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The Democratic Party's Civil War · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. You're about
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to hear a great conversation I just had with Amanda Libman,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: co-founder and president of Run for Something, an organization that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: has recruited more than 250,000 people to run for office
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: since its founding in 2017. And she's the author of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I invited Amanda on because I wanted to hear her
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: perspective on where Democrats are heading into the 2026 midterms,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: how the fight between establishment and insurgent candidates is playing
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: out in races across the country, especially in a heated
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary in Michigan, and where the party goes from here.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I also asked her about how Graham Plattner's decision to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: drop out of the main Senate race could impact Democrats'
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: chances of taking back the Senate. and what she thinks
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: as someone who has worked with thousands of candidates about
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the recruitment and vetting process that led him to jump
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: into the race. It was a great conversation, and we'll
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: get to it in a minute. But before we do,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: if you want more analysis heading into the midterms, consider
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: subscribing to my newsletter, The Message Box, where I pull
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: back from day-to-day punditry to offer deeper analysis on the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: trends affecting our politics. Go to crooked.com slash yeswedan for
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a 20% discount on your subscription. And as always, consider
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: becoming a paying subscriber to Friends of the Pod, where
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you'll get This episode and many more ad-free, which now
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: includes ad-free episodes of Alex Wagner's phenomenal Runaway Country. Head
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe today. All right, here's
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Amanda Littman. Amanda Littman, welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Dan.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on for so many reasons.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the midterms. I want to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: talk about the battle within the Democratic Party between the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: insurgents and the establishment, the left, the right, et cetera.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But I feel like the best place to start, maybe
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the worst place to start with this conversation is Maine,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a topic we've talked a lot about now. I don't
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: think we need to go through our own personal histories
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: with Graham Platner or who we liked or when we
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: liked him. We've all done that. I went deep with
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Alex Wagner on last week's pod. You've written about this.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You've talked about it. You've tweeted about it. I want
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: your perspective as someone who has worked with thousands of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: candidates about how we ended up in this situation. And
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I want to begin with a candidate recruitment process. Dana
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Morath and Leanne Fann, two progressive activists who did a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: very aggressive media tour about their plans for recruiting Graham Plattner.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: They went looking for a candidate in Maine. They looked
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: through FEC records to look for a lobsterman. Then they
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: looked for an oyster farmer. They looked at, then they
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: saw a video of Graham Plattner. They went with, met
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: with him, convinced him to run for office. This has
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: come under a withering critique from lots of people. What
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: did they do right? What did they do wrong? What's
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: your take on this recruitment process? And we'll get to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the vetting after this, because that's a different topic, but related, obviously.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What did they do right? They looked for someone new.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I think that's good. I think we should open the
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: door to as many new voices as possible. We should
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: expand our idea of what a good candidate looks like.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: That's the end of the list of things they did right.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: What they did wrong is you cannot play Kingmaker and
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: you really cannot play Mad Libs with candidate recruitment. You
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: cannot look at a state like Maine or any district
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and say, you know what? We need X kind of occupation,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Y demographic, Z type of politics. We're going to make
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: this person into a candidate. One, we have no idea
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: who the fuck can win. We have no idea. But two,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: it is leaves open so much space for it to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: feel like a puppet master is creating the candidate as
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: opposed to the candidate coming up organically. It is possible
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: that he like notwithstanding all of his other personal stuff.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That he might have come up through and, you know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: seen an ad from Run for Something or gone to
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: a main Democratic Party event and said, you know what,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: maybe I do see myself here. And then gone through
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the kind of rigorous, thoughtful process you need before you
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: actually get on the ballot. That maybe could have been so.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: But they did not do that. They said, we're going
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: to make this man into a senator. And they tried
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to puppet master it into being. That will backfire. Any
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: number of ways.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I obviously agree with all of that. People have to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: want to run for office. You have to start with that, right?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk a lot about run for something in
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the course of this conversation, but people find you because
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: they want to run for something.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And I think it's really important to say that. Running
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: for office sucks. It is miserable. It is hard. Your
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: life is going to be under a microscope. You need
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: to want to do it anyway. We should not convince
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: people to run. We should open the door to them.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And then if they say yes, help them walk through it.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't push them through it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: So that's one aspect of this, right? Trying to take
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: someone who doesn't want to run for office and get
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: them to run for office. Or has he never thought
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: about it, right? It's one thing to– you've kind of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: thought about it for a while. Maybe you want to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: do it. Maybe you don't. You're weighing considerations. And then
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: people try to convince them to do it. The party
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: committees do that all the time. That's how Janet Mills
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: ended up in this race, which is she didn't really
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: want to run for office. And I guess she decided
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that Chuck Schumer would stop calling her.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But there's another element of this too that has gotten
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention, which is they went looking for
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a very specific type of person. Now, this to me
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem– that different from what the DCCC or other
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: organizations do, right? They look at a district, they look
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: at the political environment, they say, these are the kinds
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of people who should run, who would be good candidates
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: in this district or in this political environment. In the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: 2006 cycle, the DCCC under Rahm Emanuel went out and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: recruited a whole bunch of Iraq and Afghanistan vets to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: run for office, you know, in an environment where people
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: are very anti-war, very upset with Iraq, won a lot
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of races that way. DCCC, this cycle is looked at,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: you know, in the past, we've looked at prosecutors, sheriffs,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: still veterans, you know, fired federal workers are a group here.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Is there anything wrong with thinking about like the kind
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of profession that would be the right people? Like, I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: understand the idea from these people's perspective, which is we
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: want a working class candidate in Maine.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And we can, like, there's all kinds of conversations about
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: whether a grow partner is actually working class, but let's
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: just put that aside for a second. And what is
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a great job in Maine to be a worker that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: is like, says I am Maine in their original conception
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was lobster, right? Like let's get someone who fishes for lobsters.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Is there anything wrong with that approach? That sort of
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: casting call approach to it?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I think it assumes that we know who can win,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: which sometimes we'll make a good guess, but like you
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: can come up with, Dozens of examples of people who
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: would never have been asked to run. Barack Obama being another,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: like a top of the list. Who would have asked
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the one-term state senator, two-term state senator, con law professor
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: to run for higher office? No one. Who would have
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: asked someone like Lauren Underwood, a nurse who was a
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: black woman in a majority white district to run for office?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Who would have asked AOC? Who would have asked, you know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Ayanna Pressley? These leaders who are truly amazing public figures
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: in our party. who you probably wouldn't have picked if
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: you were going to start from scratch, but who, because
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: they care, because they had problems they want to solve,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: and the offices that they saw gave them power to
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: solve it, decided to get in the fight. So I
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: think it is so risk-averse, and we are at a
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: moment where our party can't afford to be risk-averse.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to talk about how the Platinum
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: thing affects our risk-aversion in a second, but let's pivot
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to the vetting, because there's never been so much talk
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: about vetting in history. And in part, once again, because
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Marath and Phan did these interviews where they almost giddily
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: admitted to barely vetting Plattner. How do you think about
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the process of candidate vetting? It obviously did not work here,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: but what can one reasonably expect to find out? And
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: what were the failure points here?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So I would say running for something has endorsed more
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: than 4,000 candidates over the last 10 years. I believe
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: we've had to rescind fewer than a dozen. of those
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: endorsements in the last decade. It's a pretty good track record.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: And for those incidents, there's been things that have come
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: up like after the campaign has already started. Now, part
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: of us, we work on the local level. The stakes
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: are a little bit different there. But also, we do
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: deep background checks. We do social media scrubs. We ask
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: local operatives. We dig deeper. We also ask candidates. And this,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I think, is the most important part that Platner would
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: have failed here. What are we going to find? Like,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: what is the oppo report on you? What is the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: opposition going to say? If your worst secrets are on
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the front page of the newspaper, what's that headline going
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: to read and how are you going to feel about it?
