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“Hillary endorses Bernie.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On the pod today, Donald Trump's impeachment trial begins today.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And Mitch McConnell wants it to last about 10 minutes.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about a very busy weekend
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: on the 2020 campaign trail, which included the New York
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Times surprise endorsement of not one but two presidential candidates.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: And later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's interview with
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Chris Liddell-Westefeld, a former colleague of ours who's just published
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: an oral history of Obama's 2008 campaign. A couple quick
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: housekeeping notes. Lovett, how was the show this weekend?
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Action-packed.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Action-packed?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Love it or leave it.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: We had presidential candidate Deval Patrick. he was a very
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: good sport during Queen for a Day, though I do
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: think didn't understand where or why he was doing it,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: where he was or why he was doing it.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Can't blame him.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Kara Swisher on Facebook, Mitra Juhari and Damon Young were there,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: both really an all-star show.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Also, episodes three and four of The Wilderness are out now.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: In the Southwest episode, we talk about how Sunbelt suburbs
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: are turning blue, and I sit down with some Romney
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Clinton voters. In the Southeast episode, we talk about expanding
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the electorate with Stacey Abrams, and I talk to some
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: voters who stayed home, or voted third party in 2016.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Please subscribe and check it out at thewildernesspodcast.com.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Finally, Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: are going on tour. See where we're heading at cricket.com
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: slash events. We also just added a new Santa Barbara
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: show on April 17th. Presale tickets are available starting Wednesday. Again,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: check it out at cricket.com slash events. We would love
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to see you on the road. All right, here we go.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: The third impeachment trial in our country's history begins today.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Over the weekend, the House of Representatives laid out their
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: case against Donald Trump, arguing that his, quote, continued willingness
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: to corrupt free and fair elections, betray our national security
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and subvert the constitutional separation of powers makes the president, quote,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: an immediate threat to the nation and the rule of law.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Not mincing words, guys. Trump's lawyers have decided not to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: contest the basic facts of the case. but instead argue
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: that extorting Ukraine until they announced a phony investigation into
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden wasn't impeachable, it was just a foreign policy decision.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And being the first president in history to obstruct an
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: entire impeachment inquiry wasn't impeachable, it was just executive privilege.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So basically, they've done a full Nixon here. When the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: president does it, it's not illegal. It seems like we've
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: come a long way from the no quid pro quo days.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Why do you think they landed on this argument?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're just fighting it out in the court
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of public opinion and their entire goal, the Trump team's goal,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: is to prevent any Republican senators from defecting. So they
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: know they have no argument on the facts. We all
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: read the transcript where he tries to extort the Ukrainian
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: government for dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for withholding
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: military aid and other support. They just need to keep
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: a bunch of Republicans scared of a primary. Yeah. What
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: do you think about that? Two things.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: One, I think they feel like they're on safer ground
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: talking about executive power than they are on the facts
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: of the case, that it's very hard to dispute the record.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: And executive privilege is a place where a lot of
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Republicans will feel comfortable seeking kind of readout from the facts,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: which are so damning. And then on top of that,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I think they're kind of trying to talk to John
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Bolton a little bit. And otherwise, I think they're just
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: not really sure what to be saying.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: It's a pretty hard.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: They have a very hard... A sophisticated legal argument on
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: behalf of Donald Trump is an incredibly difficult thing to make.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: That is why, to this day, we have never actually
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: heard one.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: If they can get into the weeds on what does
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: executive privilege mean, what is an impeachable offense, let's get
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Alan fucking Dershowitz up here talking about the Constitution. Let's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: bore some people. They're also trying to protect themselves in
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: case we do hear from John Bolton, we do hear
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: new explosive evidence, because whatever sort of explosive testimony and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: evidence we may hear in the next couple weeks, they're
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: just going to say, Yeah, well, that may be true,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: but the president still gets to do whatever he wants
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to do. Their argument is basically that the president can't
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: be impeached for abusing his office.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's literally their argument. They want to exploit the
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: confusion over what an impeachable offense is. They're trying to
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: argue that it has to involve a violation of criminal law.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: That is not true. That's absurd. While there is minimal
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: language about impeachment in the Constitution itself, there's discussion among
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: the founders as it was being developed that shows their
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: clear intent to cover abuses of power. And our statutes
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: are based in English law that's also clear about that intent.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: So no experts are actually confused about whether an abuse
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: of power is an impeachable event. It clearly is. In fact,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: what's the creep who always Skypes on Fox and defends
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: sex offenders?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Alan Dershowitz.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Alan Dershowitz himself.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein's lawyer?
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: In the 90s, Jeff's friend.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Jeff's friend.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Epstein's buddy in the 90s during the Clinton impeachment took
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: the opposite position that he's taking today on whether abuse
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: of power was impeachable.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Two quick points. One- It also is just worth noting
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: that one of these talking points has gone away now
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: that the GAO has said that it was illegal for
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: the president to withhold the aid to Ukraine.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: That's one.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And two, I don't believe it is fair that Mitch
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: McConnell is not accounting for the amount of time it
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: takes to clear the line of sludge and slime that
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Alan Dershowitz leaves behind himself when he moves through a room.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: And I just think it's really unfair to the Democrats
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: who have to speak after him that they're going to
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: probably have to just kind of wade through that layer
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: of disgusting sleaze that he puts behind himself.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Their response to the Government Accountability Office, which is Congress's
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan watchdog agency, is truly amazing because basically the response
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: is just, too late.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Nope.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The GAO should have made that determination that it was
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: illegal while the House impeachment hearings were going on. Now
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: that they didn't, it's too late. We got away with it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: That's how it works. That's how it works.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: That's how it works.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the rules of the trial. Originally, Mitch
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: McConnell said that the House's lawyers and Trump's lawyers had
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: 24 hours over two days to present their opening arguments
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: beginning Wednesday afternoon. After that, senators may question the parties
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: for a period of time not to exceed 16 hours.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And once the questioning has ended, both sides will each
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: have two hours to make further arguments. Only then will
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the Senate be allowed to vote on whether to subpoena witnesses,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: new evidence, or even admit the existing evidence into the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: public record. These rules are, of course, very different than
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the rules from the Clinton impeachment trial, which means that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell lied to us, which, you know, never thought
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'd see the day.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Just fell over.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: But then something happened just this morning. So this led
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to a big public outcry. And lo and behold, an
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: hour ago, Mitch McConnell changed his mind. Prosecution and defense
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: will now get three days each instead of two. And
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the House evidence will automatically be entered into trial. So.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Fairly small concessions here. It's not like Mitch McConnell had
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: this generous change of heart. Clearly, he believed he didn't
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: have 51 votes for those rules and was forced to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: do it because there was such a public outcry, which
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: leads me to my question. Let's start with what the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Democrats' job is here and what the Democrats can realistically
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: hope to achieve throughout this trial, knowing that there is
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: almost zero chance that this will end in a conviction.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: What do you think, Levin?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: So I think, first of all, it's just worth praising
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Pelosi for holding up the articles, because I remember the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: original draft of the rules said that if you don't
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: get your impeachment in 30 minutes, it's free. But that said,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I do see a lot of like, there's
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of people in the weeds of what these
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: rules mean. And, oh, are they going to vote for
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: witnesses or there will be first be a procedural vote
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to determine whether or not there will be a vote
