Latest / Pod Save America / “The Mitch Who Stole Christmas.”

Transcript

“The Mitch Who Stole Christmas.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Anat Shanker-Osorio is back to talk about
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: what messages worked in 2020 and what might work in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the Georgia runoffs. Before that, we'll talk about the latest
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: developments on COVID relief negotiations and the next round of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: cabinet announcements from the incoming Biden administration. But first, check
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: out this week's Pod Save the World, where Tommy and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Ben dive even deeper than we will. on Biden's selection
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of General Lloyd Austin for Secretary of Defense. And absolutely
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: check out next week's Pod Save the World because Barack Obama,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: who clearly can't stay away from crooked media, is talking
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to Tommy and Ben about his new book, A Promised Land.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So that'll be exciting for next week. Two more quick reminders.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Early voting in Georgia starts on December 14th, but there
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is still plenty of time and need to volunteer online.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash Georgia. Also, tomorrow, December 11th,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is the last day to place your holiday merch orders
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to get them by December 24th. So go to Crooked.com
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: slash store now to get all your favorite It's Not
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Great Dan gear.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Is there any sort of special in the It's Not
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Great Dan gear? I don't know.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: They're selling out fast, man. It's pretty hard to keep
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It's Not Great Day and stuff in stock.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard. It's hard. I understand that. I
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: have coming to our house two of the Alyssa cat mugs.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, I saw those.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, they are.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Podcats. The podcats?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: The podcats, yeah. Alyssa's cat is a big hit in
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: our house with Kyla, so she gets a mug.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Did you stock up on t-shirts of a silhouette of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Lovett sitting in different positions? Because that to me is a...
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty strong piece of merch gear.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I'm basically turning that t-shirt into a mural on the
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: wall behind me, so.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: We'll just do that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Good, good, good, good. All right, let's get to the news.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Here are some headlines. On December 26th, expanded unemployment expires
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in most states. On December 31st, the eviction moratorium expires.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: On January 1st, paid sick leave expires. At the end
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: of the month, additional aid to cities and states runs out.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: On December 19th, the federal government runs out of money.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And yet, there is still no deal in Washington on
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: any of this, even as tens of millions of Americans
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: are hungry, homeless, sick, or out of work. So Dan,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: last time we talked about this, there was a $ 908
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: billion bipartisan framework that Democratic leaders basically agreed to. An
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: additional $ 300 per week in unemployment benefits over four months,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: $ 300 billion in small business loans. $ 160 billion in aid
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to state and local governments, $ 82 billion for schools, $ 10
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: billion for childcare providers, $ 6 billion for vaccine development and distribution,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and an extension of the moratorium on evictions and student
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: loan payments. Still not enough. Still does include another round
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of $ 1, 200 checks. Still includes temporary liability protections for corporations.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But it's better than nothing. And yet, still no deal.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell still says no. Right before we started recording,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I just saw that McConnell's staff was telling the staff
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of the bipartisan crew that was coming up with this deal.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: This just wasn't going to work. It's not going to
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: work for Republicans, for all the Senate Republicans.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Because even though it is meager scraps of what the
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: American people need, Mitch McConnell would prefer to hold aid
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: to workers, small businesses, schools, and everyone else hostage so
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that corporations can kill and get their workers sick without
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: being sued. This is all about a liability shield for corporations.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And it is one of the most morally abhorrent positions
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: that anyone has taken. This would be, in a time
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: of peace and prosperity, this would be an incredibly popular position.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: But Mitch McConnell was doing this at a time when
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: people needed it the most. He was trying to use
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the suffering of people and eviction crisis in this country
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: as leverage to help corporations. I mean, talk about one
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: of the great villains in modern American history right before
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: our eyes doing one of the most incredibly cruel and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: dangerous things. People will lose their jobs because of this.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: People will die because of this. And that is a
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: choice that Mitch McConnell is making.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Well, here's what I'm trying to figure out with McConnell, though.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So there's a temporary liability protection in the bipartisan compromise.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So Democrats were at least willing to have some kind
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: of liability protection for companies, at least in the short term.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And McConnell earlier this week suggested that he would drop
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the liability protection if Democrats would drop the $ 160 billion
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: in state and local aid. Democrats said no. So obviously, look,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, if there's one thing he has loved since
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the beginning of these negotiations on the first CARES Act
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: back in March, It's making sure that workers can force
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: their employees back to work. And if they get sick,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: can't sue them. That's what he loves. That's his passion.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: But it seems like he was willing to give it
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: up because he really fucking hates state and local aid.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Even worse. I mean, I just I don't know if
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: his love of protection for corporations is really driving this process.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I think there is context here that's important. which
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: is that we have these Georgia elections looming. The grassroots
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: money that powered Democrats throughout 2020 has continued into Georgia.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Democrats are raising huge amounts of money, grassroots money, for
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, outside groups, etc. Republicans are keeping
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: pace with huge contributions, mainly to Mitch McConnell's Super PAC.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell's Super PAC raised $ 70 million in the months
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: since Election Day, $ 15 million from one single Wall Street guy,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Steve Schwartzman, and And this is the single top priority
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: of the Chamber of Commerce, Corporate America, the people who
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: fund a super PAC, and he is trying to keep
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the spigots going. I think the resistance to the temporary
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: liability shield or whatever you want to call it that
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: was in the most previous version of the bipartisan negotiations
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: is a temporary liability shield is not worth very much
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: to corporations because you can just wait it out. And
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I think there's two things. One, it doesn't solve the
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: problem that Mitch McConnell's corporate overlords want to be solved.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And Mitch McConnell has concerns that this is his best
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: chance to get it done because he has less leverage
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: next year when Joe Biden is president. Joe Biden gets
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: to decide what bill to sign. Right now, he controls
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: one half of Congress and the White House. And come January,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: he controls one half of Congress and that's it. And
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: so he's using every tool in his toolbox right now
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: to do everything he can to help corporations. And it
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: is one of, you know, It is an absolutely horrendous thing,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and he is absolutely getting away with it.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Well, so the state and local aid thing was interesting
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to me, though, because he was willing to drop the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: liability shield altogether if they dropped state and local aid,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: which they really seem to fucking hate. And the reason
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: now they're saying that state and local aid is such
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a sticking point is, I feel like I'm getting PTSD
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: on this, because this was the story of all these
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: negotiations in the past, is McConnell... thinks that holding his
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: caucus together is the most important thing right now. And
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: so even though right now in that Senate, there is
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a majority for a bipartisan COVID relief bill, McConnell seems
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to be saying, unless there's a majority of Republican senators
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that want the bipartisan deal, there's no deal. And he
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: can't sell state and local aid, nor does he want
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: state and local aid, because all these fucking Republicans in
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the Senate, or at least a bunch of them, have
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: bought into Donald Trump's crazy fucking bullshit that they're blue
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: state bailouts, even though just as many red states have
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: fucking budget shortfalls right now.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Well, this isn't unusual, right? The Republicans in the House.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what they do. They love this.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is something that... They named, which
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: in hindsight did not age well, the Hastert rule, which
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: meant you had to have a majority of the majority
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: to take a bill to the floor. The Senate has
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: not named it in such a notorious way, but a
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: similar approach. And so McConnell does not want to fracture
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: his caucus. I think ultimately these are all negotiating ploys
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: that center around whatever the best version of corporate liability
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: he can get. And he also is calling Democrats bluff.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Because he knows how important it is to Democrats to
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: include that. So he's saying, oh, yeah, I'll give up
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: my thing. If you give up your thing, you can't
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: possibly give up because you know it's so important.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So how does this get done here? I mean, so
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats said no to McConnell's offer to drop liability protection
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: if they drop state and local aid. Then out of
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the blue, fucking Steven Mnookin comes with an offer from
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the White House saying, all right, I'll give you a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: $ 916 billion deal. The bipartisan one is 908. So first
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's pretty good. But then Mnuchin says,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: my deal has no additional help on unemployment whatsoever. And
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: we'll do $ 600 checks to everyone. And the Democrats said
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: no to that. Did the Democrats make the right call
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: saying no to both McConnell's offer and Mnuchin's offer?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think so. I mean, Mnuchin's offer you can't
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: take seriously. I mean, the House, I mean, he... even
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: when Trump was still a person who at least pretended
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to do his job, Mnuchin was kind of a joke
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and has been for the last six months of these negotiations.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: He does not, clearly does not bring along any congressional Republicans,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: certainly no Senate Republicans with him. So he is no
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: different than some random person tweeting a potential deal.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Like he has no, like, Like Donald Trump. Did they
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: turn it down?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Who cares, right? He's not an actual player here. Democrats
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: have come down so far from what they passed before,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: which even they would admit was not enough to deal
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: with the absolute scale of the devastation here. And you
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: have to– you can't give up all of your leverage.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So you have to keep pushing. And I'm not sure
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: McConnell really was going to deliver the deal he offered.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: And so Democrats should keep pushing. There is still more
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: time here. How does it get done? I don't know.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And it honestly can't get done if Mitch McConnell decides
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: that he doesn't care enough about saving lives and saving
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: jobs to help people. That is on him. We've seen
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: this before. We saw this in the early days of
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: the Obama administration. McConnell deserves no benefit of the doubt.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: The idea, it is very, very plausible that Mitch McConnell
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: believes that a bad economy for Joe Biden helps strengthen
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell's hand to hold the Senate and Republicans take
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the House in 2022 and that he would be willing
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: to make people suffer for that political outcome.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: A bad economy. And I think he's his strategy is
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: what Republican strategy always is. We're going to prove that
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, the Democrats can't run a government, can't deliver
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: on anything like we're just going to muck it all up,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: obstruct everything, make sure that nothing gets done, make sure
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: they can't pass anything, believing that the voters will blame
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the party in power in the presidency instead of us.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is weaponizing Joe Biden's promises for bipartisan cooperation
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: against him.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: So what is, if you're, I mean, Biden is not
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: president yet, but if you're Pelosi and Schumer, like what's
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the play here for the next couple of weeks?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I think the, and it's really the next week, right?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We have to get the- Right, yeah, we're 19th.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: We're either going to get the government funding done, either
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: like actually done or just kick the can down the
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: road and then everyone's going to go home. And then
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: nothing is going to happen until the new Senate, the
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: new House is sworn in. And from a Democratic point
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of view, that is somewhat risky in the sense that
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: we're going to get Joe Biden in the White House.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Our House majority is going to get much, much smaller,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: which we'll talk about later. I think the only thing
