Latest / Pod Save America / Trump’s Surprise Q-chella Set

Transcript

Trump’s Surprise Q-chella Set · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Succession's spoiler, Jon Levin.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor. Oh, are you why we're getting yelled
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: at on Twitter?
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: That's a separate incident. Okay.
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: We'll sort this out in the after.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I know we have to be careful on today's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: episode because even Tommy hasn't seen it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen it either.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You haven't either? What is wrong with you?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's hard to get to it now.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Okay. A lot going on. Anyway, on today's show, Ron
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: DeSantis tries to reboot his presidential prospects in Iowa. Donald
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Trump calls into Mike Flynn's QAnon rally. Joe Biden is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: much more optimistic about a debt-sailing deal than Kevin McCarthy.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Senator Joe Manchin flirts with playing spoiler in 2024. And
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Dianne Feinstein returns to the Senate. Then I talked to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the youngest Democratic Party chair in the country, North Carolina's
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Anderson Clayton, about her plan to turn her state blue.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Tar Heel blue or Duke blue? Oh, wow. Tar Heel?
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Elijah is here in studio.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, Tar Heel blue is objectively a better blue.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: No offense, Coach K or whatever.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we have some big news first, though.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Huge news.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Crooked's very own subscription community is now here. Some of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you may be wondering what took you so long. Good question. But,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we wanted to take the time to get
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this right.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Got to get it right.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Got to get it right. And now, because we did,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: we are very excited to introduce Friends of the Pod,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the ultimate digital community for Pod Save America and crooked listeners.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: It's our own living plus.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: It's our own.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: When you join Friends of the Pod, you'll unlock access
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to more of the news and sweet, sweet political content
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you love. Weekly bonus audio content like our new subscription
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: exclusive show, Terminally Online. It is the loosest show at Crooked.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're dancing like no one's watching over there.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: If it's multiple bonuses, is that bonai?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: That's just a question.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: You can get humor like that on Terminally Online.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of events, hey, put that behind
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: the paywall. That was too good. That was too good.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I will say it's the most fun we have every
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: week is doing Terminally Online.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: It is very fun.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So you should check it out. a community of friends
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of the pod on discord. Uh, and we will come
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: by from time to time to say hi. We already
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: have been, I'm going to be, I'm going to stream
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the new Zelda game over there. Okay. That's great.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Whoa. Promise.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to do it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: That's not the same thing.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I am going to stream the new Zelda game over there.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Incredibly dumb behind the scenes moments, uh, that we sometimes
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: find out we're being recorded at the same time you do.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: That is true. That is true. We never know anymore
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: when we're being recorded around this office.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Nope. Never know.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So, uh, Be careful. Also, lots more. Lots more. And
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: when you sign up to the Best Friends tier, $ 10
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of your monthly subscription will go directly to supporting Vote
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Save America, helping to organize voters for 2024 and beyond.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: You'll also get some pretty amazing VSA swag. So that's great.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And if all that's not enough to convince you to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: join for a limited time only, you can now sign
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: up for Friends of the Pod and receive a 10%
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: discount on your first year of subscription. We are super
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: excited about this. Hope you are, too. Head to crooked.com
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: slash friends to subscribe today. That's crooked.com slash friends. And
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Elijah has informed me that we have to say that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: address five times organically during the course of this episode.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: He's staring through your head.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: It's very scary that he's sitting right behind you.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: It's weird.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: It's like a mug that says it that we're just
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: drinking out of.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: We're his subs.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Crooked.com slash friends. All right, let's get to the news.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis. is busy trying to revive a campaign that
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: hasn't started yet. He had Iowa to himself this weekend
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: after Trump canceled an event in Des Moines because of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a tornado that never happened. So DeSantis twisted the knife
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: by making an unscheduled stop there in Des Moines. Talking
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: about how sunny the weather was.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: It was pretty funny.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: The New York Times says that he impressed the Republicans
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: he met, showing off the, quote, sometimes enigmatic lighter side
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of his personality by flipping burgers. Also, he, like, let
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: his wife talk a lot. So I guess that's one
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: way he showed up, his personality, by handing it over
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to his wife.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: The bumper bowling that was this article is unbelievable.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I know, and I couldn't tell. It's so funny because, like,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a couple days before, the New York Times had an
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: article that was like, why Ron DeSantis is limping to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the starting line. And suddenly, like, two days later, he's
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: impressing voters in Iowa.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I love, I just love the idea that, like, finally,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the pugnacious DeSantis we've all heard about because he said,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: nice weather we're having.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And he started flipping a few burgers.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: They called it a pointed pit stop, which I think
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: is a very, this.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Is really stretching. The DeSantis team also invited Politico's Jonathan
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Martin to Tallahassee to make their case for the governor's candidacy,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: which is basically, A, their internal polling shows DeSantis does
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: better than Trump against Biden in swing states, and that
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: he also has higher favorability ratings. especially in Iowa, New Hampshire,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and South Carolina, still after a lot of Trump attacks
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: on DeSantis. B, they think most of the big GOP
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: donors will back DeSantis once he announces. And C, they
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: think he can unite the Republicans who aren't MAGA diehards
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and maybe is the only candidate who can do so.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Do you guys buy any of this DeSantis spin? Is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: he being counted out a bit too early? What do
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: we think, Tommy?
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: He's definitely being written off too early. I mean, you
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: could make a long list of candidates that were The
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: declared other candidates, he was declared dead. And then they
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: went on to get the nomination. John McCain in 2008
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: comes to mind. Remember, he basically fired all the staff,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: moved everybody to New Hampshire and started over. So it's
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: too early to write off.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: We were we were pretty close, too.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: We were not doing well for a while.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: There was there was a I remember. Was it a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: New York Post story where the headline was Hillary ready
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: to accept her coronation?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds right.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: In September of 2007?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I got a frame in the office.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: That went up on the wall. That doesn't mean he's
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: doing well. But yes, it's definitely too early to write
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: him off. Yeah, I mean, you can't be written off
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: any earlier.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: That's true. He hasn't announced yet. He hasn't announced. I
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: would say that if he goes down in flames, it
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: was the right time to write him off.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: If he comes back, it was too early.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, check back in with John Lovett.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Some trenchant analysis. It's sort of ridiculous. Like, yes, of
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: course it is. It's all silly.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about their case. What do you buy
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: about the case? What do you not buy about their case?
