
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: had led the fight to restore her tribe's recognition by
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: the federal government. It was terminated in the 50s. and
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: had passed a federal law to restore recognition and just
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: was this kind of force of nature, incredible person. So
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: learning from her and from my parents who are both
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: like belatedly believe deeply in change, and then getting involved
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: first as an organizer in like to fight for public
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: school funding in Wisconsin and volunteering for Tammy Baldwin when
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: I was in high school, when she first ran for Congress,
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: interning for Russ Feingold, seeing these people who were heroes
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: to me, who got involved and actually won fights it
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: made me more idealistic the more I got involved as
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: opposed to less, which is often how it happens in
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: politics for people. And I got hooked. So I've always
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: had three big things. One is actual electoral politics. The
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: second is new media. So I wrote for The Onion
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: when I was in high school and college, which started
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: in Madison where I grew up and worked at Air
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: America Radio after college trying to build a, this might
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: sound familiar, a progressive media ecosystem to combat the dominance
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: of the right and shaping political narratives. And then the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: other is advocacy, which is what I was doing at MoveOn,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: which is both trying to win elections, but also actually
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: fighting on the issues that affect people's lives. And what
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: led me to run for chair of the Democratic Party
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: of Wisconsin and to move home to Wisconsin in 2018,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: I always wanted to raise my kid there, but it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: was the experience at MoveOn of Trump coming in and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: winning Wisconsin in 2016 in my state that had been
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: rigged by the GOP for total control after Scott Walker
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: came in with voter suppression, with gerrymandered rigged legislative maps,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: with union busting as a centerpiece of their strategy to
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: shut down the voices of working people, seeing how that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: then played out in putting Trump in the White House
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: and shredding the public education system in my state that
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: I had grown up fighting for, I wanted to move
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: home and try to change the direction of all that.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: And the only way to protect the fundamental things people
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: rely on, like being able to get to a doctor
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: when they get sick is to win power in states
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: across the country. That's where political power actually resides. And
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: that's what led me to run for chair in my
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: state because all of these fights are interconnected and we
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: need a party strong enough to fight at all these levels.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: So I used to come on your show right when
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: you launched as we were fighting back against ACA repeal.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: And the whole thing was like mobilizing people in their
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: congressional districts and pushing U.S. senators and telling their stories
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: and getting into the press and all this stuff. It's
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: state by state by state. And I want to I
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: want to build I'm running now for DNC chair because
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: I want a national party that can build that kind
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: of strength, both to limit the damage and also to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: build the trust from folks who want to see someone
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: fighting for them, to build a party that earns that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: trust and helps elect Democrats at every level.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the high turnout in Wisconsin this time around
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: and how it's slightly left to the popular vote. I've
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: seen some post-election analysis from some folks on the left
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: that argues Harris lost because too many voters in the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: anti-Trump coalition stayed home. It seems like that's not what
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: happened in the battleground states, certainly not what happened in Wisconsin.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I know Harris got more votes than Biden in Wisconsin,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: but there were even more new Trump voters than anticipated.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Given that, what does it tell you about why we
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: lost and what we need to do going forward? So
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: this is the first election of my lifetime in the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: last half century where Republican vote share went up in
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: every state and D.C., the whole country moved a little
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: bit towards the Republicans. That involved a combination of more
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: people voting who hadn't voted before and voting for Trump.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: There were people who crossed over in both directions, but
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: there were more people who switched over to vote for Trump.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: And there were people who stayed home, who otherwise probably
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: would have voted for Democrats. And there's a lot of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: different pieces of why that is, and we need a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: lot more data to get the full story. But one
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: thing that jumps out really clearly is.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: That the people who were hit hardest by prices going up,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: and no one talks about this, by the pandemic era
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: support falling away because Republicans shut down things like the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: childcare tax credit, the Democrats were fighting for those programs
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: really made a difference in the lives of, of, of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: the middle-class and of the poor of working families across
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: this country. Like incomes went up for a while, child
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: poverty was cut in half and then the support went away.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: And so people, you know, if you're getting a thousand
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: dollars a month because you have two kids and you
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: make $ 40, 000 a year, that's a huge, huge deal for
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: your family. And when that goes away, the, suddenly the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: floor is falling out at the same time as the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: price of keeping a roof over your head and filling
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: your prescriptions and getting the food you need is going up.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: So that's why the economy sucked for a ton of people,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: because they had help that disappeared and the cost of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: getting through the day rose. And those voters who had
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of other things on their mind were the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: least likely to pay attention to political news. They were
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: least likely to be, you know, tuning into this show
