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“Whistle while you spy.” · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 2: Right here in studio.
0:25
Speaker 1: Here in Los Angeles.
0:26
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. So great. In just a bit, we're going to
0:29
Speaker 2: talk to our old pal, David Plouffe, Barack Obama's legendary
0:32
Speaker 2: campaign manager about all things 2020. He will also be
0:35
Speaker 2: here in studio. What a great day here at Crooked HQ.
0:37
Speaker 1: It's a lot of dudes from Delaware in the studio.
0:40
Speaker 2: First, one dude from Delaware still will not come to
0:43
Speaker 2: the studio. Now that you said it.
0:46
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Tom Carpenter? Tom Carpenter?
0:49
Speaker 2: Yes. Chris Coons, not welcome. First, we've got news to
0:53
Speaker 2: talk about, lots of news to talk about, from an
0:55
Speaker 2: explosive story about a whistleblower and the president to Congress's
0:59
Speaker 2: first impeachment hearing to Trump's war on California. Before that,
1:03
Speaker 2: a few housekeeping notes. If you want to understand what
1:06
Speaker 2: the hell happened with that attack on Saudi Arabia over
1:08
Speaker 2: the weekend and the ensuing risk of war with Iran,
1:11
Speaker 2: don't miss Pod Save the World this week. Tommy and
1:13
Speaker 2: Ben also discuss the Israeli elections and whether Bibi Netanyahu's
1:16
Speaker 2: career might be over. Fingers crossed. They also discuss Adam
1:21
Speaker 2: Schiff's explosive letter to the director of national intelligence about
1:23
Speaker 2: this whistleblower. And they're joined by Senator Chris Murphy, who's
1:27
Speaker 2: leading the fight to end our involvement in the disastrous
1:29
Speaker 2: civil war in Yemen and to prevent war with Iran.
1:33
Speaker 2: Next week, we'll be on the last leg of our
1:35
Speaker 2: 2019 tour. And there are still a few tickets left
1:37
Speaker 2: for our San Jose show on September 26th and our
1:40
Speaker 2: Portland show on September 27th. So head to crooked.com slash
1:43
Speaker 2: events for tickets. Our friend Adi Barkin released his interviews
1:46
Speaker 2: this week with Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro as part
1:49
Speaker 2: of his Uncovered video series about health care in America.
1:52
Speaker 2: Head to kirka.com slash be a hero to watch his interviews.
1:55
Speaker 2: And don't forget to order his brand new memoir, Eyes
1:58
Speaker 2: to the Wind. As some of you know, because you
2:01
Speaker 2: follow him on Twitter, Adi was in the hospital for
2:03
Speaker 2: a fairly major procedure this week, earlier this week. He
2:07
Speaker 2: is out of the hospital. He is recovering. So that
2:10
Speaker 2: is good news. When he's fully recovered and goes online again,
2:13
Speaker 2: it would be great. if his book was just selling
2:16
Speaker 2: like crazy. So please go pick up a copy of
2:19
Speaker 2: Adi's book. It is fantastic. I promise you, you will
2:21
Speaker 2: not be disappointed. Finally, as you all know, Crooked Media
2:26
Speaker 2: is partnering with Stacey Abrams on Fair Fight 2020, her
2:29
Speaker 2: plan to fight voter suppression by hiring full-time voter protection
2:33
Speaker 2: teams in 20 battleground states next year. We launched on
2:36
Speaker 2: Friday night with the goal of raising $ 1 million. And Shaniqua,
2:41
Speaker 2: our political director... is here with an update on how
2:44
Speaker 2: much we've raised. Where are we at, Shaniqua? $ 475, 000. $ 475, 000.
2:54
Speaker 2: So what you can't see if you're listening is Shaniqua
2:57
Speaker 2: has a giant bottle on the table filled with jelly beans.
3:03
Speaker 2: And she is filling it up with more jelly beans
3:06
Speaker 2: to indicate how much money we've raised.
3:08
Speaker 3: This is.
3:09
Speaker 1: fucking riveting.
3:11
Speaker 2: This is what you call a stunt.
3:13
Speaker 1: A visual stunt for an audio medium.
3:16
Speaker 2: There'll be a video of this out that you'll all
3:19
Speaker 2: enjoy of Shaniqua filling up a bottle with jelly beans,
3:22
Speaker 2: which I'm sure is why she went to college.
3:27
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the viral content the internet thirsts for.
3:31
Speaker 2: One person smiling very broadly is Elijah.
3:34
Speaker 1: He's going to make us do this over again.
3:35
Speaker 2: Came up with this idea. We think it's great. I
3:38
Speaker 2: actually love the bottle. This is great. Anyway, the important
3:40
Speaker 2: point here is we've already raised $ 475, 000. We're almost halfway there,
3:45
Speaker 2: but that's still only halfway there. We need to get
3:47
Speaker 2: to a million by November 5th, I believe. And look,
3:51
Speaker 2: this is maybe the most important thing we can do
3:54
Speaker 2: between now and 2020, aside from pick a nominee, is
3:58
Speaker 2: to make sure there are teams on the ground in
4:00
Speaker 2: these battleground states to fight voter suppression. We know this works.
4:04
Speaker 2: We have seen it work before, but this is still
4:06
Speaker 2: Right now, the biggest hole in the Democratic Party's strategy
4:09
Speaker 2: in 2020, and Stacey Abrams is doing everything she can
4:13
Speaker 2: to make sure that we can fight voter suppression. So
4:17
Speaker 2: go to votesaveamerica.com slash fair fight. Donate, share, tell your friends.
4:23
Speaker 2: We need all the help we can get. Thanks, Shaniqua.
4:26
Speaker 1: Thank you. Great job. Great job, Elijah. Great job, Jelly Beans.
4:31
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get to the news. Dan, we have to
4:34
Speaker 2: start today with the Washington Post story that broke late
4:36
Speaker 2: last night. I'm just going to read the lead on
4:38
Speaker 2: this one. The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense
4:41
Speaker 2: showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President
4:45
Speaker 2: Trump's communications with a foreign leader, which included a promise
4:51
Speaker 2: that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an
4:54
Speaker 2: official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal
4:57
Speaker 2: whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community.
5:02
Speaker 2: The sourcing here is two former U.S. officials familiar with
5:05
Speaker 2: the matter. The story has been confirmed by NBC and
5:08
Speaker 2: the New York Times. NBC also confirmed the fact that
5:11
Speaker 2: the communication in question was a phone call. Dan, I'm
5:17
Speaker 2: no expert on the inner workings of the intelligence community,
5:20
Speaker 2: but this sounds.
5:21
Speaker 1: Could have fooled me.
5:23
Speaker 2: On Twitter I am, yeah. This sounds like a big deal.
5:25
Speaker 2: How unusual is this? What the fuck is going on here?
5:29
Speaker 1: We don't know what the fuck is going on, but... It's,
5:32
Speaker 1: you know, I think one of the reporters last night,
5:34
Speaker 1: I think Ken Delaney of NBC, I think said, we're
5:37
Speaker 1: going to need to find a new word other than
5:39
Speaker 1: unprecedented to describe this. Because we should be very clear
5:42
Speaker 1: is that a intelligence official who by some reports worked
5:47
Speaker 1: for some period of time at the National Security Council.
5:49
Speaker 3: Right.
5:49
Speaker 2: That's true.
5:50
Speaker 1: Filed a whistleblower complaint to the Trump appointed inspector general
5:53
Speaker 1: in the intelligence community.
5:54
Speaker 2: We should, and we should tell people, I was thinking
5:56
Speaker 2: this this morning, like what, An inspector general does. What
5:59
Speaker 2: are inspector generals? Why are they in these departments? What's
6:01
Speaker 2: going on?
6:02
Speaker 1: They're the independent watchdogs. They're supposed to look, investigate malfeasance, corruption,
6:08
Speaker 1: other problems. We know about inspector generals because there have
6:12
Speaker 1: been a lot of inspector generals working in the Justice
6:15
Speaker 1: Department investigating the various things that went on around the
6:18
Speaker 1: Comey firing, Andrew McCabe. That's how we hear about them.
6:21
Speaker 1: It's always a little bit of a fishy situation because
6:23
Speaker 1: they're appointed by the president and then investigate that president's department.
6:29
Speaker 1: And Trump has not been known to appoint people with-
6:32
Speaker 1: Straight shooters? Straight shooters, respected on either side. And so
6:37
Speaker 1: the fact that this Trump appointed inspector general read this complaint,
6:42
Speaker 1: deemed it to be, and these are legal terms, urgent
6:44
Speaker 1: and credible, which means by law they are required to
6:49
Speaker 1: immediately send it to the congressional committees of oversight so
6:52
Speaker 1: that Congress can be aware of it and look into it.
6:55
Speaker 1: That has not happened.
6:56
Speaker 2: And by determining that it's credible and urgent, that is also,
7:01
Speaker 2: that's a legal determination that means you have to have,
7:05
Speaker 2: the whistleblower has to have witnessed something that either breaks
7:08
Speaker 2: the law, involves serious abuse of power, or endangers national
7:13
Speaker 2: security in some way. So it's not just like, I
7:16
Speaker 2: heard Trump say something on the phone with a foreign leader,
7:19
Speaker 2: and it made me uncomfortable because I disagree with his
7:21
Speaker 2: policy position. Couldn't be that. And this person would know,
7:25
Speaker 2: and the inspector general would also know, that Donald Trump
7:29
Speaker 2: and any president has very wide latitude to declassify classified
7:34
Speaker 2: information whenever the president would like, to make decisions, negotiate
7:39
Speaker 2: with foreign leaders in private, on his own, like Prison
7:42
Speaker 2: has a lot of latitude when it comes to talking
7:44
Speaker 2: to foreign leaders, negotiating national security, declassifying intelligence. So the
7:48
Speaker 2: fact that the inspector general and the whistleblower would know
7:52
Speaker 2: all this and still find this complaint urgent and credible
7:56
Speaker 2: tells you it might be something pretty big. In fact,
8:00
Speaker 2: it likely is.
8:01
Speaker 1: On its face, it is something very significant. It has
8:05
Speaker 1: to be to reach this level. It's important to also
8:07
Speaker 1: understand that The Trump administration is essentially in violation of
8:11
Speaker 1: the law by refusing to send this to Congress. So
8:15
Speaker 1: it is something that the whistleblower thought was so alarming,
8:18
Speaker 1: the inspector general found met this incredibly high bar of
8:24
Speaker 1: urgent and credible. And the Trump administration, the acting director
8:29
Speaker 1: of national intelligence, is so worried about the impact it
8:32
Speaker 1: will have on Trump that they are keeping this whistleblower
8:36
Speaker 1: complaint from Congress in violation of the law.
8:38
Speaker 2: Which is making Congress, Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence
8:41
Speaker 2: Committee and other leaders in Congress very, very angry, as
8:44
Speaker 2: they should be. The other thing to note here is
8:47
Speaker 2: that before the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire,
8:53
Speaker 2: chose to keep the substance of the complaint from Congress,
8:57
Speaker 2: he consulted, wait for it, people at the Department of Justice.
9:01
Speaker 2: And as we know, Attorney General Bill Barr has basically been,
9:04
Speaker 2: his role has been covering up for Trump and not
9:08
Speaker 2: acting as an independent attorney general like the attorney general
9:11
Speaker 2: should since he's been appointed. So that sort of raises
9:14
Speaker 2: a bunch of red flags that DOJ got involved and
9:17
Speaker 2: told them to withhold it from Congress.
9:19
Speaker 1: I mean, this whole thing is very concerning. We don't
9:21
Speaker 1: know enough yet. The acting director of national intelligence was actually,
9:27
Speaker 1: was it the whistleblower who was in Congress today?
9:29
Speaker 2: No, it was the IG. It was the Inspector General.
9:32
Speaker 1: Right, the Inspector General. Excuse me, I'm sorry.
9:33
Speaker 2: Michael Atkinson.
9:33
Speaker 1: Michael Atkinson was in close session with the Intelligence Committee
9:36
Speaker 1: and refused to, at least as of the recording of
9:39
Speaker 1: this podcast, convey the substance of the complaint to Congress.
9:44
Speaker 1: In violation of the law. Like, that is the most
9:46
Speaker 1: important point.
9:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Director of National Intelligence doesn't get to decide
9:52
Speaker 2: that a whistleblower complaint that is deemed urgent and credible
9:56
Speaker 2: can be withheld from Congress. That's not in the law.
9:58
Speaker 2: In fact, it's a violation of the law. right now.
10:00
Speaker 2: So that's where we are yet again.
10:02
Speaker 1: Someone is breaking the law to cover up the breaking
10:04
Speaker 1: of the law of someone higher up on the food chain.
10:07
Speaker 2: Of course, Donald Trump has tweeted about this this morning. Quote,
10:11
Speaker 2: another fake news story out there. It never ends. Virtually
10:13
Speaker 2: any time I speak on the phone to a foreign leader,
10:15
Speaker 2: I understand that there may be many people listening from
10:17
Speaker 2: various U.S. agencies. not to mention those from the other
10:20
Speaker 2: country itself. No problem. Knowing all of this, is anybody
10:24
Speaker 2: dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate
10:26
Speaker 2: with a foreign leader while on such a potentially heavily
10:29
Speaker 2: populated call? Yes, I am that dumb. I am dumb
10:32
Speaker 2: enough to believe that.
10:34
Speaker 1: It's a pretty telling tweet since Trump never argues, I
10:38
Speaker 1: don't commit the crimes.
10:39
Speaker 3: No.
10:39
Speaker 1: He just argues, I'm better at committing the crimes than
10:42
Speaker 1: you think I am. He's offended that we think he's
10:44
Speaker 1: bad at committing crimes, not that he commits crimes.
10:47
Speaker 2: It's, uh, yeah. So without engaging in completely wild speculation.
10:52
Speaker 1: That's what Brian's for.
10:55
Speaker 2: You can check out Brian's Twitter feed. Look, he may
10:58
Speaker 2: be correct, in which case I'll say, see, I always
10:59
Speaker 2: knew Brian was right. What do we know so far?
11:04
Speaker 1: We know it involved a phone call with a foreign leader.
11:07
Speaker 1: We're aware of a handful of phone calls that happened
11:10
Speaker 1: in the general period around when this complaint was filed.