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I think for us, and this is true for most
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: vetting reports, what the candidate says in their own self-oppo
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: is the nut to crack. And it doesn't seem like
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Plattner was going to be honest about those things. Maybe
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: he didn't think they were flags in the first place
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: or he didn't remember them, whatever it might be for
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: some of them. I think that is where it really
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: matters that people want to do this so that they
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: can be very open and honest with the teams and voters,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: more importantly, about what they're going to find.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really have been struggling with this because, as
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you say, the process, you know, and it's different levels, right?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: What you guys would do for state Senate candidates is
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: different than what theoretically should happen in a high-profile Senate race.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And that is light years apart from what would happen
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in a presidential race.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Which is why you don't pluck people from obscurity to
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: run for Senate.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And who don't want to, right? Like that is, that
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: is the thing. And, but so in, if you look
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: at the platinum thing, like there's, there is the social
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: media posts. Now a good vetting should have found that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: because CNN found it. And I don't know whether he
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: told them that he had been doing, I've been doing
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of Reddit posting in an earlier stage of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: his life. I imagine that that would have been something
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that would have been easier to say than some of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the other things that have happened that should have been found.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: The tattoo is an interesting one. I've thought about this
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a lot. Like what is the, um, Like, I don't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: know that in any candidate questionnaires, well, there will be now,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I guess. Do you have any Nazi-like tattoos? Do you
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: have any problematic tattoos? Let me, like, disrobe so I
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: can examine your tattoos. His Nazi tattoo is not showing
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: up in a Lexus Nexus or a Google search about
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: his history or a public record search. But if you
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: had talked to lots of people around them, some of
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: them might've said, because this is one of the reasons
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: why you talk to people is they want to help
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: their friends and family do this right and not get embarrassed.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So they will often tell you things like, Just one
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: thing I would ask him about is there's this kind
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of weird tattoo that– like that could have come up.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: But you also see how that falls through the cracks
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in a traditional– particularly if you believe, which I am
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: now very skeptical of, that he did not know until–
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that it was Nazi-related until– the end. Now, I don't
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: believe that he got it to be a Nazi, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's been truthful about when he found out.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: I do think it is worth thinking about what are
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: the things good vetting would have found and what are
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the things that we never could have known.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Reddit post stuff should have been found, for sure.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And then you get to his relationships with women. I mean,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I can't believe we're having to have this conversation about this,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: but the quote-unquote consensual sexting that went on was discovered
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in the vetting process. His wife did what she was
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: supposed to do, which is she told the campaign, the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: exact question that you raised, she answered with, there was this.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And the campaign made a decision not to deal with
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it in any way, shape, or form, or not to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: proactively disclose it. That came back to bite them. And
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: then the other stuff, like the toxic nature of those relationships,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the sexual assault allegation, are things that a campaign can
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: only find out if the candidate tells them. If the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: candidate is unwilling to tell them they may never know
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: because it just doesn't show up in that. Now, once again,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in a presidential level vetting or VP level vetting, the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: campaign would have gone out and talked to all the ex-girlfriends.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's a reasonable expectation for a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Senate race, but Plattner is a failure of vetting on
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: one end, but the things that ended his campaign is
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a failure of character on his part to be willing
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to tell them to the campaign, right? I'm not trying
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to defend Maraf and Fan, but it's just, I have
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: gotten so many questions about vetting in this process. I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: think it's just worth to help people understand like what
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: is reasonable and they failed miserably, but ultimately the failure
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: was also Pletner's.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. And I think his failure to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: be honest with them, even about some of the things,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: should have been the red flag for the people talking
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: to him.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. There were clearly red flags
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: in their interactions with him that should have raised more
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: questions that led to more vetting. So in my conversations
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: with listeners of this show, Democrats out there, there's a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: fair amount of defeatism about Maine post-Plattner. The sense that
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: we had this golden opportunity. Everything went wrong. Wrong candidate.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: wrong approach from the DSCC to kind of clear the field.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So we ended up with this choice between a flawed
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: candidate and a candidate who didn't really want to run
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and couldn't beat that flawed candidate. How are you feeling
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: about the race going forward? And we're recording this on Thursday,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a couple of hours before the first debate that the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: main Democratic Party is holding for the nomination to replace Plattner.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I think the main Democratic Party so far has done
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: a pretty good job of setting up a process that
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: people feel like they can be a part of. Because
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I think that was the real danger was like the
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: party would just pick somebody and then force it down
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: voters' throats, for lack of a better term, or down
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: their choice, their menu, they seem to have set up
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a process that gives people a voice. And it seems
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: like all of the candidates who are jumping in at
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: least have some amount of run through the ringer, whether
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: they ran for governor, they ran for Congress, they're public businessmen.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: There's not as many nobodies. I am still cautiously optimistic.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, Maine is a state that voted for Kamala.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins is deeply unpopular. Trump is even more unpopular.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: There does seem to be like a deep frustration with
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins among Mainers. It's not a foregone conclusion that
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: it's a non-starter. I am curious to see how quickly
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: whoever takes the nomination can raise money and what Plattner
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: does with his money and his infrastructure and how much
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: he really engages with the potential nominee or if he,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: as his dropout videos seem to indicate, harbors a lot
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: of ill will towards this process.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like his money is incredibly useful. Now, he can
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: only give a small amount of it to the nominee,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but he could theoretically give it all to the DSCC
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: or the DNC, and the DNC could then, now thank
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you to the Roberts Court, use that money in a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: fully coordinated fashion to spend it and unlimitedly on behalf
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of the nominee. You know, I feel, and maybe this
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: is just cope on my part, and this is going
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to depend on how the process plays out, but if
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the process plays out like I hope it will, which
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is I agree. The main Democratic Party is doing, so far,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a great job. Ideally, you'd have another primary. Everyone would
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: get a vote. That is not, obviously, logistically feasible on
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: this very tight timeline. This is certainly better than just
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the party committee voting on one person behind closed doors.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: This is at least people. It'll happen. There'll be a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: couple of debates. It'll happen. But this convention will be
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: very interesting. Lots of people will watch it. People will
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: get a test. This is kind of what might have
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: helped us better in 2024 if other people wanted to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: run against Kamala. They didn't, so we never had that process.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But there's a testing ground here where you'll get to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: see if some of these people... It's not exactly like
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: a primary campaign, but it's as close as we're going
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to get. So I think that's good. I think if
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: this process plays out and we end up with a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: candidate without a Nazi tattoo or a bunch of other things,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: we're in a better position than we probably would have