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: or to the MSNBCs of the world or reading a newspaper.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: And they were didn't experience, they felt like things were
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: getting worse when a certain party was in charge and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: they didn't show up to keep that party in power.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: We saw the same thing happening everywhere in the world.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: The incumbent parties lost ground for the first time in
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: more than a century in every wealthy democracy on planet Earth.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: But in the United States, it's particularly infuriating because Democrats
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: actually were fighting for the exact things that folks needed.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: And Republicans were stopped them. They blocked them and took
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: them away. If we'd had a couple more Democratic votes
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: in the Senate, we could have provided long-term support for folks.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: And what is really clear to me is that we
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: were not communicating to people to talk the talk, to
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: show up and show that we're fighting for working people
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: in their lives in places and ways that they actually
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: heard and saw and felt. And that is an indictment
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: on us for how we communicate and also shows the
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: power of the right-wing propaganda and organizing machine that they've
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: been able to dominate this conversation and tell people your
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: life sucks because of some them that Democrats are on
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: the side of against you. And it is both Republicans
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: trying to divide people based on their identities, but it's
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: also a message about saying Democrats don't actually care about you,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: whoever you might be. And the way we beat that
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: is not by abandoning parts of our coalition by people
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: that deserve the same freedom and respect everyone gets. The
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: way we defeat that is by showing that we are
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: fighting for people and Republicans are the ones trying to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: rip them off and divide and distract them in order
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: to pick their pockets.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: So I want to dig into that. It seems like,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: you know, there's like three components to a message. There's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: what we say, there's how we say it, and then
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: there's how we make sure people hear it. Put the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: last one aside for a second. In the first two,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: what we say and how we say it, I've been
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: banging this drum since 2016. I know you have too.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of Democratic strategists and organizers have. It seems
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: pretty clear that the story we want to tell is
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: the Democrats are on the side of working people and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Republicans are for the rich. And we know from talking
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: to people that that works well. We know from polling.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: We know from focus groups. Everyone knows it. And yet
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to get that message out. And we
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: are now in an era where the debates about culture
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: and identity attract more attention than debates about economics and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: economic issues. Like maybe back in, you know, last time
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: we had an election based on... debate about economic issues
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: was 2012, maybe, when we were able to do that.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: Unless you were arguing that that's actually part of what
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: Trump was doing, and he was trying to reverse that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: and tell a story where Democrats are the party of
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: the rich.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: That's true. But how do we, is it a problem with,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: is it about being more creative in how we talk
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: about economic issues? Is it the language Democrats are using?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: So it's everything, but I will put one particular circle
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: around something, which is you have to actually have a fight.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: That means there have to be two sides of the fight,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: that attention follows conflict. To me, 2018 was an election
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: about healthcare and about Republicans trying to rip away people's
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: healthcare in order to give tax cuts to the ultra-rich
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: and big insurance companies. And the voices in the forefront
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: of that fight were people whose healthcare was going to
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: be ripped away by what Republicans were doing. It was electrifying.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: And the We organized across the country. As it moved on,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: we helped to organize 23,000 protests with grassroots groups, with
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: people with disabilities in the front of that fight whose
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: lives were on the line, who put their bodies on
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: the line in that fight. And Democrats made absolutely clear
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: that there were four people being able to get health
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: care when they needed it, and Republicans were against. Republicans
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: started trying to copy our message. People could see who
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 5: was fighting for them and who was trying to screw
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: them over.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: And we won.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: And in 2006, same thing, Social Security privatization. Republicans had
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: this big plan that they were going to move Social
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: Security into the stock market right before the financial crisis.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: Great idea, Republicans.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: And Democrats said absolutely not and went to bat. And
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: the voices of people who were going to be directly
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: affected were front and center of the race in the battle.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: And that was a huge part of how we won
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: in 2006. Also, the fight against Republican corruption, which was endemic.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: And we know there will be fights like that at
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: this moment. But there actually has to be a big
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: battle for people to be able to see it, especially
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: to reach outside of the bubble. Just having a bill
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: that has a bunch of great provisions that you talk about,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: it doesn't do it because Republicans never publicly message that
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: they're against good ideas that Democrats have. They kill our
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: good proposals in private and then they duke it out
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: on the cultural fights that they want to bring attention
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: to in the most public way possible. And then, by
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: the way, they don't believe half the stuff that they're saying.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: They know it's all BS. But the attacks that Republicans
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: do are centrally to try to provoke fights that bring