11:13
Speaker 2: So it was filed in early August, and on July 31st,
11:17
Speaker 2: the president had a phone call with one Vladimir Putin.
11:20
Speaker 1: Yes. And what is there?
11:23
Speaker 2: There's also, he talked to the Dutch foreign leader, so
11:25
Speaker 2: I'm sure he was promising all kinds of things to him.
11:27
Speaker 1: It's almost certainly going to be the Dutch foreign leader.
11:30
Speaker 1: Or he traded Eric for like a pallet of wooden
11:33
Speaker 1: shoes or.
11:36
Speaker 2: Something. What a bust that would be.
11:40
Speaker 1: Around the Putin call, there was a lot of suspicion.
11:43
Speaker 1: Our friend, former Obama administration ambassador to Russia, Mike McFaul,
11:47
Speaker 1: was struck by this call because the Trump administration described
11:50
Speaker 1: it as cooperation on fighting the wildfires in Russia.
11:54
Speaker 2: In Siberia. That's what they talked about. Donald Trump offering
11:58
Speaker 2: his assistance to help with the Siberian wildfires. This was
12:01
Speaker 2: while California was burning, by the way. And he was
12:03
Speaker 2: just like, no, no, I want to concentrate on Siberia's
12:06
Speaker 2: wildfires with my friend Vladimir Putin.
12:08
Speaker 1: And the Russians described it as Measures that can improve
12:11
Speaker 1: bilateral relations, which often means sanctions, which was McFaul's interpretation.
12:16
Speaker 1: That's the same interpretation our friends Tommy and Ben had.
12:19
Speaker 2: I do.
12:20
Speaker 1: I did believe at the time it was possible that
12:23
Speaker 1: Trump called Putin just because he saw there was wildfires.
12:27
Speaker 1: It's sort of this is like a dated reference for
12:29
Speaker 1: when people used actual phones. But it's sort of like
12:31
Speaker 1: being in middle school and calling the person you have
12:33
Speaker 1: the crush on to find the biology homework. Yeah.
12:37
Speaker 2: Hey, I just wanted to talk about the fires. The fires,
12:41
Speaker 2: that's right.
12:41
Speaker 1: While I have you.
12:41
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about the fires. Yeah, I mean,
12:43
Speaker 2: it definitely reminds me of this meeting was about adoptions
12:47
Speaker 2: a little bit. But who knows? We don't know. We
12:50
Speaker 2: don't know. We will hopefully find out soon.
12:52
Speaker 1: I think one reason why the sanctions thing is relevant is, like,
12:56
Speaker 1: you talked about how presidents have this broad authority derived
13:00
Speaker 1: from Article II of the Constitution to conduct foreign policy
13:03
Speaker 1: in what they deem to be the best interest of
13:04
Speaker 1: the United States. Congress does have the power To limit that,
13:08
Speaker 1: to very specifically limit it. And Russian sanctions were in
13:12
Speaker 1: way early on the Trump administration where Congress passed a
13:14
Speaker 1: law because they did not trust Trump to act in
13:18
Speaker 1: America's best interests on Russia. So they limited his power.
13:21
Speaker 1: The best example of how a president can overstep their
13:23
Speaker 1: bounds historically is Iran-Contra, where in the 80s, the Reagan
13:28
Speaker 1: administration believed they wanted to help the Contras overthrow the
13:31
Speaker 1: government in Nicaragua. Congress did not want them to do that.
13:33
Speaker 1: They passed a law called the Boland Amendment to say
13:35
Speaker 1: that no funds could be spent to help the Contras.
13:38
Speaker 1: Reagan administration decided they didn't like that. They sold weapons
13:40
Speaker 1: to Iran and then gave that money to the Contras,
13:43
Speaker 1: which led to a huge, massive scandal and could have
13:47
Speaker 1: put a lot of people in jail if they hadn't
13:48
Speaker 1: been pardoned. There are parallels. We don't know what this is,
13:53
Speaker 1: but there are parallels between the Boland Amendment in Nicaragua
13:57
Speaker 1: and the sanctions law in Russia in this situation.
14:01
Speaker 2: Not to say that Trump has a point, because of
14:03
Speaker 2: course he never really does, but you do wonder, like
14:07
Speaker 2: on these calls with foreign leaders, there are a bunch
14:09
Speaker 2: of people listening. And so I kind of wonder what
14:13
Speaker 2: would so alarm a U.S. intelligence official who worked for
14:17
Speaker 2: a time in the National Security Council, but not potentially
14:21
Speaker 2: alarm everyone else who heard the phone call on both sides.
14:26
Speaker 2: Potentially the answer is they're all just a bunch of
14:29
Speaker 2: lackeys who Didn't think it was a big problem.
14:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:32
Speaker 2: But the fact that then Putin and his goons also
14:35
Speaker 2: kept it secret is sort of curious.
14:37
Speaker 1: Well, Putin and his goons, if it was Putin, and
14:39
Speaker 1: we do not know that.
14:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We don't know.
14:41
Speaker 1: If it was, they hinted at something in their readout
14:44
Speaker 1: without the concerns that the U.S. would have for the
14:47
Speaker 1: politics or the law of sanctions relief. But you're right there. Now, Trump.
14:53
Speaker 1: early on circumscribed the circle of people who listened to
14:56
Speaker 1: his calls directly because the transcripts were getting around and
15:00
Speaker 1: leaking because he was saying insane shit. So it's a
15:04
Speaker 1: smaller group than would be for an Obama call, for instance.
15:07
Speaker 1: But there would have been other people on that call. Now,
15:09
Speaker 1: worth noting, in the Brian potential conspiracy theory area here,
15:15
Speaker 1: Bolton resigned. There are two former officials who are quoted
15:19
Speaker 1: as the sources here, which is very interesting. Also resigning
15:22
Speaker 1: were Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Sue Gordon,
15:26
Speaker 1: who was the deputy director who was going to take
15:28
Speaker 1: over as acting, but Trump did not trust her and
15:30
Speaker 1: so needed to push her out in order to elevate
15:33
Speaker 1: this McGuire fellow who seems to be doing exactly what
15:35
Speaker 1: Trump wants, which is rampant lawbreaking for the purposes of
15:39
Speaker 1: protecting Trump.
15:40
Speaker 2: And another person who resigned in August was John Huntsman,
15:43
Speaker 2: ambassador to Russia.
15:45
Speaker 1: Oh, that is an interesting point.
15:47
Speaker 2: So it's just a lot of, I mean, again, we can,
15:49
Speaker 2: we got the red string, we could go all day.
15:51
Speaker 1: By the time you listen to this, you'll probably know
15:52
Speaker 1: all the answers.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, but look, at least we know that this Congress
15:56
Speaker 2: and these Democrats are going to do whatever it takes
15:59
Speaker 2: to hold this administration accountable. Right, Dan?
16:02
Speaker 1: Someone is drafting a letter right now.
16:04
Speaker 2: Segway to our next topic. So the House Democrats haven't
16:07
Speaker 2: been super successful in using their power to hold the
16:10
Speaker 2: administration accountable for its wrongdoing. On Tuesday, former Trump campaign
16:14
Speaker 2: manager Corey Lewandowski confirmed during the House Democrats' first official
16:18
Speaker 2: impeachment hearing that he is a frequent and public liar.
16:22
Speaker 2: And he also confirmed that the Mueller report was correct
16:24
Speaker 2: in stating that Trump asked Lewandowski to help him obstruct
16:27
Speaker 2: justice by threatening the attorney general to stop investigating the president.
16:32
Speaker 2: But Lewandowski also turned the hearing into a circus by
16:34
Speaker 2: refusing to answer even the most basic questions and generally
16:38
Speaker 2: being a huge asshole to Democrats on the committee. How
16:43
Speaker 2: much of the hearing did you watch and what were
16:45
Speaker 2: your initial impressions?
16:47
Speaker 1: I watched none of the hearing in real time.
16:50
Speaker 2: Same.
16:51
Speaker 1: I did not.
16:52
Speaker 2: I lived my life and I'm happy about it.
16:54
Speaker 1: Sometimes you roll the dice and you say, maybe other
16:56
Speaker 1: things will happen. We won't have to discuss this. And
16:58
Speaker 1: I rolled the dice and lost because here we are.
17:00
Speaker 2: Snake eyes.
17:01
Speaker 1: What I did was I went to Aaron Ruppar from
17:06
Speaker 1: Vox and he is a journalist who use his video
17:11
Speaker 1: to capture what's happening in real time at Trump events,
17:13
Speaker 1: but he also did the Lewandowski hearing. So he's sort of,
17:15
Speaker 1: he's like the red zone of the Trump era. And
17:18
Speaker 1: so I watched all the highlights from that. Uh, so
17:20
Speaker 1: I feel prepared for this conversation.
17:22
Speaker 2: So what were your, what are your initial impressions of
17:24
Speaker 2: the hearing? Like, what do you, I mean, because, so
17:27
Speaker 2: I was watching, I was not watching the hearing. I
17:29
Speaker 2: was watching the coverage of the hearing on Twitter as
17:31
Speaker 2: it was going. And so the first, however many hours
17:34
Speaker 2: was what a circus, what a disaster, uh, You get
17:38
Speaker 2: a lot of reporters both sides in this, like, oh,
17:42
Speaker 2: it's a partisan circus, and this is why people hate Washington.
17:46
Speaker 2: Both parties are crazy, blah.
17:47
Speaker 3: Blah, blah.
17:47
Speaker 2: So I'm like, oh, fuck. And then suddenly at the
17:50
Speaker 2: end it got a little bit better once they had
17:52
Speaker 2: an actual lawyer questioning Corey Lewandowski instead of people who
17:56
Speaker 2: just wish they played lawyers on TV, which are politicians.
18:00
Speaker 1: I think there are probably three takeaways, and we can
18:04
Speaker 1: maybe— We'll probably talk about each of these individually. One
18:07
Speaker 1: there is Corey Lewandowski's performance and what that says about
18:10
Speaker 1: modern conservatism.
18:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should start there.
18:13
Speaker 1: The second is the ways in which the hearing did
18:16
Speaker 1: not go well for Democrats is directly tied to a
18:19
Speaker 1: larger conversation about the impeachment purgatory in which they are
18:23
Speaker 1: currently living. And then the third part is if we
18:26
Speaker 1: were in an actual legal proceeding, the information in that
18:30
Speaker 1: hearing was incredibly damning to an obstruction of justice system.
18:35
Speaker 1: charge against Trump. And so let's start with the first one.
18:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's start with Corey.
18:39
Speaker 1: Corey Lewandowski is an absurd figure. He's like a, he's
18:42
Speaker 1: not even a JV player. He's a freshman team Republican
18:45
Speaker 1: operative who just happened to be the only guy who
18:47
Speaker 1: would go work for Trump. He didn't even get Trump elected.
18:51
Speaker 1: He got fired for being bad at his job and abusing,
18:55
Speaker 1: physically abusing a reporter and just generally terrible human being.
19:00
Speaker 1: But his performance here today, I think, is about more
19:03
Speaker 1: than just Corey Lewandowski being a terrible human being. I
19:06
Speaker 1: think it sort of speaks to the asshole-ification of Republicans,
19:09
Speaker 1: which is the best way to succeed in Republican politics
19:12
Speaker 1: right now, either as an influence peddler in Washington or
19:16
Speaker 1: a candidate out in the country, is get the support
19:19
Speaker 1: of Trump. And the best way to get the support
19:20
Speaker 1: of Trump is to act like as big an asshole
19:23
Speaker 1: to as many people as possible. And Donald Trump, who
19:28
Speaker 1: theoretically has a job, There are tasks that come with
19:31
Speaker 1: the presidency. There are these meetings at which you were
19:33
Speaker 1: supposed to attend. He tweeted out, he thanked Corey for
19:36
Speaker 1: his opening statement. He tweeted out the video of Corey's statement.
19:40
Speaker 1: And so Corey got what he wanted, which is.
19:42
Speaker 2: It was a campaign launch. He did not treat it
19:45
Speaker 2: as a hearing where he was under oath to talk about...
19:50
Speaker 2: potential crimes committed by the president. He treated it as
19:53
Speaker 2: his campaign launch for running for Senate in New Hampshire.
19:57
Speaker 2: We know this because, aside from the fact that he
19:59
Speaker 2: acted like a huge asshole and said all kinds of
20:00
Speaker 2: ridiculous bullshit, he asked for a break halfway through the
20:04
Speaker 2: hearing and then went outside and tweeted... a website that
20:08
Speaker 2: was potentially his campaign Senate website. So the whole thing
20:11
Speaker 2: was about trying to, and then he figured he would
20:14
Speaker 2: defend Donald Trump and be loyal because the way to,
20:17
Speaker 2: for a Republican to win in 2019 is to get
20:22
Speaker 2: the blessing of their mob leader, Donald Trump.
20:25
Speaker 1: I mean, it really, it really did look like a
20:30
Speaker 1: TV mob trial with a witness who is essentially agreeing
20:35
Speaker 1: to serve time, for the boss, yelling at the prosecutors
20:39
Speaker 1: and the jury. That is what goes for loyalty, is
20:43
Speaker 1: pleading the fifth for Donald Trump.
20:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, the memorable line from Corey
20:49
Speaker 2: Lewandowski that he said towards the end is, I have
20:51
Speaker 2: no obligation to be honest with the media because they're
20:53
Speaker 2: just as dishonest as anyone else. So one would think
20:58
Speaker 2: that for someone who is contemplating running for the U.S. Senate,
21:01
Speaker 2: admitting in public that they lie all the time, like
21:04
Speaker 2: he just did, would be a campaign-ending move. Not in
21:07
Speaker 2: today's Republican Party.
21:08
Speaker 1: No, it's a net positive.
21:10
Speaker 2: For Corey Lewandowski, the only thing he needed out of
21:12
Speaker 2: this hearing is for Donald Trump to shower praise on him.
21:15
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, who once fired him, so that wasn't necessarily
21:17
Speaker 2: a done deal, but he wanted Donald Trump to shower
21:21
Speaker 2: praise on him so he can go to people in
21:22
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, Republicans in New Hampshire, and say, doesn't matter
21:25
Speaker 2: if I lie, doesn't matter if I don't have the experience,
21:27
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if I'm a fucking buffoon, all you need
21:29
Speaker 2: to know about me is I got the Donald Trump
21:31
Speaker 2: seal of approval stamped on me. That's it. That's all
21:34
Speaker 2: you need to know. Vote for me.