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: So there seems to be a couple core, two or
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: three core arguments. One is everyone knows the majority of
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party wants to move on, said DeSantis' gubernatorial
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: campaign manager and closest aide to Jonathan Martin. I think that's,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: maybe that's true. but Donald Trump is far and away
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: the Republican frontrunner at the moment. So it doesn't seem
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: like all of them want to move on. So I'm
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: not sure that that quite adds up yet. There's probably
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: a lot of moderate voters who do want to move
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: on from Trump. There's probably voters who are worried about
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: electability that want to move on from Donald Trump and
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: look at the midterms and think he's at fault and
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: look at 2020 and know the reality of what happened
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: was not that the election was stolen. But I think
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: it's probably a little early to make that argument or
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: to say it's conclusive.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you can make an argument that they want
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: to want to move on. But the surest sign that
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: they don't want to move on is that he's being
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: is that DeSantis is being dominated by Trump in the polls.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: If he can make this electability argument, then maybe people
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: will want to move on to DeSantis.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: So I think it's true that it's definitely true that
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: most Republican voters are not paying attention to the primary
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: right now. And national polls don't tell you nearly as
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: much about the race as early state polls. National polls
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: never tell you much about a primary. But especially this
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: early and especially in comparison to these early state polls,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: which in fairness, Trump is still leading in a lot
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of these early state polls. But again, it's early. I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: do see some problems in the DeSantis case. One, it's
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: hard to unite the donors and the non-MAGA diehards when
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: there are still so many other candidates in the race
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: besides DeSantis and Trump. And I think some of these
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: donors who were like maybe high on DeSantis at first
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and now are sort of backing away. they're not like
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: going back to Trump. They're like thinking about Nikki Haley
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: or Tim Scott or some of these other people.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all getting quoted in the paper saying, we're
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: keeping our powder dry.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: There's something so cynical about even the DeSantis spin already.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: If it's too early to count them out, I feel
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: like it's also, at this point, they're saying, how dare
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: you count him out? We have all these prospective reasons
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: we think he's ultimately going to win this boxing match.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: He's stronger, he's fitter, he's able to sustain himself over
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: more rounds, but he's also not willing to punch yet.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: And they make this argument like, well, obviously he's not
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: going to start going after Trump until after he's officially
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: declared his candidacy. It's like, okay, well then we'll see
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: how it goes once you do that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think his central challenge here is making the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: electability case. And first of all, we've seen that some
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of DeSantis' more extreme positions, like the six-week abortion ban,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: hurting his own electability argument and spooking donors and voters
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: against who were sort of thinking about DeSantis because they
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: thought he was more electable than Trump. And now he's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: taking these extreme positions that don't make him. So, and also,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: as you said, love it, he's got to make that
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: case and he's got to make it against Trump so
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that it's sharp enough to get attention and draw blood,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: but not too sharp that it pisses off voters who
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: still like Donald Trump, even if they might want to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: move on. And that's a, and he has not figured
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: that out yet. And it may be an unsolvable problem.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, like there was another story, uh, I forget where, but, um,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: DeSantis can't even say that Trump lost in 2020.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: That's what I was going to talk about here because
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: he thinks he can be, he thinks he can do
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: this with subtlety. He says like, we have to move
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: on from this loser mentality. Here is my electability argument.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: But he's now been asked dozens of times about the
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: 2020 elections. He will not give an answer. He has
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the audacity to be annoyed that he's being asked. And
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: so how can you make a case that that you
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: believe Donald Trump is a loser and therefore we must
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: move on from him while endorsing election deniers and refusing
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: to say that Donald Trump lost the election. And forget
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: how hypocritical it is and how illogical it is. He
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: just seems weak. He just seems like a politician. So
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: it's sort of hits him twice.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: The other quote in the Jonathan Martin piece was, not
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: only will Republicans have significant problems in traditional battleground states
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: if Trump is the GOP nominee, but any of these
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: reach states would already be off the table. And I
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: agree with you. I mean, that might be true, but
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: DeSantis is steadily weakening his own case with the abortion ban,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: with his culture war fights, with getting beaten up by
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Disney and Bob Iger. So what the big takeaway I
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: had from the Jonathan Martin piece was is DeSantis' staffers
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: realize that they need to get in the game and
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: play the game a little bit. They can't cocoon him
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: in Florida in a legislative session. They can't only talk
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: to bloggers at TPUSA or whatever. They need to play
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the game a little bit. So they call in the
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: media elite that all the other elites read, and they
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: try to spin Jonathan Martin for a while. And I
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: don't know, I think Jonathan's piece, I saw him this weekend,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I talked to him about it. He came away thinking, okay,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: these folks are getting in the game now. They're going
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: to try But they still have a lot of convincing
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: What did you make of his Iowa trip as our
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: resident Iowa expert?
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Thanks for asking, John.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, he's got a, what are those?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Corn cob?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: I know what you're thinking.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Like a hay, a piece of hay. Real in touch
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: with rural America.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He's got a chicken, I don't know. What do they
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: do over there? I can't, it's hard to see from
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: up on the plane.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Piece of straw?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a piece of straw.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Straw.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: We're landing on straw?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Sure. All right. So this is what the, let me
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: get on my hay bale real quick. Tom Sawyer chew
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: on it. So the Des Moines Register headline was DeSantis
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: in Iowa calls for positive alternative to Biden, though absent
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Trump's presence was felt. So he was even felt in
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: the headline. It was a completely standard trip to Iowa.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: He went to Northwest Iowa to do this sort of
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: fundraising event with a member of Congress. All the Republican
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: elites from the state were there, the governor, the AG,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: all these statewide elected officials. So good thing to do.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: kind of like the harkin steak fry right you flip
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: some burgers you press the flesh you meet with a
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: bunch of influential people then i think he went to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: cedar rapids which is in eastern iowa and i guess
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: they just added this last minute stop to troll trump
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: a little bit because he canceled his event with his
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: fake tornado warning um so they went to some barbecue
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: place right by the airport in des moines and i
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: guess probably flew out that way it was fine like
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: you got the coverage you want You check all the
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: cliche boxes. You talk about Casey's breakfast pizza, blah, blah, blah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: The really weird thing about this is DeSantis' super PAC
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: announced a bunch of endorsements. I just don't get how
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: you can have a super PAC announcing endorsements for a
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: campaign that doesn't exist yet.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: It's also weird that they're not allowed to coordinate. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I guess it must mean that some DeSantis org published
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the list publicly and then the super PAC had to
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: run with it or they're just breaking the law, which
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: is plausible.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: It's so weird.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the super PAC, one more thing I want
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: to say about that is after the CNN town hall,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: DeSantis' super PAC just like unloaded on Donald Trump. Basically,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they tweeted something that could have come from like the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: DNC about everything that Donald Trump did wrong in the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: town hall, particularly focused around electability. If DeSantis starts making
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: a case like his super PAC has been making recently–
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: then I think he's got a pretty decent shot, but
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: he's kind of got to get to that level.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I think he has to actually make a case
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: against Donald Trump, and then we will see. Is it working?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Are we finally going to see if there's actually going
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: to be a contest here or not? Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: The only really interesting thing from the Iowa standpoint that
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: jumped out at me was this guy, Bob Vander Plaats,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: who's kind of a right-wing religious conservative activist, criticized Trump
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: via tweet for criticizing the six-week abortion ban. So it
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: does seem like the first little inkling that maybe... Some
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: activists think there is some room to attack Trump from
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the right on that issue. I don't think it's going
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: to work personally, but it was notable.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was interesting about the the Jaymar piece, too,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is the way he framed it is like DeSantis has
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to unite the like evangelical conservatives, like the people who
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: would have were like behind Ted Cruz in 2016 with
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: like the more moderate John Kasich type Republicans with the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell GOP establishment. Those are like three pretty disparate
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: groups to get together. And I don't know if he
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: can do that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Trump lost evangelical voters in Iowa to Ted Cruz in 2016,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: but that was long before he named every right-wing judge
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: they could ever have hoped for and got Roe v.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Wade overturned.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Despite not going to Iowa, Trump kept
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: himself in the news by giving a long interview to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a new outlet called The Messenger, where he mocked CNN
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: for being traumatized by the town hall. DeSantis for having, quote,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: no personality. And he also, as you mentioned, Tommy, seemed
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: vaguely critical of the governor's six-week abortion ban, even though
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he refused to say whether he would sign or support
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a national version. Trump also called into the Reawaken America
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: rally on Saturday night, which is a Christian nationalist organization
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that has ties to QAnon and Nazis, and told convicted
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: felon Mike Flynn that he will bring him back if
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: he gets a second term. Let's listen.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: He's a man. He took abuse like nobody could have handled,
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: and he came out bigger, better, stronger than ever before.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: We love him.