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: been had we ended up with either Plattner or Mills.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Plattner in this state. It was Plattner before the sexual
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: assault allegation, just Plattner as he was on primary day,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: or Mills as the nominee. I think we actually have
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a chance that this race could, God forbid, be about
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins, which is what you want it to be.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Because in that Times poll, even Plattner, after all the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: stuff was going on, was still winning by two points.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's an 11-point margin. People in Maine want
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the Democrats to control the Senate. So if you can
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: actually just make this race about a vote for Susan
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Collins as a vote to let Donald Trump control the Senate,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: put Supreme Court justices on, do all these bad things,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you have a real shot. If you can just have
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a generic Democrat who is a– generic Democrat is the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: right word. You need a talented generic Democrat, right? Someone
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: who can just– isn't flawed, can campaign well, but allows
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the focus to be on the candidate– on Susan Collins,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: not their own personal foibles. That seems like a– in
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: some ways are like a decent shot. I still think
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: we have a very real shot to win this race.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I really do.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I do too. And I think the candidate who takes
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: this nomination forward sort of has an indicator of where
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: voters are now, like can really speak to the anger that,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: you know, Plattner for all of his fuck ups, and
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: there are many, like he caught fire. Something like 1%
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: of Maine was volunteering for his campaign. He spoke to
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the anger and the frustration that people feel. He put
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: forward some real like clarity of positions and the nominee
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: who moves forward, should be able to tap into that,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: even if they weren't able to capture it in the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: primary themselves.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I got served a TikTok video, a platinum, because obviously
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: nothing on TikTok is connected to the calendar. So it
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: actually was posted weeks and weeks ago. And it's platinum
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: talking about how we have to stop making this between
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: left and right. And we got to point fingers up,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: not down. That's not pointing each other. It's about the billionaires.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So that is a legitimately good message that someone else
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: could also have and also is a reminder of it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: does remind you because i think some of the discourse
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: is you know it's all because you know posse america's
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: taken a lot of uh slings and arrows over this
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: but it's all because these dumb podcasts with other people
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like platner that he wanted people forget he actually got
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: 70 of the vote in the primary and blew the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: doors off the two-term incumbent governor. He was doing something.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: He was the wrong vessel, but he was doing something
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that people of Maine very much wanted. And they were
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all very well aware of everything up until this last,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: until the sexual assault allegation, very aware of his things,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and they still wanted him. And there's something in there
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that Democrats have to take from that.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And I would add, because I have also taken some
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: heat here, and I I share the frustration of like,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: this was at no point ever a clearly moral right
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: or wrong because at every point up until he dropped out,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: it was either him or Susan Collins and a Trump
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: chalked Supreme court. Like those were the choices, which is
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: better for women, Graham Platner in the United States Senate
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: or Trump Supreme court justices. Ah, you know, like it,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It was bad. It was all bad. And I am
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: so glad that he ultimately did the right thing and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: stepped aside. And I am glad that we get a
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: chance so that those are not our only two choices.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: What do you think about outside of Maine? And we'll
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: talk about some of the other races coming in the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: House and Senate, Matt. But you and I have both argued,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you've done this very eloquently, that Democrats need to be
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: willing to take bigger risks. We have to change the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: way we're doing things. We have to change the way
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: we communicate, the way we campaign, the kind of candidates
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: we think about. that the way the establishment is doing
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: things has been not as effective as we would like
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: it to be. And the Platner debate prior to the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: most recent stuff, but even up into the Reddit posts
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and the Nazi tattoo, was a little bit of a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: proxy for this battle between, in some ways it's between
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the left and the middle, but in some ways it's
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: also between people who want real change and people who
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: want less change within the party. And it does, like,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: my worry with this is, and I'm going to get
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to Michigan because I think these things are tied together
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: in some ways. But it, like, I worry that people
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: take this as a argument against taking risks, against candidates,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: widening the aperture on the kinds of candidates that we're
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: open to. Because Plattner was in it was obviously a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: very unique candidate with a unique background, but he blew
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: up in our face. So therefore, ergo, the conclusion is
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: we got to be more traditional. Like what's your take
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: on that? Are you seeing that too?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I find that to be such an empty argument because
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: it's not like Janet Mills was the right choice either.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: She was the establishment's call. She was Schumer's pick. Schumer
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: cleared the field for her, as we have seen notice
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and others do very in-depth reporting on. They got candidates
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: to leave that race so that Janet Mills would run
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: for the United States Senate. And then they begged and
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: pleaded her to get in. And then not only did
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: they leave her hanging out to dry when she was
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: stopped being able to raise money, but it is telling
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: that she's not throwing her hat in the ring to
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: win the nomination now. She doesn't want to do this.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: She is not the path forward. So to say that
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: this proves that the establishment always gets it right and
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: the new people always get it wrong, no. This is
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: villains on all sides here. Everyone got this wrong.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I just don't
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: want people to think that this means that outsider candidates,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you need the right outsider candidates, but we shouldn't have
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: outsider candidates. And the conversation around this is so, like
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: stupid basically. Cause the thing people keep saying, like you
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: have Fetterman and you have Plattner. And I'm just like,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Fetterman was the, a prominent mayor for years and years
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and years.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And then he was Lieutenant governor. He was not like,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: he dresses like an outsider. He has some prior to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: his most recent ideological shift, but he was a progressive
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Democrat who endorsed Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama and, And
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was campaign, he was a mayor in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: 2008 campaigning with Obama. And so this idea that it's just,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: no one wants to have the real conversation about this.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And like, just that this is either, either this is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: all about Platner or there's a specific type of candidate
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you want. And that can be on both sides of this, right?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Like everyone's got to reckon with, with what, you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: what the reality here, but this, I just, we, we
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: need some, we need outsider candidates and, They don't have
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to be Grant Platner. They should be better than Grant Platner.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Our insider candidates should be better than Eric Swalwell.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And Andrew Cuomo.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was when it was like, well, the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: establishment does a good job betting. Do we?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Do we?
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Do we have proof of that? I just, I do
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: think that like some of the emotion around this race
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: both comes to the stakes of it where people like, obviously,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: if we do not win Maine or a state like it,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: we will not hold the Senate. It will be devastating
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: for generations. And the sense that, especially for people who
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: really believed in him, it's a sense of betrayal. Of grief,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: of like, I thought I had a politician I could
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: get excited about and he disappointed me and broke my heart.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: And so I have some amount of empathy for the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: high feelings on all sides of this, but also the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: task now is to win and to make sure we
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: don't make this mistake again.