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: on witnesses and what have you. I think it's just
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: worth remembering that all the procedural hurdles aside, those rules
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: can make life a little bit easier, a little bit
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: harder for the kind of Republicans that would vote for witnesses,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: your Susan Collinses, your Mitt Romneys.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: We can call them gettable.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: The gettables.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Since moderate's not a word we can use for any
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of them, but we can.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Call them gettable. The gettables.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: McConnell can basically make their, if he keeps them on
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: his side on the no witnesses, no evidence trial theory.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: then he can make that a little bit easier for
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: them with some of these procedural motions. But ultimately, what
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: we were talking about is whether or not, you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: four people will decide to vote in favor of having
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: witnesses and evidence at this trial. And I think everything
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: should be focused on that. Yeah, I mean, like, there's
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: some roles that I would have liked to have seen
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: that didn't make it. Like, you know, no headbutts, no
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: eye gouging, no groin stuff. I think that's a big one.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: But I mean, like, the comparison to the Clinton impeachment.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Amy Klobuchar is like, that's my fucking bread and butter.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: The comparison to the Clinton impeachment is so... frustratingly stupid,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: because in 1999, in that trial, depositions had been taken
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: for years as part of a grand jury investigation that
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: were videotaped, publicly released, transcripts of which were publicly released,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: and portions of the interviews were even shown on TV
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: on the Senate floor. So the fact that we're even
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: debating whether to allow fact witnesses like John Bolton to
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: testify shows you how different this actually is. And I
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: do think that has to be a big part of
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: the Democratic case is that this is an obstruction effort. Yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I think broadly, realistic goals for the Democrats are, number one,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: let's just get the full truth out so we all
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: know exactly what happened, right? And we know most of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: what happened at this point, but we still need Bolton
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: and some other documents, right? Number two, remind people the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: American people of the president's crimes and why they matter
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: to them. I think we have to continue to, so
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that this resonates with people who are watching. Why is it,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: why is it bad for you that the president has
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: tried to cheat in another election? Um, And then I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: think it would be good for the Democrats to force
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Trump to deliver his State of the Union address while
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: he's standing trial for impeachment, as opposed to while he's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: while he's just been acquitted, which clearly Mitch McConnell's trying
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to rush this trial so that Trump can give a
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: State of the Union and boast of his the fact
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: that he was just acquitted. So we should try to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: drag it out as long as possible. And then the
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: final one is a very political goal. Like, we should
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: expose the Republican senators who are up in 2020 as
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: partisan hacks with no mind of their own who are
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: going to do anything Trump tells them to, even cover
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: up his crimes. And that's it. And that's why you
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: were just saying this, Lovett, about getting those four votes. Like,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins is now the most unpopular senator in the country.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Martha McSally's ratings, approval ratings have gone in the tank.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Cory Gardner's. probably the first Republican senator to go in 2020.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: These Republican senators are incredibly vulnerable. And the only way
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: that these Republican senators, including Tom Tillis, maybe Joni Ernst, McSally,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: certainly in Arizona, the only way they're going to win
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: their races, what their campaign plan is, is to show
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that they are independent voices, that they are not tied
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump, that they have their mind of their own.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And this impeachment trial is an opportunity for Democrats to say,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and all the outside groups, everyone running ads, everyone else,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to say, no, these people don't have a mind of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: their own. They are not bipartisan. They are not independent.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: They are covering up anything Donald Trump tells them to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: cover up. I think that's a huge goal for this trial. Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Cory Gardner is living in a secret chamber at the
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Denver airport.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: That was a great New York Times story.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Hopefully they can find him. I have to say, on
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: this pressuring these Senate Republicans point, I think that we
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: as a party are utterly failing. There are 11 impeachment
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: ads on TV right now All of them are paid
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: for by Republicans to support Republicans. There's no outside game
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: putting money on TV to pressure these guys. It's all
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: being done by the media. And as we've seen, some
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: of these Republicans want to jujitsu that by saying to
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: a CNN reporter like Martha McSally did, you're a hack,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and then creating a website and selling T-shirts where you
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: show that you're tough and, you know, against the media
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: to get MAGA money. So, you know, we got to
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: step up our game.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And, and, you know, I thought it was welcome news
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: this morning that I saw Michael Bloomberg is going to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: be switching his ads from every other issue that he's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: talking about right now to impeachment, which is good because
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: he's running more ads than anyone else. But everyone else
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: needs to step up and you know, what's happening in
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: some of these organizations, they're saying people don't care about
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: impeachment as much as they care about healthcare. So we
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: want to focus all of our firepower on healthcare.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I get that.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I get there's limited resources, but like, Hey, We'll all
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: chip in for the next couple of weeks just to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: take a pause and run ads on impeachment to make
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: sure that at the end of this, we have a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: narrative that is, you know, Democrats really forced a lot
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of these Republican senators into an uncomfortable political position because
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: that narrative is going to help us win in 2020.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So it is important to do now.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I also just the good news is that despite
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: the fact that we're at this financial disadvantage right now,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the polls are getting higher. stronger and stronger. There's now
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: a majority in favor of not just impeachment, but impeachment
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: and removal. The numbers are really heartening. And, you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I think we all live in this world of like
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: what rules apply to Trump, what rules don't. Is there
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: still political gravity? And I think sometimes we all fall
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: for that a bit. Certainly the media falls for that,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: different parts of the media anyway. And it's just worth
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: remembering whether it's taking out Soleimani or it's polls on impeachment,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: like your common sense is not invalidated by the way,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: regular people are watching this unfold. So that I think
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: is at least just a tiny bit of hope in that.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: Agreed. Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So in order for Democrats to achieve any of these goals,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it does seem like we'll need a longer trial that
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: allows new witnesses and new evidence. Already since the House
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: impeached Trump, we got new emails that tie Trump to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: withholding the aid. Giuliani, Goon, Lev Parnas telling Rachel Maddow
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: that Trump is guilty. We got the GAO saying that
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Trump broke the law and John Bolton saying he'll answer
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: a Senate subpoena. What can Democrats say or do to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: win the fight to make all of this part of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the trial? Axios reports that Trump officials feel bullish about
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: convincing Republican senators to buy their argument against new witnesses,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and that argument is that it could compromise national security.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: That's an utter horseshit argument. I mean, they're trying to
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: say that John Bolton can't testify first for executive privilege reasons,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: and there's an argument to be made there, right? There
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: is executive privilege that exists for all presidents. This is
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: an extreme situation, an impeachment trial. But the notion that
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Bolton couldn't find a way to talk about the... conversations
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: with Ukraine after Trump declassified the transcript of the phone
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: call is ridiculous. And it's just an abuse of the
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: classification system. Again, like when they tried to put it
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: on the code word server to hide the facts from
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: the American people.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I don't think that'll fly. On the executive privilege thing too,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: it's one thing to claim that there are certain aspects
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of what John Bolton talked directly with Donald Trump about
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: that might fall under executive privilege. Now, I think lawyers
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: would argue that that doesn't protect the president from committing crimes.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: But also, that certainly shouldn't mean that, regardless of your
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: view on executive privilege, that that's a blanket rule that
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: John Bolton can't testify at all.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: He's telling his book publisher.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: How about us?
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Executive privilege doesn't allow you to commit crimes.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: The founders didn't say, yeah, no, the House has the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: right to impeach, and we're going to have this impeachment thing,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and we're going to make sure that the president can
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: be impeached. Oh, but we forgot, he can also just...