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: attention to their issues. And we need to fight on
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: our issues to fight, for example, not just to protect
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: social security, but to expand social security and to, you know,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: to tax higher incomes so we can expand the support
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: that everybody gets in ways that put Republicans on defense.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: If we can do that kind of fight, it takes
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: building a war room. It takes communicating clearly. I think
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: Using the language people use in their real life is
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: really critical. But this is work that we've been doing
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: year over year in Wisconsin. It takes on the ground organizing.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: We have the biggest on the ground organizing team. It
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: takes communicating across a ton of different platforms. And it
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: means going on offense on fights that actually people have
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: an emotional, intense response to that they actually care about.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: And then they get involved in those fights as well.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: Because if we can message all we want, but if
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: people aren't talking about it in their you know, in
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: Berenstead and World of Warcraft, then we're probably not actually
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: having the kind of fight that draws the country's attention
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: and changes the conversation.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: In terms of how we make sure people hear Democrats' message,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: you laid out three steps in a post a month ago,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: I think. Build up progressive media, obviously. Love to hear it.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: That's biased on that one. Number two, more media appearances
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: on shows that have, you know, conservative or conservative-leaning audience.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: And three... Figure out how to reach people who aren't
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: consuming political news or really any kind of news at all.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: You mentioned this earlier. To me, this is the most
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: important one and I think maybe the most difficult. What
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: are your thoughts on how to reach people who just
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: aren't paying attention to any of this bullshit?
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 5: So the biggest thing is to go to places where
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: people are talking about other stuff and talk about other
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: stuff as well as about politics. And that means– it
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: doesn't mean video games. It means– Home makeovers, gigantic audience.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: People think about that all the time who are lucky
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: enough to have homes that they can make over. Cooking, parenting, sports, beauty, fashion,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: like the whole world of culture, the world that people
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: actually inhabit when they're not thinking about how they're gonna vote.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: The conversations that happen in those places are the things
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: that are sort of, you know, cultures upstream from politics.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: The places where those non-political conversations take place shape the
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: landscape in which political dramas play out. And this is
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: something that I think Trump has a particular talent and
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: knack for, but also people like Roger Ailes and a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: lot of other Republicans. They think about how to push
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: narratives that affect the broader culture. And as Democrats, I
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: think we need an intentional cultural strategy. And some of
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: that can happen and should happen at the party. Some
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: of that should happen outside the party. But as a
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: Democratic party, we should be working to help get folks,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: to get Democratic candidates and elected officials and communicators and
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: storytellers into places that shape the broader conversation across the country.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: That means you know, having dinners where people can meet
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: each other. Influencers can meet elected officials and learn about
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: the things that they're working on. A lot of this
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 5: stuff is a total black box to people that are
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: outside of politics. And you actually have to demystify it
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: and put a human face on things and build relationships
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: so people make a phone call to see if something's
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: true before they go out and say it. And that's
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: work that has to happen before elections so you don't
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: get to the final 107 days and have culture already
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: swung away from you. That work should start right now.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: And the fact, you know, the DNC chairs election is
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: February 1st. So I will be, on day one, this
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: very public commitment, we'll start an audit of every consulting
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 5: contract that the Democratic Party has, and we will actually
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: choose where to spend our money based on our values
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: and the path to victory, not relationships or old political
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: debts that someone incurred a long time ago. But the
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: other thing that we'll start doing is building a battle
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: plan in each state and a strategy around attention and
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: communication that shifts where these conversations are taking place. It's just,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: you know, we don't live in in the nineties or
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: the two thousands or the 2010, like this is, this
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: is now attention's fragmented into a million different places. Half
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: the electorate doesn't watch TV and we need to, we
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: need to look to where attention is going and then
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: actually build relationships that are based on common values and
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: shared interests and have, and make sure that Democrats are
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: talking about why their values as a, as a hunter
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: and sports person lead them to want to make sure
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: that we don't, destroy the natural resources across the state
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: of Wisconsin, to take one close to home example, across
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 5: all the different dimensions, because people care about a million things,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: but they have a common set of values that are
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: fundamentally about the idea that everyone should have freedom and
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: dignity and respect and be able to afford the basic
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: things that everyone needs in life. That's universal stuff that
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: touches just about everything that people do.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: When you do that audit, if you do that audit,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: what are you looking for? What kind of consultants... What
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: kind of ad makers would you think are like, okay,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: that's good. The party needs that. I won't make you
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: say which ones you want to get rid of, but
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: what are you looking for from a positive angle?