• 22:42
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• 24:44
  Speaker 1: All right, let's pivot to your hometown of New York City,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: which has been ground zero for the rise of democratic socialism.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: beginning first with Mamdani and then the races that happened
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: in the New York primary. Two incumbents were unseated and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: two DSA candidates won races, one unseating a long-term incumbent,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: one winning an open seat. And then in Colorado, where
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: we had a 30-year Democrat incumbent, Diana, to get unseated
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: by a Democratic Socialist. What do you make of the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: rise of Democratic Socialism? Is this something... Is this about socialism?
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Is it about the fact that these are all districts
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris won by more than 50 points? What's
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: your take on what's happening here?
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I think voters are hungry for someone offering them a
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: solution to their problems, especially young people who cannot afford
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to buy a house, cannot afford child care, are stuck
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: with student loan debt, feel like they have no agency
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in their lives. They are looking to gambling or crypto
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, because at the very least, that
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: feels like something you might have some control over. They
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: are pissed. They are frustrated with the status quo. And
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: DSA candidates are saying, here's a solution. They're offering an alternative.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: The establishment or the center or the old guard could
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: also do the same. And I think it is telling
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: to me that they are not putting forward like a
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: vision for what else could be possible. You know, the
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: fact that Mamdani was able to speak to the, not
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: just the anxiety that people feel about their economic situation,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: but also like how they feel about what their life
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: might hold. It wasn't just afford to live. It was
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: afford to dream. It was afford to be able to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: imagine a better future for yourself. I think also DSA
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: has built some organizing muscle in a lot of these places,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: which should not be underrated. And their candidates are selling something.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: That matters.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: If you look at the polling, there is just absolutely
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: no question that socialism has grown in favor with Democratic
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: voters over the last many years here. In the New
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: York Times-Siena poll, Every single demographic– every single age cohort
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of Democrats, a plurality of Democrats have a favorable opinion
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of socialism. Interestingly enough, I find this to be so fascinating.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: The group with the highest approval rating of– or highest
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: favorability rate of socialism is not 18- to 29-year-olds. It's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: 30- to 44-year-olds. That's millennials, baby. Yes. I was telling
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: this with Faber, I think, but it does make sense.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: If you are of an age where you came of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: age in the Great Recession, like you really have been
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: through the ringer in a way that is– where capitalism
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: has really fucked you like at every turn. And you're
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: also at the age where you want to be buying
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a house and you either can't afford to do it
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: or it's more expensive.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: You have kids.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Like you're at it. But socialism has grown in favor
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and capitalism has lost a lot of support across the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: board with everyone in recent years also, understandably so.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I think there is something to– like it was easy
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to dismiss Mamdani as a generational talent. Just like that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: guy could have– he could have been a democratic socialist.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: He could have– whatever. He was so good. He's so good.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: But these other candidates are– they're good, but it's not
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: generational talent that's winning. They are– people want big change
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and the left is more comfortable offering big change than
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the center. It doesn't mean there can't be a moderate–
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: version of something that addresses in a compelling, understandable, credible way,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the cost of healthcare, housing, food, whatever else, like you
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: can do that, just have been unwilling to do it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And there is just something in, there's a passion in
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: how that is different with not every, but with a
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: lot of leftist first center candidates that comes through that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: reads as authenticity and that you'll fight for them, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Like I was struck Remember, there's a clip from the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Diana DeGette-Milak-Kiros debate where Diana DeGette is making an argument
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: about a public option, which in a different era– I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: mean that was a position too liberal for the Democratic
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Senate in the Obama era when Obama was trying to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: do it. And it's like she's sort of living in
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the world of legislatively possible. And Kiros makes this very
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: passionate argument for Medicare, the morality behind Medicare for all
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and why it's the right thing to do. And it's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: just like the difference there, part of it is generational,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: part of it is inside or outside of it. Part
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of it also is that's an easier argument to make
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in the moment. Now, we can talk about how hard
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: it is to make maybe in a general election, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: in the moment, there's just they're offering something that is different. Now,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: there is real concern among even well-meaning, I think, people
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: in the establishment, the people who are trying to win
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the House and the Senate, that this ride of– and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I should say, thus far, Democrats have not nominated any
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: DSA candidates in races that aren't guaranteed Democratic races. So
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: we're not in a situation where a bunch of these
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: candidates are knocking off– they're not knocking off– they're not
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: running– they're not winning a nomination in a district where
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: they would be very, very far to the left of
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the district that's happening in the bluest districts in the country,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: which is probably how the primary process is supposed to work. But,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: you know, you do have an upcoming race of Democratic
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: socialists in Wisconsin running for governor. But I think a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: lot of Democrats have this fear that this could cost
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: us the House and the Senate, either by DSA candidates
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: winning primaries where they are to the left of the district,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: or just being, tarnishing the already tarnished brand of the Democrats.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: What's your take?