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: you can do is Republicans have given Democrats a messaging
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: opportunity on this corporate liability thing. And I think you
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: have to hammer the living shit out of Mitch McConnell
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and the Republicans for doing this now until we either
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: have a deal or people go home and you hammer
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: him and he goes home. And the reason for that
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: is twofold. One, we're in the middle of these Georgia elections.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: This is a, like, we polled this question back in
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: the spring in our Michigan poll. And corporate liability shields
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: are incredibly unpopular, even with Republican voters. Obviously, right? Picking
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: corporations and American workers is unpopular. You don't have to have,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: you don't need to be a pollster to know that.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: But so you hammer them for the chance that you
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: could deliver political benefits. But it also puts pressure, it
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: strengthens your hand in the deal.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: If people begin to feel political pressure, if this becomes
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: an issue in Georgia and Republicans fear they could lose
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: those seats because of this, then McConnell will cut a
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: deal much faster.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And so this has been, this has been my thing
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the whole time is make this a fucking issue in Georgia,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: make this the issue in Georgia. And I see like,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I've seen Warnock and Ossoff at least tweet about it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen any of their ads. I obviously not
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: down in Georgia, so I didn't see the campaign up close,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: but you see Ossoff tweeting about the $ 1, 200 checks. You
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: see Warnock talking about this too. Like I think, Making
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: this the big issue that the race turns on is
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a pretty good idea.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is something you've been talking about this whole time.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I've been sort of obsessed with the corporate liability shield
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: for a while. I wrote about it this morning in
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the message box. And you're actually– and this is completely
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: unrelated to my newsletter this morning, but it's shifting quickly.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Katie Porter had a great Twitter thread about it last night.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi this morning when speaking to reporters made the point.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: You can see we need to, as a party, speak
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: with one voice loudly, relentlessly, ruthlessly about this. And one
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: of two things is going to happen. We are going
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: to make Republicans pay some measured political price for this,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: or we're going to get a deal. Either way, this
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: helps us. And I get we're in the middle of
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a pandemic. it's after an election. We're trying to figure
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: things out. Biden's trying to get his cat. Like there's
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: a lot happening here, right? Biden's going to Georgia next week.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, if I was Joe
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Biden heading to Georgia, my entire fucking stump speech would
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: be focused on. There is one reason that we do
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: not have relief. from this pandemic right now. There's one
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: reason you don't have another round of checks, that you're
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: going to get kicked out of your homes, that we're
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: going to have trouble distributing the vaccine, that people can't
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: get childcare, they can't get rental assistance, we can't open
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the schools. And that reason is Mitch McConnell. And if
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you don't send Ossoff and Warnock to the Senate, then
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell is going to run the show for the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: next two years. He's going to block all of this
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: help for you. He's the one person standing in the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: way of progress right now.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would love to see that. You
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: would love to see it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's not– that's not very Joe Biden, I know.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: And he– Joe Biden needs to, when he shows up
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: in Georgia, be the Joe Biden that people voted for
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: in Georgia one month ago.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So all of a sudden turning into like Rippy Mitch
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: McConnell's head off on the stump is not him. But
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: there is a way to make this point. that is
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a Joe Biden way of doing it and talking about
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the stakes and talking about what is blocking aid and
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: how we could get around that, talking about the corporate,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: like that can happen. I'd love to see it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Well, the biggest Joe Biden thing to do would be
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to say, there's a bipartisan deal. It's not the greatest deal.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It's not everything that we want as Democrats, but Republicans
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and Democrats have come together around a deal to help people.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And Mitch McConnell- And Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: standing in the way of that bipartisan deal.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: That's very Biden. You know, like I would kick the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: shit out of him on that. OK, so speaking of Biden,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the latest round of cabinet picks from
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: from Biden. Big one this week was General Lloyd Austin
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: as secretary of defense. Austin is a retired four star
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: general who served as commander of U.S. Central Command and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: oversaw the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. If confirmed,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: he'd be the first black secretary of defense. But there's
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a potential snag here in order to maintain civilian control
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: over the military. The law states that secretaries of defense
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: must be seven years removed from military service. Austin has
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: only been retired for a little over four years, which
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: means he'd need a waiver passed by both houses of Congress.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Only two other waivers have been granted in American history,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: most recently for General Jim Mattis in 2017. So why
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: do you think that Biden went with Austin over former
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Obama Pentagon official Michelle Flournoy? who was widely believed to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: be his top pick just a few weeks ago?
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I know that's not a satisfactory answer. Biden, obviously,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: and this was talked about in some of the news
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: stories about it, he worked very closely with General Austin
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: when Biden was working on the Iraq withdrawal. He worked
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: very closely with him when General Austin was overseeing the
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: campaign against ISIS in Syria in 2013, in the second
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Obama term. And so they obviously have a relationship. He
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: obviously knows Michelle Fornori as well. It's hard, like, You
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: and I have worked with a lot of people who
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: are on Biden's team or cabinet nominees. I have never
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: worked with General Austin or Michelle Flournoy. So I don't–
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: it's hard for me to judge like what the right
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: thing here is. People that you and I know and
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: respect a lot say very positive things about both of them.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So I mean I assume it is because of the
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: relationship they had and the respect that Joe Biden– developed
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: for him when they're working very closely together on those
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: two really important issues. And it gives him a measure
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: of confidence. And I don't know that this is, this
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: may say more about how he feels about General Austin
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: than anything about Michelle Flournoy, who's obviously incredibly qualified and
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: incredibly experienced and talented, et cetera, is Biden is clearly
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: gone with people he knows in a lot of these
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: places where, and it It makes sense. And Amanda Lippman,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: our friend from Run for Something, pointed this out today
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: talking about some of the announcements that happened today is
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the thing you have to recognize is that Trump hollowed
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: out the government, right? And she referenced the Michael Lewis book,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: The Fifth Risk, talking about how Trump just gutted career
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: professionals from every element of government. And so Biden's response
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: to that seems to be putting in people with deep
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: amounts of experience in the– In the departments they're working
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: on and taking fewer sort of roll the dice risks
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: with out of the box people, you know, you know, like,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe picking the CEO of Exxon to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: be your secretary of state because you had a meeting
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: with them.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But, you know, he's also I mean, it's like it
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: also mirrors what the situation that we were facing. We
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: got to the White House in 2009, which is you're
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a crisis, multiple crises. a pandemic,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a recession, right? Like whatever Donald Trump's done all over
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the world. And so what do you need in a crisis?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: You need experienced people and you need to fill the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: jobs fast. So how do you find experienced people that
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: can fill the jobs fast? You turn to people that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: you know that you've worked with. Yeah. You know, that's
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: not a very complex answer, but it's the simple answer
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and it might be what's happening here. Now, in this position,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: in this scenario, Michelle Flournoy would fit that bill.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Because Biden's worked with her. I sort of wonder if it's, and,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: you know, again, Tommy and Ben dig into this more
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: in Pod Save the World, so you should check it out.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: But I wonder if it's like policy differences, you know,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: slight policy difference, but still policy differences about the use
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of force, withdraw, you know, like all that kind of stuff.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that at the end of the day
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was sort of why he went with Austin over Flournoy.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that may be. I mean, and it clearly he
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: made a judgment because the confirmation of General Austin, perhaps surprisingly,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: but will be more complicated than I think it would
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: have been for Michelle Fornoy.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so I count at least four Democratic senators
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: who've already said that they won't vote for a waiver
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: for Austin. A bunch of others say they have concerns.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So then the question is, why would Republican senators help
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Biden out here when the Democratic opposition gives them a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: chance to sink one of his nominations.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is, when you think about your nominations,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: it is always critical that you, particularly in a closely
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: divided Senate that you don't have control of, at least
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: as of yet, that you can keep your house in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: order and therefore you limit the amount of agency that
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the other side has. Because for every nomination, right, whether
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: it's General Austin or Michelle Flournoy or Neera Tanden or
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Tony Blinken, For every one of them, let's just presume
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: status quo in the Senate right now, prepare for the worst,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I guess, you're going to need two Republicans, right? And
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: so you're going to have to find some way of
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: getting– and we should also presume that the vast majority
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: of Republicans will vote against every Biden nominee because that's
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the state of the Republican Party. No matter how qualified
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: they are, no matter how nonpartisan they are, they will
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: vote against them. Even if Biden picks someone out of
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the Republican caucus, and we know this because– Barack Obama
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: picked Chuck Hagel to be his secretary of defense, and
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: most of the Republicans opposed him. So now you have
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: a limited pool of Republicans who are possible votes for
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: any nominee, right? You have Susan Collins, maybe Lisa Murkowski,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: maybe Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, maybe a couple of other
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: ones on the national security stuff. But that's it. And
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: every time you lose a Democrat, you've got to go
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: find another Republican, and that gets hard. And so it
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: adds– you know, to the degree of difficulty to an
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: already difficult endeavor.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: The only thing I keep wondering, I mean, the Biden
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: team is pretty experienced. They've been around the block a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: couple of times. They know how to count votes. I would,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I'd be surprised if they chose Austin went through this
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: whole rollout without having any idea that whether he'd have
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: enough support.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I, I, I do. I'm not, I don't
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: presume that, They stumbled into this, but it just, it is,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: if you lose four Democrats, that gets tricky. It just
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: gets that much harder. So they must have some measure
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: of confidence that there's going to be some number of
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Republicans who are okay with a nonpartisan general. And almost
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: the entire Senate voted to give this waiver to General
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Mattis four years ago. So it's sort of harder to
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: flip-flop on it for a bunch of them, perhaps, maybe.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And I do. I mean, I think, you know, reading
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: a lot about this, I think a civilian control over
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the military is a very important principle. You know, I
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: do think it's like Austin's been retired for four and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a half years, a little over four years. The law
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: says seven. I know that as recently as 2007, Congress
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: was debating changing it from seven to five anyway. Like,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the difference between four plus years
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: out and seven is, you know, worth it. this much
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: concern over it. But there's sort of good arguments on
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: both sides.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a weird situation because in the Trump administration,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Democrats voted for this waiver because they