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: uses a get out of jail free card, which is
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: executive privilege. Why didn't we think of that? That's not
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the meaning of fucking executive privilege, you assholes. It's crazy
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that Axios just took that spin and was like, oh,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: they're very bullish about it. They're very excited. Pat Cipollone
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is proud that he's come up with this argument about
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: national security. What are you talking about?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Also, I know that Lev Parnas looks like a morally
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: flexible giant baby that has shady associations and maybe we
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: should be cautious about believing everything he says. But, you know,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: corrupt people tend to hire other corrupt people to do
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: their crimes. So, you know, I'd like to hear what
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: he has to say. I think we should push for it.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: It was pretty explosive Rachel Maddow interviews.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm totally open.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Investigate.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I'm totally open to the possibility that Lev Parnas may
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: have not told the entire truth to Rachel Maddow. That's
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: certainly something, a possibility I'm willing to entertain. That said,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: if everything he said was made up, Lev Parnas is
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the greatest screenwriter in the history of the world. And actor.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: And actor. Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: He's like, he's fucking Phoebe Waller-Bridge over there.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: She broke the fourth wall.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: They already corroborated some of it with documents, right? I mean,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Schiff has been making this point that everyone's so focused
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: on witnesses and there hasn't been enough focus on documents,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: but they've been withholding all these documents. And I do
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: think in the case of Parnas, like, We don't have
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to believe witnesses or not if there's evidence. And there's
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: plenty of evidence that the White House is holding back, namely.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: All of it. There's a letter from Rudy Giuliani where
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: he says, hey, I'm operating on behalf of the president
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of the United States and all my actions.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I kind of buy that one.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Most often documents don't lie.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: They had to take Yovanovitch out of Ukraine because they
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: were worried about her safety. And then text with Lev
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Parnas showing up being like, I'm following her around. Here's
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the kind of pizza she likes.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Here's her address. Ukrainian.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I think also, and Lovett, you just mentioned this about
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about public opinion. The Democrats are on
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: incredibly strong ground here, talking not just about how the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: public narrowly approves of impeaching Donald Trump, but overwhelmingly approves
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of new evidence and witnesses. In the CNN poll that
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: was just released on Monday, 69% of respondents say that
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry. If you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: just ask Republicans, 48% say they want new witnesses, while
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: 44% say they do not. Democrats should be screaming this
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: from the rooftops every single day of this trial. And look,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I know that, you know, no one has to like
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: bet on Mitt Romney or Susan Collins or anyone being
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: like courageous and keeping their word. But Mitt Romney is
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: on the record now saying like, yeah, I'm going along
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: with these rules now, but I'm going to vote for
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: new witnesses, you know? And so, yeah, he can break
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: his promise, but these people are going out on a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: limb to put themselves on the record, not saying maybe
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I'll think about it. Like, yeah, yeah, I want new witnesses.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: So we just got to keep the pressure up. And
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I think like, You know, the danger and what McConnell
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is betting on here is that we go through two
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: weeks of this. Everyone's bored to death by all the details.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And then when it comes time to vote, whether we
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: should have new witnesses and documents, everyone's like, well, I'm
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: not paying attention.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: That's it. Forget it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And we just have to do everything we can to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: keep the pressure up until.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And it's and, you know, and look, obviously he's been
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: lying about adopting the Clinton rules.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: They're not doing the Clinton rules.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: But even still, the Clinton rules were not around obstruction
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of Congress, which denied the House a ton of access
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: to important information and building their record. And it's also
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: worth remembering that by the time the Clinton impeachment trial,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: this was a situation in which a lot of Republicans
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: wanted to be done with it, too. Sort of a
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: different circumstance. And then just one other thing I'll just
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: throw out there. Phoebe Perfect Collar Bridge. Phoebe Waller Bulge.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: What?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to come up with a Lev Parnas Phoebe Waller,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: but trying to find.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: A joke in it. I think you nailed it. Yeah, no,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I think you got it. Perfect Collar Bridge. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: because of Perfect Call. Anyway.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Send comments.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Call Congress, please. Tommy's wearing the Call Congress sweatshirt right now.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: 202-224-3121.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: That's very helpful to be able to say this when
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it's not in my notes.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Good merch.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Phoebe Collar, Congress Bridge.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: So again, the senators you really want to target, Susan Collins,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander has seemed like he
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: might do it too, and then some of the other
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: vulnerable 2020 senators, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Tom Tillis, Joni Ernst.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: you're in one of those states they're one of your
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: senators light up the phones all right we're now less
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: than two weeks from caucus day in iowa and no
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: one has any fucking clue what's going to happen.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I really don't.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: The race is probably more unsettled and unpredictable than ever.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: There was another Iowa poll over the weekend from David Binder.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: He's an Obama pollster who has certainly done a great
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: job of polling Iowa in the past. That poll shows
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden in the lead with 24%, obviously different than
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the Des Moines Register poll. So no one knows. There's
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: still not been enough polling in Iowa. Meanwhile, the race
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: is getting a bit more aggressive. The Biden and Sanders
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: campaigns got into it over the former vice president's record
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: on Social Security and accusations of corruption. And even Hillary
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Clinton has weighed in because 2016 will live forever. Let's
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: start with the Social Security debate. Bernie told The Washington
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Post that Biden has been open to making cuts to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the program in the past. Why do you guys think
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Bernie is picking this particular issue to go after Biden on?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And do you think it's a fair hit?
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I think that, you know, what we saw in the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: last debate is one of the only fiery moments in
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: that debate was Bernie Sanders attacking Joe Biden's record on Iraq.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And I think this is part of that same argument,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: which is if so much of Biden's candidacy rests on
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: stability and experience and wisdom and judgment based on a
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: lifetime in politics, Bernie is systematically going through that record
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: and saying, what has that wisdom gotten us?