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: The Democratic brand can't get much worse. What are we
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: doing here, guys?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to try. I'll tell you that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I do think that, just to speak to
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that particular point, where like, if a candidate can't comfortably say,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you know what, I don't agree with my future colleague
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: on XYZ issue, but I look forward to working together
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to find a way to bring everyone affordable health care. Like,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: you're not a good politician. You don't have to agree
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: with all of your colleagues and everything. You can respectfully
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: dismiss them and look forward to working together. To the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: point of like, how are we thinking about the bigger
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: picture here? You know, these candidates, where they're running and winning,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: they are getting people excited. Shouldn't we want people to
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: be excited about this process? Like these DSA meetings, like
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: them or not, and like, I'm not a DSA member.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That's not where I sit ideologically, but I look at
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: those meetings and there's young people showing up. They are volunteering.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: They are donating. They are participating in very boring conversations
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: about process. Like, That is what building a political party
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: looks like. We should want that, and we should try
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: to make the broader Democratic Party a place where that
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: is possible. Now, I will say, run for something last
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: year had nearly, over the last 18 months, had about 100,000
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: people raise their hands to run for office. That is
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: more than we had in the entirety of Trump's first term.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: The thing that we have heard different over this year
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: and the last that we didn't hear in Trump 1.0
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: was frustration with the Democratic Party. was people explicitly saying,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I am running for office because they are not going
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: to fight for me. They have not delivered for me.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: They do not see me. They do not care about me.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So the DSA is giving those people a home. The
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party, like, you know, Big D could do the same.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's, there's no question. You know, I'm
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: not overly worried about, I mean, they called Barack Obama
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a socialist and.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: There were no- They called Joe Biden a socialist. Like,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: what are we doing here?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: We could elect no DSA candidates and they would call
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: swing state Democratic member candidates socialists like that would that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: would happen i mean you know this from all the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: races you run is you would need candidates who ideologically
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: fit their district um these dsa candidates obviously fit their
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: district that the voters said that that's what they declared
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and and you know and bulls that maybe you know
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and so far like we there have been some non-dsa
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: candidates who have won some primaries that some people believe
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: were against you know you i'm thinking about main two
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: randy viegas were like they were the not they the
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: The establishment had a view on who was the best
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: candidate to win. The more progressive candidate won. We'll find
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: out in a few months who was right. Actually, I
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: take that back. We'll never find out who was right
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: because it's always a counterfactual. We don't know what the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: other person would have won. The DSA thing is I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: think it's become– it's a little bit like the Platinum
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: thing where it's become a proxy for something else where
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: it's the easiest– boogeyman for some of the center groups
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to say, to fight something else or something broader. Because
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats are becoming more liberal. That is true on almost
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: every issue. It is true that the number of Democrats
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: who describe themselves as very liberal has gone up significantly
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: since Trump was elected. The number, how Democrats feel about
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of issues, particularly Israel, which we'll get to,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: has changed dramatically. And so, but that's not, like that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that has contributed to the rise of DSA, but it's
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: not because of the rise of DSA.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I also struggle a lot with like, what is the,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: who's the target for that argument that like DSA candidates
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: shouldn't win these races? Like I'm a New York City voter.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: You're telling me that I should pick my mayor based
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: on who might cause tarnish to the Democratic Party brand
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: as a mythical voter in Wisconsin? Like what an insane
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: thing to suppose or to suggest. I really, I struggle
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: with this because it assumes, much like the left assumes,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: that there is some secret cabal in charge who can
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: control how elections are run or control what candidates say.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: If anybody was in charge, do you think this is
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: how it would go? It is voters making their voices
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: heard on who they want to represent them. And we
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: should be grateful that they are participating and that there
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: are candidates that get them excited to show up. We
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: should learn from that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: There are exceptions. I am someone who generally believes, like
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I am I've gotten more progressive in my personal views
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: as I've gotten older. I also live in California now.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So maybe those two things are related.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: But I still, you know, I grew up working on
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: races in red states and red districts like that's my background.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So I'm very cognizant that you need people who meet
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the district and that you're going to need candidates who
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: are often to the right of the median Democrat nationally
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to win in some of this, especially we want to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: expand the Senate map. We want to get back to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a place where we can win Ohio, Iowa, the Dakotas,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: you know, places in the South, we have to do that.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: But I think, and I think more Democrats should generally
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: be aware of the challenges, like just how, you know,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: how the Republican bias in the Senate map, the Republican
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: bias in the Electoral College, and the reality of winning
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: these districts. And you can't, like what exists in your
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: bubble is not what exists out there in a lot
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of places we have to win. Having said that, I
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: think one of the great mistakes of the people making
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that argument is that they never offer– it's always to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: tear down a– we're anti-DSA. We're anti-Zoran. Like Zoran getting
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: elected was– like this is the third way argument. Zoran
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: getting elected would be like the end of the world,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: especially when the other option was– I would just say
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: there's a great irony between the most vehemently anti-platinum people
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: being the most vehemently pro-Cuomo people, just as a point.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, just to really hammer this home, if you
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: were so afraid of DSA, there was a multitude of
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: other options in that primary you could have galvanized around.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Even right now, and I'm sure we'll talk about Michigan
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: in a moment, if you are so afraid of Abdul El-Sayed,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: there was other options besides Haley Stevens, who they are
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: currently having to spend $ 53 million to try and get
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: over the finish line. It didn't have to be her.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Mallory McMorrow, who you and I both know and supported
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: and like a run for something alum was right there. Now,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I'm actually glad that she did not get the establishment support.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: I think that would have tarnished her campaign further. But
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: putting aside for that for a moment, you have to
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: put something forward. We talk, I mean, this is literally
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: run for something. You have to have a vision, a solution.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: You have to talk to the problems that people are
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: experiencing because voters are actually not progressive or conservative or
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: moderate or centrist. They have problems they want solved and
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: they want politicians who will do that so that they
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: don't have to care anymore. The center could pose that.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: They could put forward candidates who do that. It is
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: so telling and frustrating that instead they choose to punch left.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And also, they are punching left instead of possibly creating
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: space for Republicans to come in, for other Democrats to
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: come in. They are doing the thing that drives me crazy,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: which is yelling at the enemy who can hear them
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: as opposed to yelling at the enemy who can solve
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: their problems.
• 37:19
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• 38:23
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go to Michigan, which is the race
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: that has supplanted Maine in the as the center of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party Civil War. We haven't talked about it
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a ton on this show. in part because Abdul worked
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: for Crooked, did a podcast for Crooked. John, John, and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Tommy have supported his campaign. I supported Mallory McMurray. It's
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: the one race where we actually had actually supported candidates.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: We just had actually donated money to primary candidates. That's
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: not something that happened with Platner or anything like that.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: This is one where they knew Abdul. I know Abdul.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I like Abdul. I know Mallory. I think Mallory's great.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I wanted to support Mallory. But So this race is
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: now down... Mallory dropped out a couple weeks ago. It's
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: now down to Haley Stevens, a moderate establishment-backed congresswoman, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Abdul Saeed, but it's become the center of the Democratic
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Party's civil war. There is just the amount of attention
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: it's getting, particularly online from the most online Democratic activists
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and pundits, is huge. It is really... established. It's everything, right?
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: It's establishment versus outsider. It's Bernie versus establishment, I guess,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: or Senate leadership. It's anti-Israel versus AIPAC.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: All of the above.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Do you have a take on this race?
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: I think it is a preview of the 2028 presidential
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: primary that makes me want to throw my phone into
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: the sea. I know. It's just, I think it's interesting.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: It's hard. I don't envy Michiganders who have to make
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: this choice. And I really hope that whoever wins this
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: primary can build some bridges and some fences because I
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: think it's getting people really, really, really angry in a
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: way that will be hard to fix.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: It reminds me a lot of the 2016 Presidential Memory,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: where it just feels very similar. And no matter who wins,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: they're going to have to work very hard. It's a
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: long road back to UDV.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I struggle with several things in this race, which is...
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: My original beef in Maine was the DSCC endorsing Janet Mills.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I was kind of interested in Platinum, but my main
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: thing was, let's just let the people of Maine decide.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And I was very concerned.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I thought.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this many times, but I just thought
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the Mills decision was sort of a political mistake. I
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: thought the decision to back Haley Stevens over Mallory and Abdul,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I thought was also a crazy decision. I thought just
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you should stay out of it. But where we are
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: now is this has become a lot about a quote
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: unquote electability. And the argument of the Stevens people and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Stevens campaign fairly directly is that Abdul cannot win or
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: is at least much less likely to win than Haley Stevens.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: What's your take on electability in this context?