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: Well, we know that we are losing ground with folks
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: across race and ethnicity and across geography, across the country.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 5: And so we should be working with ad makers, with communicators,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 5: with pollsters and researchers that reflect the full diversity of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: our coalition, that understand the communities that they're trying.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: To work in.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: We know that there's a huge generational problem and that
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 5: if Democrats, you know, we did better with older voters
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: and worse with younger voters, and we need to make
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: sure we're working with younger folks and new voices and
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: people who have familiarity across different new platforms. I also
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 5: want to make sure we're actually looking at results and,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: you know, how we measure those results and what those
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: results are. There's not a lot of budget transparency within
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: the DNC right now. And a commitment that I've made
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: on my platform at benwickler.com slash platform is that We
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: will both upgrade that transparency and bring DNC members in
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: to build a policy around how we build those consultancies
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: and contracts. And then to be able to raise money
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: when there's not a Democratic president. And a lot of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: people are skeptical. A lot of money was spent in
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: the last election. We didn't win it. This is not horseshoes.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: It doesn't count if you get close. If we want
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: to be able to earn people's trust, they're not ATMs.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: People are going to invest when they know that money
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: is going to be spent well. And so I want
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: to basically... be spending money at the DNC. We'll have
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: to raise and spend a lot in a way that
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: we're very clearly doing all of that coming from our
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: values and our path to victory. And that's a battle
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: plan in each state across all the different kinds of
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: fights that we need to fight. That's understanding how different
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: races at different levels are interconnected. Wisconsin has a state
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court election April 1st. If Republicans win that, they
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 5: re-gerimander the state. If they re-gerimander the state, they could
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: rig our electoral system for the long term like North Carolina,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: we're in a fight to retain an election against a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 5: rogue Supreme Court because Republicans took it over in 2022.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: There's so many of these fights that are all part
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: of this vast maze about how you win the power
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 5: to make change in people's lives. And we need to
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: be working from a battle plan, not just cutting checks
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: to states to say, good luck, here you go, but
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: actually funding program that leads to winning so that we
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: can make a change in people's lives, which is the
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 5: entire point of this work. And that's the set of
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: principles that I want to use to inform how we spend. Politics,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: people have relationships, and I honor that. But it's not
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: about who knows who. It should not be about who
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: knows who and who owes someone a favor or who
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: scratched someone's back. It should be about how we actually
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: build a party strong enough to fight for the things
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: that people need across this country that are going to
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: be attacked by the Trump administration. How we communicate, how
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: we show up, how we organize year-round on the ground
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 5: everywhere in the country, as we've done in Wisconsin. as
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 5: we need to do across the nation. That is the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: point of this work. And if we do it right,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: then we could win enormous amounts of elections and really
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 5: make change over the next four years and beyond.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: What other changes do you want to make at the DNC?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: And what specifically would you do differently than Jamie Harrison
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: has over the last four years?