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: If he's open to this kind of this is where
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: he's been over the course of his career and maybe
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: he's in a better place now. Why should you trust
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: him to not be too moderate, too centrist, too conciliatory
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: with Republicans when that's the tack he's taken throughout his career? Now,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: you know, there's been this debate about whether you can
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: technically say Joe Biden has been for cuts and how
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Democrats have over the years described not increasing Social Security
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: as a cut. I actually don't think it's that. Litigating
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: that debate, I think, is less important than recognizing that
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: there is a vulnerability in the more moderate positions Joe
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Biden has taken over the course of a long career.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: But Joe Biden can clearly respond to that and saying,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: look at where I am now and where I am
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: now does not comport with with the with the version
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: of of of my positions that Bernie Sanders is trying
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: to make.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: And also, like I imagine, this is an incredibly salient
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: issue among older Iowa voters who you assume will caucus
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: desperately want to caucus for you and come to your corner.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: and historically has been a huge driver of voting patterns
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: in this country.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say two groups of voters
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden is doing very well with and Bernie
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Sanders is not doing as well with, older voters and African-Americans,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and particularly older African-Americans, all of whom rely on Social Security, especially.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: And so I think Bernie is sort of picking these
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: issues that might start peeling away some of Biden's core
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: constituencies And as to the fairness of the hit, you're right.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, you can look back and, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: there's clips of Joe Biden in the 80s and 90s
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: talking about freezing Social Security or balanced budget amendments and
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Raising the cap.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Raising the cap. Means testing, right? So all this is,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's completely fair to look at someone's record.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: There was this whole, you know, fight over the weekend
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that honestly was, like, hard to follow even for me.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't. About, like, doctored videos and not doctored videos.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And was Joe Biden being sarcastic in 2018 when he's
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: talking about Paul Ryan or not? Like, I don't even
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: want to get into it now because it was all
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: sort of silly. I think the main point is Joe
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Biden has a record on Social Security. Like you said,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: it's fair to go back and look at the record
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of what he said. Where he is now is for
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: expanding Social Security slightly. So that's where Joe Biden is now. But,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you know, it's fair to look at someone's record.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Also, just it's interesting, too, because this is something that
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: happened to Hillary Clinton as well, which is Joe Biden
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: is a kind of mainstream consensus Democratic Party figure. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of times what he's paying for is having
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the mainstream consensus view at a time in which Democrats
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: just had a different way of thinking about budget cuts,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Social Security, trying to appeal to people with balanced budgets.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, politics has changed over the 45 years.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: or 75 years Joe Biden has been in politics.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Well, and also look, we should say that in the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: middle of the budget negotiations, we were trying to avoid,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: you know, the debt ceiling and economic collapse, thanks to
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: John Boehner and the Republicans in 2011. You know, there
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: was one proposal that had been reported on that to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: get a big deal We were going to make some
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: minor changes to Social Security that would have, you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: reduced benefits somewhat. And it never went through because the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Republicans obviously never agreed on anything. But Joe Biden's getting
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: shit for that, too, because Obama was there.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: You know, and I think that was bad looking back
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: And we all should just be honest that the next
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: time a Democrat is sitting in the Oval Office, Republicans
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: are going to suddenly pretend to care about the $ 23
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: trillion deficit that And they will act like it is
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: not almost entirely caused by cutting taxes for the richest
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: people on the fucking planet. And we'll try to gut
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: social security again. And so I think what the Bernie
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: people are trying to signal is that he will be
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: uncompromising on that issue and hasn't been in the past.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: And I think that's a fair tack to take.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And I hope other Democrats say the same thing who
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: are running to like, it should not be led down
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the rabbit hole that we were led down in 2011. Um,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: So things did cool off a bit on Monday night
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: when Bernie apologized to Biden for an op-ed that one
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: of his surrogates, Zephyr Teachout, had written accusing Biden of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: having a corruption problem. Sanders said, quote, It's absolutely not
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: my view that Joe is corrupt in any way. He
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: also said, I think this is very notable that Bernie
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: said that.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: This is the point of the campaign where it's starting
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: to get nasty, but it's not really nasty yet. And
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I think often the staffers are a lot more pissed
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: off and eager to take shots at the rivals than
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: the candidates themselves. And so I think, you know, like...
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: We certainly should debate Joe Biden's position on Social Security.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: I do think the Paul Ryan video was misleadingly edited
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: at best. I think it was an overreach probably to
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: send out an op-ed that called Biden corrupt. I think,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: you know, I would probably not want to be as
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: full throated with my attacks before Iowa if I were them.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: And it seems like Bernie is in the same boat
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: as me when it comes to strategic choices.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly. I mean, it's good for Bernie. I'm glad
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he said that. I think there's also, like you said,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: there's a political benefit to doing that, too, and that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Bernie and Biden share a lot of supporters, or at
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: least people are trying to make up their mind between
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the two. The plurality of people who support Biden, their
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: second choice is Bernie right now.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I wonder what the conversations are like sort of behind
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the scenes and say putting out that op-ed, because it
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: is true that there's sort of these two conflicting things.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: There's three things. One is to Tommy's point. about the
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: desire to not seem like you're attacking a Democrat. But
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: then there are these two competing concerns, which is on
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: the one hand, nobody wants to see Democrats in the
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: primary add fuel to the Republican fire around Hunter Biden
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: and the sort of attacks against Joe Biden and the
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: unfair way in which he's been maligned by Trump. At
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the same time, I think when the cameras are off
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: and when the tweets aren't, when the tweets are going
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: into the draft folder, say, I think everybody's like, worry, like,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: you know what? He does have a problem. Now, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: think it's wrong to call it a corruption problem. But
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: what's happening in the impeachment trial is a huge liability
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: for Joe Biden. And I think everybody recognize that. And
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: it's a difficult situation in which you don't want to
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: accede to Republican sleaze around Joe Biden, while also recognizing that, A,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: there is something corruptish about Hunter Biden's job. And B,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: it will be a political problem for Joe Biden. That's
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: just a fact.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: But the op-ed didn't say any of that. And here's
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the thing in the op-ed, right? She talks about a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: bunch of different issues, you know, where Biden has received
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: money here. You know, she, you can, it's actually an
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: op-ed about policies. He's taken policy positions. He's taken, which
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: is fine. It's the use of the word corruption, corruption.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: That's the real problem there. I think the test is
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: if you're going to say something about one of the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: democratic candidates, can you imagine saying that same thing? If
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that candidate is the nominee and still say you support them, right?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So if you, so if, If Joe Biden wins the nomination,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders can say, you know, I did disagree with
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's record on Social Security in the past, but
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: right now I think he's going to be a great nominee.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And that's a fair thing to say. It's harder to say.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I do think Joe Biden has a corruption problem, but
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I'm happy he's the nominee.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: You just have to imagine the future and what you're
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: going to be saying when that person is the nominee.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And that goes for what you say about Bernie as well.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not in favor of kid glove primaries by any means.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: No.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: But I think that a policy position should be vetted.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: And I think, frankly, if there's opposition research about a
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: candidate that might come out in the general election, it
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: should come out in the primary. That benefits everyone in
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: the long run. But you're right. Like when you were
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: just sort of asserting someone is corrupt. it's a lot
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: harder to defend and it's likely to turn off people. Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And I do think sometimes people use that as a cudgel. Uh,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: and you're not saying that, but I think do people
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: do use that? It's just worth, there's a difference between
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: saying don't attack each other, you know, Do cake gloves.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Don't say anything that could possibly be used in an ad,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: which means not having real hard debates.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not for civility politics. I'm for keeping it relatively honest.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: I'm for smart politics, which is not being an asshole generally.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And that's, I think, something that a lot of supporters
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: of various candidates haven't necessarily learned.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: But it's an interesting problem, right? Because it's so clear
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: that there is this desire to get some of these
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: questions about Joe Biden into the bloodstream without seeming as
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: though you're making it impossible for him to win in
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: the general.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just going to go with Bernie, have a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: debate on the issues, engage in civil discourse.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So that happens. And then you're like, Oh great. Everything's
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: cooling down. Biden, Bernie, we're back on the issues. Great.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And then, uh, Hillary Clinton pops up this morning in
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a Hollywood reporter interview where she wouldn't commit to endorsing Bernie.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: If he wins the nomination, uh, in a new documentary
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: about herself on Hulu, uh, which will be out in
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: early march she says quote nobody likes him uh he
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: got nothing done in the senate he was a career
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: politician what's going on there what do we think i
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: mean look i'll just start since i did not tweet
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: about it this morning um but i have a lot
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of thoughts if hillary clinton Hillary Clinton has every right
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to say whatever she wants to about Bernie if she
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't like him. She does not have to support him
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in the primary. She can tell other people not to
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: support him in the primary if she wants. That's just
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: totally within her rights to do that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: But every party leader, every person with influence who is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a progressive, who is a Democrat in this country has
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: an obligation to say that they will support the Democratic nominee,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: whoever that person is. That goes for Bernie people. That
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: goes for Biden people, Warren people. Everyone.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: And you know what? If that's not your view, if
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: your view is that you won't support Bernie Sanders in
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: the general, then you can say that. But you will
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: be attacked for taking an incredibly immoral and wrongheaded position.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And I have a feeling that, you know, even as
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: we're recording this on Tuesday morning, I have a feeling
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: this will be clarified at some point soon by Hillary Clinton.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: If she made a mistake, she made a mistake.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: And that's fine.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Everyone makes mistakes. But let's just admit that it was
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: a mistake to say that.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And it's also not that hard to clarify. If Bernie's
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the nominee.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I'll support him. That's it. That's it.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Easy thing to say.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I do think sometimes that the stakes in this election
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: are so high, it makes it harder to see them.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: That the sheer cataclysm of reelecting someone like Donald Trump
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: is so hard to imagine that it leads people to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: not truly accept the stakes in the primary, too. And
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: I do see some of that. And that's part of Twitter.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: And that's that's part of like these comments and how
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: people respond to these comments. And, you know, this is
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the last period before people start voting. And right now
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: we were just saying we don't know who the nominee
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: is going to be. The vast majority of people who
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: vote in the Democratic primary are likely not to vote
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: for the person who's the nominee. And I see it
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: in my mentions of people who say they don't like Bernie.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I see it in people who say they can't see
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: themselves canvassing for anyone who's not Bernie or Warren.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I see both sides of it. And I think there's
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: one thing that we can tell ourselves now before we
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: know who the nominee is, is to say, say to ourselves,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: what can I imagine doing in the general for the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: person I'm going to vote for? And can I pledge
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: before I cast that vote that I will do the
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: exact same amount no matter who wins?