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: thought General Mattis would be a preferable as defense secretary
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: to whatever Yahoo Trump yanked from the set of a
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Fox show to do the job. And so most of
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: them voted for it. And I think when you compare
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: how Mattis handled the job And I am not one
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: of those who was prepared to etch Mattis onto the
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: resistance Mount Rushmore. One interview with Jeff Goldberg does not
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: undo the damage of enabling Trump. But he clearly stood
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: up to Trump more. The former military leader with the
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: waiver stood up to Trump more than Mark Esper, the
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: political hack that Trump put in the job to replace him.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And so it is not necessarily that the military person
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: is going to do a better job of handling complicated
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: situations than the non-military person. But in doing research on this,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: the Marshall waiver was pretty bad. And George Marshall actually
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: sided or refused to step in when there was a
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: huge civilian military crisis with George MacArthur during the Truman administration.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: And so it could go either way. The real thing
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: here is Biden ran in some sense on kind of
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: restoring norms and getting back to normal. And he made
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a choice to sort of swerve out of his lane
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: to ask Democrats to not restore this norm. And that's
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: going to have, it may be worth it given the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: kind of defense secretary he believes General Austin would be,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: but it is a little bit, it just, like I said,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: adds a degree of difficulty to something that should not
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: be that hard. Your defense secretary should be a relatively
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: easy confirmation.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's, you know, he's, Biden's really asking everyone
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to trust him on this. And that's basically what he
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: said in the Atlantic piece he wrote about this is like,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: He knows that this is unusual, but he strongly believes
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that Austin is the right person for this moment. So
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: he's got to make that case. And so does Austin
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: to a lot of these Democratic senators and House members
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: who have to vote for the waiver. Few other cabinet
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: announcements or rumored announcements from this week. Ohio Congresswoman Marsha Fudge,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a secretary of housing and urban development. and Tom Vilsack
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: reprising his Obama administration job as Secretary of Agriculture. So
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Jim Clyburn, obviously a huge Biden ally who arguably helped
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: him win the state of South Carolina in the primary,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: lobbied for Fudge to lead agriculture, partly because it's a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: position that has never been held by black women, partly
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: because he hoped she'd refocus the mission of the department
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: on hunger. What did you think of that? And why
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: do you think Biden ultimately went with Vilsack?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, Tom Vilsack was a phenomenal agriculture secretary. He
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: is just someone who just does the work. He focused
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: on it. He wasn't doing the job as a platform
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: to something else. He wasn't trying to get attention from it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: He wasn't on the DC cocktail party circuit. He was
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: just trying to help American farmers and help get food
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: into the mouths of hungry people. That was his job.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: He took it incredibly seriously. He did incredibly well. He
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: earned the respect of everyone in the white house from
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama on down for just doing the work. And
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I guess Tom Vilsack wanted to do it again and
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: had felt like he had more work to do. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: he was a loyal supporter of Joe Biden campaign forum
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in the Iowa caucus endorsed him. Um, and they know
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: each other obviously very well. And I think this is
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: a little bit like the Austin decision or putting Tony
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Blinken at state or, um, you know, Avril at OD
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and Avril Haines at ODNI is Biden is like, he
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: knows he is coming in during recession, a pandemic, perhaps
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the hardest presidential transition in nearly a century. And so
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: he's going to put people in jobs where he just
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: knows they can do the job, the no, all the
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: job training, no training wheels, just get to work and
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: do it. And I mean, like, we obviously haven't heard
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: him talk about why he made the decision because it's still,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of a confirmed rumor, I guess. But
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: That would be my assumption is you have someone who
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: you know will do a great job who was recently
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: confirmed for the job. So let him do it.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: So one other issue here is that Biden has now
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: given jobs to two Democratic members of Congress, Marsha Fudge
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and Cedric Richmond, which means Democrats will likely have a campaign.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: 220 to 213 majority in the House, which is the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: slimmest in modern history. There will eventually be special elections
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to fill these two Democratic seats. They are safe Democratic seats,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: so that's not really the concern. But how much of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: a problem could this narrow majority be for Biden and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the Democrats in the first 100 days?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's very notable that this was done at
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: the request of Clyburn. And Clyburn would not have made
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the request without having talked to Nancy Pelosi about it.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: So there is clearly some confidence among the people whose
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: job it is to count the votes that this will
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: not matter in the short term and that these are
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: incredibly safe Democratic seats so that you're going to get
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: those members in some number of months. I can't remember
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: what the special election provisions are in those states. So yeah,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: it makes things harder, but it's clearly a– in the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: risk-benefit analysis, the House leaders made a decision that they
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: could handle it. We'll see, obviously, but Nancy Pelosi is very,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: very good at counting votes, so she obviously knows what
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: she's doing here. I will say one more thing about
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the Marsha Fudge-Vilsack thing is Tom Vilsack is great. He'll
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: do a great job. I do hope that he follows
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: the lead of somewhat of what Clyburn said and tries
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to refocus the department more on the hunger side of
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: it as opposed to the farmer side. You obviously have
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to do both, but We have a lot of hungry
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: people in this country. We have food bank lines that
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: stretch miles. And there is an opportunity and imperative there
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: to focus on that. And I think Clyburn was exactly
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: right to push for that, whether it's Martha Fudge or
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: someone else in the world.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: The other focus that ag should have this time around
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: is on climate change. And I've read that Vilsack is
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: actually pretty excited about that to sort of turn the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: attention of the department on how we can make sure
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: we have sort of sustainable farming in this country that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: helps reduce carbon pollution. Back to the narrow majority for
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: a second. It does make me think that there may
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: not be other Democratic members of Congress coming to the cabinet.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And that's notable because a lot of activists and organizers
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: have been pushing for Congresswoman Deb Haaland from New Mexico
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to be, she would be the first Native American to
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: run the Interior Department. But I don't know if he'll
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: take her out of Congress now.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I would be surprised if that would happen. I think
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: it's disappointing because I think she would have, obviously the
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: idea of having a Native American in charge of the
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Department of Interior is incredibly historic and powerful and important.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: But there was clearly a choice made, probably in some
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: measure of concert with the House leadership, that if there
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: was going to be one spot, that it would be
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Marsha Fudge, is my assumption.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Do you know if Holland's seat is safe? Is it
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a swing seat?
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Is it I think she won relatively easily in 2020.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: It's nowhere in the neighborhood of the Marcia Fudge seat
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: or the Cedric Richmond seats, which are majority black districts
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: in the middle of very blue cities.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: That's what I was sort of getting at is that
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: those two seats are very, very safe seats. And I
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: saw some people now that Javier Becerra is going to
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: be HHS secretary say, oh, Newsom should appoint our good
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: friend Katie Porter to be California attorney general or Katie
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Porter should get something in the cabinet. She's another one
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: where she has a seat that like, yes, she won
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: in 2018 and she won again in 2020. But like,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: did she win comfortably enough that if you take Katie
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Porter out of that district, you know that the next
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Democrat could win in that district? Probably not.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: It's an R plus three district.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: That is just not. Yeah, it's Katie Porter has some
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: special sauce there in that district. She has figured out
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: how to win there, but like maybe not the next person.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: You know, a Democrat less talented than Katie Porter probably
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: would have lost that district in 2020.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: So a few other announcements. We just learned this morning
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that Dennis McDonough, Obama chief of staff, our good friend,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: is going to be nominated for secretary of the VA.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And Susan Rice got a job as the head of
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: the DPC, the Domestic Policy Council. What do you think?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: So let's start with Dennis. I've known Dennis forever. We
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: worked together for Tom Daschle way back in the day.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And You can be someone who thinks you work hard,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: like you get to the office early, you stay late,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you're committed to the cause. You think that until you
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: meet Dennis, who is the hardest working human being I
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: have ever met.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: People say that about a lot of people.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: But it is.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I mean it about– Dennis is just like another level.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I mean it is a level of commitment to the
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: cause that is unbelievable. And he would get to work
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: at the crack of dawn and he would run to work.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: You're like, how far did he live away from work?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Five miles. He would run five miles to the office,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: be there at six, and then he would stay until
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: late at night. No one works harder. He is a
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: great human being. He, with one very important exception we'll
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: talk about, Dennis may be the person who designed in
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a lab to do this job because the VA has
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: been a bureaucratic morass for decades. People go, they say
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: they're going to fix it, and it just happens. like
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: it is just feels like this intractable problem. I have
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: seen Dennis solve like theoretically unsolvable problems just by sheer
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: force of will. Like he just, like if you just
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: want to give someone a problem and get them to
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: find a way to just fix it in what, no
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: matter how many hours it takes them out, how hard
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: it is, no matter how many people you have to
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: bring in, Dennis is the person to do that. And
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Biden knows Dennis incredibly well, and that is clearly what
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: he thought. And it is interesting because Dennis is not
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: a veteran, which is an important point. And that is
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: very unusual, if not unprecedented, for a non-veteran to be
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: nominated to be the head of the VA. And some
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: veteran groups have what are completely legitimate concerns about that element,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: about that fact. But Biden clearly looked at this and said,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: what I want to do is make this a lot better.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: And the person that I have worked with in my
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: life who I think could best do that based on
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: everything I saw him do is Dennis.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: And so that is a very clear choice to take
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: on some measure of political risk and some measure of
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: turbulence by picking a non-veteran to do something that Biden believes,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: and I think he is correct, Dennis would be very,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: very good at.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I will say that brings up another point about sort
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of all these Obama folks who now are getting jobs
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: in the Biden administration.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's not just experience that sort of unites them all.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: It is a specific kind of experience, which is they
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: are all really fantastic managers. They like run a really
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: good process. That's the same with Jeff science. That's Dennis.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: That's Susan.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: It's Tony.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: That's Tony. That's a real, right? Like all of these
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: people are known for just working well with others and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: running a really great process and getting shit done. It's
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: not necessarily like, you know, a deep experience in any
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: specific policy area that sets them apart, though all of
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: them are brilliant in their policy areas. But it really
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: is sort of the management stuff, which speaks to Biden