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to honor that when there's a Democratic presidency,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 5: some decisions aren't made by the DNC chair. A lot
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: of decisions come out of folks at the White House.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: And I think.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: I think President Biden has done, has passed a lot
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: of really critical legislation. I also think that the DNC
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: has not engaged in this kind of fight up and
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: down the ballot in the way that we have the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: opportunity to do. And I also think that the work
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: to build the kind of communications strategy to do the
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 5: non-political work, the building up progressive media ecosystem and training
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: and deploying communicators on conservative media, there's a lot of
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: work to do there as well. And you can see
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: that in what happened in the election. And you can
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 5: also see that in the way that if you talk
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: to folks across the country, there's a ton of races where,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 5: as a national party, we haven't leaned into the fight.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: And that's the thing I think we have the opportunity
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 5: to change. I have great respect for Chair Harrison, and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of battles that simply have
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 5: not been a core priority for the Democratic National Committee,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: that we're going to be living with the consequences of
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 5: that for a long time to come. And this is
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: no shade on the people on the ground or the
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 5: people who worked in the building. This is about This
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: is about having a strategy to be able to fight
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 5: and win at all the different levels of the ballot,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 5: recognizing they're interconnected, and that the DNC is a part
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: of an ecosystem with unions and the labor movement, with
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: grassroots partners and allies, that we need to build a
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 5: plan together to be able to fight and win in
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: a way that's happened more on the governing side than
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: has happened in the political and communication and organizing and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: campaign side.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Would you be in favor of reinstating the ban on
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: donations from corporate PACs and lobbyists?
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 6: So.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: The core of that question is, do you think that
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: the Democratic Party's agenda should be controlled by corporate PACs
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 5: and lobbyists? And my answer to that is absolutely not.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 5: We should be fighting for working folks, and we should
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: be fighting to win at every level of the ballot.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: I also know that if you look across the country,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: the core thing that we need to do is fight
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: in a way that brings friends to our side, and
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 5: that will lead to various companies, I'm sure, investing in
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 5: supporting Republicans, as they're doing right now in a big way.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: and that there are states there are different fights, there
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: are places where the right has gone so far that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: the only way that the business community winds up siding
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 5: with moderates and Democrats against far-right Republicans. So I actually
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: think that The way corporate money affects our politics is
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: less affected by the DNC's ban or not ban. It's
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: affected by the kinds of fights that we lead and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: the way that we fight back against people trying to
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: rig the country. So being in Wisconsin where Republicans rigged
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: our campaign finance law to officially to shut out corporate money,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: but it's actually to shut out union money and then
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: raise money from billionaire owners of giant corporations to fund
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: their campaigns through dark money and on the independent side.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: I think that a DNC ban is actually not an
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: effective tool to winning the kinds of fights we need
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 5: to win to be able to change our campaign finance
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: laws nationally.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: I asked one of your opponents, Ken Martin, the same
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: question too, and he gave me a similar answer and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: also was saying that there's some people that would be
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: classified as corporate PACs and lobbyists that are actually people
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: on our side that we'd like, not just corporations that
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: we'd like, but actual groups, progressive groups. unions, right? Like
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: you just mentioned this too. I'm trying to figure out,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to like read between the lines here. Is
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: it that we don't want to unilaterally disarm in the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: face of Republicans raising all this money? Or is it
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: that we, there are going to be places with PACs,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: you know, or entities with PACs and lobbying arms that
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: are good progressive causes that we'll want to take money from?
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: What's going on there?