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: He's a leader. And you just stay wealthy and healthy
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: and well and everything. I want you to have great
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: lives in general. You just have to stay healthy because
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: we're bringing you back.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: We're going to bring you back.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: My wife's going crazy.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Not the only one. Trump always wants people to just
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: have great lives.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: He was reaching for healthy, wealthy, and wise, I think.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And he couldn't find it. Stay wealthy, stay healthy. You
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: got to stay healthy.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So I counted exactly three media mentions of Trump's call
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: into QAnonpalooza. A tweet from Never Trump pundit Ron Filipkowski.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And pieces in Newsweek and Rolling Stone. That's it. Don't
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you think this should have been bigger news? And why
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't it?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Should it be bigger news?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it, is it any news? Sure. Bigger news.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. I guess it should have been bigger news. I
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: don't know. It's like, he's been doing this sort of
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: footsie with QAnon on true social and Twitter forever. He's been,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: he's been, he pardoned Mike, Mike Flynn for his crimes already. So,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to get, I don't know at
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: this point, it's like, was this worth another cycle similar
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: to the cycle that happened when, Trump met with anti-Semites
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: in Mar-a-Lago. Probably, yeah, I think so. But I don't know.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: So this event, the Reawaken America tour, I think it's
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: bigger than even just QAnon. It's like conspiracy theory Coachella.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Like you got the guy from Loose Change, the 9-11 documentary,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I think spoke at it. There's a bunch of 5G
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: conspiracy people. It's anti-vaccine. It's like white Christian nationalists. They're
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: all there. They bring all these people together. They cross-pollinate
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: their crazy shit and then they sell them merch and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: that's how they make money. So it's just like grifting
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: conspiracy thing. I agree it's like objectively a weird and
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: big deal for the president of the United States to
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: embrace this conspiracy theory that if you really understand it,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: says that JFK Jr. is still alive and he's going
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: to be president someday soon. But I think the truth
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: is QAnon has become, like truth social is the home
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: of QAnon now. Trump re-truths Q people all the time.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: And I think a couple of years ago, He was
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: asked about QAnon, and he said, is that supposed to
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: be a bad thing? If I can help save the
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: world from problems, I'm willing to do it. So he's
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: been on the record kind of like endorsing it. It
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: felt incremental to me.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So everyone got very upset about the CNN town hall.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys noticed that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Wait, when did that happen?
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: There were some people, people were a little upset about that.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I think that the greater danger in the media coverage
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of Trump this time around is is not giving him
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a platform to say extremely unpopular shit. I think it
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: is failing to report when he says extremely unpopular shit
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: because voters need a constant reminder of that if they
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: are going to assess him as a candidate because no
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: one has ever any fucking memory whatsoever anymore.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: For sure, but did he come out in favor of
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Q at this rally, or did he just call into
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: a rally that is pro-Q? I think that's sort of
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: the bank shot that makes it a little more complicated
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: to report on. Well, he continues to associate himself with
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: and seek the support of and praise some of the
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: most heinous and unhinged people in our political process.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And also, this was held at Trump Doral, one of
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: his resorts. There were two, like, neo-Nazis who they had to, like,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: disinvite from the thing. There's so many horrible people associated
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: with this. And again, yeah, there was a whole news
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: cycle around Kanye and Nick Fuentes and him meeting. There
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: should just be another one. Why not remind people that
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: he's doing this? That is news.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: There's a lawsuit out today against Rudy Giuliani by a
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: former staffer that is full of truly heinous allegations. But
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: one of them, in this complaint, she alleges that Rudy
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Giuliani told her he was selling pardons for $ 2 million
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: each and splitting the money with Donald Trump. So yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of string to chase right now.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Also, Mike Flynn, convicted criminal, pardoned by Donald Trump, but also...
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: wanted Trump to declare martial law and seize voting machines,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: spread a conspiracy that Italy used military satellites to switch
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: votes from Trump to Biden.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Well, that happened.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Think that's true. thinks COVID vaccines are infused with microchips
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: designed for mind control, took a QAnon oath, and then
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: pled the fifth when asked by the January 6th committee
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: if he believes in the peaceful transition of power. And
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: then Trump calls into a rally and says, want you
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: back in the White House my second time around. Think
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: that's worth reporting.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Wish you well. It's worth reporting. Could be for lunch.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not good what it is. The outrage
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: over CNN letting Trump just say a bunch of shit
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: that will make it less likely that he's elected president.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: All right, so Trump was asked by The Messenger, which
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is a new outlet that has raised a ton of money,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: run by the former editor of The Hill, Jimmy Finkelstein
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. Who cares?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Trump friend or something.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so The Messenger asked Trump why he's doing all
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: these non-MAGA media interviews, and Trump said, the one thing
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I find is that if it gets ratings, they know it,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they cover you, even if they say they're not going to.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Seems like a fairly accurate observation about the mainstream media,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: but what do you guys think?
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I think this goes to what you're saying before, though.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I feel like there are these two competing ideas that
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: we have to have in our minds about the way
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Trump is covered and how we react to it, which
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: is that there is this valid and earned criticism of
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: how the mainstream press covers Trump. They can, as you
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: were saying, elide the threat, downplay or just do the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: work of making Trump make sense, describing what his rhetoric
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: is having some cogent to it when it doesn't. Or
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: even more damaging is just Covering Trump actually, I think fairly,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: which they often do, but then trying to elevate the
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: sins of Democrats to kind of make it feel more
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: level attacking Democrats or Washington or Hillary or Biden. And like,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: that is something I think we have worked the refs
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: pretty hard on for the past, like now six years.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And I think we've moved the needle, but not enough.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: But then there's this other side of it, which is
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: this fear that Trump has these magical powers. And when
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: he says deeply unpopular things in a town hall, basically
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: open to a national abortion law, proud of a turning road,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't support Ukraine, supports default, whatever it may be.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Pardoning the J6.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists or not.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Which even Josh Hawley disagreed with him on.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: Really?
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the resistance, Joshua. But there's this, I think
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: this fear comes from a lot of bewilderment about the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: fact that Trump could even get close to the White
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: House in the first place, that we, the kind of
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: careful watchers of politics, can see how bad and dangerous
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: he is, but most people can't. But that's not true, right?
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And there's a little bit of, I think, working the
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: refs or attacking CNN because you're afraid of what happens
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: when Trump's words hit people's ears. And I think that,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to me, can be, I think, the least helpful form
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: of sort of media outrage.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's, what do you think the media's job is?
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that the media's job is to
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump or when they interview him.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: It's certainly not.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It's certainly not. When they interview him to act like
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: we would if we interviewed Donald Trump. That's not their job.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I do think their job is to just report in
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: an objective way what he's doing, what he's saying, and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: then let people decide for themselves. And you're right. Most
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: people in the country have made up their minds about
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But again, it's reminding people what he is doing,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: what he is saying all the time. Because otherwise... you know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it all sort of gets mashed up and you forget
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: all the crazy shit. I forgot all that Mike Flynn
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: stuff I just read. I forgot most of that until
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I read it today.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: And that Donald Trump is at his least popular when
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: he's most present, which is another lesson that I think
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: we kind of, our memories lose resolution. And I think
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who remember rightly that Trump
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: sucked up the oxygen in the 2016 primaries and no
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: one else could really kind of catch up to him.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: And there was the CNN with the empty podium and
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: it was all treated like a joke. And so when
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: they see a CNN town hall coming, they go, has
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the media learned nothing? As if it's a rhetorical question.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, they've learned a lot, but also they
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: still do things that are pretty shitty sometimes. Like it's
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: actually more nuanced than that. And the fact, and I
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: think in hindsight, when you look back on 2016 and
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: to a lesser extent 2020, was the problem the amount
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: of coverage that Donald Trump had got? Or was the
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: problem the kind of coverage he got and the way
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats were covered in the horse race that sort of
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: denied enough attention to the actual stakes?
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: And also probably don't take them live with a friendly audience.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: You know, Caitlin Collins did a lot of good work there.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: But like, let's give a shock collar on the guy.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: You're not going to fact check everything. So it's expectations
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: management here for everybody.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: To your point about 2016, though, if you gave me
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a choice between I wish we had more fact checks
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: on Donald Trump's speeches or fewer stories about Hillary Clinton's emails.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I definitely take the fewer stories about Hillary's emails over
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the fact checks. We are not fact checking our way.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to a Donald Trump defeat in 2024. That is not
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the fucking problem.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: If the fact check gun fired strong enough rounds, I
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: think we would be in a different situation.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know he was a liar.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: My goodness. My goodness.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I would not have voted for him.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: What do you mean it's not true?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: He's a liar?