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, Trump fucked up the whole government. We're
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: now in crisis and I need a bunch of people
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: who can clean shit up. Now, what do we think
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: about Susan? I was surprised hearing that Susan was going
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to run DPC because she has an extensive foreign policy background. Now, DPC,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: we should know that like, you know, it's the Domestic
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Policy Council. Um, but of course there's like a whole
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of people handing, handling economic issues. Uh, there's like
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a separate healthcare team, right? So some of these domestic
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: issues fall under different, uh, departments and teams. DPC does
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of work on education issues on, um, sort
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: of diversity and racial equity issues on immigration, uh, national service.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: So there's like a lot of other issues that sort
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: of fall under this, uh, fall under that category.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And the whole suite of issues that Biden has promised
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: to make at the top of his agenda dealing with
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: structural racism that will fall under the DPC. Like you,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: I was surprised. I know Susan as Obama's foreign policy
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: advisor in the campaign, the ambassador of the UN and
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: his national security advisor. And so as I was thinking
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: about what role she could possibly play in this government,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: domestic policy counsel was not high on the list of
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: things I thought of or on the list at all.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: But the things that are worth noting are Susan is brilliant,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: just brilliant. Biden clearly trusts her to the point that
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: she was apparently the runner-up to be vice president. He
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: clearly wanted her in his administration, a place in which
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: he could leverage her tremendous talents. And this was the
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: place he picked. And I'll be very interested to see
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: how everything is structured. Every White House is different. We
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: had a health care czar in Nancy and DeParle. So
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: health care was sort of adjacent to the DPC. Maybe
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: healthcare will be in here. You know, I'll see how
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: all of it works. But Biden saw someone that he
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: trusted and liked and believed had a lot to offer
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: and went and found a place to have her. And
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I think it is to her, you know, it just
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: sort of speaks to her dedication to public service that
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: she's going back in to do this. She certainly didn't
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: need to. It is a very different job than she
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: had before. Or, you know, and she was someone who
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: literally was on the cusp of being vice president of
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: the United States and is coming in, in a staff level,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a very senior staff level, still a staff level. And
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I think you see this from a lot of the
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Biden people or the Obama people, how you think about them,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: who realize what an important moment it is for the
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: country and what a dangerous moment it is. And they
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: think they have something to offer. So they're rushing in
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: to do that. I think that sort of lies behind Susan,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: not just Biden's decision to ask Susan to do it,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: but Susan's decision to agree.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Last big one that's out there, cabinet position. There's a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: couple others, but the biggest one is attorney general. Reports
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: are that Doug Jones is the frontrunner, with Merrick Garland
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: still in the mix. And it seems like Sally Yates,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: who was in the mix, may be a little down
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the list, partly because if you do have a Republican Senate,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: she could have some confirmation issues since she was part
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: of Russiagate. I put that in quotation marks.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: In the sense that she informed Trump about a crime
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: in progress being committed by his own national security advisor.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: In the sense that she followed the letter of the
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: law perfectly and was an upstanding public servant who proved
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: herself to have the utmost integrity. Yes, yes.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: In that sense, yes.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: In that sense.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: And that's it. She anchored Republicans by trying to stop crime. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Big strike against you there. Okay, so Doug Jones, it
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: does seem like it's pointing towards Doug Jones. I guess
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Merrick Garland could be the surprise there. But what do
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: you think about Doug Jones? I love the idea of Jones.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I think he, like, first of all, you know, one
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: of the reasons that he was such a strong candidate
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: in Alabama the first time around when he won the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: special is not just that he is a man of
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: integrity and and like a progressive who could figure out
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: how to win in the South, but also, you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: he's a, he's a long history as, um, in civil
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: rights as a civil rights activist as well. Um, and,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and talked about that a lot during his race. Um,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: so I think that makes a lot of sense at,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: at justice, um, which obviously hasn't had a stellar track
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: record on civil rights over the last four years.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: I look, I, we love Doug Jones. We think he
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: is great. Um, I didn't realize this until I read
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: some of the stories. He actually has a very long
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: relationship with Biden, endorsed him in 2008. They've known each
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: other for a while. I think that is one of
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: the threads that run through so many of these choices
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: is Biden knows them and trusts them. I totally get that.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: In addition to just wanting to have people around you
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: that you trust, you're asking them to take over in
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: an incredibly difficult position where you're not going to have
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: time to manage every single department. So you've got to
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: put people in that you can trust to do them.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that's how it feels about Jones. Look,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Sally Yates would be a good choice. Merrick Garland would
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: be an insane choice. Not because Merrick Garland is not awesome.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: He is an incredible person and incredibly talented, a whole
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: host of things about it. But he also sits on
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. And you're not going
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: to take someone out of the DC Circuit Court of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Appeals and allow Mitch McConnell to block that seat. McConnell would...
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: When Barack Obama was president, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: is the second highest court in the land. It's where
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: most of the big government political decisions happen before they
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: get to the Supreme Court. Mitch McConnell, a man who
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: practiced court shrinking back then, refused to confirm a single
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: member in Obama's second term to that court up until–
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: is what eventually forced Harry Reid to eliminate the filibuster
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: for judicial domination. So if we win the Senate and
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Biden wants to do that– go, but we, I creating
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: a vacancy on the DC circuit court of appeals, uh,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: seems insane to me.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I also think, I mean, AG is one where you
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: really need to select someone who you think is going
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: to sail through confirmation. Um, the fact that, you know,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Jones would be, uh, voted on by a lot of
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: his former colleagues might help, right. He has, he has
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: had good relationships with Republican senators too, though. This is
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: going to be a tough one. Like Lindsey Graham's already saying,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I won't vote for any attorney general, confirm any attorney general, uh,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: who doesn't promise not to investigate Donald Trump. There's also
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: going to be a bunch of attention now on, you know,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: there's news yesterday that Hunter Biden is under federal investigation
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: for tax issues. Like what's Joe Biden's attorney general going
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: to do about the fact that the Department of Justice
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: is looking into his son's finances? So like, that's not
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: a walk in the park either, the confirmation for attorney general.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: So you kind of need someone that you think is
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: going to get through it.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: And I think– and I would imagine and hope that
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Jones is– I mean it will not be easy. Like
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: we've seen Republicans vote against Senate colleagues before. But Jones
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I think would at least start with a stronger base
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: of support and a greater ability to win over that
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: handful of Republicans that we would need in a situation
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: where we don't take the Senate.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Georgia since what happens in those
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: two runoffs affects everything else we've talked about today. Joe
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Biden's entire legislative agenda and maybe the future of democracy.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: What do the polls say? Who cares, right? Actually, the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: general election polling in Georgia was quite close to the
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: final results compared to all the other states. But all
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: we need to know is that these are two very
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: tight races within the margin of error on Sunday night.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: There were two debates, Raphael Warnock versus Kelly Loeffler and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff versus an empty podium since David Perdue didn't
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: respect Georgians enough to even show up and debate. At
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: least Kelly Loeffler was thoughtful enough to send the robot
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: version of herself. Let's let's play a clip.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: The Democrats want to fundamentally change America. And the agent
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: of change is my opponent, radical liberal Raphael Warnock. You know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: My opponent, radical liberal Raphael Warnock. Radical liberal Raphael Warnock
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: has partnered with Stacey Abrams in these voter suppression conspiracies. Well, predictably,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: you've just heard more lies from radical liberal Raphael Warnock.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: You've just heard radical liberal Raphael Warnock lie again. And
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: my opponent, radical liberal Raphael Warnock, would be a rubber
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: stamp for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. But my opponent,
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: radical liberal Raphael Warnock, is a socialist. They want to
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: radically change our country, and their agent of change is
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: radical liberal Raphael Warnock. Well, thank you to everyone who
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: tuned in to this important debate.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: So, a poorly executed strategy, but she definitely has a
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: strategy and a message. Jonathan Martin and Ested Herndon of
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the New York Times had a good piece the other
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: day about how the overall Republican strategy is to focus
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: on Warnock over Ossoff. Why is that, Dan? I wonder why.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, kudos to the New York Times and these
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: two reporters for just being very explicit about it because
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: he's black.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, Kelly Loeffler's, from an aesthetic point of view,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: her debate performance was horrendous. Like you said, like robot
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: is kind, right?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I had never spent time watching Kelly Loeffler speak.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Nor do I know what David Perdue sounds like. You
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: just see them. And you just see their attack ads.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: They don't say much about themselves. But like watching that debate,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my God. Just robotic, repetitive.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: But you know what it was? It was fucking honest.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: It was perhaps the least subtle Republican articulation of their message.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, she called Raphael Warnock. a black man, the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: embodiment of the change that Democrats want to do to America,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: which is the entire Republican message, which is black people,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: brown people, immigrants, Hollywood elites are coming for your white
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: American culture. That is what MAGA means. That is what
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: they are doing. And that is on display here. And
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: it says, I will say the way that that story
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: was written, and this is not a criticism of the reporters,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: it's just sort of the way the Republicans explained it
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: to the reporters is, You know that whole thing where
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: David Perdue was too much of a wimp to defend
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: his insider trading on stage? That works to our advantage, right?
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Like there is a little bit of like retconning how
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: shitty one of your two candidates is to make it
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: seem smart. But like this is very consistent with the
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: strategy Republicans ran in 2020.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, there's a couple of things with Warnock. Obviously,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: it is, you know, number one in the Republican playbook
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: is inflame racial division. They love that.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So you have a you have someone who would be
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the first black Democratic senator in the South ever. And
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: so perfect.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Racial division. There's a couple other things. You know, Warnock
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: ran in the in the general because it was an
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: open primary. You know, a lot of it was Loeffler
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and Doug Collins going after each other and no one
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: went after Warnock. there as much. And so of all
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: four of these candidates, Warnock has the best favorables and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the lowest unfavorables of any of them. And he's relatively unknown.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So this has been a race about defining Warnock, right?
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two is there's a race strategy,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but there's also the, the 2020 playbook strategy that you
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: just said, which is accusing Democrats of being radical liberals
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: who want to defund the police and usher in socialism. Um, What,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: if any, evidence do we have at this point about
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: the effectiveness of this attack in the general election that
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: we just went through?