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 5: So it's one part not wanting to unilaterally disarm, but
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: the amount of like money that corporations give to the
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: democratic party is actually not meaningful and it's, you could,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 5: you could accept zero and it wouldn't, wouldn't change the
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: total amount. The, the, the big picture is actually lots
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 5: of the, the state level races across the country and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: local races across the country where, you know, if you
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: go down to state legislative races in red States, a
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: lot of times it's only the, the like business community
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: members that are, you know, think that the attacks on,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 5: you know, different communities are totally unacceptable. and finally move
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: to defense that actually are the only way that Democrats
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: have to be able to do this work. So the
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: DNC's policy, it's symbolic. And I think when Democrats running
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 5: for office say, I'm going to take no corporate PAC contributions,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 5: that often is a really powerful way to state their
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: values and be able to fight. As an institution, it's
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 5: something that winds up making it difficult in particular circumstances.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 5: I think that the other big picture thing is that
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: we should be very clear about is that Democrats should
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: be fighting against big corporate interests that try to, you know,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: build monopolies and rip people off, uh, and in favor
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 5: of bringing down costs for people and, you know, making
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: our economy sustainable and supporting unions in a way that
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: is crystal clear. And so, for example, I have said
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: we will not accept any money from a company that's
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: actively engaged in union busting and being able to return
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: a contribution from a company that has, uh, is involved
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: in union busting is a way to make a powerful
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: statement in that moment in a way that, uh, not
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: having the overall policy makes possible. The fundamental thing, I think,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: in our politics at this moment is what fights we choose.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: And that goes to my theory of attention. It also
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: goes to my theory of how we rally a coalition
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: that represents our values. And ultimately, you're going to piss
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: people off who will invest on the other side and
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 5: come at you.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: And that's fine.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: You have to be ready to incur those kinds of fights.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: But the fights are actually at the center of this work.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: And my campaign slogan is Unite, Fight, Win, which is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 5: It reflects that idea that you unite around big fights
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: that demonstrate your values, that you're for working people across
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 5: race and ethnicity and in rural areas and suburbs and cities.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: The big we in this country against the people who
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: are trying to rig the system to rip everybody off.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: And if you can do that, you can actually build
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: trust and build a grassroots fundraising infrastructure like we built
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: in Wisconsin that can sustain the work.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: Speaking of Ken Martin, your main competitor, we had him
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: on the show. and I said this to him too,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: I said, I didn't really know you before this. You
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: and Ben have, I'm friends with Ben, goes way back,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: but you guys have similar vibes. I like that. What's
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: something you guys disagree about? How are your visions different?
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 5: So our visions and what we're talking about at Campaign Trail,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: there's not a huge amount of daylight. I think the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 5: big difference is in our record. And I have been
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: working for the last six years in one of maybe
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: the most hotly contested state in the country where Republicans
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 5: throw a wall of money every dirty trick they can,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 5: a massive owned media infrastructure to propagandize people, just the
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: most blistering and incendiary dark money attacks against our candidates.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 5: And it's also a state that's been rigged by the
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 5: GOP for permanent control. And in order to unrig our state,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 5: in order to over time to beat a 60-year curse
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: where Democrats always lose the governor's race when there's a
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 5: Democratic president, Governor Evers not only beat that and won re-election,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: he also expanded his vote share, unlike in all of
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 5: our neighboring states, in order to defeat the Republican attempt
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 5: to get super majorities in our state legislature and then
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 5: flip our state Supreme Court majority and then defeat an
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: impeachment attempt and then finally get fair maps and flip
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: 14 state legislative seats. Well, in Minnesota, we lost the
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 5: state legislative seat in this cycle and now the legislature
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: is in chaos. In order to do all that, We've
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 5: had to build something that is just bigger and stronger
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: and deeper, both in organizing and communication powered by more
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: fundraising than we've had in any state party in the country.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: And our size of our staff is sometimes similar to
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 5: that of the DNC. Like we've had more than 400
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: staff in the final stretch in both 2020 and 2024,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: which the DNC in those moments is a lot bigger,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: but I've been leading organizations that have like deep multi-layered
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 5: departments doing a huge array of work in partnership with
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 5: unions and our allies and the front lines of the fight.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 5: And the Minnesota's, you know, Republicans fight there, but it's
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 5: more of a blue state. It's the only state that's
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 5: been blue since the 1970s in the country. And Democrats
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 5: have won every statewide election there going back to 2006 before,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 5: you know, before my fellow candidate was chair. And it's
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 5: a different kind of fight that's that I think in Wisconsin,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 5: we've built something that is a bigger, a closer model
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 5: and approximation of what I think we need to build
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 5: across the country. And I appreciate Ken Martin has been
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: leading the State Chairs Association, and he's fought within the
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: DNC for state chairs relative to other parts of the DNC,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: but hasn't made the case to the public for why
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: we need to go and build a party apparatus that