21:35
Speaker 1: And it might work.
21:36
Speaker 2: And it might work.
21:37
Speaker 1: In the primary.
21:38
Speaker 2: In the primary, yeah. Hopefully it'll be a little different
21:41
Speaker 2: in the general. So what a value actually came out
21:53
Speaker 2: of the hearing for Democrats who are looking to conduct
21:57
Speaker 2: these impeachment hearings?
21:59
Speaker 1: I think one of the goals of Nadler et al.
22:03
Speaker 1: was to... Nadler has made the point, and I think
22:06
Speaker 1: he is 100% correct, that Obstructing the Mueller investigation is
22:10
Speaker 1: an impeachable offense.
22:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 1: But also obstructing Congress's oversight into the president is also
22:15
Speaker 1: an impeachable offense.
22:16
Speaker 2: We know this because it was one of the articles
22:17
Speaker 2: of impeachment filed against Richard Nixon.
22:19
Speaker 1: And this was a demonstration of the effort of the
22:22
Speaker 1: Trump administration to obstruct Congress's constitutional obligation to do checks
22:27
Speaker 1: and balances. And Corey Lewandowski refused to answer questions because
22:34
Speaker 1: the White House had told him not to. He was
22:35
Speaker 1: asserting privilege. Corey Lewandowski has never worked in the federal government.
22:40
Speaker 1: He is just a outside advisor to Trump.
22:43
Speaker 2: There is no such thing as executive privilege when it
22:45
Speaker 2: comes to someone who's never worked in the White House.
22:47
Speaker 2: People should just know that. There's no such thing. It's
22:49
Speaker 2: made up. It's fucking crazy.
22:52
Speaker 1: And he was operating under the explicit and public instructions
22:55
Speaker 1: of the White House to do this, which is the
22:57
Speaker 1: White House basically putting up a sign that says, impeach
23:01
Speaker 1: me on the front of the White House. And so
23:03
Speaker 1: that part of it was important. The other important part
23:05
Speaker 1: that we cannot forget that gets lost in all of
23:07
Speaker 1: the internal Democratic debate about impeachment is Corey Lewandowski was
23:11
Speaker 1: forced to tell Congress, as he did Mueller, that Donald
23:15
Speaker 1: Trump asked his political henchmen to pressure the attorney general
23:19
Speaker 1: into ending a criminal investigation into the president, his campaign,
23:22
Speaker 1: and his family. That is significant.
23:24
Speaker 2: That happened.
23:24
Speaker 1: The other thing that we take from that is Corey
23:26
Speaker 1: Lewandowski is loyal to Donald Trump like no one else.
23:31
Speaker 1: He would swim through a sewer with an open mouth
23:34
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. And he refused to do this. It
23:37
Speaker 1: was an order so crazily illegal that he did not
23:40
Speaker 1: do it. But that does not exculpate Trump. Asking Corey
23:47
Speaker 1: Lewin to do that is a crime. And we discussed
23:49
Speaker 1: a major crime from the president in Congress on live TV.
23:54
Speaker 2: You would know that. It's buried in the 10th paragraph
23:57
Speaker 2: of some of the stories.
23:58
Speaker 1: Look, you have to get through 9 to 10 paragraphs
24:01
Speaker 1: of optics before you can get to the facts. That
24:03
Speaker 1: is a rule of modern journalism.
24:04
Speaker 2: I will say when I woke up the day after
24:05
Speaker 2: the hearing, some media outlets handled this right. The top
24:09
Speaker 2: of Playbook talked about what we actually got out of
24:11
Speaker 2: the hearing of value, which I thought was great. I
24:13
Speaker 2: thought the New York Times did it well, too. Some
24:17
Speaker 2: other outlets didn't do as well.
24:18
Speaker 1: You know who you are, people.
24:19
Speaker 2: You know who you are. They talked all about the
24:20
Speaker 2: fucking optics before you talked about the fact that The
24:22
Speaker 2: president's political henchmen confirmed the special counsel's belief that the
24:26
Speaker 2: president obstructed justice. There you go. That's the hearing. He also,
24:29
Speaker 2: by the way, we found out that he, that Corey
24:32
Speaker 2: Lewandowski demanded immunity before he would talk to Bob Mueller.
24:38
Speaker 2: So maybe Corey Lewandowski, you know, had maybe done something wrong. Possible.
24:43
Speaker 2: But he demanded, we found out that he, so he
24:45
Speaker 2: admitted that he lied to the media, demanded immunity from
24:47
Speaker 2: the special counsel. We found out that Trump asked him
24:50
Speaker 2: to obstruct justice. and that Trump asked him to obstruct
24:53
Speaker 2: Congress's investigation by refusing to answer questions.
24:56
Speaker 1: Seems significant.
24:58
Speaker 2: But look, we should talk about the Democrats and sort
25:00
Speaker 2: of like how this hearing went, right? Because while we
25:03
Speaker 2: learned all these things from Corey Lewandowski, we learned them
25:06
Speaker 2: at the end when Barry Burke, a lawyer for the
25:09
Speaker 2: Democratic staff, questioned Corey Lewandowski. Before that, it was a
25:13
Speaker 2: bit of a shit show. So what does this sort
25:15
Speaker 2: of say about the Democratic strategy around impeachment?
25:20
Speaker 1: Well, let's deal with the lawyer versus member questioning first.
25:24
Speaker 1: A lawyer should always do it, right? A staff lawyer
25:27
Speaker 1: or if you're in a situation where you have someone
25:29
Speaker 1: who is on the committee as a member who is
25:32
Speaker 1: a trained litigator and interrogator like Kamala Harris on the
25:35
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee. And it's just the five-minute time limit
25:39
Speaker 1: where you have to waste two of your minutes in preamble.
25:43
Speaker 1: is never enough time to actually get to the truth
25:46
Speaker 1: of anything. Because as soon as you get going, they
25:49
Speaker 1: hand it to some Republican who's just going to throw
25:52
Speaker 1: gorilla dust in the air, and then we start all
25:55
Speaker 1: over again. And so having an attorney do it, whether
25:58
Speaker 1: it's a staff attorney or one person over a sustained
25:59
Speaker 1: period of time, is a much better approach. That is
26:02
Speaker 1: never going to happen. It just will not.
26:06
Speaker 2: Why?
26:07
Speaker 1: Members of Congress look in the mirror and they see
26:09
Speaker 1: Daniel Caffey. Like, that is just how it is. And
26:12
Speaker 1: we had this conversation. We had it after Bill Barr.
26:14
Speaker 1: We had it after Michael Cohen. We had it after
26:15
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg. It's like, get a subject matter expert to
26:19
Speaker 1: ask questions.
26:21
Speaker 2: Like, there's a couple people in Congress who are good
26:23
Speaker 2: at this. Adam Schiff is very good at it, right?
26:26
Speaker 2: He was great in the Mueller hearing. Nadler is good
26:28
Speaker 2: at it. Nadler is good at it. Freshman members, AOC,
26:31
Speaker 2: very good at it. a lot of you just aren't
26:34
Speaker 2: so great. And this isn't like a fucking participation trophy
26:36
Speaker 2: exercise where everyone just needs to get there a couple
26:39
Speaker 2: minutes to feel good about themselves. Is that more important
26:42
Speaker 2: than making sure these hearings come off well and achieve
26:45
Speaker 2: their goal of bringing public opinion around to why the
26:49
Speaker 2: president needs impeaching?
26:51
Speaker 1: Or even just finding the truth. Forget public opinion. So
26:55
Speaker 1: you take AOC, who is great at this, but it's
26:57
Speaker 1: still five minutes, and then you hand it off. And
26:59
Speaker 1: so a better approach is, start with a Democrat, one
27:03
Speaker 1: Democrat doing it for some extended period of time, and
27:06
Speaker 1: then the Republican staff attorney or member can do it
27:08
Speaker 1: for the same amount of time. But the public will
27:10
Speaker 1: be better informed by that, for sure.
27:12
Speaker 2: And I will say, you know, and this gives me pause,
27:15
Speaker 2: we should talk about this, it gives me pause about
27:17
Speaker 2: sort of the broader Democratic strategy or any strategy around
27:21
Speaker 2: impeachment hearings is the Republican strategy here is very simple
27:24
Speaker 2: and it tracks with Trump's overall strategy, I think, in
27:28
Speaker 2: the election in 2020 and during his presidency, which is
27:32
Speaker 2: Like when they can make things seem like a fucking circus,
27:37
Speaker 2: like everyone's yelling, like we're all focused on like small
27:40
Speaker 2: minutia of, you know, who's insulting who, they win, right?
27:45
Speaker 2: Like they know how to play the media. Republicans know
27:48
Speaker 2: that if they scream and insult and yell at people,
27:51
Speaker 2: then the media won't report that as Republicans are screaming
27:54
Speaker 2: and yelling and insulting people and turning into a circus.
27:56
Speaker 2: The media will report it as both sides are at fault.
27:59
Speaker 2: And partly they do that because they know they're going
28:01
Speaker 2: to get a rise out of the Democrats on the
28:02
Speaker 2: committee as well, and the Democrats will return the insults, right?
28:05
Speaker 2: And so they can lure Democrats into the vortex of
28:08
Speaker 2: bullshit so that everyone's yelling at each other. This is
28:11
Speaker 2: going to be their strategy through impeachment. This is going
28:13
Speaker 2: to be Donald Trump's strategy in the 2020 election.
28:16
Speaker 1: It's how he won.
28:16
Speaker 2: It's how he won in 2016. Let's focus on small
28:19
Speaker 2: bullshit controversies, and let's forget the big things at stake here.
28:22
Speaker 2: And so my question is, do the House Democrats have
28:27
Speaker 2: the capacity— to focus on the big urgent stakes and
28:31
Speaker 2: the truth and not get drawn into the bullshit they
28:34
Speaker 2: got drawn into during the first couple hours of the
28:37
Speaker 2: Lewandowski hearing.
28:39
Speaker 3: No.
28:40
Speaker 1: And that's not, I don't, it's not even an indictment
28:43
Speaker 1: of the Democrats individually or collectively, right? It is the
28:47
Speaker 1: way the system works advantages the Republicans. It is the
28:53
Speaker 1: way punditry works, the way media works is we live
28:57
Speaker 1: in a both sides world and Republic, it is to
28:59
Speaker 1: Republican advantage to pull this into a contest of the
29:02
Speaker 1: lesser of two evils.
29:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:04
Speaker 1: And that is going to happen now.
29:05
Speaker 2: The whole frame of the election.
29:08
Speaker 1: I think it can theoretic, like in a presidential race,
29:11
Speaker 1: you can change that dynamic. Like in a one-on-one person
29:15
Speaker 1: against Trump.
29:15
Speaker 2: Takes a lot of, a lot of discipline, a lot
29:17
Speaker 2: of messages to plan, but you can.
29:18
Speaker 1: Do it and you can, and you do not depend
29:20
Speaker 1: as a presidential candidate on the filter to be the
29:23
Speaker 1: primary candidate.
29:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
29:26
Speaker 1: To the American people, you can run ads, you speak directly,
29:29
Speaker 1: you have that ability. It's much harder in Congress. So
29:34
Speaker 1: it's very challenging. But you give yourself the best advantage
29:38
Speaker 1: to do that is if you have a clear plan
29:42
Speaker 1: and a strategy that is obvious to the voters, to
29:46
Speaker 1: the media, and you tell them where you are going. Right.
29:49
Speaker 1: Like this is really important that in these confusing situations
29:53
Speaker 1: like these, you have to like we always yell about people,
29:56
Speaker 1: quote unquote, signaling the play and say what you're going
29:58
Speaker 1: to doing. In a situation like this, you have to
30:00
Speaker 1: lay out a timeline, a process, and a goal. And say,
30:03
Speaker 1: we're going to do this first. Our next step is this.
30:06
Speaker 1: And then this. And you sort of tell them the
30:08
Speaker 1: story in advance so they can follow along.
30:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. And not just say it once. You have to
30:13
Speaker 2: hit people in the media over the head with this
30:15
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Over and over and over. Because there's
30:17
Speaker 2: so much going on out there. And you just have
30:18
Speaker 2: to keep repeating the message. Now, in fairness... One of
30:23
Speaker 2: the big problems, one of the reasons the Democrats can't
30:25
Speaker 2: do this, can't have a very clear strategy that they
30:29
Speaker 2: communicate about impeachment is because they're divided on impeachment. So
30:33
Speaker 2: Politico published a story Wednesday night about the tensions between
30:35
Speaker 2: Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi, who, quote,
30:39
Speaker 2: criticized the panel's handling of impeachment in harsh terms, complaining
30:43
Speaker 2: committee aides have advanced the push for ousting President Donald
30:46
Speaker 2: Trump far beyond where the House Democratic caucus stands. Democrats
30:50
Speaker 2: simply don't have the votes on the floor to impeach Trump,
30:53
Speaker 2: Pelosi said, and you can feel free to leak this.
30:57
Speaker 2: The story came out in the heels of Nadler telling WNYC, quote, personally,
31:01
Speaker 2: I think the president ought to be impeached and that
31:04
Speaker 2: he believes the House should act on impeachment, even if
31:06
Speaker 2: the Senate will not remove the president because Congress has to, quote,
31:09
Speaker 2: vindicate the Constitution. Meanwhile, Pelosi then said of Corey Lewandowski
31:14
Speaker 2: that she, quote, would have held him in contempt right
31:17
Speaker 2: then and there, which many people are interpreting as a
31:19
Speaker 2: swipe at Nadler. Dan, what the fuck is going on here?
31:23
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel bad for Nadler, because Nadler
31:30
Speaker 2: is doing what he should be doing, doing what the
31:33
Speaker 2: Constitution requires, doing what is not only morally right, but
31:36
Speaker 2: what we have argued is politically astute, which is pushing
31:39
Speaker 2: forward on a number of hearings that will result in, hopefully,
31:44
Speaker 2: an impeachment, bringing articles of impeachment against the president of
31:47
Speaker 2: the United States. What is Nancy Pelosi doing?
31:52
Speaker 1: Here's what I think Nancy Pelosi is trying to do,
31:54
Speaker 1: which is she has made the political assessment and it
31:58
Speaker 1: is informed by her members.
32:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. It is important. We say Nancy Pelosi is shorthand here.
32:06
Speaker 2: And you can also make the argument that If Nancy
32:10
Speaker 2: Pelosi really wants something, she gets it, and she could
32:12
Speaker 2: convince all these more moderate members or swing district members
32:16
Speaker 2: to go along with impeachment. And I think there's a
32:18
Speaker 2: good argument for that, and she could. But this is
32:20
Speaker 2: not just Nancy Pelosi. This is a lot of the
32:21
Speaker 2: people that we all elected in 2018.
32:23
Speaker 1: We campaigned for them.
32:25
Speaker 3: We gave to them.
32:26
Speaker 1: And they've made the political assessment that Trump committed impeachable offenses.
32:30
Speaker 1: But because there will be no actual accountability for that
32:34
Speaker 1: other than a vote in the House.
32:35
Speaker 2: And because public opinion is so-so on impeachment.
32:39
Speaker 1: Therefore, it is overly politically risky to do it because
32:43
Speaker 1: I think it would be different if there was a
32:44
Speaker 1: belief the Senate could if you could actually remove Trump.
32:47
Speaker 1: I think people would have a different approach to this,
32:49
Speaker 1: but it is interpreted by some. I don't agree with
32:52
Speaker 1: this interpreted by some to be a show vote. And
32:54
Speaker 1: are you willing to put your race on the line
32:57
Speaker 1: for a show vote? Now, I would argue you're putting
32:59
Speaker 1: your race on the line, period. You are in a
33:02
Speaker 1: contested It's not like your Republican opponent is just going
33:05
Speaker 1: to drop off the ballot. You can't hide.
33:07
Speaker 2: From the news. You can't hide from politics. It's happening.
33:13
Speaker 1: But so, like, they are incredibly divided on this. And, like,
33:17
Speaker 1: we often make fun of the press for their heat-seeking,
33:22
Speaker 1: missile-like look for Dems in disarray memes. We are actually
33:27
Speaker 1: in disarray here. Like, that is a fact.
33:30
Speaker 2: Dems are in disarray.
33:31
Speaker 1: You have Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi. two leaders in Congress,
33:34
Speaker 1: the two most important people for this conversation about impeachment,
33:39
Speaker 1: completely on different pages. And this Speaker of the House
33:41
Speaker 1: feeling like the Judiciary Committee has pulled her in a
33:44
Speaker 1: place her caucus does not want to go. And you
33:46
Speaker 1: have the Judiciary Committee and a lot of the members
33:48
Speaker 1: feeling that the Speaker is keeping them from where they
33:50
Speaker 1: want to go, and they're telling everyone about it.
33:53
Speaker 2: And what's bizarre here is, you know, and the political
33:56
Speaker 2: story says this, Nancy Pelosi has signed off on every
33:59
Speaker 2: move that Jerry Nadler has made. She signed off on
34:02
Speaker 2: the court documents that state that this is an impeachment inquiry.
34:05
Speaker 2: So and then, you know, Pramila Jayapal said this in
34:08
Speaker 2: the story, too. She doesn't want to say the word impeachment,
34:11
Speaker 2: but she signed off on all the documents, which, again,
34:14
Speaker 2: like if Nancy Pelosi just wanted to go out and say, look,
34:20
Speaker 2: I know that he should be impeached. I think it's
34:22
Speaker 2: bad politics. I'm never going to be for it. I'm
34:25
Speaker 2: against this. It's just a bad idea. And that's that.
34:28
Speaker 2: I would seriously disagree with her. But I might respect
34:31
Speaker 2: that more and might respect it as a strategy more
34:34
Speaker 2: than what she's trying to do right now, which is
34:36
Speaker 2: have it both ways, which is, you know, OK, we're
34:38
Speaker 2: going to let Jerry Nadler go forward a little bit,
34:41
Speaker 2: but then I'm going to pull him back and then
34:43
Speaker 2: I'm going to take swipes at him in caucus meetings.
34:46
Speaker 2: And then I'm going to say things like you should
34:47
Speaker 2: have held Corey Lewandowski in contempt when I'm against impeachment. Like,
34:52
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I feel like the strategy of
34:54
Speaker 2: trying to have it both ways and straddle this is
34:57
Speaker 2: the worst of all worlds.
34:58
Speaker 1: One of the most important lessons that I learned from
35:01
Speaker 1: our time in the White House was most of the time,
35:05
Speaker 1: no decision is worse than a bad decision.
35:07
Speaker 2: Yes.
35:07
Speaker 1: And we are living in the no decision one, particularly
35:09
Speaker 1: in a situation where this is a 5149 proposition. And
35:13
Speaker 1: reasonable people can be on either side of that, whether
35:16
Speaker 1: everyone agrees it's the right thing to do. What people
35:19
Speaker 1: are disagreeing about is the politics of it. And it
35:21
Speaker 1: is a fair political question to ask, since the only
35:25
Speaker 1: thing the House will be doing is putting a scarlet
35:27
Speaker 1: eye on Trump.
35:29
Speaker 3: Right.
35:29
Speaker 1: They were not going to remove him from office. So
35:31
Speaker 1: it is fair to debate the politics of that. And
35:34
Speaker 1: people are coming down either sides of it. We think
35:37
Speaker 1: it's the right politics, although the last few weeks have
35:41
Speaker 1: caused me some concern on that.
35:43
Speaker 2: Me too. No, I mean, look, the reason that we
35:47
Speaker 2: think it's good politics, the reason we're for impeachment, aside
35:51
Speaker 2: from that it's the morally right thing to do and
35:53
Speaker 2: that he deserves to be impeached, is that we've argued
35:56
Speaker 2: that the Democrats can um, put on essentially a show and,
36:02
Speaker 2: and hold public trials and public hearings where there's enough
36:07
Speaker 2: media attention on that, that, uh, people in, you know,
36:10
Speaker 2: American people who are not yet on board watch these
36:13
Speaker 2: hearings and say, yeah, this guy does deserve to be impeached. Yeah.
36:16
Speaker 2: He's committed a lot of crimes. Yeah. He's really corrupt.
36:19
Speaker 2: And maybe if I'm on the fence, maybe if I'm
36:21
Speaker 2: going to, you know, I do need to come out
36:23
Speaker 2: and vote against him. And, um, make sure that the
36:26
Speaker 2: news is filled with stories about Donald Trump's corruption and
36:30
Speaker 2: his wrongdoing so that the news is not filled with
36:33
Speaker 2: all kinds of stories about the Democrats and the Democratic nominee.
36:36
Speaker 2: That's our calculation. But that depends on the Democrats running
36:41
Speaker 2: a good impeachment hearing and running a tight ship and
36:43
Speaker 2: not falling into their traps. And I'm not sure they
36:45
Speaker 2: can do it.
36:47
Speaker 1: Everything to date has been concerning. I just want to
36:49
Speaker 1: say one more point about Nancy Pelosi. I think we
36:52
Speaker 1: should be fair to her in this. And I think
36:56
Speaker 1: people can make, like, we disagree with what has happened
36:58
Speaker 1: to date. We disagree with her position on impeachment and
37:02
Speaker 1: people have every right to be, to do that. I
37:05
Speaker 1: think the criticism of Nancy Pelosi has to be rooted though,
37:07
Speaker 1: in the reality of her position, which is she could
37:11
Speaker 1: not tomorrow say we are going to impeach Trump and
37:15
Speaker 1: just do it. Right. The speaker of the house is more,
37:18
Speaker 1: is not a dictator. They really like this idea that
37:21
Speaker 1: everyone's like Frank Underwood or Lyndon Johnson and like twisting arms.
37:23
Speaker 1: That's not how Congress works. At most, she is a shepherd.
37:27
Speaker 1: She is moving a bunch of sheep, trying to get
37:30
Speaker 1: them to go in the right direction. And they are
37:33
Speaker 1: not doing that now. She could say, so I don't
37:36
Speaker 1: think she could say we're definitely impeaching and I'm going
37:38
Speaker 1: to make sure that happens. She could say we're definitely
37:40
Speaker 1: not impeaching. That was the thing she could say. And
37:43
Speaker 1: so that is the choice that I think lies before
37:48
Speaker 1: her and her Congress is, is at some point, do
37:51
Speaker 1: you just pull the Band-Aid off? And the sooner you
37:54
Speaker 1: do that, either the sooner you say, now there's going
37:57
Speaker 1: to set something on the floor and we're going to
37:58
Speaker 1: deal with it, or we're not going to do it,
38:02
Speaker 1: then at least there is strategic clarity and we can
38:04
Speaker 1: figure out what we're doing. But right now, it is
38:06
Speaker 1: a swamp of terribleness. And it is concerning. No one
38:11
Speaker 1: is benefiting by what's happening right now. Not the people
38:13
Speaker 1: who want to do impeachment, people who don't want impeachment.
38:15
Speaker 1: It is actually helping Trump because it is distracting from Because.
38:20
Speaker 2: We're talking about the impeachment process and we're not talking
38:22
Speaker 2: about the impeachable offenses. That's what it comes down to.
38:25
Speaker 1: That was the cloud over yesterday's hearing or Monday's or
38:27
Speaker 1: whatever day that hearing was.
38:28
Speaker 2: It's all process. That's what we're talking about because that's
38:30
Speaker 2: all that's happening and we cannot get enough media coverage
38:34
Speaker 2: of the substance. So that's where we did start today.
38:37
Speaker 2: The divisions within the Democratic Party are what's driving the narrative,
38:42
Speaker 2: which is unfortunate to say the least. Okay, let's move on.
38:47
Speaker 2: President Trump's been in California this week where he announced
38:50
Speaker 2: that he will use the power of the federal government
38:52
Speaker 2: to prevent our state from setting higher emission standards for
38:54
Speaker 2: our cars to go further on a gallon of gas
38:57
Speaker 2: and not contribute as much to human extinction. This past summer,
39:01
Speaker 2: four of the major auto companies made a deal with
39:03
Speaker 2: California to meet the state's fuel economy standard instead of
39:07
Speaker 2: just satisfying the federal rules, which are lower. But even
39:10
Speaker 2: though some of the biggest automakers themselves support California's position,
39:14
Speaker 2: Trump said that he's getting rid of the waiver that
39:16
Speaker 2: allows California to do this. California officials have already announced
39:19
Speaker 2: plans to sue once the administration has officially taken the action.
39:23
Speaker 2: So much for the state's rights party, huh? So much
39:28
Speaker 2: for that big, scary federal government. coming in to uh
39:31
Speaker 2: take over to trample on your rights.
39:33
Speaker 1: That on trump wants to make it more expensive for
39:35
Speaker 1: you to drive your.
39:35
Speaker 2: Car that's it that's it auto companies the people who
39:39
Speaker 2: are profiting from all this bullshit are saying yeah we'll
39:43
Speaker 2: make cars that go further on a gallon of gas
39:45
Speaker 2: we will agree to do that here in california more
39:48
Speaker 2: so than other cars that are made across the country.
39:52
Speaker 2: And yet, Donald Trump doesn't want that to happen. Now,
39:54
Speaker 2: he's saying, oh, this is about cheaper cars, but that
39:57
Speaker 2: is bullshit.
39:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is about oil company profits.
40:02
Speaker 2: So why is Trump's justification so bullshit here?
40:05
Speaker 1: Well, because it is cheaper for consumers in the long
40:08
Speaker 1: run to have more fuel-efficient cars.
40:10
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, like whatever you save in the short... And also,
40:13
Speaker 2: we're in this world now where all of these automakers,
40:16
Speaker 2: because of the market... are realizing that the market demands
40:19
Speaker 2: are what people want is cars that consume less gasoline
40:24
Speaker 2: because they can pay less for gas. It's not just,
40:28
Speaker 2: it's chiefly about making sure that one of the biggest
40:32
Speaker 2: emitters of carbon, which are cars and transportation sector in general,
40:37
Speaker 2: emit less carbon, of course, that's going to help save
40:39
Speaker 2: the planet. But it's also going to save people in
40:41
Speaker 2: the long run if you have to fill up less.
40:44
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump's just coming in here and And by
40:46
Speaker 2: the way, what happens in California affects the rest of
40:48
Speaker 2: the country because California is such a big market, right?
40:51
Speaker 2: That now, if Donald Trump has his way, you know,
40:54
Speaker 2: there'll be more gas closures. That's basically what he's fighting
40:57
Speaker 2: for right now.
40:57
Speaker 1: And oil companies will be richer. Like, that's what it is.
41:00
Speaker 2: So that's one attack that Trump has launched on California.
41:05
Speaker 2: He's also become obsessed with homelessness in cities like L.A.
41:09
Speaker 2: and San Francisco. Last week, the Washington Post broke the
41:11
Speaker 2: story that the administration is actively considering plans to crack
41:14
Speaker 2: down on homeless camps here in California and possibly move
41:17
Speaker 2: people into facilities run by the federal government. Federal officials
41:20
Speaker 2: have apparently looked at a historic building over by LAX
41:23
Speaker 2: as a potential site for such a shelter. When traveling
41:26
Speaker 2: on Air Force One on his way out here, Trump
41:27
Speaker 2: said that, quote, we can't let Los Angeles, San Francisco
41:30
Speaker 2: and numerous other cities destroy themselves by allowing what's happening
41:35
Speaker 2: and lamented that homelessness issues are ruining, quote, the prestige
41:39
Speaker 2: of these cities. He also said that he's personally heard
41:42
Speaker 2: complaints from people like foreign real estate investors who are
41:46
Speaker 2: deeply concerned about how tents and homeless people are affecting
41:49
Speaker 2: their property values. So why is Trump obsessed with this issue?
41:53
Speaker 2: Why did he suddenly decide to care about homelessness in
41:57
Speaker 2: our cities here in California?
41:58
Speaker 1: Because deep in his dark soul, there was a glimmer
42:00
Speaker 1: of empathy.
42:03
Speaker 2: No.
42:05
Speaker 1: It is important to Trump's political narrative to tell a
42:08
Speaker 1: story of cities which are a proxy for places inhabited
42:12
Speaker 1: by Liberal elites and people of color.
42:14
Speaker 3: Right.
42:15
Speaker 2: As two least favorite groups of people.
42:17
Speaker 1: Yes. As threatening hell holes.