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: We don't yet know enough to say this was the
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: thing that happened, right? We do know that Democrats not
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: named Biden running against Republicans not named Trump tended to
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: struggle in swing states. And we know that Joe Biden
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: ran against Trump. His messaging was about Trump. The political
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: conversation was all about Trump. The Republican message– so the
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Democratic message– the Democrats ran– this is a dramatic oversimplification,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: but Democrats ran against Trump and Republicans ran against Democrats.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: That is actually because Joe Biden was such a strong candidate.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Trump went looking for every possible way to soften Biden up.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: He was going to run that he was in the
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: pocket of China, that he had dementia, that he was corrupt,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: that he was an Antifa super soldier, that he was
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: for defund the police. And none of that ever stuck
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: on Joe Biden because it was absurd and people knew
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden. But what they did run in those Trump
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: ads ran, and you and I looked at some of
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: those ads when we did Campaign Experts React a few
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: weeks ago, is they tried to inflame their base by
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: running against radical Democrats like AOC, Ilhan Omar, socialism, etc., etc., etc.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: And they're trying to rerun that play. That message in
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: my gut could potentially be effective in a world in
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: which people don't split tickets anymore and they default to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: partisan identity. If you were branding Democrats in a certain way,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: and it is a message that is completely consistent with
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the programming on Fox News and right-wing media for well
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: over a decade. It has context. I So they're trying
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: to do that because they do not think that there
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: are going to be any people who come out who
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: vote for Kelly Loeffler and John Ossoff. That is not
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: a thing they think is going to happen. So they
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: just want to get as many Republicans out as possible
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: by scaring them about Raphael Warnock and just presume those
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: people will also vote for the other Republican who engaged
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: in insider trading around a pandemic on the ballot.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: So it is clearly true that the message from Democrats,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: at least the message that came through the filter– Was
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: all about Trump in 2020 and that the message from
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Trump and the Republicans about Democrats was, as you said,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: radical liberals, socialists, defund the police, all that bullshit. But
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I had originally thought that. you know, there were a
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: lot of instances of Biden running ahead of most Democrats.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: FiveThirtyEight did a great piece a couple of weeks ago
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: where they said that actually there wasn't that much ticket splitting,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: that it was very, very, very low percentage compared even
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to other years. The big exception, of course, the most
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: notable exception is Maine, where Joe Biden ran many points ahead,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: over five, I think it was eight points ahead of
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Sarah Gideon, might have been 10. And there were a couple,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: there were only two other states where Joe Biden ran
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: more than five points ahead of the, or behind the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate. But like overall, House candidates ran about 0.5%
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: behind Biden, which is nothing.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: But it's the difference between winning and losing.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although Ron Brunson pointed out that Biden won 223
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: House districts, which is almost the exact same number as
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: the seats that the Democrats will have in the House.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: So basically, these Democrats that lost in the House, Biden
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: also lost their district. So it's not that like he
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: won the district and then the Democrats just. And then
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: when you look at the senators, right, like. Steve Bullock,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly, Jamie Harrison, Barbara Boyer all ran ahead of Biden. Hickenlooper, Gideon, Ossoff,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Cunningham all ran behind. So there's also like not a
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: ton of rhyme or reason for who ran ahead of
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Biden and who ran behind in some of these states.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I only bring this up because I think when we
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: figure out, when we try to figure out like what
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: we do now, I wonder if we can settle on,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's right to settle on the idea
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: that there was something about Biden that where these attacks
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: bounced off him, but that wasn't true for other Democrats,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: if it looks like Biden actually ran close to a
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: lot of these Democrats in a lot of these places.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Well, so I'd say a couple of things about this.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: One is even, you know, Biden only won by whatever
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: it is, 45,000 votes over three or four states.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Like it is So that's the that's the big thing here.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: So we're not like we because of Trump's been trying
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: to steal the election. It's good that we've all pointed out. Yes.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Seven million votes. Like it's a big margin. But when
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you get down to it, 40,000 votes go the other way.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: It's 269, 269. And then Trump wins in the House. 40,000 votes.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: That's fucking nothing.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: So that's one. And so running just a point five
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: percent or point eight percent ahead is difference between winning
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: and losing. So that's one. Two, I think it's important
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: to maybe even just take Biden out of it because
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Biden was running statewide in purple states. Because of the
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: way House districts are drawn, the way the Senate map works,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: is that Democrats are going to have to outperform their
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: party approval and these states do have power, right? And
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: so it– Like I think we can take away– like
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: we should look at how Republicans branded us and think
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: about what we do about that. Now, I think there
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: are two ways you can say, well, Republicans ran against
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: us and they had success and were able to get
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: people to vote against Democrats, right? In a case where
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: it was Biden or it was a Democrat, they knew
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: who had the resources to out-advertise his opponent. He was
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: able to succeed even if it's on the margins. So
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: you look at that and you say, do Democrats have
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: a brand problem, right? Democrats not named Biden, right? Because
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: the presidential candidate is always bigger than the brand. Cal Cunningham,
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: not bigger than the brand. Sarah Gideon, not bigger than
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: the brand. Random House candidates are not bigger than the brand.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: And so you say, do Democrats have a brand problem? Well,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats are on, historically and most recently, the Democratic Party
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: is more popular than the Republican Party. Democratic policies are
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: more popular than Republican policies.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Way more popular. Way more popular.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Now, as Dan Wagner pointed out– Well, some of them.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Some of them. Yeah, yeah. Some of them. Yes. If
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: you were to take the entire Democratic agenda, poll it,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: the entire Republican agenda, poll it, we would win way
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: more of those than they would. And the best example
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: of it, as Dan Wagner pointed out in last week's
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: episode of Positive America, is in Florida, Joe Biden is
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: on the ballot. He supports a $ 15 minimum wage. Donald
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Trump is on the ballot. He doesn't support a minimum wage, period.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: He's not sure it should exist. There's a $ 15 minimum
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: wage ballot initiative that gets 60% of the votes. Joe
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Biden supported $ 15 minimum wage, gets 47% of the vote.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Same thing has happened with Medicaid expansion in deep, deep
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: red states all across the country.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Undoing right to work laws in Missouri, you see a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: bunch of these. Now, of course, people will support, don't
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: agree with the party on 100% of things. You can
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: be a Republican and also think the minimum wage should
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: be raised, you can be a Democrat and think something,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know, whatever else. But you should be able
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: to narrow that gap between 60 and 47. But so
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: that one way of– so it's like how do you
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: deal with the Democratic brand? The other thing is that
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: I am more interested and more obsessed with is what
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: is our version against Republicans of the radical Democrat attack?
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: What is the way in which we describe Republicans not
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: named Trump in one specific consistent way that can undo–
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: or separate briefly, separate, you know, even on the margins,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: this very tenuous alliance they have between a base that
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: is working class and agrees with the Democrats on the
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: majority of sort of core economic issues, and a donor
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: class that dictates the policy agenda that is pro-Wall Street, anti-regulation,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: pro-tax cuts for corporations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: what can we, what is our version of that?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: And so there is- Well, and specifically on economic issues,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: What is most popular, right? Corporate accountability and attacking corporate malfeasance,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: as you have pointed out with the corporate liability shield.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: That is like at the top of every list. And
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: then economic policies that give working Americans a boost, whether
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: it's minimum wage, whether it's expanding health care. Those are
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the policies that are most popular, not just among Democrats,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but among independents and even a small segment of the
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Republican base as well.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: The folks at Navigator Research had a really interesting poll
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: in the last couple of weeks that looked at cultural
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: preferences and economic preferences, and that a lot of the
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: voters who went for Trump who were sort of available
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: to us are conservative culturally, and that can be on
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: police issues, which the Republicans sort of grossly raised to
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: the top here. It could be on reproductive, a whole
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: host of things, but agree with those economic issues. And
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: I think the history tells us that simply saying making
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: a policy case is not sufficient.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: And I would say, and simply saying, I'm going to
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: make an economic case and just ignore immigration, police violence,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: racial issues. You can't do that. Both because it's not
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: what we believe, like we believe in those issues and
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: it's important to talk about those issues. But also if
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: you don't talk about them, Republicans are going to talk
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: about them for you and they're going to distort your
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: position on those issues.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: And there is something condescending about the way Democrats have
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: sometimes done this, which is, hey, you fucking yahoos, don't
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: you want more– higher minimum wage? Or like why are
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: you too dumb to recognize that we're the right party
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: for you?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Like that is– You're voting against your interests, you assholes.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Like we have to paint a vision of America in
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: a vivid way. that has good guys and bad guys
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: and shows the Republican side with the bad guys? How
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: do you take these sort of economic issues and tell
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: a story about it in a way that has the
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: same emotional pull as the cultural story Republicans tell? I
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: don't have the answer to how that works, but that
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: is the only path. There is no other path to
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: success here that does not involve changing the margins among
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: some of these demographic groups.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: This is sort of why I started by bringing up
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the point about the ticket splitting and all that. It
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: looks like from all the data we're seeing that the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: story of this election was like, You can go state
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: by state, swing district by swing district. Joe Biden turned
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: out more voters than Hillary Clinton in almost every single
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: one of these districts and states, even in purple and
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: reddish areas. He just turned out more voters than she
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: did in 2016. It wasn't enough in a lot of
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: these places because Donald Trump fucking supercharged Republican turnout in
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: these same places. So if you look at the 2016 results,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: you see like Biden overperforming Hillary, just getting more votes,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: And then you see Trump 2020 way overperforming Trump 2016.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: So if that's the case, if what we're facing here
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: is not a bunch of people who are like, well,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I voted Democrat last time, but now the Republicans are
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: all making this argument about, you know, I'm going to
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: change parties. But it's just a whole bunch of voters
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: who didn't even vote last time coming out to support
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: a Republican. Then the only way forward after we have
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: had record turnout on the Democratic side, which we did.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Is to say, okay, how do we actually reach some
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: of those voters?