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Just the question was so clear. If he gets the nomination,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: will you endorse and campaign for him? And the answer
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: has to be yes. And maybe the most charitable explanations.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: is that maybe she wants to hold back some leverage
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: to extract some sort of promise or something. I think
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: that's selfish. And to the people online, there's some defenders
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: of hers who are online, who are my friends, who
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: are saying have some faith in her for once, like
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: give her a break. I'm like, I did not develop
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: a four-part documentary about Hillary Clinton. She did. And then
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: she did this Hollywood Reporter interview about it. And clearly
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: the timing for the release of all of this was
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: designed to drop in the middle of the primary because
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: it would get a lot of attention. And what it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: doing right now is exacerbating all the challenges and rifts
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: from 2016 at a time when I think all of
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: us know that maybe the most important thing we could
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: do as a party is come together to win. And
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: so I understand deeply the value of a united Democratic
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Party that tries to heal these wounds. I don't get
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: who this is helping besides Hillary Clinton. And I think
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: that's shitty. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise. And
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: I'm so sick of being browbeaten for like expressing what
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I think is a fairly obvious opinion about the, like
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: politicians don't deserve our benefit of the doubt. They deserve
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: us to say what we really think and hopefully get
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: them to do the right thing.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: She is a brilliant human being who is politically shrewd
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and knows exactly what she was doing in that question.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Let's not pretend it was like, you know, I mean,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it's just, come on. Look, but the The reason that
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about this is not because I
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: think it's the biggest deal in the world, but because
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of exactly what you were just saying, which is there's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: a moment now before the voting has started where everyone
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: can just say, like, get in here. If you are
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a Bernie supporter, just imagine knocking on those doors for
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden because you got to do it. If you're
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a Joe Biden supporter, imagine knocking on those doors for
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. Imagine knocking on those doors for Pete Buttigieg
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Warren. A lot of people like Elizabeth Warren.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Knock on those doors for Elizabeth Warren. Amy Klobuchar.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: All of them. But leaders of the party need to
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: start saying today that that's what they're going to do.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Because thousands and thousands, if not millions of people, will
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: take their lead from them. And when people would say, oh,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: I won't support Mayor Pete because he's too moderate or
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: he's McKinsey, that is bullshit. All of us need to
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: step up and do whatever we can to beat Donald Trump.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: And it's insane to me that... That needs to be restated.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, like you said, the party leaders is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the important thing here because, you know, there's all kinds
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of voters out there who really don't necessarily see the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: difference between if their candidate doesn't win, they'll say, oh,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: maybe I will vote for Donald Trump or maybe I'll
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: stay home. There's plenty of people like that out there,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: but that's them. It's on us, people who are in
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: positions of influence, to set an example for everyone else.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And I'd also just say, like, it's clear from that interview,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that these feelings are raw and they are personal.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And like I said, I get that. And that makes it,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: but that makes it all the more. I understand that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: for Hillary.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: That makes the kind of opportunity to demonstrate leadership so
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: much more evident. Like how powerful it would be for
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton to stand up there and say, Bernie Sanders
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: and I have our differences.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: He hasn't been my favorite person. She can make a joke.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: She could just say like, you know, You know, I
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: will support and do everything I can for the nominee,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: even if it's my least favorite senator from Vermont. Like,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: it's so easy.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Especially when the context for a lot of the frustration
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: and the rift between the Bernie and Hillary side is
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: a feeling among Hillary people that he did not do
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: enough for her early enough to get his supporters to
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: lay off her supporters, bring them together and turn them out.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: It's like. We can't be hypocritical here.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm kind of glad we're doing this now, too,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: because I do think that, like.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, once there's a vote winner, then it's going to
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: be a.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Because, like, look, you know, we get... It's so funny.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: We were talking about this, that, like, we hear it, like,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I don't like those Pod Save America guys. They're in
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: the tank for Pete. They're too nice to Bernie. They're
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: too nice to Warren. Whatever it is.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: I'm a Tulsi stan.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is. And it's, like, I know that once
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: the nominee is chosen... I'm here for Stan. The people
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: calling for unity are going to be attacked as being...
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: For unity because their candidate won. But we are sitting
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: here at a moment where I honestly... I genuinely believe
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: that if you told me Bernie Sanders was the nominee,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: I can totally see that happening, just as likely as
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I can see it being Biden. You can see Warren
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: getting it. You can see Pete getting it. You can
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: see Klobuchar from downtown.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: It's good doing this now when the race is so unpredictable.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: We have no idea who's going to win. One more
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: thing before we get into it. The person with the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: most delegates should win the nomination.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: It's a race for delegates. Just before we get into
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that spin, because that's going to be a whole bunch
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of spin. Oh, but I got more here and I
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: won this state and I won these kinds of states.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: We all went through this in 07 and 08. Everyone
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: had their spin about like why they were the big winner.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: It's a race for delegates. The person with the most
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: delegates at the convention should be the nominee, barring something catastrophic.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Good luck with that pitch on Iowa caucus night
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: when there's like 40 different data sets out there.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: That's part of why I said it.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: By the way, guys, so I'm going back to Iowa tomorrow, Wednesday. Oh,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: you're going tomorrow? Yeah. And like, I've been reaching out
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: to all these campaigns, just checking in, see who's got
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: events going on. They're all like, well, we think we
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: might get in Friday night after impeachment, but you know,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: there's like four different snowstorms barreling down on the state.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is, So unbelievably unpredictable. I mean, I'm
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: a Des Moines Register and Seltzer poll stan, right? And
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I feel like that sample is the biggest and she's
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: probably the best pollster in the state. But the fact
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: that these numbers are all over the place, the fact
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: that no one knows who's going to turn out. I mean,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: even the Register folks think that we're talking a third
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: of the electorate will be new voters this time. No
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: one has any idea.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Add to that the fact that now Buttigieg and Biden
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: are going to be roaming around Iowa alone.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they'll go together.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Buddy company.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I am an Ann Seltzer stan as well. What I
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: would do is I wish everyone else could just pool
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: their money together and pay Ann Seltzer and the Des
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Moines Register to conduct polls every week because I do.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, we Ann.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I believe... I believe... That's good. I believe that poll...