42:19
Speaker 3: Right.
42:19
Speaker 2: That are overrun with immigrants.
42:20
Speaker 1: That are encroaching upon. They're going to they're going to
42:22
Speaker 1: hate it there so much they're going to move to
42:25
Speaker 1: your suburb or your rural town. And so it is
42:28
Speaker 1: like the exact thing that a 70 plus year old
42:33
Speaker 1: white guy from Queens whose brain was pickled in the
42:36
Speaker 1: 80s thinks.
42:37
Speaker 3: Right.
42:38
Speaker 1: Like it is a very simplistic racist view of cities.
42:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a there's a political benefit here, as
42:46
Speaker 2: there is with everything that Donald Trump does. And you
42:49
Speaker 2: can see it in the electoral results, even since 2016, where,
42:53
Speaker 2: you know, American politics today can be, you know, one
42:57
Speaker 2: way you can look at it is this deepening divide
43:01
Speaker 2: between urban areas in this country and rural areas in
43:04
Speaker 2: this country, urban and suburban areas and rural and exurban areas.
43:08
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump wins with grievance politics and he wins
43:11
Speaker 2: with fear. And he's trying to make his America in
43:16
Speaker 2: the rural areas and ex-urban areas afraid of the cities
43:20
Speaker 2: and angry about the cities because he wants to continue
43:24
Speaker 2: deepening that divide. So he isolates people who live in
43:27
Speaker 2: the cities as bad, whether it's people of color, whether
43:30
Speaker 2: it's immigrants, whether it's liberals. Those people are bad. They
43:33
Speaker 2: are taking all of our money. They are draining our resources.
43:36
Speaker 2: They are filled with dangerous people. They are a blight
43:38
Speaker 2: on America. I am fighting the war against the cities
43:42
Speaker 2: and the liberals and the immigrants on your behalf. That
43:45
Speaker 2: is his message.
43:46
Speaker 1: He's also angry because he's unpopular in those places.
43:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's part of it too.
43:50
Speaker 1: I mean, we should also just, it is important to
43:52
Speaker 1: acknowledge that homelessness is a huge problem in the cities
43:56
Speaker 1: in which we live.
43:57
Speaker 2: It is. It's a huge problem. And it's a huge
44:00
Speaker 2: problem that, you know, the Democrats haven't come up, you know,
44:04
Speaker 2: enough Democrats haven't come up with a solution or at
44:06
Speaker 2: least a workable solution. There's plenty of great policies out there.
44:09
Speaker 2: Not a lot of workable solutions yet for this issue.
44:12
Speaker 1: And the reason that people are homeless is multivariable, right?
44:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
44:17
Speaker 2: It is. It can be- There are regulations in California
44:21
Speaker 2: that are making it incredibly hard to.
44:23
Speaker 1: Housing costs.
44:23
Speaker 2: Housing costs.
44:24
Speaker 1: Changes in the economy.
44:25
Speaker 3: Rent.
44:26
Speaker 1: Opioid crisis. There's a whole set of things.
44:28
Speaker 2: That- Massive inequality, economic inequality.
44:31
Speaker 1: So people don't have the- There's not a silver bullet solution.
44:34
Speaker 1: I know the silver bullet solution is not, however, the
44:37
Speaker 1: federal government rounding up the homeless people- and putting them
44:40
Speaker 1: in a camp, which is what Donald Trump proposed. And
44:43
Speaker 1: we all just went, it was like in the ninth
44:44
Speaker 1: paragraph of a story. Like, we haven't even talked about
44:46
Speaker 1: it since then. It is one of the most fucking
44:47
Speaker 1: craziest things anyone's said in a long time.
44:49
Speaker 2: It's incredibly scary. It's incredibly dehumanizing. It's like fucking, you know,
44:53
Speaker 2: years and years on HBO come to life here. The
44:57
Speaker 2: way that Trump, I mean, I know that homelessness is
45:00
Speaker 2: a problem. It is a crisis. This is how Donald
45:02
Speaker 2: Trump talks about it, though. Quote, we have people living
45:05
Speaker 2: in our best highways, our best streets, our best entrances
45:09
Speaker 2: to buildings, and pay tremendous taxes where they went to
45:12
Speaker 2: those locations because of the prestige. In many cases, they
45:15
Speaker 2: come from other countries and they move to Los Angeles
45:16
Speaker 2: or they move to San Francisco because of the prestige
45:18
Speaker 2: of the city, and all of a sudden they have tents.
45:20
Speaker 2: Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the
45:22
Speaker 2: entrance to their office building and they want to leave.
45:25
Speaker 2: In Donald Trump's mind, the problem is not the thousands
45:29
Speaker 2: and thousands of people who have fallen on hard times,
45:33
Speaker 2: who probably worked hard, you know, probably had homes at
45:36
Speaker 2: one point, lost their job, lost their homes, can't afford
45:39
Speaker 2: the cost of living with their families. They take the,
45:41
Speaker 2: you know, they have children. They are in and out
45:43
Speaker 2: of homeless shelters. Like, that's not the problem. The problem
45:47
Speaker 2: is that those people are a blight on the city.
45:50
Speaker 2: It is the most dehumanizing thing you could say. It
45:53
Speaker 2: is scary to listen to a leader dehumanize people like
45:58
Speaker 2: he has done.
45:58
Speaker 1: Like, I think the way to think about it is
46:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump does not care about the person who has
46:02
Speaker 1: to sleep in the street. His concern about homelessness is
46:04
Speaker 1: about the person who has to step over the person
46:05
Speaker 1: sleeping in the street.
46:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's very scary. He already has this war
46:13
Speaker 2: on immigrants, specifically immigrants of color. Not the ones from Norway,
46:17
Speaker 2: of course. And now he's moving from that to homelessness.
46:22
Speaker 2: He's trying to sort of siphon off parts of the
46:25
Speaker 2: population that he deems either dangerous or a blight on
46:31
Speaker 2: the cities or whatever. it's, it's really, really bad.
46:33
Speaker 1: This is very Giuliani era, New York city type politics
46:39
Speaker 1: on steroids.
46:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would, I would, with the power of the
46:41
Speaker 2: federal government, with the power of the federal government. And
46:43
Speaker 2: I think the language too is, is, is really amped up.
46:47
Speaker 2: What kind of, you know, what, what are Democrats doing
46:49
Speaker 2: about this? What kind of plans of Democrats had? I
46:50
Speaker 2: saw that Bernie, uh, has a housing for all plan,
46:53
Speaker 2: which I think is, is great. It's, you know, I
46:55
Speaker 2: think it's a two and a half trillion dollars over
46:57
Speaker 2: 10 years. And, um, You know, he aims to end
47:01
Speaker 2: homelessness and enact a national cap on rent, on rent hikes.
47:07
Speaker 2: We saw, you know, Beto O'Rourke was out here this week.
47:09
Speaker 2: He toured Skid Row in Los Angeles and talked to
47:13
Speaker 2: homeless people and homeless advocates. So that's good. But I
47:16
Speaker 2: don't know. Have you seen any? How do you think
47:17
Speaker 2: Democrats should handle this?
47:19
Speaker 1: I think you're going to need a whole series of approaches, right?
47:23
Speaker 1: Medicare for all, like some element of this is mental health, right?
47:27
Speaker 1: Medicare for all or some of these other universal health
47:29
Speaker 1: care plans to expand access to health care would give
47:32
Speaker 1: people more access to mental health services. We have to
47:34
Speaker 1: deal with substance abuse issues. Bernie's point is exactly right
47:39
Speaker 1: that we have to make housing more affordable in this country.
47:43
Speaker 1: It is unaffordable in these cities and is pushing people
47:46
Speaker 1: out and onto the streets and elsewhere.
47:48
Speaker 2: Some of this is a NIMBY problem, right? Not in
47:51
Speaker 2: my backyard, right? There's a lot of wealthy liberals who
47:54
Speaker 2: say that they want to care about homelessness, but when
47:56
Speaker 2: you start building affordable housing in their neighborhood, say absolutely not.
48:00
Speaker 1: They get the shelter somewhere else.
48:01
Speaker 2: Right. So that's a huge problem, too. So there are
48:03
Speaker 2: a lot of problems here, but Donald Trump isn't serious
48:05
Speaker 2: about any of these problems. This is a political wedge
48:07
Speaker 2: issue for him, and he seems to be obsessed with
48:12
Speaker 2: California for a very specific reason.
48:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, California doesn't love him.
48:15
Speaker 2: Right. And it's liberal, and it's a caricature of everything
48:20
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump wants to talk about in this campaign.
48:22
Speaker 2: So he comes out here to make sure that our
48:24
Speaker 2: cars are more expensive, scapegoats homeless people, and then he
48:29
Speaker 2: spends the night in Beverly Hills raising $ 15 million for
48:32
Speaker 2: his campaign from the richest people. Just in case you
48:35
Speaker 2: were wondering what's going on behind the scenes while Donald
48:38
Speaker 2: Trump is engaging in his culture war, He is trying
48:42
Speaker 2: to steal as many of the, make himself richer, win
48:45
Speaker 2: his campaign, take as much of the nation's resources as
48:47
Speaker 2: he can for himself.
48:48
Speaker 1: Destroying the planet to own the libs.
48:50
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. Okay, when we come back, we
48:52
Speaker 2: will be talking to Obama campaign manager, David Plouffe. On
49:03
Speaker 2: the pod today, the host of the brand new podcast,
49:05
Speaker 2: Campaign HQ, that drops today, and the author of the
49:09
Speaker 2: forthcoming book, A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump, Obama
49:12
Speaker 2: campaign manager and White House senior advisor, David Plouffe. Plouffe,
49:16
Speaker 2: good to have you here in studio.
49:17
Speaker 3: It's so great to be here in studio. Check out
49:19
Speaker 3: the Crooked episode.
49:20
Speaker 2: This is exciting. We haven't had you here yet.
49:22
Speaker 1: Remember that meeting in early 2007 where we all talked
49:25
Speaker 1: about our future career as podcasters?
49:29
Speaker 2: This is it. This is where we all landed.
49:31
Speaker 1: We can win Iowa, we can win the presidency, and
49:33
Speaker 1: we can start podcasting.
49:33
Speaker 2: Change America, and then change podcasting.
49:36
Speaker 3: Better than Being on Dancing with the Stars, I guess.
49:39
Speaker 3: Maybe just barely.
49:40
Speaker 2: It is an improvement. It is an improvement. I'm pretty
49:42
Speaker 2: proud of us that we did not talk about that today.
49:44
Speaker 2: Michael did ask if we wanted it in the outline,
49:46
Speaker 2: and we refused because we're bigger than that, right? Not really.
49:49
Speaker 2: All right, I want to talk about your podcast and
49:51
Speaker 2: your book, but let's talk about 2020 first. We're almost
49:55
Speaker 2: a year out from the election. How would you assess
49:58
Speaker 2: the political environment right now heading into 2020, sort of
50:01
Speaker 2: the overall fundamentals?
50:02
Speaker 3: For the general election?
50:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do the general. Well... knowing that obviously we
50:07
Speaker 2: don't have a nominee yet and that's a big piece
50:09
Speaker 2: of the puzzle.
50:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so let's start there. The big things
50:11
Speaker 3: that will determine the state of the economy, are we
50:14
Speaker 3: at war in the Middle East, strength of the Democratic nominee,
50:17
Speaker 3: strength of the campaign Trump runs. So those are the
50:20
Speaker 3: big things. And on the plus side of the ledger,
50:22
Speaker 3: if you want to get rid of the sociopath in office,
50:26
Speaker 3: bad approval numbers across the board, hard reelect numbers quite low,
50:30
Speaker 3: most of the head-to-heads with some of the potential Democratic
50:32
Speaker 3: candidates in most battleground states, not great. But, you know,
50:38
Speaker 3: this time, if I remember in 11, we were given
50:40
Speaker 3: about a 20% chance to win. So a lot can change.
50:43
Speaker 3: And what concerns me is I think Trump's going to
50:46
Speaker 3: get astronomically high turnout.
50:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
50:48
Speaker 3: So you look at Florida in 16, you know, a
50:50
Speaker 3: million more people voted there. Some went for Hillary, but
50:52
Speaker 3: Trump got about a half million more votes in Romney.
50:55
Speaker 3: You look at 04, what Bush did in Ohio. I
50:57
Speaker 3: think that's what we need to prepare for. So if
50:58
Speaker 3: you're modeling what does it take to win Wisconsin, Arizona,
51:01
Speaker 3: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, you better give Trump massive turnout. And
51:05
Speaker 3: we see what he's trying to do. He's trying to
51:07
Speaker 3: drive up the third party vote. Last time it kind
51:09
Speaker 3: of just happened. But, you know, infanticide, you won't be
51:13
Speaker 3: able to eat hamburgers, you won't be able to fly,
51:15
Speaker 3: you won't be able to use your car. There's a
51:16
Speaker 3: smart strategy behind that. So I'd still rather be the
51:19
Speaker 3: Democrat than him. But I think we also know he's
51:22
Speaker 3: going to overperform his national poll numbers in most battleground states.
51:25
Speaker 3: So we better prepare for an epic battle that's going
51:27
Speaker 3: to come down to a point or two. Now, if
51:29
Speaker 3: we really do slide into recession, then I think this
51:31
Speaker 3: could break open. But absent that, I think it's going
51:33
Speaker 3: to be super tight. And I don't even know who
51:36
Speaker 3: I'm going to vote for yet, much who I think
51:38
Speaker 3: is the strongest candidate. I think that'll come into clarity
51:41
Speaker 3: in January or February. But I know we need a candidate.
51:44
Speaker 3: So let's think about Wisconsin, who can get a 58
51:47
Speaker 3: or 60-year-old iron worker who might have voted for Trump
51:49
Speaker 3: back and get the kids on the college campuses and
51:52
Speaker 3: the young African-American community in Milwaukee fired up. Have to
51:55
Speaker 3: do both. This isn't a base or persuasion question.
51:57
Speaker 2: It's both.
51:59
Speaker 1: In the list of states you just gave, you included...
52:02
Speaker 1: Arizona and North Carolina. You did not include Ohio, Iowa,
52:06
Speaker 1: and Florida. Do you think, are Ohio and Iowa unlikely
52:12
Speaker 1: to be in play this time? And what do you
52:14
Speaker 1: think the state of Florida is?