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is sort of why I brought up.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Look, it's not because we like love these voters. It's
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: not for any moral. It's literally fucking math. There is
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: no other path. Right.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: We are playing on a tilted playing field. It is
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: if you were in a football game.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: It's a rigged. It's a rigged fucking field.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: And it's sort of as if you were playing football
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: and their touchdowns counted to seven points and our touchdowns
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: count as five. Like we just have to do. It's
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: just harder for us.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And we can yell about the electoral college. Yeah. Eliminate it.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Fix gerrymandering.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: The Senate's fucked up. D.C., Puerto Rico. We can yell
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: about all this. We've been yelling about it on this
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: fucking podcast for years. We should do all of it.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Guess what? We have to gain power before we can
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: do any of that. We will never eliminate the Electoral
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: College or fix the Senate or fix gerrymandering. with a
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: narrow majority in the House and barely any majority in
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the Senate, even if we have a Democratic president. We
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: won't do that. We have to win power first. And
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: the path to power is through some of these very
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: red and purpley districts where we have turned out almost
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: as many base Democratic voters as we could find.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: And the reason why I brought up the party approval
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: ratings earlier is, so you still look at it and
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: you're like, well, Democrats are more popular than Republicans. Our
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: policy is more popular. Why aren't we winning more? It's
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: because In order to gain power because of this rigged
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: political playing field, Democrats have to win over more voters
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: that are skeptical of us than Republicans do. Republicans really
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: only have to turn out their base in a lot
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: of these states, and they will control the Senate for
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: as far as the eye can see and have a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: shot at the Electoral College even when losing the popular
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: vote by 7 million votes. And so it's just fucking
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: hard to be a Democrat. We have to turn out
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: every base voter there is, and we have to persuade
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are skeptical to us. The
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: way I think you persuade a bunch of people who
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: are skeptical to us is a two-step process. We have
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: to begin to make them more skeptical of Republicans first,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: and then we can win them over. And that is
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: sort of where we get to the argument of, like,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: we can have one gazillion meetings with a million pollsters,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: a million senators, a million political activists, organizers to try
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: to figure out what is the Democratic slogan, brand, et cetera.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: What is something that inspires our party that requires and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: needs everyone from people who love Joe Manchin to people
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: who love AOC? We need everyone, both those ends, everyone
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: in the middle. So what did that slogan look like?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: It would look like fucking verbal applesauce. Like it wouldn't
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: mean anything, right? But what we can probably agree on,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: what we could get people who support Joe Manchin agree on,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: people who support AOC agree on, is some way to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: describe the Republicans. And then you take that message and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: you use it relentlessly and repetitively and you hammer them
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: over the head and you try. You don't have to win.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: You don't have to get anyone to take their MAGA
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: hat off. You don't have to win a single person
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: who's been talked to in a diner by a New
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: York Times reporter. What you have to do is just
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: shave the margins. Cook reported this amazing tool before the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: election where you can adjust the percentage of the vote
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: by demographic group, by non-college whites, college whites, black voters,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Latino voters, to show you how it changes the margins
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: in states and overall. And it is stunning what two
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: points will do. Just go get me two points better.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: And the reason it was– so off for the, I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: play with that thing a lot. The swingometer from Dave
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Wasserman and cook, um, is because all the polls were
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: showing that Biden was doing significantly better among non-college whites
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: than Hillary. And that was not the case. And there's
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of, there's a fucking lot of non-college educated
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: white people in the States that add up to two
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: 70 more than anyone would imagine. And there ain't nothing
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: we can do about it, but just try to get
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: them to vote for us or hope that they stay home.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: In hindsight, Why do we believe the polls?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: I was talking to someone very smart about this.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Because I thought they fixed their fucking problems from 2016.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I thought they fixed their problems from 2016, number one.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: And number two, they were pretty accurate in 2018. Though,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: as we were saying, some of the Midwestern ones in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: 2018 were still a little bit off. And we didn't
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: notice it as much because did Gretchen Whitmer win in Michigan? Yes,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of course. She won by a lot. But she still
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: won by a couple points less than the polling averages.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Did Tom Wolfe win in Pennsylvania? Yes. But did he
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: win by a couple fewer less points than the polling averages? Absolutely.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: So there were still those fucking problems. And Wisconsin was ridiculous.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: It was like Tony Evers won Wisconsin by like a
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: narrow tiny margin after Hillary Clinton lost by a tiny margin.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: In 2016. And yet we were supposed to believe that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: suddenly Joe Biden leapt out to a six to seven
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: point lead. We're fucking out of our minds.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it is insane. And I'm mad at particularly
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: bad at myself because and not because of any brains,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: but just out of natural cynicism. I was very like
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I argued for a long time that the pandemic would
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: change nothing.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: That we'd still be in this place. And then but
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: if we just think about everything that's happened, not just
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: since Trump won, but over the last 20 years. There
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: is nothing that should have let us believe that there
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: had been such a dramatic shift in the demographic makeups
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: of the party. Like it's just– we are in trench
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: warfare and it's going to be really fucking hard. It
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: can be done. We can win it. But there's not
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: going to be some magic exogenous event that is going
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: to undo where we are. We just have to go
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: do the work to do it and it's a lot
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: of organizing and a lot of strategizing and a lot
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: of persuading and motivating at the same time.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Well, one very smart person who has thought a lot
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: about this, who's going to help us figure this all out,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: is Anat Shankar Osorio. And I will be talking to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: her right after this break. I'm now joined by communications expert,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: founder of ASO Communications and friend of the pod, Anat
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Shankar Osorio. Thanks for coming back to the show.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Uh, you and I talked a lot before the election
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: about democratic messaging. Do the results and the data so
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: far tell us anything about what worked and what didn't?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: It depends who you're asking, but luckily you're asking me.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Perfect. That's what I'm looking for.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: So, um, what I can speak to in particular, what
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: I know best is, uh, are the States that we worked, um,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: most in, which is the Midwest and, um, When I
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: say we, I mean the Race Class Narrative Action Project
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: that I'm thrilled to have been a, to have played
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: a role in alongside incredible team of organizers, strategists, creatives,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: et cetera. And so specifically when we look, for example,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: at Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, minus Minnesota, the states that we've,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: among the states we flipped, of course, I do not
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: want to forget Georgia and Arizona. We just didn't happen
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: to have been working in those states. And we look
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: at what actually happened both in terms of turnout and persuasion.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: And of course, if you're a carpenter, everything's a hammer.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: So take with a grain of salt that you asked me,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: so I'm answering. What we find is that our approach
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: in those key battleground states of not just deploying the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: race class narrative and blunting the assault of unrelenting right-wing
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: race baiting, but speaking decidedly and relentlessly to what we're for,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: alongside a lot of coalition building and in-state organizing is
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: what carried the day.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And can you just, for folks who haven't tuned in before,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about what it looked like
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: to deploy the race class narrative in some of these states?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: What did it sound like? Was it ads? Was it,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: you know, organizing and phone calls and text banks and
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. All of the above. So one of our core
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: principles is that if your words don't spread, they don't work.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: And if you have this supposedly magical narrative and it
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: lives and dies as a PowerPoint presentation, right? Power corrupts,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: but PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. And if that's the beginning and
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: end of your narrative, then you don't have anything. What
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: we deployed, our strategy was always equal parts songbook and choir,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: if you will allow the analogy. And what I mean
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: by choir is bringing together the multiracial democracy that we
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: are purportedly trying to build. And so in Michigan, for example,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: the Race Class Narrative Action Project was anchored with an
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: organization called We the People Michigan. And it included folks
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: from SEIU, from the Teachers Union, from farming groups in
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: the Upper Peninsula, from Detroit Action. In Wisconsin, it included
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Citizen Action. It included the Farmers Union. It included the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: Teachers Union. And I could go on and on and on,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: state by state by state. And so it was that choir...
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: equipped with a messaging guide that allowed them to speak
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: coherently across issues. So we had for them a storyline
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: about education, a storyline about the coronavirus, a storyline about
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: racial justice, a storyline, yes, about protests, and a shared brand.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: So an overarching brand that was both a visual look,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: so a logo, a color scheme, all of the things
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: that you expect from a brand, And they deployed it
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: through peer-to-peer texting, through deep canvas conversations, through digital ads.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: We had a very, very robust digital ad strategy. And
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: through events.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you especially about Minnesota because
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: you and I talked about Minnesota so much for the wilderness.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: And it was interesting to me that of all the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Midwestern states, it's the one state where Biden improved everything.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: most on Hillary Clinton's performance in 2016. And Minnesota happened
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: to be the site of the George Floyd protests, where
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: it began, where he was murdered, and where the Republicans
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: tried to do their shit. What did the campaign look
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: like in Minnesota? And how did you sort of grapple
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: with the various challenges and events that took place over
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: the last year there?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to add one more thing to the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: pot about Minnesota. Well, is Minnesota is also the place
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: where the Minneapolis City Council put forward a proposal to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: quote unquote defund the police. So I just want to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: be very clear what exactly we were doing in Minnesota
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: and how and how And what was going on in
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: the place that we not just won, but won handily, decidedly,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: as we do every year in Minnesota, had the highest
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: voter turnout in the country. Yeah. So in Minnesota, it's interesting.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: This is perhaps a greater level of detail than required.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: In 2018, the branded campaign that folks there implemented that
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: we helped co-create was called Greater Than Fear. And our
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: affirmative tagline was in Minnesota, we're better off together. And
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: we went back and forth and back and forth about
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: whether we should continue in that branding or whether actually
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: fear was so palpable and so tangible and so top
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: of mind that we needed to go at least for
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: now in a different direction. And that was the choice
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: that we made. So and principally organizers in the state made.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: And so we went with a brand called We Make Minnesota,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: which was really about a contestation of what is Minnesotan-ness,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: if you will. And what makes up that state? What
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: does it mean to co-create a culture that the right
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: wing is demanding and is absolutely, you know, insisting and
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: trying to demonstrate is white, is, you know, rural, is
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: salt of the earth, heartland, et cetera. And how do
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: we actually contest for that state identity? And so what
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: We Make Minnesota was, like Greater Than Fear, was a
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: fully realized brand. It had a look, it had a logo,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: it had digital ads, it had social media properties, and
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: it had organizing. And what it also was, was a
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: relentless insistence on speaking to what we're for. So one
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: of my many ways of chiding the left, and I
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: have an entire encyclopedia, is that I believe if the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: left had written the story of David, it would have
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: been a biography of Goliath. And what I mean by that,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: maybe it's obvious, is that we just love to talk
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: about our opposition. It's our favorite thing to do, right? Like,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: we cannot get enough of talking about the other side.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: And particularly, you know, Trump is like the nth degree
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: of that. But it's our favorite pastime more generally, right?