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: We have no idea. And I think the establishment, quote unquote,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: has lost all credibility on that argument. They thought Joe
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Biden could win another term. They don't have the proof
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: points anymore to make the case that they know what
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: voters want. Can Haley Stevens win? I don't know. It
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: seems like they've had to spend a lot of money
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: to get her through the Democratic primary if she does
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: eke this out. She's outspending Abdul, what, 10 to 1?
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: It's not even.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And 99% of that money, or 97% of that money,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: is from not the Haley-Stevens campaign. Haley-Stevens campaign went up
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: with their first ad today as we're recording this. APAC
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: has spent tens of millions of dollars, I think north
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: of $ 30 million at least, on Haley-Stevens' behalf. And then
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you have some other super PACs. The thing that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: There's many things that anger me about this. Um, and like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: it's very possible. I, you can make a case that
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Haley Stevens as a quote unquote moderate, and who will
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: certainly appear more moderate if she wins a primary against Abdul.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Like that is one of the things when you come
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: off looking quite moderate, when you win a primary against
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: a progressive, because you're positioned in that moderate place, maybe
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: more electable. I don't know that like you can make
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: that case. It's, it's possible. Um, You can make the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: case that because Abdul is to the left– Michigan is
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the quintessential swing state now. Trump's won it two of
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the last three elections. It's a 50-50 state. We assume
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: it's probably three to four, maybe five points to the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: left this time if the generic ballot looks the way
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: we think it does. That a candidate that far to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: the left, if you look at political science research, is
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: less likely to win like that. You can make that
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: case too. But your point is no one knows. The
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: thing that angers me about the Abdul electability question is
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: no one is willing to just say what they mean
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: by it. Is your argument that he's too far left?
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: In what positions is it he's too far left on?
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Is it his position on Israel? The polling would suggest.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: That- He's right where the American people are.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: He's right there. Is it Medicare for all? Super popular.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Now, surface- It is popular.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Now, if you– like Medicare for All can become much
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: less popular over time if it's advertising that's right. Like
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: that could potentially be vulnerable. But no one wants to
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: say that because the Democratic base very understandably supports Medicare
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: for All. Is it because he campaigned with Hasan Piker? Maybe.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Like do you want to make that argument? Like in
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the Data for Progress May poll, only 20% of Democratic
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: primary voters knew who Hasan Piker was. But you can
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: put it in ads. You can put what Hasan said–
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: You don't have to know who he is. Is it
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: because his name is Abdul El-Sayed? Is that what the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: reason is? That's the subtext of a lot of this,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: but no one will actually say that. I always say
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I come at this from a very personal view because
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: that was always the argument. When you say he hasn't
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: been vetted, he hasn't been vetted, he hasn't been vetted.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: That's what they said about Barack Hussein Obama too, often
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: right after they called him Barack Hussein Obama. I don't
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: know who's more electable. I just wish people would just
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: be honest about what they actually think about why he's
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: more electable. Haley Stevens did flip a Republican district in 2018.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: She performed exactly like a generic Democrat in 2024. I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: think I used the split ticket wins over replacement rating,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: but I think she's like at point– she's like 0.3,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: I think, but basically the same. It's not a proven winner.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: It's to your point is we don't know.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: And I don't want to defend Haley Stevens here because
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I do not think she is the right candidate for
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: this moment in any number of ways. But I will
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: say a lot of the criticism of her about being
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: unelectable or being a bad candidate is so sexist.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: 100%.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: So, so sexist.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: And we should also say that because this is going
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: to be a challenge, especially as women keep running, which
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: they will. It is very hard in this modern information
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: ecosystem for women to run because you have to be telegenic.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: You have to speak a certain way. You have to
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: sound a certain way. where do you perform your authenticity
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: as a woman? Like if she did some of the
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: videos or even if Mallory had done some of the
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: videos that Abdul has done, they would have been mocked endlessly.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: It never would have been on the table. So she
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: is not the right candidate for this moment, I think
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: for any number of reasons, but the criticism of her
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: has been deeply sexist.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: There's this video that's been circulating that has been got,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: that has gotten, I think 10 million views of her
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and she's at an organizing rally and she is, um,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: in a very emphatic Michigan accent is talking about how
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: she's going to fight for Michigan. And that, like that
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: is like, that's become like, that's become a thing. But
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: my guess is most people see that and have no
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: reaction to it. You know, it's a road online thing. And,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the, the, obviously I have biases in support
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of Mallory, but Mallory made some of those videos that
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: are not dissimilar to the ones that Abdul's made.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: And got torn to smithereens.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: On the internet, for sure. Like, how an actual voter
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: would interpret it, I have no idea. But just absolutely.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: That's why this one is so complicated. And then sitting
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: over top of it is Israel and Gaza, where Abdul
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: has been incredibly outspoken, has opposed aid to Israel, has
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: called it genocide. Haley Stevens has been supported by AIPAC
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: when she won her primary in 2022. She got a
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: ton of funding from AIPAC. AIPAC, as I said, spent
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: all this money in here. How do you think about
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: AIPAC's role in this and the role Israel's playing? Let's
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: start with Michigan, then I'm going to expand it out
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: to everything else. When this campaign is all said and done,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: it seems like 80% of the funding, at least, of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: her campaign, at least what was on-air funding, TV ads,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: is going to be paid for by one specific interest group.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever seen it before. I've
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: seen Super PACs put a lot of money in races,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: like in the Iowa primary campaign. Josh Turek got a
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of money from VoteVets. That money really seemed
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: to have come from the Senate majority super PAC world.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And it's like a mix of different groups. But here
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you have one specific group with a specific policy agenda
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: spending this much money on a candidate. Have you ever
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: seen anything like this before? It seems concerning.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: The only thing that maybe comes close is the way
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: that AI was spending money in the New York congressional races.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: But even that was like not to the same extent.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And I saw some really interesting polling in particular about
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: the Michigan Democratic primary voters. AIPAC has a net negative
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: 46 favorability rating. 78% of Michigan Democratic primary voters said
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: they'd be less likely to vote for a Senate candidate
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: backed by AIPAC. 86%, they'd be less likely to vote
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: for a candidate who supports continued funding for Israel's war
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: in Gaza. This is toxic for them. I think it's
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: telling that most of their ads do not talk about Israel.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: They don't talk about Gaza. Never mentioned.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: It's, yeah.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: This is both a question of policy, but it's also
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: a question of morals. I think we have seen now
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: that the way that candidates engage on what's happening in
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Gaza has become a moral litmus test of do you
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: have the sense of conscience to call what's happening a
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: genocide and to want to push policy away from enabling it?