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: None of this is true, but he went on television.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Joe Biden, who's meeting with congressional leaders
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Tuesday in an attempt to avoid a catastrophic default that's
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: just a few weeks away. Janet Yellen on Monday came
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: out again and said, oh yeah, June 1st, still the deadline.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Still the X stage.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Janet Yellen being... Wow, I was not.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: You weren't going to make another Janet Yellen poop joke.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't. I was going to say she is being...
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Congress is filled with children and she is being a
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: teacher giving them a deadline that they probably can blow
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: through safely.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: That's a good metaphor.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: While she desperately, desperately.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Tries to.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: John, keep going.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Anyway, the president told reporters over the weekend that he's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: optimistic about negotiating a deal with Republicans and laid out
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: some policy conditions. He's a no on work requirements for Medicaid,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: sounded like a maybe on work requirements for other aid programs. Meanwhile,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: House Republicans are now adding border policy to their list
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of debt ceiling demands, which doesn't seem all that constructive.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I think Kevin McCarthy gave a press conference on Monday
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: where he's like, no, we're not at all close. Things
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: are bad. We're not making progress. I think Joe Biden
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't really want a deal, all that bullshit. So let's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: talk about Biden. He certainly seems to have moved off
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: his position of refusing to negotiate over the debt ceiling.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: You think that's a smart move? Did he realistically have
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: any other options?
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think what the White House would say
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: is we will negotiate over the budget. We will not
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: negotiate over the debt ceiling. You can tell me it's
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: a distinction without a difference. But I think the point
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: they are trying to say is you are not giving
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: us something when you offer to raise the debt ceiling.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: If you want to negotiate, let's negotiate. But the Washington
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Post just reported that the White House proposed closing about
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: a dozen tax loopholes to get money in, reduce the deficit.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: It got immediately rejected by the Republican Party. Congressman Dusty Johnson...
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Real name.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Real name.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Who was a moderate apparently, said their two red lines
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: are no clean debt ceiling increase and no tax increases.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, that's just not a serious position. You're not
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: seriously concerned about the debt if you won't consider raising
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: more revenue. One of those loopholes was in the stock market,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: there's something called the wash rule. So if I bought
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: shares of Apple, the price went down And I sell
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: it for a loss. I can't immediately buy Apple again
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: and then write off that loss for my taxes and
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: then still own the stock. You have to wait 30 days.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: There's no wash rule for cryptocurrency. So they proposed creating
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: one as one of the loopholes to raise a bunch
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: of money. And the Republicans in the House said no,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: like that's a stupid position to take. Of course, you
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: should not be able to game the system by buying
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: and selling crypto all the time and writing off all
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: your cap gains. So the Republicans are not serious about this.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy's comments show that they are not serious. I
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: think the White House is just looking for concessions on
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: the other side, and then they'll probably offer some of
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: their own. But it doesn't feel like we're getting close.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say there's something interesting about the contours
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: of this negotiation that Biden can go out there and say,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I'm optimistic, I'm feeling good about the progress we're making,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: and he views that as good for his politics. And
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy goes out there and says, we're nowhere, we're
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: getting nowhere. And he sees that as good for his politics.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: That doesn't bode well, I think, for where we're headed.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the White House believes that this Republican House
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: is very likely to blow up the economy if they
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: don't get their way and then hope that voters will
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: blame Biden because he's the guy in charge. I'm not
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: sure they're wrong about that. So that leaves for Biden
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: to the choices of unilateral action, like invoking the 14th Amendment,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: or negotiation. And as Tommy said, a negotiation where you say, look,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: even if there was no debt ceiling, we would still
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: have to have these negotiations over all these programs, these
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: spending programs, because we need a budget or else the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: government shuts down, which is not as bad as a default,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: but still something that we have to deal with. So
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: these negotiations would happen regardless of the debt ceiling. And
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: so they're going to try to separate those two. But unless,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the Biden folks decide that they can legally
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: do the 14th Amendment thing or mint the coin or
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: whatever the fuck you want to throw out there. They
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: have to negotiate. There is no other way.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. You know, Biden having been part of
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the 2011 negotiations, which were seen as a mistake, right,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: by the, you know, the consensus was that, oh, Obama
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: and Biden made a blunder by opening up the debt
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: ceiling to negotiations and they wouldn't do it thereafter. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: it's almost as if that line, which was a really
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: good line to draw, meant that the only ways Republicans
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: could open up debt ceiling negotiations again in the future
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: is not by just feigning crazy, but by being crazy.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: They actually had to radicalize to the point that we
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: now sincerely, and I think rightly, as opposed to in
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the past, believe that they truly would default. And once
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: they have that power, and it is power, the willingness
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: to bankrupt the country and to destroy the global economy
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: to extract concessions, they have a lot of power. And
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: you're also getting even more conservative members, senior members in
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the House trying to add things like immigration policy into
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: a debt ceiling deal. And that's impossible. The goalposts are
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: being moved on Joe Biden every single day. I mean,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: if you can't get Dusty Johnson to the table... And
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: not just immigration policy. I mean, they want to finish
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the wall. They just passed a bill, Republicans passed a
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: bill through the House on immigration, on border policy that
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: would like finish Trump's wall, crack down on asylum seekers
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: even more, et cetera, et cetera.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: So it's like, I don't know. What do you think
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the politics are of Republicans threatening to blow up the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: economy unless Biden agrees to finish Trump's border wall?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another place where I do think the coverage
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: matters and You know, right now, I think in a
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: lot of polls, the blame would be equally distributed, maybe
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: slightly towards Republicans, but people would hold Joe Biden accountable.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: A lot of the mainstream and like even sophisticated political
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: coverage ultimately sort of redounds to they're so far apart.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: This is politics today.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Politics is broken.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: And I don't I don't think we have successfully made
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: any kind of a case that Republicans are holding the
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: economy hostage or want to bankrupt the economy to get
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: these spending cuts. And we that's a case that we
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: just need if we're if we really are pushing towards
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: this abyss. that case has to be made so that
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: they worry that they will face the consequences.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Well, the other issue is that the coverage and a
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: lot of the elite opinion is, yeah, we know Republicans
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: are crazy and that they would blow up the economy,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but President Biden's supposed to be the adult, so shouldn't
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: he give a little bit, right? Which is so fucking annoying.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: The Green Lantern just leave theory. I do think on
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: your immigration question, John, I think immigration is probably the
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: last thing that Joe Biden wants the conversation and the
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: coverage to be about, because I think it's probably the
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: area where they're polling the worst. It's the thing where
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: the country is the most united in frustration with the
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: status quo.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And I think you're seeing that because I know they
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: put out a White House put out a memo in
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the last couple of days. It's like if we went
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: with the bill that the House Republicans passed to avoid
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the debt ceiling, that in itself would cut border enforcement,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: border security. So they know that's on people's mind. That's
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: like a sort of a political issue that's tricky.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: There are pieces of that House bill, though, that would