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: And what We Make Minnesota really was, because it's built
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: out of Race, Clause, and Narrative Insights, is speaking about
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: who we are and how we stand with and for
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: each other. And that was true in terms of, for example,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: making an affirmative demand. We need a government who cares
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: for us just like we care for each other. And yes,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: I'm stepping straight in there. It was evident and it
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: continues to be evident right now, this week, as there
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: are negotiations going on with the Minneapolis City Council around
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: what actually is going to be implemented around policing in
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: that city. An insistence that we know what keeps us safe.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: And a call to, and I quote, fund our lives
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: and to move money from the destructive, toxic world harmful
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: caging and controlling of people based on what they look like,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: where they come from, and where they live toward the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: priorities that every single family, black, white, and brown needs
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: to get and stay well.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting way of talking about defunding the police.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny, you know, Barack Obama answered a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: question on defunding the police from Snapchat's Peter Hamby that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: caused some consternation. I'll just ask you the question exactly
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: how Peter asked Obama, which was like, if you're a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: young activist today and you believe really passionate in a
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: slogan like defund the police, what's your advice to the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: activists knowing that a lot of politicians won't go near
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: that phrase, even if the nuts and bolts of the
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: idea might be popular?
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I have so many answers to that question.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: The first is that I don't believe that it's my role,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: especially as a white person, but I don't believe it's
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: my role to tell black people how to protest their
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: own genocide. I just, I fundamentally believe that that's wrong.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: So there I'm in disagreement with the president. Right. Not
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: the first time, but you know, so that's the first thing.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: The second thing is that all God's critters got a
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: place in the choir. And the way that you actually
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: alter public perception of a concept and an idea is
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: by having a left flank. And it is only because,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: let me underscore, there was a strategic, coordinated, intelligent, well-carried out,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: and long-time demand to defund the police that we were
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: able to, in Minnesota, for example, carry forward a message
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: of Fund Our Lives. The only reason Fund Our Lives
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: actually had meaning for people, and we know what keeps
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: us safe had meaning for people, is because there was
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: the yin and the yang of an activist demand to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: defund the police. So our message was occurring inside of
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: a context. The next thing that I would say is that,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's almost laughable. It's almost laughable. You know,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: it's one of these, like, I will laugh so I
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: don't cry notion that people's perception of Democrats is made,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: Democratic candidates is made out of what those candidates say.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: I mean- I, that'd be great. That'd be a nice
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: reality to live in. But it's just simply not. You
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: and I both know that, like, regardless of what you
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: support and what you believe in, you're going to be
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: pilloried as an Antifa-hugging socialist, you know, Marx, like, and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: lots of other descriptors, which may or may not be,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: you know, which have nothing to do with reality. You know,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: the notion that Joe Biden is a socialist, like, that's
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: ha ha ha. He was the senator from MasterCard. A socialist,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: he is not. So what we need to do, and
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: this is really my pushback on the kind of hand-wringing
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: around defund the police, unless you have a clear and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: well-articulated stance of what you are for, and that's what
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: I mean by we know what keeps us safe, and
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: we need to move our money into the priorities that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: will fund our lives— If you're running as a Democrat
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: and you are carrying a message of what you are for,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: then the defund the police conversation should not be freaking
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: you out because it's what's making you look moderate and reasonable.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: If you don't have a message because you got scared
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: to death and any time a conversation about racial justice
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: or race or protest came up, you were taught to
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: deflect and to not answer, That's part of why you
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: are getting tarred and feathered with a concept that you
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: may not even endorse because you haven't actually said what
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: you're for.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it makes a lot of sense because it's
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: a very tricky issue in that you look into the data, right?
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: And around the time of the protests and even after,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: you have large majorities supporting Black Lives Matter, feeling better
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: about Black Lives Matter than at any point in history.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: And when you start pulling the details around what sort
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: of reforming police departments would look like and essentially defunding them.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: And if you ask people like, would you rather have
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: a first responder agency that's not made of police? Would
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: you rather have more mental health professionals and substance abuse professionals?
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: You see that's very popular. And yet like what you
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: have to figure out what to say to the people
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: who are like, there's too much police violence. I think
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: we need drastic police reform, but. I still want a
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: police department because I'm worried about what might happen to me.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: And it's like, how do you reach that person who's
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: going to be with you on the reform side and say, yes,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: let's drastically reform the police departments. But there's part of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: me in the back of my head that's a little
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: worried I might not be safe. It's figuring that out,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: which seems like the real challenge.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: And that is precisely why we leaned into that hunger.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: by talking about we know what keeps us safe. We
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: know what keeps us safe. It's living in communities where black, white,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: and brown, we know our neighbors and we look out
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: for each other. We know what keeps us safe. It's
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: knowing that at the end of the day, regardless of
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: what we look like or where we come from, our
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: loved ones will come back to us healthy and whole.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: But today, too many of our police target, detain, and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: even kill black people. while we send ever more dollars
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: to militarize police whose budgets are already out of control.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: We need to move our money in order to fund
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: the priorities in every one of our lives. Great mental health,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: quality schools for our kids, making sure we can all
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: get the care we need. I'm coming up with this
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: off the cuff, so I would edit it back. But basically, yes,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: people have a hunger. You have to understand what the
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: underlying psychological desire is, and you have to meet that desire.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: And you have to set it up in contrast to
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: the present day, which is both not meeting their actual desire.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: They're not getting what they need and what they want.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: And it is completely and totally unfair. unacceptable and unjust.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: And it's horrifying, right? So that's the way that you
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: do it. That's the way you talk about it. And,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: you know, if you need any further proof, the kind
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: of underreported thing about this election cycle. I mean, there
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: are many, but like, look at Indianapolis, Indianapolis past what
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: is arguably one of the most comprehensive, uh, police oversight
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: initiatives ever. Uh, we don't talk about it cause like Indianapolis, what?
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: And they did it also using the race class narrative
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: and leaning into this idea that we know what keeps
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: us safe and we know what we need and we
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: need to fund the priorities of our lives.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: Um, Were you surprised that after four years of Donald Trump,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: it looks like the electorate was less racially polarized than
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: it was in 2016, with more white voters moving towards
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, more Latino voters moving towards the Republicans? Data's
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: not all in yet, but it seems like Black voters
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: either didn't move at all, or maybe there was the
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: slightest movement towards Republicans.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's really, really important to parse apart
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: racial attitudes and racial demographics. So internalized racism is a
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: real thing. So to say that we were less racially polarized,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's accurate. I think even if we
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: get into accurate data, and let's be clear, exit polls
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: are not accurate data by any stretch of imagination. I
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: know you know that.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: No exit polls allowed here.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exit polls, bad, bad. Even once we have the
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: full voter file available and we're able to look and
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: say this many African-Americans this, this many Latinos that, et cetera,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: that is actually very different than measuring racial enmity among
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: those groups. And while we tend to do a conflation
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: where we talk about racial polarization being, you know, white
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: people did this and black people did that, I think
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: a far more useful analysis is people who harbored racial
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: resentment against some group or who bought some sort of
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: argument that it was because of some vilified other, whether
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: that other be, you know, delivered in the form of
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: the simple invective Milwaukee or Detroit, which of course is
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: code for black people, or they don't believe in our
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: way of life, which is code for Muslim or Or
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: they're taking our jobs, which is code for the magical
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: immigrant who is both doing that and not working. That's
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: a higher degree of racial resentment. And from the studies
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: that we have seen most recently, that's increased drastically.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I was listening to your colleague,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: Ian Haney-Lopez, was talking to Ezra Klein on his podcast.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: And he said something interesting to me that was, you know,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: he goes, we... now see and hear what a lot
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: of Republicans and Donald Trump are saying as not dog whistles,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: but bullhorns and just full-out racist, right? But a lot
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: of voters, maybe even the majority of voters, they're still
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: dog whistles to them. And I noticed that in your guide,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: you sort of advise against just saying someone is racist
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: as opposed to saying they're inflaming racial divisions or they're
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: pitting races against each other. Can you talk a little
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: bit about sort of why there is the need to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: do that and sort of the difference between people hearing
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: something as racism or hearing it as a dog whistle.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, completely. So I wish that everyone had the chart
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: in their office or in their home of the, like,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: all the kinds of racism, right? Institutional racism, interpersonal prejudice,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: strategic racism, et cetera. But it turns out, shockingly, that's
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: not the poster they grew up.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: With, right?
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: They had, I mean, I don't know who they had.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to date myself. I guess they had NSYNC poster.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Perhaps. Right, right.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: LeBron? I'm not sure.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: So....
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: People, unfortunately, still, there is a dominant understanding of racism
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: among obviously non-well-informed scholars, or just really, really socially and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: politically active people. The dominant cultural understanding of racism is
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: really more akin to the word prejudice, by which I mean,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: you know, when one kind of, one group of people
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: doesn't like another group of people, or when a person
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: harbors negative attitudes towards a group of people based upon
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: their racial characteristics. And of course, what we know is
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: that that is not the definition of racism, right? Racism
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: is interpersonal prejudice plus institutional, social, cultural power. And so, unfortunately,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: what we see in experimentation is that when we say
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: so-and-so is racist or this is racist, it actually reduces, uh,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: the enormity of what they're doing to seeming like, well,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: you just don't like X kind of people cause reasons,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: cause you're prejudiced. When in fact, what racism is meant
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: to convey is this much, much broader, accurate idea of,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: you know, built into the structure of our society where
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: we are advantaging and privileging one group of people over
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: the other and have since our founding. So it's that racism,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: you know, I guess the joke I or the way
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: of making light of it I would offer is racism
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: is simply too important a concept to talk about using
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: an unhelpful word like racism. It's not communicating what we
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: need it to. So that's the first issue is that
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: it falls short of its job. The second issue is
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: that it's unbelievably important to ascribe motivation. That is perhaps
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: the biggest lesson that we can take away in terms
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: of how we talk about what we oppose. Even though
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: we need to spend more of our time talking about
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: what we're for, in the bits where we do need
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: to talk about what we oppose, because we do, we
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: need to be clear not just the what they are doing,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: but the why. And so when we talk about so-and-so
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: is racist or that was a racist thing to say,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 3: what that takes away is the fact that there is
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: a strategic... purpose behind it. And so the calling out
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: the dog whistle, the narrating the dog whistle approach is
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: to say, they're dividing us from each other, or more pointedly,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: they're shaming and blaming Black people, new immigrants, Muslim Americans,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 3: you know, whatever is going on in the particular case,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: so that they can keep us from joining together to
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: demand what all of us need. Or they're shaming and
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: blaming whatever the group is in the particular case, Hoping
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: we'll look the other way while they pick our pockets
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: and dismantle Social Security or so they can distract us
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: from their failures in this pandemic. So we don't just
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: want to say what they're doing. We want to make
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: it clear that there's a reason behind it.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's that makes a lot of sense. So because
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: we're Democrats, we almost immediately engaged in a very public
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: debate after the election about why we didn't do better.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: You tweeted, I love this, the fact that we're having
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: this whole progressive versus centrism debate in our outdoor voices
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: is proof positive that we have not learned to stop
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: selling the recipe and start selling the brownie. What do
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: you mean by that?