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: We just saw the vote earlier this week where House Democrats,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: a record number of them, including a number of sorts,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: like I did not expect Nancy Pelosi.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: To Nancy Pelosi, Catherine Clark, the whip.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Like things are changing and they are good because that
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: is where voters are. Voters see this as a crisis
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: of conscience and they know that they want their leaders
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: to push back. I also think that the way that
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: AIPAC is spending in this speaks to the larger, very
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: negative feelings people have about the role of money in politics.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: And it has become the ultimate boogeyman for, you know,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: someone is trying to buy the election and drown out
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: your votes. Not great.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Back on Michigan for a second. One question I have is,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: is AIPAC going to support Haley Stevenson in general against
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers? Because right now, she has struggled to raise money.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: You know, you have James Tallarico raising record numbers. You
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: have John Ossoff raising record numbers. Abdul raised, I think,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: more than $ 4 million this last quarter. There are Democratic
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: candidates who are raising lots of money. Haley Stevens has
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: struggled to raise grassroots money, which really matters because big-dollar
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Democratic donations are down. You have more people willing to
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: give $ 5, $ 10, $ 50, $ 100, and fewer people willing to
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: write $ 7, 000 per couple of maxed-out checks.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And so....
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: If you can't raise grassroots money and AIPAC is not
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: going to– maybe they will be there, but it's– I
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: just– is she better than Mike Rogers for them? I
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: don't know. But that's a question. And obviously, if she's nominated,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the Senate super PACs can supplement. But that's money that's
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: coming out of somewhere else. That's money that's not going
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: to Iowa or Alaska or Texas or somewhere else.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's a really good question. And I also
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: think AIPAC has shown– not the smartest of strategies.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: No, they've elected a lot of anti-Israel Democrats.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: And like, even if you think beyond this, they have
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: not created space for a political home for people who
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: maybe aren't as far left as where DSA is, but
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: also aren't where AIPAC is in a way that they're
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: not thinking beyond the next three months. And I think
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: it is really dangerous for the future of our democracy
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: in many ways because of how much money they're able
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: to spend and how threatening it has become.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: The vote of the House, many people may not have
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: been tracking this over the years, but the idea that
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: 100 Democrats would vote, the idea that 10 Democrats would
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: vote against aid to Israel, the idea that Nancy Pelosi
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and a member of the House leadership would vote against
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: aid to Israel would have been impossible to imagine. Impossible.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: You'd maybe get one Thomas Massey and the Democratic equivalent
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: of Thomas Massey or Rand Paul. The idea that people
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: would do this in mass is impossible to imagine. It
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: does speak, and this is the downside of AIPAC's and
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: the Israeli government's allegiance sort of alliance with Republicans in
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: most cases, is if Democrats take the majority, how would
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: a speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, even be able to get, like,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: it seems like that's the end of the ballgame. Like,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know how he could even bring that bill forward.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I do not envy his job.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, it does not seem fun.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: I do think, like, one of the things that the
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: broader activist movement needs to really think about is, like,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: how do you welcome these newcomers in? How do you,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: you know, better late to the party than not coming
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: to this party at all when it comes to this issue.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: The point of persuasion is to get people to agree
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: with you. And I do think there is still some
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: stickiness around like, well, you didn't say genocide early enough.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: You didn't call it out two years ago. It's like,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: if I do it now, that is better than never.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: And that is the point of this work. And so
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I do want to just plant that seed of, as
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: we keep growing this coalition, Like, how do we make
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: sure it feels like one that can continue in a
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: way that is welcoming?
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: The way this issue is going to hang of the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: 2028 Democratic primary and the amount of people who are
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: going to come maybe lately to be against funding or
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: to call it a genocide or all those things is going.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: It's just I mentioned this to Favre last week or
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: two weeks ago that we are one year away from
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: the what's likely the first Democratic primary debate. So horrifying.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: No, lie down and never get up.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: Hey, Dan Taberski here. I'm a podcast host, a journalist,
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: and now with my newest project, the author of my
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos. My search
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: are a call to action, an artful scream. They capture
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: our anger and they try to do something with it.
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists,
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: the world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: of Manifesto early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about Run for Something. Same. Because
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Run for Something, which you started after Trump won in 2016.
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: It is always the example I use of how really smart,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: committed people can make a real change without ever asking
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: anyone for permission to do so. Um, you've had a
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: tremendous impact over the last, I mean, you've never been
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: doing this for a long time. We are year eight, nine,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: nine and a half.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: It'll be 10 years in January.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Just it'll, cause it'll also be, I mean, you started
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: an organization that got thousands of people to run. I
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: started a podcast, um, you know, teach their own, I guess. Uh,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: cause we're, cause we're on year nine of positive America now. Um,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: You hinted at this earlier, but I want to put
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: a finer point on it. After Trump won this time,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: there were much digital ink was spilled around the idea
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that the resistance was dead. And there was some anecdotal
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: evidence for that. There was no women's march. There was,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you saw, you know, you know, no one
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: had protests as a new brunch signs out. There was
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: less protesting. No one rushed to the airports when the
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: next version of the Muslim ban was signed. But run
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: for something was a bit different. Like you guys had
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: a different experience after Trump won. Talk to me a
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: little bit about the enthusiasm you've seen.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: So right after Trump won, we started seeing thousands of
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: people raise their hands to run for office. 18 months later,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: it's over 100,000 people who signed up to run for
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: office since then. More than we had since 2024. More
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: than we had in the entirety of Trump's first term,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: as I said earlier. Last year, we had, I think,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: a 60% win rate on election day. we had a
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: night where we elected both a DSA-affiliated candidate to the
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Atlanta City Council and a former Republican who left the
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: party after January 6th to a rural county commission in Pennsylvania.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: We have built the tent that is tight on values
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: and flexible on policy and has now elected more than
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: just about 1,700 young people across 49 states plus D.C.,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: including many that are now running for higher office, like
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: James Tallarico, like Mallory McBorrow, but also like Francesca Hong
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, like Sarah McBride in Delaware, and so many
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: others who are, I think, the future of the Democratic Party.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: And that's not ideologically pure, however you want to define it.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: It is people who love their communities, who want to
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: solve problems, who want to speak to their neighbors, and
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: who are willing to do so in a way that
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: is authentic and genuine and connected and fun. And it
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: makes me so hopeful and excited at a moment where
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: most of the Democratic Party does not. But I really
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: do believe we are on the brink of a tipping
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: point where the party is going to be more run
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: for something alum than not. It is going to be
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: more leaders who look like our folks than not. And
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: that's a good thing, I think.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: For sure. What's encouraging about it is our party is
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: a gerontocracy. There are so many reasons for this.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: We went.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats often pick the next person in line, and then
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Obama skipped the line, and then we went back to
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: the back of the line, then went further back of
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the line with Hillary and Biden. And then we also
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: had the 2010 elections, which gutted a big chunk of
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: the party because we lost so many seats in the
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: redistrict day. And then first in 2010 in that election,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: and then so many of our state legislative candidates, state
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: legislators were redistricted out. in that redistricting. And then we
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: lost again. And we just like, we lost a lot
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: of the middle. Um, and so you guys have helped
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: bring up the, like we missed the middle generation and
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: now we have a younger generation coming up. Are there
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: some particular candidates this cycle that you're excited about that
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: people should know about?