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: But I don't know what the trend has been. You know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: these things move around so fast that if she pulled
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: again today, she could find what Binder found.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: We just don't know.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Binder's a great pollster. I was surprised that his
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Bernie number has been so low over time. Yeah. That
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't match.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: The national trend. Well, one thing that Binder nailed back
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in 08 was that there would be this larger caucus
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: universe for Barack Obama that most people had missed, except
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: for Ann Seltzer. So her and Binder were on the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: same page then.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Finally, over the weekend... a puff of white smoke emerged
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: from the New York times building in Manhattan, letting the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: world know that the editorial board had made not one,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: but two endorsements in the democratic primary, Amy Klobuchar and
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren. The endorsement read as follows. The radical and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the realist models weren't serious consideration. If there were ever,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I know I'm so angry. If there were, I was
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: screaming in our house, watching the special nerd. I know
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I'm such a nerd. Emily was in the bedroom. Like
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: what the fuck are you doing? Um, All right, so
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: if there was ever a time to be open to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: new ideas, it is now. If there were ever a
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: time to seek stability, now is it. That's why we're
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: endorsing the most effective advocates for each approach. There will
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: weight behind a single candidate.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Everyone.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Favoring centrists or progressives. But it's a fight the party
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: itself has been itching to have since Mrs. Clinton's defeat
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: in 2016.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Ms.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Klobuchar and Ms. Warren right now are the Democrats. best
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: equipped to lead that debate. May the best woman win.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: All right, let's start with... I feel like we should
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: do process and substance. Exactly. I was going to say,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: what do you guys think of their reasoning for picking
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: two candidates? And then we can talk about their reasoning
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: for picking these two candidates. So.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Let me start here with something charitable. We have some
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: experience with how hard it is to create a new
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: TV show, especially off of an existing thing, right? We
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: had Pots of America on HBO. It was a challenging,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: painful process. I give them credit for trying to be
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: innovative and try new things with the weekly show that
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I have not watched. That said, building up an editorial
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: endorsement process in this silly, performative reality TV show way, sure,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: it can make it more transparent, but it also heightens it.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: And it was just like, it seemed ridiculous online at
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: the time. And that ridiculous sentiment, I think, gets overwhelming
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: when you end up choosing two candidates and you puff
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: up this moderate versus radical narrative. I mean, the point
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: of an endorsement is to choose. Yeah, otherwise.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Without that core element, you don't have an endorsement. We're
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: not endorsing here. We're just.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Because.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: It's a tough time choosing for a whole bunch of reasons.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: We're like, all right, so we're just not going to endorse.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do it, do it.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: So putting aside even landing on two candidates, put aside
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: them putting it on television, like a reality show, which
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: doesn't actually bother me. I was really more struck by
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: the tone of the op-ed, which had this real authoritative
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: spirit to it. Like, here's the debate we've decided you
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: should have. We've chosen the debate that you should have. No,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: but the point I was going to make about that
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: is I What made me sad about it is it
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: felt like it was from another era because it felt
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: like what they were doing was announcing something to the world,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: a quiet world where people would hear it, but they're not.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: It just felt like they all got together and thought really,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: really hard about what they wanted to say, and then
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: they went up to their podium and just shouted it
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: at a hurricane.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: It is a debate that reflects a narrative created by
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: people like the New York Times editorial board, and people
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: who talk about politics, including us, a very insular group
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: of political media people. That is the debate about the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: realist versus the radical model. It does not reflect how
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: voters are looking at this primary, which is what really
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: made me annoyed. What were you just saying? You asked
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Biden's supporters who's their second choice. Most of them say
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: it's Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, his second choices are split
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Warren have been trading supporters back and forth in this
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: primary for the last several months.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: But so, yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, yes,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: the fact that voters are ideologically hard to pin down,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: I think, is true.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And not just ideologically, because they do say it's not
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: primarily ideological that there's a problem, because they said, oh,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: most of their platforms substantively are the same. It's this
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: sort of view of the world that, like, do we
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: just need to return to a time before Donald Trump,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: or do we need fundamental change? Which, again, most voters
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: would tell you, Both.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that's, but this is the point that I, like,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I can even take them on their terms. It's a
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: little bit like, you know, we've looked at all the
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: candidates and, um, one candidate has identified the enormity of
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the problems. However, another candidate refuses to do so in
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: the solution.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It hits, it ends up hitting both of them.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: It's, it's, which is also a problem.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: It's so like, I just want to understand what the
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: takeaway from the New York times is. It's that, uh,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: they agree with the Elizabeth Warren critique as to them about,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: about the scale of the challenges we face, but they
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: view as radical solutions that would meet those challenges. So
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: it's like, so the radical approach is to correctly identify
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: the problems and say what you think you should do
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to address those problems. The realist approach is to look
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: at our problems despite their grand scale and not address
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: them fully. That's realist.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: In one part of the op-ed, when they're talking about
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, they talk about how they do not favor
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: his Medicare for all idea for healthcare because they don't
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: agree with that policy. Later in the same op-ed, when
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: they talk about Joe Biden, they say that he only
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: tinkers around the edges when it comes to health care.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Which was purely, that made me so angry. It made
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: me so angry because it was like, so you didn't,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: did you Google it? Because like, yeah, I get that
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: that's the slam on Joe Biden and you can be
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: for Medicare for all ahead of a public option. But
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: the idea that like a public option from, from Joe
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Biden is tinkering from Pete Buttigieg, it's more from Klobuchar.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: It's more from Warren. It's even more like it's a
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: pure aesthetic judgment.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Um, This is petty. Editorials are written in this sort
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: of definitive, authoritative way, right? And they can be a
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: touch haughty. I would say this one was no exception.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: For sure. My favorite part is they did little paragraphs
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: for all the also-rans who didn't get it. For Mayor Pete,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: they wrote, his showing in the lead-up to the primaries
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: predicts a bright political future. We look forward to him
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: working his way up.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I know. That is the most.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: condescending fucking bullshit in a condescending process where some journalist
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: asks you like antagonizing questions like it's good that they
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: did it like fine but you don't have to be
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: that annoying I will say we.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Hope Yang we hope Yang gets involved in New York
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: politics what was that.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Does he want to do that I do think you
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ask him since everyone said one nice thing about this
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: whole whole episode I thought the candidates themselves in the
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: interview since I did watch this show were maybe made
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the best case for themselves that I've seen, like better
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: than the debate stage and better than their stump speeches.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Like I thought Joe Biden was sharp. I thought Bernie
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Sanders was like, came across like warm and, He also
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: said this thing about like, yeah, I don't say happy
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: birthday to people. I don't do bullshit well.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg showed a flash of anger when he was
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: accused of price fixing. Amy Klobuchar laid out a good
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: case for electability. Elizabeth Warren was great in how she
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: would deal with Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Cory Booker
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: made me cry with the story he told at the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: end when they asked him who broke his heart. So
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the candidates were really good. I do think talking about
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: now the candidates that they picked, Warren and Klobuchar– You know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Brian Boitler was sort of making the case for why
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: this might have been OK. And he said, look, I
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: think what they decided to do is they know that
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: this could come down to a race between Joe Biden
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders. In fact, you know, maybe that's most
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: likely if you really squint at the polling right now.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: And what they wanted to say is if it's going
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: to be a race between Biden, the more center left
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: guy and Bernie, the lefty guy, we think it should be.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: these two women instead who better represent those philosophies. So
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I guess, and I think Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: do represent those philosophies very well.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: And I, and I actually do like jokes aside, like
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I do appreciate that. I will like the second I
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: saw it, I thought, well, in a field this big,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: choosing one candidate is not a rebuke to any other,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: but choosing two was. And I actually felt I, my
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: first reaction was to think this is, this is about