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: ultimately be part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. proposal
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: that even Biden would support. Like there's E-Verify in there,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: which is about just making sure that when companies hire people,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: that they verify that they are eligible to work. There's
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: rules around visa overstay, which sounded pretty draconian to me,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: but would again, be part of any kind of compromise.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't, who knows what's going to come
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: out of their meeting again tomorrow. And we're in the
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: middle of a negotiation. It seems like it's in a
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: lot of flux, but one way the negotiation widened beyond
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: budgeting is that now permitting reform is part of the conversation.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: So there are some ways in which this, the widening
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: of the scope gets you away from needing to give
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: on things like crazy draconian caps, right? And you can
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: find other policies where you can have given something.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: So who knows?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I just can't figure out how they do this because
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: unspent COVID funds, it seems like they can agree on that.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Permanent reform, it seems like you can get to an
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: agreement on that. They want budget caps, right? Cap on spending.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans want it for 10 years. The Biden folks say
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they want it closer to two years. I don't know
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: how you meet in the middle on that. And then
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: this this work requirement stuff where Republicans said they they
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: must have work requirements on Medicaid. And that's a red
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: line for President Biden and Democrats. So, like, I don't
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: we also, by the way, there's only currently scheduled four
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: days between now and June 1st, where both the House
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and the Senate are in session at the same time.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden goes to Japan this week.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Wednesday. Yeah. And like unless he wants to unless Biden
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: cancels his trip, unless they cancel congressional recess next week.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Great week for recess. Take some time.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: Let's just pause for a moment to talk about the
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: fact that adults have recess as long as you're elected.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. It's a work period. It's a district work period.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: As Janet Yellen eats another full fucking roll of Tums.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Just trying to get something.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Something going. I feel like the opposite of that, but sure.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's why you eat Tums.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Anyway, it doesn't seem like we're in a good spot.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I'll just turn to Dusty Johnson and the moderates.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Or the 14th Amendment.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I would send it through the courts now, see what
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: we got.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: 14th Amendment, no skips.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: People don't talk about it. Every fucking article, the 14th
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Amendment is a banger. It's a banger.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It rules.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: We've talked before about how the Democrats' debt ceiling strategy
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: might be complicated by perpetual pain in the ass Joe Manchin.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: But D.C. 's most famous houseboat resident may also tank
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the party's 2024 prospects, and with it, democracy. Manchin is
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a co-chair of the third-party spoiler group No Labels, which
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: says it's, quote, laying the groundwork for a potential independent
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: unity ticket in 2024, and they have already gained ballot
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: access in swing states like Arizona and Colorado. Manchin recently
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: met with 170 Iowa business and community leaders in D.C.,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and has been issuing cryptic statements about his political future, like, quote,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I will win any race that I enter.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Now, I would say there's one thing. I've seen that number,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: 170 business leaders in Iowa. Several of them were cows.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Leave that in.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: How worried are you that Joe Manchin might be the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Conor Roy of 2024? The Conheads. Yeah.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I am very worried about a third party bid. I'm
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: worried if that third party bid is led by Joe Manchin.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: This could be the difference.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, having.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: A spoiler that got a bunch of votes is the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: reason Hillary Clinton didn't become president and not having one
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: in 2020 was one of the reasons that Joe Biden
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: was able to become president. So I think there is
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: reason to be concerned that something like this can gain
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: traction and then kind of spin out of control and
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: gain its own momentum. And then even after it is
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: mostly if not fully abandoned, there are enough ballots where
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: they have some godforsaken ticket garnering votes that it could
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: make the difference.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: We should be worried about that. I'm going to put
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: on my optimist hat. Let's hear it. And just hope
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: that Joe Manchin's play here is to understand that to
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: get reelected in West Virginia, he has to put as
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: much distance between himself and the White House and Joe
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Biden and the Democratic Party as humanly possible. And maybe
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: flirting with no labels is a path to doing that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: He's also threatened to hold up all of Joe Biden's
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: EPA nominees because he's mad about the implementation of the
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: climate bill. He's really like making a lot of noise.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: He's attacking the White House. It has worked for him
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: in the past. You know, running and getting reelected in
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: 2024 in that state is going to be tough. But
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: that's my optimistic take.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Here's what I think we got to root for. There
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: are probably two candidates running on the Republican side in
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: West Virginia for the Senate nomination. One is extremely popular
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Governor Jim Justice, who used to be a Democrat. He's
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: basically like another Joe Manchin. And everyone in the state
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: knows him. Very popular governor there. If he wins the nomination,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I really worry that Joe Manchin will bow out and potentially...
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: make this third party no-labels bid. If Mooney wins the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: super right-wing kook that Manchin has beaten before, then I
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: think Manchin probably sees, okay, I have a chance to win.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: The only thing, though, is if Manchin runs as the
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: no-labels third party, he's going to lose. And so I
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: guess you do it, why? Because you're promised some sort
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: of job by the Republican side? Both outcomes end in
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: a humiliating defeat. So I'm not sure what's in it
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: for him.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Or Joe Manchin is as dumb as we sometimes think
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he is, and and believes, as No Labels says they believe,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: that there is some path for a third-party candidate. And
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: we should say that it's not, and No Labels always
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: makes this known, it's not an independent ticket. It's a
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: unity ticket, meaning you would run one Democrat, which presumably
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: would be a Joe Manchin or a Kyrsten Sinema or
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: someone like that, and one Republican. Susan Collins is also
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: co-chair of this. But some kind of Republican, so then
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you'd get both of them, and perhaps they... wrongly see
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a path to win, which again is wrong. It's crazy
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that you could imagine a third party candidate winning.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: There's, um, there was, uh, uh, a call that, uh,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: the head of no labels did with a bunch of
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: donors that was reported by puck. And first of all,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: there's one part in which, uh, Nancy Jacobson who leads
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: no labels says that they got Pearl Harvard by third
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: way because third way is the one that said, Hey, everybody, uh,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: look out, this third party bid is coming. And so
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: they got Pearl Harbor by a memo, which I just
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: enjoyed the phrasing of, but they weren't planning to have
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: this out there yet, which is I think why, and
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: basically they knew that what was coming is you're just
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: going to be a spoiler. But what was interesting in
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: the call is there's one point where Jacobson says this,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: and I do actually find this reassuring. If this is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: not a national sensation and the crowds are not coming out,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: then it's not happening.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: We're getting out of this.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: We can get out of this by the end of August,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: pull the plug. That's the latest we can get off
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the ballot. I know there's a lot of fears about
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: all this. What I'd love to hear on these calls
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: is more of a can-do spirit of, why can't we
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: convince other people? Why can't we do this? So even
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: on this call with donors, there was a little bit
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: of what she described as dark and doom and gloom.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: So that to me was reassuring and that at least
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: underneath the bravado and the bullshit, there's some understanding that
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: this may be a completely futile and stupid and, you know, grift.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Pearl Harbor we're talking about.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Here's one example of how dangerous this could be. In 2016...