52:15
Speaker 3: Well, my sense is the six core battlegrounds will be Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona,
52:21
Speaker 3: North Carolina, and Florida. Now, Florida, Trump's going to get
52:25
Speaker 3: massive turnout, but we just lost, you know, Gillum almost won.
52:30
Speaker 3: great candidate, but was also under investigation. That hurt him.
52:33
Speaker 1: Turns out that's a problem in elections.
52:35
Speaker 3: Problem in election. You know, I think Nelson wasn't the
52:37
Speaker 3: strongest candidate in that race against Scott. We won it
52:40
Speaker 3: twice narrowly. So I think Florida is going to be,
52:42
Speaker 3: and we know if you register enough voters down there
52:44
Speaker 3: and do a good job on turnout. So, and given
52:46
Speaker 3: that it's 29 electoral votes, so it's those six. I
52:48
Speaker 3: think whether Ohio and Iowa, Texas and Georgia are in play,
52:52
Speaker 3: those are going to be the tough decisions made by
52:54
Speaker 3: our nominees campaign. And it probably depends on who they
52:56
Speaker 3: are and their appeal. Trump is going to look at
52:58
Speaker 3: Minnesota closely, obviously. I think that will be a battleground. Now,
53:02
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a scenario where Trump loses Michigan
53:06
Speaker 3: and Pennsylvania and wins Minnesota. It's not a tipping point,
53:08
Speaker 3: but he'll put pressure there. I don't know why he's
53:10
Speaker 3: going to New Mexico. But, you know, he'll probably look
53:13
Speaker 3: again at Nevada and New Hampshire would be my guess.
53:16
Speaker 3: But I think the six are those three upper Midwest states, Arizona,
53:19
Speaker 3: North Carolina, Florida. And listen, it's not crazy to have
53:22
Speaker 3: a scenario where the Democrat wins Pennsylvania and Michigan back,
53:24
Speaker 3: loses Wisconsin. but gets Arizona. Same number of electoral votes
53:27
Speaker 3: as Wisconsin. So you got to play there, I think.
53:30
Speaker 2: With the caveat that obviously the nominee should have a
53:35
Speaker 2: message that speaks to all voters, who are the groups
53:39
Speaker 2: of voters that you would be spending most time and
53:42
Speaker 2: resources talking to as the nominee?
53:46
Speaker 3: Well, let's look at Wisconsin as just an example. Look
53:47
Speaker 3: at the numbers. So in 16, Hillary got, I think,
53:50
Speaker 3: 29 or 30,000 votes less than Obama in Milwaukee. Now,
53:54
Speaker 3: Trump won by 23,000. So you could say, let's just
53:57
Speaker 3: take care of the turnout, then we win. Do we
53:58
Speaker 3: really want to go into the margin of error of 7,000 votes? Right.
54:02
Speaker 3: But she got 250,000 less votes than Obama in all
54:05
Speaker 3: the exorbitant rural areas, 600,000 less in Ohio. So you've
54:09
Speaker 3: got to look at it. What are the cohorts? One,
54:11
Speaker 3: we've got to do a ton of registration. We've got
54:14
Speaker 3: a massive turnout problem. So that's all base. We've got
54:17
Speaker 3: to keep people off third parties. Because if Trump has
54:20
Speaker 3: to get to 50%, or even 49.5% in these battlegrounds,
54:24
Speaker 3: I don't think he can do it. He's gonna wanna
54:25
Speaker 3: win again at 47 or 48. And then there are
54:28
Speaker 3: persuadable voters, and who are they? Well, those Trump-Obama voters
54:31
Speaker 3: as we know do exist. There's also people who voted
54:33
Speaker 3: for Clinton in the suburbs, particularly some women suburban voters
54:36
Speaker 3: who may be open to Trump this time. Still don't
54:38
Speaker 3: like his personal behavior, but the economy's working well for them.
54:41
Speaker 3: So our campaign, our nominee will have a very good
54:44
Speaker 3: sense of that. But you've gotta look at it as,
54:46
Speaker 3: you've gotta get enough from each of those buckets. Particularly
54:50
Speaker 3: when you, I think, model out Trump's turnout, I think
54:53
Speaker 3: you need to assume it's going to be higher than
54:55
Speaker 3: you can imagine. And if it's not, great. But I
54:58
Speaker 3: think the folks in the MAGA hats are coming out,
55:00
Speaker 3: and I think they're going to come out with huge strength.
55:03
Speaker 3: And so we need to have a candidate that's able
55:05
Speaker 3: to drive registration and turnout, keep particularly young voters off
55:09
Speaker 3: third-party candidates, and then get enough turnout and persuasion. So
55:14
Speaker 3: look at Wisconsin. You're not going to get 250,000 of
55:16
Speaker 3: those votes back. that flip from Obama to Trump. But
55:22
Speaker 3: maybe you get 50 or 100 grand. So I think
55:25
Speaker 3: that's where the focus has to be. And we know
55:26
Speaker 3: that Trump is vulnerable with these voters on corruption, on
55:30
Speaker 3: trade and tariffs, on healthcare, on taxes.
55:33
Speaker 2: Do you think that where he's vulnerable with those voters
55:38
Speaker 2: are the same places he's vulnerable with some of these
55:41
Speaker 2: Obama drop-off voters, third-party voters? Basically, do you think that
55:44
Speaker 2: there is a message that can sort of stitch all
55:47
Speaker 2: of these constituencies together?
55:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I'm not suggesting is we have different messages
55:51
Speaker 3: for different cohorts. I mean, the challenge here and the
55:54
Speaker 3: necessity is a candidate who can say the same thing
55:56
Speaker 3: in a rural area, in an urban area, college campus,
56:00
Speaker 3: a retirement home, and have that work. So, you know,
56:03
Speaker 3: fighting for an economy that works for everybody, ending corruption,
56:05
Speaker 3: getting health care for everybody, rebuilding our alliances and not
56:09
Speaker 3: fighting dumb wars. All of these things can work with everybody.
56:13
Speaker 3: And so, but it's one thing, the messaging, but I
56:17
Speaker 3: think you need hopefully a candidate in a campaign that's
56:19
Speaker 3: got the mixture of inspiration and organization to capitalize on that.
56:25
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of concern as these debates have
56:27
Speaker 1: gone forward that the Democrats are moving too far left
56:29
Speaker 1: to win the exact set of voters that you're talking
56:33
Speaker 1: about in the excerpts of Wisconsin or wherever else. Do
56:36
Speaker 1: you share that concern?
56:38
Speaker 3: Well, I think most people in this country are locked
56:41
Speaker 3: into how they're going to perform. And I think that
56:45
Speaker 3: I'm not overly concerned about it because I think once
56:48
Speaker 3: you get to the general election, it's not just going
56:49
Speaker 3: to be what our nominee says about health care, but
56:51
Speaker 3: it's compared to the destruction Trump has brought onto the
56:54
Speaker 3: health care system. And so so but I do think
56:59
Speaker 3: that I am concerned about the health care debate because
57:04
Speaker 3: I do think that I think that Sanders and Warren
57:07
Speaker 3: and Harris, they're all doing a good job of talking
57:10
Speaker 3: about You're still going to be able to have your doctor,
57:12
Speaker 3: and we're just basically changing the way that healthcare gets administered.
57:15
Speaker 3: But I think a lot of people out there, even
57:17
Speaker 3: a lot of Democrats, probably are concerned about losing private
57:19
Speaker 3: insurance overnight. So I am concerned about that issue. But
57:23
Speaker 3: let's look at Trump. I mean, so you want to
57:25
Speaker 3: have a debate about healthcare. We're talking about how to
57:27
Speaker 3: get everybody covered, and he's doing everything he can to
57:30
Speaker 3: deny coverage, pre-existing conditions, attacking women on healthcare. So I
57:34
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of weaponry there. But whoever, listen,
57:37
Speaker 3: I don't see anybody on the stage last week who
57:39
Speaker 3: can't win. It's also possible any of them could lose.
57:42
Speaker 3: I think we ought to just plan accordingly that this
57:44
Speaker 3: is going to be a coin flip election.
57:46
Speaker 2: Which candidates do you think are running particularly smart campaigns?
57:50
Speaker 3: Honestly, for me, I won't answer that question when people
57:53
Speaker 3: start voting because that's what matters. Did they do what
57:56
Speaker 3: they need to in Iowa and South Carolina and Super Tuesday?
57:59
Speaker 3: Then there's no bullshit. It's just like, did they run
58:02
Speaker 3: the kind of campaign they needed? I'd say that Warren's
58:05
Speaker 3: probably the most consistent from a message standpoint. I think
58:08
Speaker 3: she's the crispest candidate. I'm not in Iowa these days
58:12
Speaker 3: as much as I'd like to be. But you hear
58:15
Speaker 3: that most of them are putting together pretty good organizations
58:18
Speaker 3: in Iowa. Now, that's one state. And so I think
58:21
Speaker 3: one of the interesting things is who's able to do
58:23
Speaker 3: it in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and begin to
58:25
Speaker 3: plan accordingly for the March states. Because almost most of
58:28
Speaker 3: the country and most of the delegates are going to
58:30
Speaker 3: be awarded in March. So you've got to be prepared
58:33
Speaker 3: not just to do well and execute a good organization
58:36
Speaker 3: in the early states. But I think Warren's probably been
58:38
Speaker 3: the most impressive so far in just terms of, like,
58:41
Speaker 3: she seems to have, I think, the clearest sense of
58:44
Speaker 3: why she's running. I think she communicates it in an
58:46
Speaker 3: effective way. But she's also now, you know, there's a
58:49
Speaker 3: chance in a couple of weeks here she's going to
58:50
Speaker 3: be the frontrunner. And so we'll see how she deals
58:53
Speaker 3: with those spotlights. And that's the thing about this process
58:56
Speaker 3: is I think it really won't be until middle of June,
58:59
Speaker 3: maybe even the third week of June, to begin to
59:01
Speaker 3: have some sense of how this may unfold. And part
59:03
Speaker 3: of that's how do candidates deal with this.
59:05
Speaker 1: Of June?
59:06
Speaker 3: Sorry, of January.
59:08
Speaker 1: Oh, I was like, Plouffe drops the bomb of the
59:10
Speaker 1: brokered convention right here.
59:11
Speaker 3: Well, I did have Greg Schultz on my first podcast,
59:15
Speaker 3: Biden's campaign manager. And, you know, they're not assessing the odds.
59:18
Speaker 3: It's huge, but they're planning for a scenario. I mean,
59:21
Speaker 3: if you have three candidates emerge into March, we may not,
59:23
Speaker 3: maybe it'll be two. And none of them are getting,
59:25
Speaker 3: you know, more than 40% of the vote. You know,
59:27
Speaker 3: you could end up with somebody you know, maybe there'll
59:29
Speaker 3: be a clear leader in terms of pledge delegates from
59:32
Speaker 3: a plurality standpoint, maybe not majority. But I think January,
59:36
Speaker 3: you know, the race, we are literally like candidates are
59:38
Speaker 3: still stretching. I mean, it is so early. I mean,
59:41
Speaker 3: you look what John Kerry did, John, you were on
59:43
Speaker 3: that race. Yeah.
59:45
Speaker 2: We were left for dead at this point. Left for dead.
59:47
Speaker 2: In 2003 in September.
59:47
Speaker 3: We were kind of left for dead at this point
59:49
Speaker 3: back in 07.
59:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right.
59:51
Speaker 3: You know, so.
59:52
Speaker 2: Massively.
59:52
Speaker 3: Jimmy Carter, like on the democratic side, our stuff tends
59:55
Speaker 3: to break a little bit late. So So right now
59:57
Speaker 3: it looks like, well, it's got to be Biden, Sanders.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Or Warren.
1:00:00
Speaker 3: There's no room for anybody else. But history suggests that
1:00:03
Speaker 3: there probably will be an opening for one or two
1:00:04
Speaker 3: of these candidates.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: And do you think that opening is likely to be
1:00:09
Speaker 1: someone from a different generation, given the fact that you
1:00:11
Speaker 1: have three candidates around the age of 70 who've been
1:00:15
Speaker 1: on the political stage for Biden and Sanders, obviously, for decades,
1:00:19
Speaker 1: and Warren has been a well-known political figure for a decade?
1:00:23
Speaker 3: Well, I think the rest of the contenders are younger
1:00:25
Speaker 3: than they are. They span kind of mid 30s to
1:00:28
Speaker 3: mid 50s. But I think you're already seeing in Iowa.
1:00:31
Speaker 3: So I don't want to talk too much about polls because,
1:00:34
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't conduct them. I don't know if
1:00:35
Speaker 3: they're right. But, you know, you see the polling even
1:00:37
Speaker 3: over the last week that's come out both in Iowa nationally.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: You're starting to see that delta between the polls nationally
1:00:42
Speaker 3: in Iowa because in Iowa, it's where the campaign's happening.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: And so you see, you know, Mayor Pete's higher in
1:00:48
Speaker 3: Iowa than he is nationally. I think Harris might be
1:00:50
Speaker 3: a little bit higher. And they're both on TV now.
1:00:53
Speaker 3: They're both on TV, which still matters in Iowa and everywhere.
1:00:58
Speaker 3: So I think that what's fascinating about Iowa is if
1:01:03
Speaker 3: Biden or Warren, and you could maybe argue Sanders, don't
1:01:07
Speaker 3: come in first in Iowa, maybe they'll be able to recover,
1:01:09
Speaker 3: but it's a setback. But if a Mayor Pete or
1:01:13
Speaker 3: a Kamala or a Beto or a Klobuchar come in third,
1:01:17
Speaker 3: that's a massive victory. And so, so much of what
1:01:19
Speaker 3: happens in this prime will depend on how the chips fall.
1:01:21
Speaker 3: So Let's say we come out of South Carolina and
1:01:23
Speaker 3: Biden's still doing well, or at least, you know, at
1:01:27
Speaker 3: strong enough position to win. And he doesn't have like
1:01:29
Speaker 3: Harris or Booker in the final three, let's say. Well,
1:01:32
Speaker 3: he's probably going to be the candidate that's going to
1:01:34
Speaker 3: do best for the African-American voters. But if it's him
1:01:36
Speaker 3: and Warren or Sanders and a Harris or a Booker,
1:01:39
Speaker 3: he's so, so much of this depends on how the
1:01:42
Speaker 3: chips fall in terms of who the semifinals and finalists are.