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden more than it even was about Bernie Sanders.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Like I, They were.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Very dismissive of Bernie Sanders, I would say. With this
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: security guard, working class, African-American woman who just gushes about
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: how much she loves him. And it has like six
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: times the number of views as any other clip from
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the entire show.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest. Look, a little of my reaction to
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: this whole process is lingering rage from the 2008 primary
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: process when the Times was equally condescending to Barack Obama.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: They were.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Saying things like, but we need more specifics to go
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: with his amorphous promises. And I was like, fuck off.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: But again, though, it's the same problem. Like, that's not true.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: That's the narrative. Like, I don't remember exactly when the
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: full rollout of all the policies were, but I feel
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: as though by the time the endorsement came, we were
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: in the heat of, like, these were two extremely strong
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: policy shops.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Wait, who did they endorse then? I don't even remember.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Are they dead? I can't even remember. Showed you how
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: much this matters.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: And it also just, the place of an endorsement in
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: 2020 is, like, hard to really understand. And, like, it's
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: also worth remembering, too, that, like, these are a group
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: of people who took a task of endorsing someone really,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: really seriously. And like as much as we can make
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: fun of the outcome and I, and I want to,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: and I have, uh, it's.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: The end, but no, but story in three.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Acts, I was honestly, my overall reaction to it was
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: one of just sort of sadness at the fact that
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: so much of our politics now are the serious people
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: getting together and just really, really trying to show you
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: that being serious is still cool and still counts and
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: makes a difference. And then they like, It just comes
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: apart on takeoff.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Take the work seriously. Just don't take yourselves quite so seriously.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: That would be my note.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And look, you know, Amy Klobuchar is happier about her
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Quad City Times endorsement than her New York Times endorsement.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: No shit, man.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: She knows that.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Probably matters more.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I would rather have like a really hardworking like Iowa
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: state senator or rep than the New York Times. That said,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: in 2008, I nearly cried when the Des Moines Register
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: endorsed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was like, hey, man.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: it's okay. We're going to make it.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: We're going to win. No, we're not. When we come back,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Tommy talks to Chris Liddell-Westefeld about his oral history of
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the 2008 Obama campaign.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: I am thrilled to introduce our guest, Chris Liddell-Westefeld, who
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: is my colleague from 2007 in Iowa and the author.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: of a fantastic book, They Said This Day Would Never Come.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: It's an oral history of the Iowa campaign, the general election, stories,
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: like the worst moments, the best moments, all rolled into one.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Great to have you here. Great to be here. So,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: not a lot of people do oral history projects these days.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: I remember thinking at the time, man, I should write
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: down some of these great stories that I'm hearing. And
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: I actually went so far as to force like Mitch
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Stewart and Paul Tuz and a couple of people to
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: sit with me with an audio recorder and talk about
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: fun moments. And then I lost the tape. How did
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: you like, why'd you decide to do this? What got
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: you to spend so much time collecting this history? Well,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: so in.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: In 2014, I was working in the White House and
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: I left to do this. And part of the reason
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: was when I was in the White House, my job
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: was to make the president's briefing book. And so every
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: piece of paper that would go to him would come
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: through my office in some way. And I saw up
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: close just how much effort goes into documenting a presidency.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: Every email is archived.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: Every photo is archived. It is wild when you think
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: about it. Yeah. Everything the president of the United States
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: jots down on a slip of paper is supposed to
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: get into a record, into the archive. Yeah.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: And- In looking at that, I realized comparatively little had
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: been done to document the campaign that put him in office.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: And so much about the way the president talked about
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: that campaign was about how it wasn't about him. It
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: was about everyone else who was working on the campaign,
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: whether they were volunteers or staff. It was about people
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: who wanted the country to go in a different direction
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: than it was and saw his campaign as the vehicle
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: to help push it that direction. And so part of
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: the reason I decided to do this was I wanted
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: to talk to people who had been a part of
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: that starting at the time when it was really unlikely
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: and who saw it go from this long shot thing
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: to him becoming the most successful politician of the last
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: 50 years and what it was like to go through that.
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: And so the reason I wanted to do it as
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: an oral history was what so many people would stress
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: to me when I would talk to them about that campaign,
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: and I think this is true of any movement, cause,
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: or campaign is the whole was greater than the sum
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: of the parts. I mean, there was no one person
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: that you could focus on that explained everything else. It
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: was all these disparate voices in different places. And so
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: the hope was by putting them together, you could at
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: least give some sense of what it was like to
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: live through that.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: You sat down with President Obama for the book.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: What was that like besides a reminder of how slow
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: he talks?
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: Uh, well, so, you know, one of the things that
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: I had, um, uh, I, I was pretty nervous about
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: it beforehand.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: And, uh, Isn't it weird? Like we, you work for
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: the guy for a decade and you're still just like,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: I will never feel comfortable in front of this man.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: He's just the president. Right. Yeah.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: And then part of the reason too is, I mean,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: when you start out as a volunteer or a staffer
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: on the campaign, um, it's stressed to you how the
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: most precious resource is the candidate's time.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: And so if they're talking to you, then that's time
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: they're not talking to somebody else.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Right. I always want to just hang in the back. Right.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, going into it, I was worried
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: that kind of my own anxiety would overwhelm the entire interview.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: But fortunately, I realized this has been cleared to be
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: on the schedule by other people, including him. So this
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: must be.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Worth the time. And what's ironic about it is you
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: probably felt like, oh God, I'm wasting his time. I
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: feel bad about this. He's probably thinking, this is actually
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: a fun block of a half hour of my day.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Everything else is a hard, shitty problem. But you were
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: so gracious and you let me use some of the
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: audio from your conversation with Obama for my Iowa series.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: And listening to him and reading him talk about Iowa,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: you can tell that this was just an unbelievably special
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: moment for him. Yeah.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: And the thing that he talks about is this idea
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: that he was the front man, but the organizers, the volunteers,
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: the precinct captains, they were the band. And so, you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: he talked about how much it meant to him to
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: see people working so hard for him, partly because he
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: had been an organizer himself. And so, you know, what
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: he talked about is the idea that Seeing that made
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: him a better candidate. Wanting to be worthy of those
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: efforts was really important to him. And that was something
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: he talked about, but also people who were around him
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: that entire year talked about too.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, he would literally say over and over again, like,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: I just can't let these organizers down. He would introduce
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: people who are 30 years younger than him on stage
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: with him at events. And sometimes the organizers would get
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: a louder cheer than he would get. I think he
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: understood what people were putting into this campaign. Yeah.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: And I think it, you know, one of the things
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: that was interesting is talking to people who had been
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: in Iowa, but then people in other states. So I
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: started out in Iowa and had been an organizer there.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: But something I hadn't realized until I started interviewing people
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: in other places is for that whole year they're organizing
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: on his behalf, there's no guarantee the campaign is going
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: to make it to their state.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: You know, if he had lost Iowa, then he would
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: have dropped out the next day. And so talking to
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: people about how they had motivated themselves over that entire
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: year was something that really struck me once I talked
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: to people whose experiences had been different than my own.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were very blessed. Another word is spoiled in Iowa.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: We got a lot of his time. I want to
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: talk more about Iowa in a minute, but just, you know,
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: as you reported the book, Was there a favorite story
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: you learned years later that was from the campaign or
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: from some time in the general election maybe that you
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: hadn't learned at the time that was like one of
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: your favorite, you know, most moving or funny or, you know,
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: worst moments? Yeah.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: I think something I tried to focus on in these
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: interviews is this question of, you know, when you start
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: on the campaign, you're asked, why are you here? Not
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: why do you want Obama to be president? Why do
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: you think he'd be a great president? But like what
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: compels you to do this day in and day out?