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: voters who didn't like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton voted for,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: tended to vote for Donald Trump. He won those voters.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: And partly because some of them went for Jill Stein
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: or Gary Johnson. In 2020, voters who didn't like Trump
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: or Biden still chose Biden by 15 points. You give
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: those voters a third choice in 2024, it's going to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: hurt Biden and it doesn't have to hurt him by
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: that much. A couple states.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Arizona, Colorado.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: That's it. You're done.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: It's an enormously dangerous and stupid organization. They're raising $ 70 million,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: they said, or they want to, including $ 100, 000 from Clarence
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Thomas's sugar daddy, Harlan Crowe. So that's fun.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Also, the voters who happen to be the weakest partisans
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: also happen to be the most low information voters and
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: the more likely to think, maybe a unity ticket could
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: win because they're not paying close attention to politics. So that's, again,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: another reason why this is dangerous. It's very bad.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: It's cynical and gross. Maybe they'll get 9-11'd by the
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Brookings Institute.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking out loud here.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I do think at some point we just got, like,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the third way memo of the great Pearl Harbor attack.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: A day that will live in infinity.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: A day that will live in infinity.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: That needs to be, like, you know, Democratic groups, super PACs,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: they need to get the message out to more people
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: that if this does happen, there is no chance the
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: unity ticket is winning. And so you're just throwing away
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: your vote if you're voting.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Listen, I think I'm opposed to mindless partisanship and, you know,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: the silly tribalism that we sometimes see in politics. But
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I will wait for it. But mindless centrism is equally stupid.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Just combining Republicans and Democrats together doesn't mean you stand
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: for something. I'm a Democrat because I believe in a
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: bunch of things that unbalance the Democratic Party supports. That's
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: why people join political parties. Treating that like a sinful
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: act or like it's gross or distasteful, stupid and annoying
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: and classic like DC idiot centrist debate.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: But maybe he'll run on permitting reform.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: It's also just like you step back from all of it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: It's like Joe Manchin, who has confirmed all these Democratic
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: judges who has supported who made possible passing the Inflation
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Reduction Act, which is the biggest investment in climate in history.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, I love it. Love is cutting an
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: ad for no labels here.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Well, no, no, no. It's my point.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I put aside all the put us all the kind
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: of process stuff that Joe Manchin really cares about, about
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the way that Washington works. Like this guy has like
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: he by by his policy votes, he should be like
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: terrified of a Trump presidency.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Man, your criticism of Dianne Feinstein and praise of Joe
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Manchin is troubling.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Speaking of which.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Speaking of whom.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: She's back.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's back, baby.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: She has returned to the Senate and already voted to
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: advance six federal judges who'd been stuck in the Judiciary
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Committee because of her absence.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: She lifted a Volkswagen off a kid.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: That's also true. She also said, though, that her doctors
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: have advised her to work a lighter schedule due to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: lingering side effects from shingles. So. All's well that ends well,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: or should Lovett stick with his plan to stage a
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: sit-in outside her Senate office?
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I would say this. All's well that ends. Like, she's back.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: She's not resigning. I don't know how much more pressure
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: we could have put on this 89-year-old woman. We all
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: collectively did a great thing, which is got her to
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: travel before her doctors wanted her to. Now she's voting
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: in the Senate. She's not going anywhere. We got our
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: judiciary votes. Let's make sure she votes for the fucking subpoenas.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know what else we're supposed to do at
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: this point. I don't know how much more heat we
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: can bring on this old lady. Glad she's doing the
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: bare minimum.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Left unsaid is the opportunity cost of having a senator that's,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know, working really hard for the biggest state
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: in the country.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: A senator is more than an arm that goes like
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: this at the right time.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: As long as we can hear eyes. As long as
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: we can hear eyes.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: You can put an eye together, yeah.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: Also, her staff refused the Washington Post request for any
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: sort of memo from her doctor detailing what's going on,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: the complications that prevented her from traveling. They're just not
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: disclosing anything. So this is not a good situation.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I'll also say that the fact that the day she
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: got back She voted for six judges who'd been stuck
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: on a committee to advance them. Sort of belies the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: argument from her staff or some other Democrats that this
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: was not causing any problems.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Sure does.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that turns out it was causing some problems.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Not having a senator causes some problems on the
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Judiciary Committee.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: It was ridiculous.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: We live in the fifth largest economy in the world here,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: and we're represented by, we've been being represented by one senator.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: One senator.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Here in California. Well, fucking Wyoming's got two, you know?
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: You know, state less than, I don't know, 500,000 people
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: versus like 10 million in LA County.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Okay. I kind of like Wyoming though. It's a nice
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: place to go. Man of the people. I can see
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: both sides. Mindless.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Mindless partisanship.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I'm sick of all this mindless partisanship.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Do you want me to? Anyway, that's it.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: That's all we have.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: When we come back, I will talk to the up-and-coming
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: 25-year-old who is the state party chair of North Carolina,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Anderson Clayton. And she's got a lot to say about
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: how to turn North Carolina blue in 2024. Joining us
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: now is the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: At 25, she's also the youngest party chair in the country.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Anderson Clayton, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: Thanks, John.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: I'm so excited to be on and just happy to
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: be here.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Well, we're happy to have you. So I was on
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the Obama campaign when we won North Carolina in 2008.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: And we all thought that by now the state would
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: vote more like Virginia or even Georgia. But no Democratic
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: presidential or Senate candidate has won the state since. Why
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: do you think that is?
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think Obama really had a inspiring and
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: galvanizing across North Carolina support. He was one of those
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: once in a lifetime type of candidates that I think
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: that just really touched people from all across North Carolina.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: And I think in order to be able to campaign
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: in our state, you have to hit all 100 counties.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: And I remember, honestly, people in Person County, I took
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: over as the Person County Democratic Party chair before I
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: became the state party chair. And I had people that
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: would look at me and be like, I remember when
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: Barack Obama had an office here. And I was like,
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: there's no way that Barack Obama had an office in
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: Person County.
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: But he had an organizer here.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: And they remember him being like the person that everyone
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: went to and that everyone saw that campaign. And so
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: I think when you see the trajectory that North Carolina
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: has taken, we've let go of the grassroots a little
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: bit more since Obama's campaign here. But also state our
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: states just had a hard time with Republican majority. And
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: also since 2010, when they took back our state maps,
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: we saw a an increase in gerrymandering, racial gerrymandering across
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: our state. And so when you really look at the
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: what we've been up against, I think, over the last
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: decade and a half, really here, it's it's been hard
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: for us to beat Republican extremism in that capacity.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: So the Washington Post reported today that President Biden does
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: plan to invest in North Carolina and hopefully win the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: state in 2024. What would you advise the campaign to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: do differently from what they did when they lost the
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: state in 2020?
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: I think that for us, that comes in a lot
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: from the party perspective, too. You know, we didn't have
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: 100 strong county party operations when Joe Biden ran in 2020.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: We didn't have a Democratic messenger in every community and
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: every county getting out his message. And for me, really,
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: this year in rural North Carolina in particular, I want
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: to go ahead and I want to tout, you know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the American Rescue Plan. But genuinely,
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: because I think that both these two pieces of legislation
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: are historic. And for the first time, you know, I'm
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: from a rural part of the state and, you know,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden is looking at rural North Carolina and rural
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: America and basically saying, we believe you deserve to have
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: a future 50 years from now. And there's such a
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: powerful thought to that message because that's not happened in
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: the last 50 years of a federal administration. We've never
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: seen the investment in trying to bring back manufacturing and
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: really make things locally again. And Joe Biden wants to
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: do that. And particularly when you look at North Carolina's
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: history and economically, you know, we had a huge downfall
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: in 2008. My dad lost his job in 2007. He
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: was in manufacturing before that in textiles in Western North Carolina.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: And we saw a a big population of our state
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: just lose their jobs. And Joe Biden is trying to
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: rectify that by bringing manufacturing back to North Carolina and
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: back to the United States again. And I think that
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: that's something we can run on in North Carolina. And
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: we need to run on it really strong, honestly. And
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: that's what I plan to do, John.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: So, yeah.
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: Nice.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I like it. I want to ask you more about
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: state politics. Republicans in the legislature just passed a 12-week
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: abortion ban. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper vetoed it over the weekend,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: but Republicans in the legislature hold a slim supermajority so
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: they can override the veto if they all vote together.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Is there anything Democrats can do to prevent that from happening?
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: What are you guys thinking?