1:01:45
Speaker 3: And the candidates really don't have any control over that.
1:01:47
Speaker 3: So I think that's an important thing to pay attention
1:01:49
Speaker 3: to is, Because, again, after South Carolina, this thing's going
1:01:52
Speaker 3: to happen with such velocity.
1:01:54
Speaker 2: Now, in 07 and 08, Hillary was obviously leading Obama
1:02:00
Speaker 2: among African-American voters until we won Iowa. And then it
1:02:04
Speaker 2: changed almost overnight. And Barack Obama goes on to win
1:02:07
Speaker 2: South Carolina. I've seen a lot of people saying, OK, well, yeah,
1:02:11
Speaker 2: Biden's got this massive lead with African-American voters right now.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: If Elizabeth Warren wins Iowa, all bets are off. Do
1:02:18
Speaker 2: you think that's sort of an automatic thing that happens
1:02:21
Speaker 2: in every case or was it unique to us or
1:02:23
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on that?
1:02:24
Speaker 3: Well, we were an African-American candidate.
1:02:26
Speaker 2: Right.
1:02:26
Speaker 3: So I think that that's where like if Kamala Harris
1:02:29
Speaker 3: were able to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire,
1:02:32
Speaker 3: get some momentum in South Carolina, I think she's going
1:02:33
Speaker 3: to eat into Biden's African-American numbers. Whether like a Warren
1:02:37
Speaker 3: or Sanders can, you know, I think it depends, first
1:02:40
Speaker 3: of all, on, you know, who's really strong heading into
1:02:42
Speaker 3: South Carolina. So if it really is Warren, Sanders and Biden,
1:02:47
Speaker 3: let's say that scenario. You know, Biden probably still should
1:02:50
Speaker 3: be considered the favorite both in that state and African-American voters. But,
1:02:53
Speaker 3: you know, if Biden were to come in third in
1:02:55
Speaker 3: Iowa and come in fourth in New Hampshire is really struggling.
1:02:58
Speaker 3: You know, momentum is a powerful, powerful thing in politics
1:03:01
Speaker 3: and not having momentum is a powerful thing.
1:03:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:03:03
Speaker 3: So so that's where when I had Greg on, you know,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: he was very clear that, you know, they're not expecting
1:03:08
Speaker 3: to win all the early states. But you have to
1:03:11
Speaker 3: do well enough to keep the momentum in the balloon.
1:03:14
Speaker 2: I thought that was, I'd love you to unpack that
1:03:16
Speaker 2: a little bit because I thought that was fascinating when
1:03:17
Speaker 2: I was listening to Campaign HQ and Greg Schultz, who's
1:03:21
Speaker 2: Biden's campaign manager, is he did start talking like, okay,
1:03:24
Speaker 2: we may not win a couple of these early states,
1:03:26
Speaker 2: but the media needs to pay attention to the delegates.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: Could you sort of explain his argument and delegates in
1:03:32
Speaker 2: general for people who might not understand that?
1:03:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:03:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:03:35
Speaker 3: So thank you for the plug, by the way. Subscribe
1:03:38
Speaker 3: or download Apple or wherever you get your podcast. You
1:03:40
Speaker 3: guys do better than I do. Thank you, Pfeiffer. So
1:03:45
Speaker 3: I think that ultimately, most people realize that the presidential
1:03:50
Speaker 3: election is about one number, 270 electoral votes.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: It's all that matters.
1:03:53
Speaker 3: We'd like to change it into a popular system, not
1:03:55
Speaker 3: going to happen. So the only thing that matters really
1:03:57
Speaker 3: in a primary race is 1,990 delegates. So that's the
1:04:00
Speaker 3: number of pledged delegates you need. And we changed our rules.
1:04:03
Speaker 3: So superdelegates won't vote on the first ballot. And I
1:04:06
Speaker 3: believe that whoever leads the pledge delegates, the superdelegates are
1:04:08
Speaker 3: not going to overturn that will of the voters. So
1:04:11
Speaker 3: whoever leads is probably going to win. So I think
1:04:13
Speaker 3: what Greg is saying from the Biden standpoint is they
1:04:15
Speaker 3: think they have strength amongst African-American communities, blue collar Democrats
1:04:19
Speaker 3: in every congressional district in the country so that they
1:04:22
Speaker 3: lose a state, they win a state, they're going to
1:04:24
Speaker 3: be getting delegates. And I think that- Because the delegates
1:04:27
Speaker 3: are proportionally- Proportional by state, by CD. So there's no
1:04:31
Speaker 3: doubt that Biden's not going to go overnight from where
1:04:34
Speaker 3: he is today to 5%. But But if you start losing,
1:04:38
Speaker 3: particularly when frontrunners lose, if they keep losing, so if
1:04:43
Speaker 3: Biden were to lose Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada
1:04:45
Speaker 3: and South Carolina, no matter what organization he has, no
1:04:48
Speaker 3: matter what demographic strength he had before Iowa, he'll begin
1:04:51
Speaker 3: to lose it. So Biden has to do enough, I think,
1:04:55
Speaker 3: in the early states. So, yeah, I think from a
1:04:58
Speaker 3: potential standpoint, you see how they could run all the
1:05:01
Speaker 3: way till June and be acquiring delegates. But that's only
1:05:04
Speaker 3: if he looks like he could win. And if he's
1:05:07
Speaker 3: not meeting sort of the standard he needs to hit
1:05:10
Speaker 3: in the early states. So that's really, and they all
1:05:12
Speaker 3: have different standards. Again, for Mayor Peter Kamala, it's not
1:05:15
Speaker 3: winning Iowa. It's surprising people with a two or three
1:05:18
Speaker 3: finish or maybe a close fourth. I think for Biden
1:05:22
Speaker 3: and Warren, it's probably going to be they need to
1:05:24
Speaker 3: win enough early.
1:05:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:05:26
Speaker 1: Like in the past, like Bill Clinton famously was the
1:05:28
Speaker 1: one candidate who won the nomination without winning Iowa, New Hampshire.
1:05:31
Speaker 3: Sure.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Iowa was not contested that year because Harkin was running for,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was running for president. He was
1:05:37
Speaker 1: the comeback kid by coming in a surprise second in Iowa.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: And the national media was able to carry that narrative
1:05:42
Speaker 1: to give him momentum in the subsequent primaries. Do you
1:05:45
Speaker 1: think in our current media environment, you could still get
1:05:48
Speaker 1: away with that sort of, with a narrative victory as
1:05:51
Speaker 1: opposed to an actual victory?
1:05:54
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at, so Iowa was, you know,
1:05:56
Speaker 3: because of Harkin, a non-event. So really New Hampshire was
1:05:59
Speaker 3: the only event. And he did come in second. So
1:06:01
Speaker 3: a surprise second in New Hampshire heading the rest of
1:06:03
Speaker 3: the calendar in any scenario is not bad. And then,
1:06:07
Speaker 3: you know, he ended up facing off really in the
1:06:09
Speaker 3: first part of their prime with Paul Tsongas, who great senator,
1:06:11
Speaker 3: not a great presidential candidate, strong, and then Jerry Brown.
1:06:14
Speaker 3: So I think in this scenario, it's harder because, you know,
1:06:19
Speaker 3: if somebody is supposed to win Iowa or come in
1:06:21
Speaker 3: second and doesn't do that, they're going to get pulverized,
1:06:24
Speaker 3: not just by pundits, but by voters. And like, it's
1:06:27
Speaker 3: going to be you're a stone cold loser. How can
1:06:28
Speaker 3: you recover from that? I mean, imagine if we had...
1:06:32
Speaker 3: If we had lost New Hampshire in 08 in today's
1:06:34
Speaker 3: social media environment, it was hard enough to dig out
1:06:37
Speaker 3: from that. I still think we would have, but I
1:06:39
Speaker 3: think it would have been really, really hard. So I
1:06:42
Speaker 3: think it is harder. And so that's why I think
1:06:46
Speaker 3: you need to have a campaign that says we are
1:06:48
Speaker 3: focused on delegates, we're focused all the way till June.
1:06:50
Speaker 3: But if you don't go through those first gates with
1:06:53
Speaker 3: enough strength, your plans are, I think, going to be
1:06:56
Speaker 3: more on paper than reality. So you got to hit
1:06:58
Speaker 3: the mark.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how a campaign...
1:07:01
Speaker 1: deals with the absolute necessity to do incredibly well in Iowa,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: but also be prepared in the next three early states
1:07:09
Speaker 1: and the general, because like, for example, it was reported
1:07:11
Speaker 1: in Politico last night that Kamala Harris is putting all
1:07:13
Speaker 1: of her chips in Iowa. And she even told Senator
1:07:16
Speaker 1: Mazie Hirono that she's quote, fucking moving to Iowa. But
1:07:21
Speaker 1: like in a world like these campaigns are raising less
1:07:23
Speaker 1: money than we raised in 2008. And so how can
1:07:25
Speaker 1: you run a serious Iowa campaign and ensure that you
1:07:31
Speaker 1: have built a surfboard to catch whatever wave you have
1:07:34
Speaker 1: in the following states?
1:07:36
Speaker 3: Well, it's become a little bit easier than 08 in
1:07:39
Speaker 3: terms of fundraising and recruiting volunteers because we obviously were
1:07:43
Speaker 3: an internet-first campaign, but there's so many more tools to
1:07:45
Speaker 3: do that now. So that's your main, I think, device
1:07:49
Speaker 3: to do that. So the candidate's time is going to
1:07:53
Speaker 3: be mostly in Iowa, but that doesn't mean you're not
1:07:55
Speaker 3: hiring organizers and staff in South Carolina and in Nevada,
1:08:00
Speaker 3: certainly in New Hampshire, and in some of, at least
1:08:02
Speaker 3: in the caucus states in March, and have enough money
1:08:04
Speaker 3: to run a vote-by-mail program in California and Florida and
1:08:07
Speaker 3: some of the big states that come in March. So
1:08:08
Speaker 3: it's super complicated. So if you are strapped and basically
1:08:12
Speaker 3: you're not hiring staff in all those states and you're
1:08:15
Speaker 3: really naked on March and you bet it all on
1:08:17
Speaker 3: Iowa and you do what you need to do in Iowa,
1:08:21
Speaker 3: you're definitely behind the eight ball. So the good thing
1:08:23
Speaker 3: is you get the card that says you can move
1:08:25
Speaker 3: on in the race and but you probably won't be
1:08:27
Speaker 3: able to fully capitalize. But I think for some people,
1:08:30
Speaker 3: that's their only option. But if you're going to be
1:08:32
Speaker 3: the nominee, you've got to have the organization in the
1:08:35
Speaker 3: other three early states, and you've got to have a
1:08:37
Speaker 3: theory of the case in March and April, and the money,
1:08:40
Speaker 3: and I would even argue in some states, boots on
1:08:41
Speaker 3: the ground to begin organizing. And again, a lot of
1:08:44
Speaker 3: that can be distributed. You don't have to have a
1:08:45
Speaker 3: huge staff, but you've got to be getting voter lists
1:08:48
Speaker 3: out to your supporters and asking them to call and say,
1:08:50
Speaker 3: in Minnesota... And in Colorado and in Georgia, you got
1:08:54
Speaker 3: to be working it. I mean, that's one of the
1:08:55
Speaker 3: benefits we had back in 08 is we had such active,
1:08:58
Speaker 3: passionate volunteers. They were organizing even before we had staff
1:09:01
Speaker 3: on the ground. So it's a great question, Dan. And
1:09:04
Speaker 3: the other thing, just the race, it's hard to describe
1:09:06
Speaker 3: the difference between the first four than the rest of
1:09:08
Speaker 3: the calendar. It's in a way like almost peaceful and
1:09:12
Speaker 3: calm because you're like in Iowa and you're in New
1:09:14
Speaker 3: Hampshire and And then it's like, holy shit.
1:09:17
Speaker 2: Suddenly there's like a whole bunch of states in a week.
1:09:20
Speaker 3: Right, and a bunch have early voting. And so it's
1:09:23
Speaker 3: almost like a completely different event.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: So the Democrats' strategy around digital media communication is of
1:09:32
Speaker 2: great concern to us here on Positive America. You just
1:09:34
Speaker 2: joined the board of ACRONIM, which is a digital media startup.
1:09:37
Speaker 2: Can you talk about why you did that, why you
1:09:39
Speaker 2: see this as such an urgent matter and sort of
1:09:42
Speaker 2: the work that they're doing?
1:09:43
Speaker 3: Well, Acronym, led by Tara McGowan, just a great leader,
1:09:46
Speaker 3: is doing great work in a few ways. They did
1:09:47
Speaker 3: a lot of digital work in the 18 elections. They
1:09:51
Speaker 3: have started in Virginia and intend to expand this to
1:09:53
Speaker 3: other states of progressive media companies so that we're producing
1:09:57
Speaker 3: more localized content, which I think we have a huge
1:10:00
Speaker 3: deficit in our party. But we've also decided to do
1:10:03
Speaker 3: what we can to try and raise some money and
1:10:05
Speaker 3: do some smart messaging work in the battleground states because
1:10:08
Speaker 3: the presidential election has started. There's only one side on
1:10:11
Speaker 3: the field. It's Trump. And we need to be with
1:10:14
Speaker 3: voters we've talked about on this program in those six
1:10:17
Speaker 3: battleground states, communicating to them. Every day, we have to
1:10:22
Speaker 3: know who they are and the best way to motivate
1:10:24
Speaker 3: them and feed them content because the Trump campaign is
1:10:26
Speaker 3: doing it and they're going to intensify it. So I
1:10:28
Speaker 3: don't want to overstate that importance, like who our nominee is,
1:10:31
Speaker 3: state of the economy, all that matters more. This election,
1:10:34
Speaker 3: we better assume it will be decided on the margins.
1:10:36
Speaker 3: So things like that matter. And if Trump has nine
1:10:39
Speaker 3: to 10 months on his own to be run messaging
1:10:42
Speaker 3: and get more sophisticated.
1:10:44
Speaker 2: And these are like Facebook ads and.