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: I mean by that, and credit to Dave Metz, who's
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: a pollster from California, that he's the originator of the
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: brownie analogy. Which I use to death. What I mean
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: by that is multiple things. First and foremost, I mean,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: can you imagine it going to... If we were in theater,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: which we are, right? Politics is just theater with real bullets.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: But imagine that we were mounting a theatrical production, that
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: that was actually our line of work, which, like I said,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: it sort of is.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: It is, basically.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it basically is. But so we're mounting a theatrical production. And, John,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: you and I were like, you know what I think
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: the audience really wants to see? I think they don't
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: want to see the show. They don't want to see us, like,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: on the stage, knowing our lines, like, with our costumes and...
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: Already our voices warmed up like singing in harmony.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: They don't want to see that.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: What they want to see, they don't even want to
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: see the table read. You know what they want to see?
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: They want to see the debate you and I have
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: over how we should prepare the actors and whether we
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: should use method acting or Stanislavski and... you know, which
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: directorial perspective we should use and whether we should have
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: blocking that is more realistic or that is like surrealistic
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: to heighten the draw. Like, can you imagine if the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: way that theater operated was instead of like actually seeing
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: a show, you were treated to an endless conversation about
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: not even the table read, like I said, like, but
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: how to rehearse the show. So first of all, it's
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: just fucking boring. Like, let's just say that. It's just
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: fucking boring. It's not a thing that should be discussed
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: in an outdoor voice because the thing that should be
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: discussed in an outdoor voice when we are on stage,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: not backstage, is what we're going to deliver for people.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: So the recipe is where we like to take our
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: policy talk out in public, right? Paid family leave, raising
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: the minimum wage. What actually moves and motivates people is
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: not the recipe, but the brownie. You're there the first
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: time your newborn smiles. Every single one of us can
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: make enough to put food on the table and be
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: home and time to eat it. We need to stop
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: selling our policies, stop taking those out in public and
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: start selling the outcome, the beautiful tomorrow, the lived experience
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: of what it would be like to actually come home
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: to and reside inside of those democratic policies.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: No, that makes a lot of sense. In terms of
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: the Senate runoffs in Georgia, obviously the people who know
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: the state best should be taking the lead on message.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: They don't need to hear too much from us. But what,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: in your opinion, has been most effective in terms of
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: what you've heard from the candidates or seen in their ads?
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, huge underscore, huge agree with you a ton. Georgia's
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: got Georgia. If we don't believe that by now, you
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: didn't notice the presidential election. Incredible Black-led organizing there, strategic, smart, relentless.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: All the things.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: And also, I mean, Georgia is in some ways, my
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: friend and colleague from Way to Win, Jennifer Ancona, pointed
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: this out. Georgia is like from central casting for the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: race class narrative, right? You have this Jewish investigative journalist,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: millennial guy, you have a African American, charismatic, incredible speaker, pastor,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: and then you have plutocrats. Like, if ever you, I mean,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: they like, they are the race class narrative. That happens
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: to be how they cast that show. So, obviously, that,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: to me, makes a lot of sense if it were
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: to make sense to the organizers there. And What I
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: mean by that, so that's one thing. The second thing,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: and we do see this from the folks in Georgia,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: is that it's incredibly important to cast your audiences as
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: the hero of the story and actually not the candidates, right?
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, we need to talk about the candidates because
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: one of the things that we do see in the
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: research out of Georgia is, is just a lot of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: really basic confusion around like, what is this runoff? We
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: just voted. Why do we have to vote again? Like,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: what just happened? How is there an election? There was
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: an election. Did you miss that? And then just confusion
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: around like, why are there two people? Why are we voting,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 3: you know, for these two Senate seats? It's very confusing.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: So needing to do a lot of name recognition stuff
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: around Warnock and Ossoff. But then also just needing to
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: cast Georgians in terms of our GOTV as the heroic
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: agents here, right? So they couldn't keep us from voting.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: They couldn't stop us from counting. They didn't keep us
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: from swearing in and having Joe Biden, you know, they
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: will not keep us from swearing in Joe Biden, having
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: the will of the people prevail. Georgia leads the way.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: And if they think they can do anything to block us,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: they got another thing coming. Georgia delivered for America and
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: we're doing it again in January. Hmm.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: Do you think that there's a place there for talking
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: about sort of these COVID relief negotiations in Congress? And
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: if not, in general, I'd love to know what you
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: think about how Democrats should be messaging this COVID relief,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: because it sort of seems to me, again, talking about plutocrats,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: that Mitch McConnell as the enemy here, who is, Dan
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: and I were just talking about this, who is basically
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: doing everything he can to help corporations force their workers
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: back to the job and get sick without dealing with
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: any lawsuits, that's more important than putting food on your
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: table or keeping you in your home or giving you
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: health care or anything like that.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I think that it's
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: not possible to talk enough about the pandemic. I use
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: the word pandemic because it seems to convey a broader
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 3: meaning that is more than just the immediate health things,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: but also just kind of generalized crisis around economic insecurity
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: and all of the attendant things that are part and
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: parcel of the coronavirus. So pandemic tends to be like
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: a bigger catch-all kind of a word. So we definitely can.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: We cannot talk about the pandemic enough. We need to
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: be putting this like a noose around their neck because
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 3: they merit it. I mean, the notion that a tiny
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: handful of senators are deciding literally who will live and
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: who will die in order to make sure that someone
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: can buy another yacht. It's kind of mind boggling. I mean,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: they could just with the stroke of a pen decide
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: that fewer people, that people can eat, right? That people's
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: children can make it through without starving, that people can
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 3: maintain a roof over their heads. That literally is a
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 3: stroke of a pen for them, and they just choose
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: not to in order to further enrich and exculpate people
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: who have profited off this pandemic. I mean, it's disgusting.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: It's gross.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievable. It's almost like I can't even, it's
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: like the caricature of what people think Democrats would say
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: about Republicans, except it's like 100% true.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know how you sit and know that
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: by merely, I mean, and you know, it's probably even
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: a metaphorical pen. Like I don't even know what they
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 3: do literally in pandemic times, but It would take nothing,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: literally nothing. It would require no effort out of them
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: to just actually make sure that people could be okay.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: Not even do well, but be okay. And they choose
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: not to. It's aggravated impoverishment, right? I mean, there's a
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: certain point where the charge goes from murder to genocide,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 3: and we're past that point. So I think it's absolutely
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: essential to talk about the pandemic. Your question was specifically
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: about the Georgia... runoff and how we talk about that.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: So here is the issue and here is the trick. GOTV,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: getting people to vote, is a very particular thing. It's
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: not just a belief that we need people to hold.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: It's a behavior we need them to engage in. So
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 3: vote is a verb. And we need to remember that
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: we have a huge body of data around what makes
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: people vote and what makes them not vote. And many
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: times what is intuitive to us as deeply politically engaged
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 3: people is actually absolutely the wrong instinct in terms of
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: how we mobilize folks I like to call high potential voters.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: I refuse to call them low propensity because we make
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: our own reality. We're politics junkies, right? Like it's a sickness, really.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, junkie is an apt word.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Deep sickness. Right.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: Like we're like doom scrolling on Twitter all day long
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: and like doing damage to our own mental health. It's
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 3: not good. And so we understandably think through this lens
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: of like, if we just make it clear, you know,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: vote for these two, you'll have $ 15 an hour. Vote
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 3: for these two, you'll have pandemic relief. Vote for these two, like,
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: You know, let's tie it to there. Actually, what we
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: find over and over again is that the messaging that
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: makes people go vote is talking about voting. Talking about
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: voting itself is the most effective way to make people
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: go and vote. I know it sounds facile. I know
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: it sounds impossible. But that is true and it has
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: been tested repeatedly. against every single possible issue area. If
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: you want people to engage in a particular behavior, you
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: need to talk about that behavior. And you need to
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: make people the heroic agents of that story. So what
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: does that mean for talking about the pandemic inside of
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: the context of getting high potential voters in Georgia to
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 3: go vote? It means that we always need to begin
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 3: with the agency and initiative of our target audience. So
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: for example, We have proven as Georgians that we will
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: stand with and for each other. We delivered meals, we
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: delivered masks, and over the summer we delivered protests to
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: defend Black lives. This fall, we turned out in record
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 3: numbers despite everything they tried to stop us. And this January,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: we will turn out again to pick a government who
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: cares for us by voting for Ossoff and Warnock, we
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: can make sure our families have what we need to
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: get and stay well. So you always want to anchor
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: back to you have agency, you have power, you have agency,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: you have power. And if your message is just, this
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: is horrifying, because it is, this many millions, you know,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: this many hundreds of thousands are dead, this many millions are,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: you know, scrambling, unemployed, all of the hardships. then what
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: that does to people is not make them think, oh,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 3: I know, I'll go cast a ballot.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I always learn
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: so much from talking to you. Thank you so much
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: for joining the program and offering us all of your
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: insights and come back again soon.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Anat for joining us today. And we'll talk
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: to you next week. Have a great weekend. Bye, everyone.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: upload these episodes as videos every week.