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: We're trying to organize the best that we can. You know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Cooper has done an amazing job going across the state
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: over the last week and a half because Republicans did
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: this under the cover of darkness, right? Last week, we
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: had 48 hours to really understand what the 12-week abortion
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: ban would be in North Carolina, one of the strictest
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: abortion bans that we've seen throughout our state when you
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: think about the actual... ramifications of the bill inside at
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: the 46 page piece of legislation. Also, it basically takes
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: medication abortion down, limits it down to 10 weeks. And
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: there's also stipulations in there where women have to go
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: to their provider at least three different times before they're
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: able to actually have an abortion. And so really, when
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: you're looking at women that are coming in from across
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: the country and especially across the Southeast region, it just
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: makes that access harder. And so we're really trying to
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: push these Republicans and let them people in their districts
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: know what's going on right now, because not everyone is
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: paying attention to what's happening in Raleigh. And that's an
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: unfortunate reality when you have so many other things that
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: are going on across the state and also in your life.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: But we're trying to make sure that the voters in
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: those districts are aware of it. And we're doing phone banks,
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: hosting really like strong rallies, trying to bring as much
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: attention to this as possible because Republicans are afraid and
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: they should be afraid of the people that they're doing
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: this to.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: So the reason the Republicans have that veto proof majority
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: is that state representative Tricia Cotham recently switched her party
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: affiliation and went from campaigning on abortion rights to voting
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: for the 12 week ban. Do you have any insight
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: into why she switched parties? It's a real head scratcher
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people reading this from outside of
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the state.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of speculation, I think, going around
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: right now about why Representative Cotham made the choices that
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: she did. And for me, I think it just comes
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: down to the fact that she maybe was never actually
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: a champion for any sort of values that she has,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: in particular about how she's taken the vote last week, right?
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, she voted with Republicans. And I think that
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: she owes it to the people of this state to
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: be able to explain why she's having them question democracy
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: right now. People voted her in to represent their values
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: and their best interest. And right now, Tricia Cotham is
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: representing politics above party. And I think that's something that's
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: really interesting to me. But it's also a head scratcher
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: for us to be real with you, John, right? Like,
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: I tell people, I'm like, you know, I wish folks
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: would actually ask Trisha Cotham that because I'm not a
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: mind reader. I don't know why she's making these decisions.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: And folks can't get her to answer the phone for
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: some reason. I mean, it's hard when your constituents are
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: demanding things of you and want to see, you know,
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: whether or not you're going to uphold the values that
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: you ran on.
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: But yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned your constituents. Do you think Democrats can
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: win back her seat? or break the supermajority in 2024?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: What are the chances?
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: I plan on it.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I like that. I like that confidence. Governor Cooper is
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: obviously term-limited, so you'll have a very important governor's race
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: in 2024, especially since the Republican running for his seat,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Mark Robinson, is one of the more extreme candidates we've seen.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: What should people know about Robinson, and how do you
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: feel about the potential Democratic candidates?
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: I think that folks need to understand that Mark Robinson
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: is someone to be fearful of and he's someone that's
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: not to be taken lightly. And I think that a
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: lot of folks brush him off as though no one
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: in North Carolina would ever vote for someone that extreme.
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: And I need my party to get the reality drilled
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: into them that, yes, they would. And it's because I
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: think that he's relatable in some capacities, especially to.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: Rural North Carolina.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: And North Carolina has the second largest rural population in
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: accordance to Texas, right? And people don't often know that
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: about our state, but we have really dense rural populations,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: including in, you know, Northeastern North Carolina and Southeastern North Carolina,
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: heavy majority black and brown communities that live in these areas.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: And I think that our job as a party is
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: to really educate folks about who Mark Robinson is, the
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: positions that he stood on. You know, he's someone that
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: said if he could pass a heartbeat bill tomorrow for abortion,
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: he would. Even in the case of rape and incest,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: he would not allow a woman to have an abortion.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: And he's calling the LGBTQ community filth. He doesn't believe
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: that you should be allowed to be who you are.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: And I think that it's devastating when you look at
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: what he would do to our economy here in North Carolina,
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: what he would do to our public schools.
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: Here in North Carolina.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, he basically believes in segregation of schools again.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: And I think that you have to see the reality
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: of that for what it is rather than the picture
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: that he's painting right now. But he paints a dang
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: good picture, to be honest with you, John, and has
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: so far since he's announced. And so my job has
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: really become I need to help explain this to people
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: and help folks understand what we're fighting for as a
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: party this year, which is everything that he's not.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: And do you feel like you guys have some good
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidates?
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: I was about to say, but to your point about
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: my Democrats this year, I think we've got some good ones.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: And I think that we're going to really make sure
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: that there's a good juxtaposition there with not just, you know,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: who are you voting against, but who are you voting for?
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: And in this election cycle, there's so much good to
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: vote for in North Carolina. When you think about, you know,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: marijuana passing in our state, you know, making or pushing
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: that forward in some capacities when you're actually legalizing that
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: and bringing in the tax revenue back to our public schools, hopefully,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: when you actually think about, you know, we just got
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: Medicaid passed through our state legislature, finally, because they finally
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: realized they could not repeal that or go back on it.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: And I think that there's a real opportunity for us
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: to message on that. But in general, also municipal broadband access,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: making that something that we campaign on this year in
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: rural North Carolina. Our Democratic legislators and our Democratic governor,
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: people that are running for governor this year in our state,
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: but also running for every position on council of state
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: this year, I think are exciting, dynamic, ready to get
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: out across North Carolina and really campaign everywhere.
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: So that's what we're gonna have to do.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned Democrats needing to do better in rural parts
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: of the state. I know you're from a rural community
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina. How much of this is about sort
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: of infrastructure showing up in rural communities and how much
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: is about the message when you're in a rural community?
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: It's funny that you asked that because I've really looked
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: at folks lately and I've said, I don't think we
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: have a messaging problem. I think we have a showing
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: up problem.
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: We just don't do it.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: Like we, we have everything to message on right now
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: in rural North Carolina. Like the fact that the reason
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: your community has got three to $ 5 million and you're
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: for you, not only your municipality, but also your County
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: as a.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Whole, like where's that money going?
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: If I'm in rural North Carolina right now, the only
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: meeting I want to be going to is my city
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: council meeting and my County commissioner meeting. And I want
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: to go, Where's my money? Where's my money for my
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Democrats at the federal level right now? And where are
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: you putting it? Because this money was supposed to be
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: given to communities to make them better and to actually
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: bring them back out of the pandemic crisis that we've
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: been in, especially for a small economy. And it's supposed
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: to be bringing revitalization back to your community. And so
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: how are your county commissioners and your local municipal electorate
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: elections like or folks that were elected municipally, right, focused
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: on like bringing that change back to your area with
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: the money that's coming down from the federal government. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: so I think that there's a huge opportunity for us
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: to go in and talk about, you know, the affordable
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: connectivity program right now, $ 30 off a month of your
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: internet bill. If you make a 200% below the poverty
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: line and in North Carolina, fun fact, John, that is
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: a $ 44, 000 a year. And when I go into rural
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: North Carolina and I say that folks look at me
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: and they go, Anderson, that's a good job.
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: What you talking about? And I'm like, yeah, you're poor.
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: That's what that means.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Like you're poor, unfortunately. And I think that there's a
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: reality to put a number with the legislation and the
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: things that are coming down from the federal government to
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: really help folks.
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: Realize like, wow, this is talking about me. It's helping
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: me at the end of the day.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: And, you know, as someone from a rural community, you know,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: oftentimes rural communities have more culturally conservative values. And then
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the question is always, Can a strong economic message, economic populism,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: talking about sort of the economic benefits the Democrats can
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: bring to rural America, is that enough to sort of
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: overcome folks' positions that are a little more culturally and
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: socially conservative in those areas? What would you say about that?
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: Does it have to overcome it? And like, I think
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: that people are really... And when I say I'm talking
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: about organizing rural North Carolina, folks go, well, how are
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: we going to win back rural North Carolina? And I'm like,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: I'm not talking about winning them back just yet. That's
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: going to take a long time. We got to build
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: trust in these areas. We got to let them know
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: that Democrats are not some sort of scary apparatus anymore.
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: And we're not the party of coastal elites, honestly. We've
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: got a rebranding problem to do in some of these
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: areas where it's just like we haven't been there for
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: so long. So the Fox News rabbit hole that people
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: have been down has been able to message for us.
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: They've been able to put out that That intricacy for us. Right.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: Or that that stereotype, I want to say. But I
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: really do think that there's an opportunity to break margins.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: And I tell folks all the time, I'm not just
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: telling you to go out there and talk to rural voters.