1:10:45
Speaker 3: Mostly Facebook ads, some Instagram ads. You know, I think
1:10:49
Speaker 3: you need to let the data drive that decision. Some
1:10:51
Speaker 3: people still primarily get information from radio and television, but
1:10:54
Speaker 3: for the most part it's digital. And so every day,
1:10:57
Speaker 3: Dan's great about tweeting these out. You see these amazing
1:10:59
Speaker 3: stories about the trade war or the corruption or how
1:11:02
Speaker 3: farmers are getting hurt or healthcare. We see them and
1:11:04
Speaker 3: we're like, well, how can anybody vote for Trump? The
1:11:06
Speaker 3: voters we need to reach aren't seeing them. So we
1:11:08
Speaker 3: need kind of a last mile to get those to
1:11:11
Speaker 3: those voters in a consistent way. I almost think we need,
1:11:14
Speaker 3: we wanna do our part at acronym, but all of
1:11:18
Speaker 3: these outside groups need to take on responsibility. Basically, you're
1:11:21
Speaker 3: the Democratic nominee from an advertising standpoint till we have
1:11:24
Speaker 3: a nominee. It can't just be episodic because the Trump campaign,
1:11:28
Speaker 3: we had such an advantage in 12 as an incumbent.
1:11:31
Speaker 3: We had time to prepare for that race, know the
1:11:34
Speaker 3: voters in those states from a general election standpoint better
1:11:37
Speaker 3: than Romney, as did George W.
1:11:38
Speaker 2: Bush.
1:11:39
Speaker 3: Added Reagan, added Clinton. So the Trump campaign is going
1:11:42
Speaker 3: to be much more ready for the general election than
1:11:44
Speaker 3: our side is. We've never seen a president this obsessed
1:11:48
Speaker 3: with re-election. And it's fair to say Barack Obama had
1:11:50
Speaker 3: more than a passing interest in serving a second term.
1:11:53
Speaker 3: But as did, I'm sure, George Bush and Reagan, but
1:11:55
Speaker 3: this is all Trump cares about. You know, his haranguing-
1:11:58
Speaker 3: He's not running the country. No, it's, you know, so
1:12:01
Speaker 3: they're going to be ready and they're spending money now,
1:12:04
Speaker 3: not just to build their list and their volunteer and
1:12:06
Speaker 3: donor base, but they're spending money in battleground states. So,
1:12:09
Speaker 3: I want us to get to the point where every
1:12:11
Speaker 3: week we're seeing, you know, at least several hundred thousand
1:12:13
Speaker 3: dollars spent in these battlegrounds and eventually more than that.
1:12:16
Speaker 3: So that, you know, we're basically providing what bridge we
1:12:19
Speaker 3: can until we have a nominee, particularly as Trump's trying
1:12:21
Speaker 3: to define the Democrats as, you know, again, they want
1:12:25
Speaker 3: to kill babies. They want to take your food away.
1:12:27
Speaker 3: You won't be able to travel. And we can laugh
1:12:29
Speaker 3: at this stuff. There are some voters out there who
1:12:31
Speaker 3: will say, I'm not sure I can do that. So
1:12:32
Speaker 3: I may not vote for Trump, but I may vote
1:12:33
Speaker 3: third party like this is incredibly important.
1:12:36
Speaker 1: I think for our listeners who may not have been
1:12:38
Speaker 1: as dialed into the 2012 campaign as obviously we were,
1:12:42
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, Obama won reelection in the
1:12:46
Speaker 1: next six months of this cycle. It was basically we
1:12:48
Speaker 1: were written off for dead in.
1:12:50
Speaker 3: August of 2011.
1:12:51
Speaker 1: And I think our RCP polling average was like 42.
1:12:56
Speaker 1: And we were at 49 by Christmas, which was our
1:13:00
Speaker 1: number on Election Day. And so because we were doing it,
1:13:03
Speaker 1: the Republicans were lighting themselves on fire. And their outside apparatus,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: which was spending money against us, but just doing it in,
1:13:09
Speaker 1: fortunately for us, a piss-poor, ass-backwards way. But outside groups
1:13:16
Speaker 1: were investing more in defeating Obama at this point in
1:13:19
Speaker 1: 2011 than the Democratic outside groups are investing in defeating
1:13:22
Speaker 1: Trump thus far. It's kind of a barren field.
1:13:27
Speaker 3: So I'm hoping, you know, actually acronym puts out a
1:13:31
Speaker 3: list every week of the digital spend.
1:13:33
Speaker 2: The most depressing.
1:13:34
Speaker 1: Email I get.
1:13:34
Speaker 2: Every week it's the most depressing email.
1:13:36
Speaker 3: But, you know, my hope is over the next three
1:13:37
Speaker 3: to four months we see more and more progressive. And
1:13:40
Speaker 3: what really matters to me is less the overall spend
1:13:42
Speaker 3: than what's being spent in the battleground states.
1:13:44
Speaker 2: Right. Can you tell us a little bit about why
1:13:47
Speaker 2: you have decided to become a podcast host and what
1:13:50
Speaker 2: Campaign HQ is all about? And I also want to
1:13:51
Speaker 2: hear a little bit about your book, A Citizen's Guide
1:13:54
Speaker 2: to Defeating Donald Trump, which I believe is out in March?
1:13:56
Speaker 3: March.
1:13:56
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
1:13:57
Speaker 3: March 3rd. Well, first the book. So probably the question
1:14:01
Speaker 3: I've gotten most often in my very long, unfortunately, political
1:14:04
Speaker 3: life is from people out in the country or in
1:14:07
Speaker 3: states is, what can I do? What more can I do?
1:14:09
Speaker 3: So I'm simply saying, first of all, from someone who's
1:14:11
Speaker 3: run presidential campaigns, why volunteer work is important, the difference
1:14:15
Speaker 3: it can make. How you registering five voters in Michigan
1:14:18
Speaker 3: may not seem like a lot, but if just 2,000
1:14:21
Speaker 3: other people in Michigan did the same thing, that's like
1:14:24
Speaker 3: the win margin in Michigan. So it matters. Sharing, content.
1:14:29
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us, I know I've made
1:14:30
Speaker 3: this mistake, we get on social media and share a
1:14:32
Speaker 3: lot of content about Donald Trump, but we need to
1:14:35
Speaker 3: basically be a distributed army for our nominee, their healthcare plans,
1:14:39
Speaker 3: their tax plans, their foreign policy plans. And so traveling
1:14:44
Speaker 3: to battleground states, making a list of everybody in your
1:14:46
Speaker 3: life and make sure they're registered, voting early. Part of
1:14:49
Speaker 3: the message of my book is you actually need to
1:14:52
Speaker 3: take more responsibility than you may be comfortable with. We
1:14:55
Speaker 3: can't assume that our nominee is going to be the savior.
1:14:59
Speaker 3: We can't assume the presidential campaign will do everything right
1:15:01
Speaker 3: and Trump will do everything wrong. What can you control?
1:15:04
Speaker 3: And that's different for everybody, but I lay out a
1:15:06
Speaker 3: set of ideas for, and again, it's not all the ideas,
1:15:09
Speaker 3: but creating your own content. So if you've got a
1:15:12
Speaker 3: neighbor who voted for Trump, who's voting for Obama, take
1:15:14
Speaker 3: your phone out, film them, put it on your social
1:15:16
Speaker 3: media channels. You've got to every day think through, what
1:15:20
Speaker 3: can I do? And so I think that the ownership,
1:15:23
Speaker 3: I'd say the ownership we all have to take over
1:15:25
Speaker 3: this election is even greater than we saw in our
1:15:27
Speaker 3: organization in the Obama races, I really do. Podcast, well,
1:15:31
Speaker 3: first of all, the question is, what can I say
1:15:32
Speaker 3: that you guys aren't saying? You guys kind of have
1:15:34
Speaker 3: a lot of things covered. No, no, I mean, you know,
1:15:37
Speaker 3: the wilderness and you're, no. So for me, given my
1:15:41
Speaker 3: background as a manager, I just wanted to kind of
1:15:43
Speaker 3: go a little bit deeper on the race. You know,
1:15:46
Speaker 3: in the primary, a lot of that's about the race
1:15:48
Speaker 3: for delegates and the operation you're putting together, to your question, Dan,
1:15:52
Speaker 3: to go the distance. So I'm gonna talk to managers
1:15:54
Speaker 3: and digital directors and state directors So that we go
1:15:57
Speaker 3: a little bit deeper on the race. And then when
1:15:59
Speaker 3: we get to the general election, go deep in the battlegrounds.
1:16:01
Speaker 3: And really, so less about, you know, what was said
1:16:03
Speaker 3: that week and more about really looking at a pathway
1:16:08
Speaker 3: to victories, both in the Democratic primary and the general election.
1:16:11
Speaker 1: So in over the years since you left the White House,
1:16:14
Speaker 1: you and I have been in a lot of meetings
1:16:15
Speaker 1: together with political people. And you have always introduced yourself
1:16:19
Speaker 1: as David Plouffe. I'm retired from politics. Does this indicate
1:16:23
Speaker 1: a temporary unretirement from politics?
1:16:26
Speaker 3: Well, it's not like, you know, working in a campaign HQ,
1:16:29
Speaker 3: you know, 20 hours a day. But, you know, for me,
1:16:31
Speaker 3: I felt like, you know, on the podcast, I think
1:16:34
Speaker 3: there is a market out there of people who are
1:16:36
Speaker 3: following these races closely, who maybe I can bring a
1:16:39
Speaker 3: little bit perspective and more importantly, have conversations with guests
1:16:41
Speaker 3: to fill that. But my work on acronym definitely is
1:16:44
Speaker 3: coming out of retirement a little bit. I mean, I
1:16:46
Speaker 3: think that first of all, the digital, unfortunately, I don't
1:16:51
Speaker 3: want to overstate this because, you know, and you guys
1:16:53
Speaker 3: were a big part of helping this. We had a
1:16:55
Speaker 3: great 2018 election victory. So let's not overstate the Republican,
1:16:58
Speaker 3: you know, advantage on digital and messaging. But they're testing
1:17:01
Speaker 3: a lot more content than we are. I think they
1:17:03
Speaker 3: are more digital first than we are. So that's a gap. But,
1:17:06
Speaker 3: you know, this election may be one of the most
1:17:08
Speaker 3: important days in American history, not just election history. We
1:17:11
Speaker 3: got to win, you know, eight years of this guy
1:17:13
Speaker 3: versus four. So, again, I think for all of us
1:17:17
Speaker 3: who aren't running these campaigns, aren't the candidate, We got
1:17:19
Speaker 3: to think through what can we do? And most of
1:17:22
Speaker 3: that's going to be on the margins, but margins matter. So,
1:17:25
Speaker 3: you know, but I also think we ought to be
1:17:27
Speaker 3: mindful that you don't want in politics kind of, you know,
1:17:29
Speaker 3: a version of space cowboys. All of us who've done
1:17:32
Speaker 3: this before are coming back in and saying in the
1:17:34
Speaker 3: good old days of like 08 or 96, how it happened, like.
1:17:37
Speaker 3: Things are changing out there.
1:17:38
Speaker 2: Things we used to say.
1:17:39
Speaker 3: So one of the things I'm excited about in my
1:17:42
Speaker 3: podcast is I'll get to, you know, obviously have on
1:17:44
Speaker 3: people like Greg Schultz from Biden, who I know, but
1:17:46
Speaker 3: also some people who are, you know, weren't even around
1:17:48
Speaker 3: in the OA campaign who are new to this, and
1:17:50
Speaker 3: I'll learn from them. So that sort of fresh blood,
1:17:53
Speaker 3: I think, is needed.
1:17:54
Speaker 2: Well, you coming out of retirement is a very huge
1:17:58
Speaker 2: mark in the pro column for as we head into 2020. Everyone,
1:18:02
Speaker 2: please go subscribe to Campaign HQ with David Plouffe. It's
1:18:06
Speaker 2: a fantastic podcast. And can we pre-order the book yet?
1:18:09
Speaker 2: Not yet.
1:18:10
Speaker 3: You can pre-order the book on Amazon.
1:18:11
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:18:12
Speaker 1: Thank you, Favreau.
1:18:13
Speaker 2: Fantastic. We sell books here. It's a side company.
1:18:16
Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited.
1:18:17
Speaker 1: I benefited from it.
1:18:19
Speaker 3: We haven't flushed out the entire tour when it comes out,
1:18:21
Speaker 3: but I'm going to go to all the battlegrounds and
1:18:24
Speaker 3: not just the coast and do some workshops and I'm
1:18:27
Speaker 3: really looking forward to it.
1:18:28
Speaker 2: Well, you said it's a question you get all the time.
1:18:30
Speaker 2: When we go on the road for our shows, the
1:18:32
Speaker 2: number one question, what can I do? What more can
1:18:34
Speaker 2: I do? I'm in a battleground state. I'm in a
1:18:35
Speaker 2: red state. I'm in a blue state. What more can
1:18:37
Speaker 2: I do to help beat Trump? So I think it's
1:18:38
Speaker 2: a great question that you're answering in the book. Everyone
1:18:40
Speaker 2: go pre-order it. David Plouffe, thank you for joining us.
1:18:43
Speaker 3: Thanks, fellas, for having me.
1:18:44
Speaker 2: And uh we will see you all uh next week
1:18:47
Speaker 2: actually sunday night we are doing a show in las
1:18:50
Speaker 2: vegas as part of the life is beautiful.
1:18:52
Speaker 1: Opening for post malone.
1:18:55
Speaker 2: We are opening for post malone sunday night um so
1:18:58
Speaker 2: that show will be monday's podcast um and we'll also
1:19:02
Speaker 2: have an interview with samantha power former un ambassador and
1:19:05
Speaker 2: our pal samantha power will be That interview on Monday's podcast.
1:19:09
Speaker 2: And then we'll be on the road later next week.
1:19:12
Speaker 1: Also buy Samantha Power's book.
1:19:13
Speaker 2: It's excellent. It's fantastic, yes. Go buy Education of an Idealist. Okay,
1:19:17
Speaker 2: we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America
1:19:21
Speaker 2: is a product of Crooked Media. The senior producer is
1:19:23
Speaker 2: Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed
1:19:26
Speaker 2: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
1:19:30
Speaker 2: Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and Katie Long for
1:19:33
Speaker 2: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmel Cohnian,
1:19:36
Speaker 2: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
1:19:39
Speaker 2: episodes as a video every week.