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's so many. Um, Caitlin Dre is running for
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Iowa state Senate. She won a special election in 2025.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: She broke the Iowa Republican supermajority. She flipped the seat
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Trump had carried by 10 points. Uh, she is now, um,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: defending that seat this November, uh, So excited about her.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Julia Salinas, who is running for Texas State House. This
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: is like probably the genuine toss-up in the Texas House District.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: He's the grandson of migrant farm workers. He came from
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: behind in a three-way March primary and then won the
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: May runoff by 11 points against a more establishment-backed candidate.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: This is in the Rio Grande Valley. It's in a
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: seat that Trump carried by just, I think, like a
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: point and a half in 2024. So exciting. Chris Thomas
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania State Senate. He is a former public school teacher.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: He's a volunteer firefighter. He's up against a first term
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Republican senator. We're trying to flip that chamber there. So
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: he is phenomenal. Michael Ferguson, who's running for Florida State
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: House in Broward County. He's an active duty Air Force
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: judge advocate. He was served as one of the youngest
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: special trial counsels in Air Force history. He's an attorney.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: This is the only legislative district in Broward County, which
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: is very Democratic, that is still held by Republicans. So
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: it is a top target to pick up in the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Florida Statehouse. You know, I could go on and on
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: and on. We have hundreds of candidates up this year.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: The value of 100,000, as you said.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: It's going to be good, guys. It's going to be good.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: So the party, we did a lot of thinking after
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Trump won in 2016. One of the things that sort
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: of everyone came to the too late conclusion was, is
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: the Democrats did not pay enough attention to down-ballot races.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I do really think that that focus shifted in the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: first Trump era. Obviously, there's you guys, there was sister district,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: swing left, indivisible. Everyone is really working hard to win
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: on these races. Lots of focus on Secretary of States
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: and governor's races in the wake of January 6th and
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: trying to protect election integrity. Do you feel like there
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: is the party apparatus, the donor world, the activist world,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: the people with platforms have maintained that focus in Trump 2.0?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Or have we lost a little bit because we're sort
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of obsessed.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: With Trump again? We have lost a little bit. I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: would say in particular, the donor world. And I will
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: be very honest, everyone who's not running for House or
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: Senate this year that can't, if you're not a House
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: or Senate candidate, you are probably struggling. Remember something, we're
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: doing okay. But we have had to be really careful
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: stewards of our resources. And just to put a really
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: fine point on this, Run for Something's budget is $ 8
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: million a year, just about. The Republican counterpart to Run
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: for Something is called the Leadership Institute. It has been
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: around for 30 some odd years. It has a $ 50
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: million a year annual budget. I think I could have
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: candidate recruitment offices in every state and be doing year-round recruitment.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: I cannot imagine what I would do with $ 50 million
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: a year. it is the kind of abundance mindset around
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: we can do it all that the democratic party just
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: does not seem to operate from.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: So is that a scarcity of people want to write
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: those checks or those just checks go into the wrong place?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: A little bit of coffee, a little bit of coffee.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: So some of it is like, we don't have enough
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: rich people or, you know, we, our grassroots donors are
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: very excited about some of the Senate races and not
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: as excited about some of the infrastructure because it's not
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: as flashy and not as exciting. And, Really big checks
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: still go to places that run TV ads or, you know,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: this right now it's like creator stuff. And that's not
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: to say that's not important, but that stuff ceases to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: exist after election day. Run for something and so many
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: of other partners on the ground who are doing this
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: real locally driven work that happens, like candidate recruitment for
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: 2026 happened in 2025. The recruitment that we are doing
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: now for, say, the Louisiana and Mississippi state legislative races,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: which are going to be critical because of how they've
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: redistricted these states and blowing up the Voting Rights Act.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: That recruitment happens now. So if you are not funding
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: things year round and sustaining this work with multi-year giving,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: multi-month giving, it is impossible to do in the way
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: that is the most effective and efficient.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just so fascinating because I spent a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: lot of time over the last nine years now, I guess,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: talking to donors about, like my big thing has always
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: been investing in media infrastructure, right? That we need to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: do medium and long-term investments in content creation, media, pro-democracy media.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I have my newsletter, all these things. But just beyond
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: our stuff, just generally Republicans have been investing in stuff
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: where like us, we don't. And you're talking to very
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: smart people who have made a lot of money in
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: their life making good investments. And it's just, I've never
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: been able to figure out why when you talk to
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: them about investments that pay out over time is less
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: appealing than the short-term, one-time use of money on largely
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: television ads. Think about how much money was spent. You
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: want your $ 50 million? Your $ 50 million can be found
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in two weeks of Super PAC ads.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Yep, 100%. If I think about it too much, I
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: won't get out of bed in the morning.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I'm saying I want you to be able to continue
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: getting out of bed. You have a very important job
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: and you have children, so I think it's important that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: you get out of bed. But I want anyone listening
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: who has those sort of resources to think about even
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: if you could get, let's say you could double from
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: eight to 16 or get to half of that 50.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: It's just one, truly one week of television ads in Texas.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: Is my entire budget.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Is your entire budget, right?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: And to get to the beginning of the conversation, we
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: talked about like candidate recruitment is stage zero of winning
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: an election. If you want better TV ads, if you
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: want the megaphone that we're building around media and creators
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: to have something good to amplify- It starts with getting
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: really good people to run in as many places as possible.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: We work in all 50 states. We also have a
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: long-term vision for what we think the battlegrounds could be
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: and might be in 2030 and 2032. We're doing intensive
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: recruitment in these places. We're providing candidates with the skills
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: and tools they need to win their races. Why don't
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I have $ 50 million? I don't know. Ask the billionaires.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I do know that the work is working, that there's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: such demand for our work, and that I am so
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: proud of what we have built. And I think it's
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: going to keep paying off because the nice thing about
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: candidate recruitment in particular is when one person wins that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: like against the odds race. And when one person makes history,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: dozens and dozens or hundreds or thousands more like them say,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: you know what, maybe I can do this too.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: That is very hopeful place to end this. But before
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I let you go, just in case we have a
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: billionaire or someone who maybe works for one of these
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: AI companies going public, who's about to be a billionaire,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and they would like to help you get to your
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: well-deserved $ 50 million budget, where can they give you money?
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: Runforsomething.net. You can look us up. You can also find
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: any of our other entities. And I should say, if
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: any of your listeners want to run for office, it
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: is probably too late for 2026. It is definitely not
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: too early for 2027 or 2028. You can go to runforwhat.net.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: You can look up where you might want to run.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Amanda Lipman, always great to talk to you. I always
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: leave these conversations smarter and a little bit more optimistic.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: So this is great.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Dan.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Amanda Lippman for coming on. John, John, and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Tommy will be back in your feed on Tuesday. Bye, everyone.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.
• 1:05:28
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• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: America East.