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: I'm not rural Democrats. Like, who do we still have
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: in this party that's in these areas that haven't been
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: talked to by us, haven't been tapped into, aren't getting
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: out to vote? And in North Carolina, that's the problem, right?
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: In other rural areas that I've been in, that's not
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: the issue. You know, that's not the issue maybe in Iowa.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: It's not the issue maybe in eastern Kentucky sometimes. But
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: I do believe that it is a reality in North Carolina.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: We have black and brown populations that live in rural
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: areas that are just not being talked to.
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: Their doors are not being knocked. And when we're losing,
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: 80, 20 in a rural area versus when we used
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: to lose by 60, 40, like those margins matter. And
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: I think we've gotten so far away from believing that
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: elections are won on the margins, but Joe Biden losing
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: by 2020 or by a hundred thousand votes in 2020
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: to me is a margin.
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: Like it's something I haven't done.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: It's, Sherry Beasley losing by 134,000. Like that's a margin.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: And I, and I'm chasing those this year, everywhere I
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: can find them from rural to my young folks to
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: like every place in between that, like, we just have
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: to pick up those votes because I know they're there. Um,
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: and not even talking about the new registration efforts that
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: we're trying to do. Like, I want to get more
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: people registered to vote this year. That should be the
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: job of a party always is how are we engaging
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: new voters and getting them there?
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: So yeah.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: What, uh, what made you run for party chair at 25?
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: I was mad to be honest with you.
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: I was really, really mad at rural North Carolina being
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: ignored because I'm like people like me live in rural
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: North Carolina right now.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: And I grew up.
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: There believing that no one ever thought the same way
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: that I did or wanted to see this place change
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: like I did. And I'm like, no, it's worth going
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: back to. And it's worth having that fight because there
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: are more people like me that live there. And I
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: grew up with a gay best friend in Person County.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: And I think that, you know, there are more folks
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: that are part of the LGBTQ community than we realize
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: in North Carolina and like rural North Carolina and rural
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: America in general. And they need a place to also
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: feel like they can be themselves growing up there.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: That's great. There's a lot of people your age who
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: aren't super excited about a second Biden campaign. What would
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: you tell them?
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: I'd tell them that the Democratic Party is the only
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: party right now putting up a fight for your right
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: to exist and to love who you want to love.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: To have the rights to your body that you want
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: to have and to actually make change. You know, I
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: know a lot of people, a lot of young folks
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: feel like the parties are broken. The party structure in general,
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: the two party system is broken. And I will give
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: them like when you're looking at how politics is run
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: right now, it's really divisive. It feels ugly and it
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: doesn't motivate people to get involved with it. But better people,
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: unless better people get involved with politics, politics doesn't get
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: any better. And I think that there is a whole
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: movement that we have to change as young folks of saying, like,
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: there's one party that we can change, though. There's one
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: party that wants us to get involved, though. And that
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: is the Democratic Party. And so when you're when you're
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: when I'm looking at how do I welcome new folks in?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like, what do young folks want to do? Like,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: how can I train you? And and there's so many
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: young people. The thing that I heard most when I
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: was running for this office is they said, Anderson, where
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: are the young folks like none of them want to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: get involved?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: And every young person I've talked to has.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: Been like, how do I get involved? How do I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: bring my skillsets to the party? Like, what can I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: do differently? And I was just talking with someone earlier
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: about how do we train, like do an organizing bootcamp
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: for young people this summer, just because I've talked to
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: so many of them in particular in rural North Carolina.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: I was in Davidson County the other day and met
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: like six young folks that just came out of the blue.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: And I was like, oh my gosh, like they're here
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: and we just have to find them and tap into them.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Anderson, your energy and optimism about the future of your
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: state and the party is are inspiring and infectious. It's been, uh,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. And I, uh,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I really wish you luck, uh, because, uh, we could,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: we could use more of that in the democratic party.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: So thank you for, thank you for joining.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: No, thank you.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: I'm going to know that look that I can get. Um,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: and thank you for everything that you've done for the party.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Like genuinely, I, there's a whole inspirational speech that I
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: go on about that, but, um, I just want to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: say thank you. Iowa was a dream and that's where
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: I think I really learned like retail politics and how
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: it should be run. So, And I feel like Barack
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Obama set that off for everybody.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: He sure did. He sure did. Well, thank you for
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: saying that. That's very kind. And again, good luck. And
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: OK, before we go, Republicans took control of the House
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: six months ago with a lot of big promises about
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: investigating Joe Biden. But so far, They've come up with nothing.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Last week, House Oversight Chair James Comer released a 30-page
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: memo on the Biden family's business dealings that didn't implicate
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: the president himself in any wrongdoing whatsoever. When asked about
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: the much-hyped whistleblowers and informants by kooky conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: here's what Comer said.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: Where is that informant today?
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Where are these whistleblowers?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: Well, unfortunately, we can't track down the informant. We're hopeful
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: The whistleblower is very credible.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: Hold on a second, Congressman.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: Did you just say that the whistleblower or the informant
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: is now missing? Well, we're hopeful that we can find
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 6: the informant. Remember, these informants are kind of in the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: spy business, so they don't make a habit of being
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: seen a lot or being high-profile or anything like that.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the girlfriend he met at summer camp
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: that no one has ever met.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: Informants are like AirPods. They just fall on the couch.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: You drop that thing, it flies.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: That informant flies halfway across the room.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I do like that Maria tried to changed that quickly
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: from we can't find to has gone missing. Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I was just glad to see that she learned
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: her lesson from the Dominion lawsuit.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: About, you know, good guests and sources and, you know,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: sort of checking everything twice.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The imaginary informant is quickly turning into the informant
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: that the Biden White House made disappear.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he was on Hillary's list, the informant. Hillary's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: kill list.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Found somewhere with adrenochrome.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: They are. They're all talking about this like there's a whistleblower,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: there's an FBI. And it's also like, you know what?
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there is some disgruntled FBI person somewhere that's
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: going to be able to say something, some salacious allegation
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: against Joe Biden that is probably unsupported, most likely unsupported,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: since they have now been investigating this for the better
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: part of a year.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Can't find anything.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: A former FBI agent was prosecuted on January 6th, too. So, yeah. Right. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Come in all different shapes and sizes over there.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of like innuendo, which is, we're
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: late in the game for innuendo. They've been doing this
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: for months.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that doesn't sound like they got anything.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: They have not tied anything directly to Joe Biden, any
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: of his decisions. He releases his tax returns every year,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: like show us where he benefited financially. They haven't done
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: any of this, and yet it gets an audience on
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: Fox News.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: And I know that, you know, DOJ is deciding now
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: whether to prosecute Hunter Biden for, you know, gun charges
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: or whatever else.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: Art crimes. Crimes against art.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: But even then, it's like, you know, well, that's going
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: to be really tough for Hunter Biden's presidential run in 2024. Like,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: they have not connected anything directly to Joe Biden. They
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: haven't even alleged. They haven't even been able to allege
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: anything that's connected directly to Joe Biden, only to say that, oh,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: how could he have not known that his family was
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: making some money from foreign sources, which is also, again,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: not illegal.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: And maybe didn't ask them? Yeah, a lot of insinuation.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: They haven't said anything to Joe Biden.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Trump has a Chinese bank account.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: Hunter Biden getting in trouble for like lying on a
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: gun application, saying a permit application, saying he was not
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: using drugs when he was. I mean, it's almost like silly,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: unrelated charge.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: They don't want Joe. They don't want Hunter Biden to
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: be able to use the Second Amendment rights.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: I guess not.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Disgusting.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Anyway, tough for James Comer. Thank you, Anderson Clayton, for
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: joining us today. And we will talk to you later
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: this week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko, and David Toll. Subscribe
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: exclusive content, and other community events. Find us at youtube.com
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: slash at Pod Save America.