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: has this kind of strength. And so there hasn't been
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: more public support and fundraising and volunteering and energy for
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 5: building the idea of what the Democratic Party should be about.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 5: And I feel like I've been able to do that
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: even for my one state in a way that I
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 5: think we need to do for the national party going forward.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 5: And the last piece on the record is that when
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: I was at MoveOn, I was working in partnership with
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: Democrats in Congress, in the House and the Senate, with
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 5: allies and grassroots groups all across the country on progressive
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: media and going on conservative media and non-political media to
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 5: to change the conversation about a major national crisis where
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: Trump was trying to rip away protections that everyone in
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 5: this country relied on and we won. And we're going
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 5: to have fights like that going forward. And I think
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: having a DNC chair who has the, the both experience
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 5: and track record and just orientation around that kind of
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 5: giant battle is going to be something that we could
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 5: benefit from as a national party. And I, I think
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 5: I bring that uniquely in this race. So that's, that's
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: my contrast is, is that kind of fight.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: Last question. I'll let you go. Um, I don't know
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: if you noticed, but, uh, The vibes among Democrats are
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: not great right now. A lot of anger, despair, fatalism.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: I've also noticed some weird happy talk from a lot
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: of Democratic politicians. It sounds like we just lost a
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: normal election with normal stakes. You just mentioned you've been
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: a party chair in a state where, for a while,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: it seemed like extreme gerrymandering would lead to, functionally, the
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: end of democracy in Wisconsin. Any lessons from that in
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: how to inspire people to move from despair... to action,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: which seems like what we need right now.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: In Wisconsin, we've been skating along the edge of a cliff,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 5: and sometimes we've been pushed off that cliff and grabbed
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 5: a branch as we fell by our hands and pulled
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 5: ourselves up by our fingernails to avoid becoming permanently rigged,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: permanently red, even though most people do not want what
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: Republicans are trying to do. And we're facing that exact
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: crisis as a country right now. There's a real risk
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 5: that Trump will smash to pieces things that families and
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 5: families working people and the poor and people across this
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 5: country urgently need and rely on, that they did not
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 5: vote to get smashed, that they voted for change, they
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 5: voted out of frustration, they voted for all kinds of reasons.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: But what they didn't do is vote to have the
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: rug pulled out from underneath them. And they didn't vote
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 5: to end democracy and to have a country that gets
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 5: rigged by the people at the very top for their
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: benefit at the expense of everyone else. And when you're
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: in that kind of darkness, tracing the path out of it,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 5: Being able to see the glimmer of light at the
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 5: end of that tunnel and knowing that if you do
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: everything you can, everything in your power to take step
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 5: after step after step, that there's a way out, to me,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 5: is the essential thing that you have to do. You
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 5: have to have a North Star to be able to
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 5: continue that fight.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: And the.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 5: Core of what I want to do at the DNC is,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 5: in every state, to draw what that path looks like,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 5: to communicate it out to our activists, to our volunteers,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 5: to our party members, to the candidates and campaigners. To
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: have a huge shared product of getting out of this
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 5: darkness and building a country that works for everyone, where
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 5: we show that democracy can actually deliver on its promise
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 5: to deliver a country that lifts everybody up. We have
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: to see that plan. We have to be able to
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 5: touch and feel it. And then everyone needs to feel
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 5: the experience of being part of that fight. This can't
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 5: be something where we're cheering on some politician somewhere else
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 5: for giving a great speech. We all need to see
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 5: ourselves in our own role. And that collective action, that
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 5: being part of something bigger than yourself, it is what
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 5: sustains hope and can even allow moments of joy and relief.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 5: And even when you fall just short, if you know
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 5: that there's going to be a next step in that chapter,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: in that story that we build together, that is how
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: you get through.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: And that's, that's, That's not a set of feelings.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: People associate with the Democratic Party necessarily. But I think
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: that it has to be in this moment. And I'm
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: running for chair. And if you're a DNC member who's
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 5: listening to this podcast right now, I'm asking for your
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: vote for chair because I think that's what we can
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: build together. And I think the country needs it. And
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 5: I think the stakes are real. But I think that
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 5: the path is there, even if it can be so
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: dark that it's hard to discern. And if we take
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: these steps, I think that we can make this the
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: low point in an era that is looked back on
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: as the birth of a new era of progress in
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 5: this country.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler, I started by saying that as a Democrat,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: I'm excited and grateful that you're running. I was a
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: little more nervous as your friend. But you know what?
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: You seem like you're really into this. And now as
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: a friend, I'm very happy that you're running as well.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you, as always, for joining Pod Save America. And
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: good luck out there.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much, John.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. Thank you, Ben, for joining.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: Everyone have a great weekend. And we'll be back with
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: another show on Tuesday about the inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
• 1:30:08
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