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: And so hearing people's answers to that question, um, and
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: how personal this felt to them, um, was something that
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: really struck me. Uh, and so, you know, one of
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: the people talked about, um, uh, having been in the
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: military in Iraq, coming back, having not been involved in
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: politics before, but how a huge driver for him was
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: backing a candidate who had been against the war and
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: getting them elected. Um, another person talked about, they were
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: an organizer in South Carolina. And they had a volunteer
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: who was 86 years old who'd never volunteered before. And
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: they talked about how her grandmother had been an enslaved
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: person and just how emotional it was to watch her
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: go through this experience and how she she also when
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: they first talked to her, they assumed that, you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: being 86, she wouldn't want to canvas very much. But
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: then she just kept coming back for more packets. Um,
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: and I think, you know, the emotional connections that volunteers
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: and organizers would form over the course of that campaign. Um,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: there's so many examples of here of how that played
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: out and it was affected by the community you worked in,
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: the personal history you brought to it. Um, and you know,
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: what was unique about that moment in time, but also
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: sort of universal about organizing is, um, this sense that
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: people were part of something bigger than themselves, uh, and
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: all the different ways that played out, I think is what,
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: what really kept me coming back to this for so long.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, you know, you and I worked for
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: the campaign until we got a paycheck such as it was,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: but you know, there were so many people that just
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: gave and gave and gave of their time and volunteered
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: and just did it because they believed in Barack Obama.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: And it almost makes you like emotional to think about
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: that group of people and how literally he wouldn't have
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: won if not for volunteers and organizers. Yeah.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: I think that was something I hadn't fully appreciated until um,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: sitting down with some of the leaders from the campaign
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: to hear about it, how much they stress this idea
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: that he would not have been the nominee if not
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: for not only the people who organized him in early states,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: but people who took it upon themselves to organize in
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: states that there was no guarantee would matter in the primary.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: And because they had done that by the time the
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: campaign rolled around to them, they already had a structure
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: in place. And that was the reason he won the nomination.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Right. Um, okay. So I've, we've mentioned Iowa a bunch
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: of times. Um, And we were colleagues there. Can you
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: just talk about like you're in school, you get this job,
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: like where was your turf? What were you doing for
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Obama back in 2007?
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: So in 2007, I was a student at the University
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: of Iowa and I had grown up in Iowa City. And,
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: you know, like a lot of people after the 2004 election,
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: I had done some volunteering, but I was pretty despondent
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: after Bush got reelected. And I just kind of read
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: all I could about that, about elections and realized I
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: was kind of in this perfect position to volunteer for
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: the next one. Um, Iowa being first in the nation
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: and then Iowa city being one of the most liberal
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: parts of Iowa. Uh, so I would go to all
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: of these candidate events when candidates would come to Iowa
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: thinking about running for president. Um, but Obama was the
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: only one that I really got excited about. And so
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: even when John Kerry turned down that beer bong, that's right.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: I was at that. Was that a tailgate?
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: Uh, how did that go? Well, it was, uh, awkward
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: as the photo shows. Um, a friend of mine shortly
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: after that walked up to him in a homemade Wu
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: Tang clan shirt, put his arm around him and demanded
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: a photo. Um, so I think that whole morning was
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: a little rough for John Kerry.
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, at the time it was a big
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: 10 tailgate, I think. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, no,
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: you gotta know what you're going into there. That's right.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: Um, But so when Obama announced, I volunteered at his
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: first event in Iowa. I helped start the student group
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: at the university. And this is how I was spending
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: all my time. And so when I graduated, a spot
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: had opened up in the office and I got hired
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: as an organizer. But what I hadn't realized until I
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: started doing these interviews was. how unique my experience was
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: in that I was organizing a place I already knew.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: And everybody almost who worked for Obama and I was
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: an organizer had basically come to a place they had
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: never visited to do a job they barely understood. for
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: a candidate widely expected to lose for little.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: To no money.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: And so hearing about how their different experiences played out
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: depending on their turf compared to mine, where I was,
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't know how to organize, but I
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: knew the community I was in.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Do you think that that is more important than the
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: training you might've gotten as an organizer?
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: Knowing the community I was in?
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: I think what was important about it is I had
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: a shorthand with people Um, like I knew who to
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: call if something came up, um, and that, that was
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: really important. I think that the, um, the organizing part
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: of it, you know, I, I was not a great organizer.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: I was probably middle of the road. Uh, and I think,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: you know, the, the way I got better at it
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: was simply by doing it.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Um, so today we're, we're, we're recording this on
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: January 17th. So that would have been, you know, between
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: two and three weeks out from caucus day. Are you
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: able to put your brain back in the state it
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: was in at this time in 2007? Like what would
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: you have been doing right now?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: I think I would have just been feeling constant anxiety
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: all the time, like overwhelming anxiety hour to hour.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: And then.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: Sitting in an office with other people who probably also
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: are feeling anxiety, but maybe we're better at hiding it. Um,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: and I think at this time I still had three
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: or four of my 17 precincts in Iowa didn't have
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: a precinct captain.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: And so, uh, I was not alone in that. There
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: were other people that were also recruiting.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: But I can imagine that would be anxiety inducing.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, that was the whole thing. Like your
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: entire job for those few months leading up to the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: caucus day is about finding precinct captains. Um, because you
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: can't in Iowa, um, be in a caucus yourself. You
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: can't do it yourself. Like you have to find local people, um,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: who will take this on and do this. Uh, and so,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: you know, so much about those final weeks for me
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: was getting people who were supporters to agree to be
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: precinct captains or finding, you know, and I had this
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: one really rural turf where, you know, I've been trying
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: for months to find somebody. And it was right around
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: this time where someone who I'd been trying to get
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: for a long time finally agreed to do it. And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: he was a African-American lawyer in his 30s in a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: precinct that was almost entirely white farmers or people who
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: are connected to agriculture in some way And what I
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: remember in these final weeks is him explaining to me
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: like why he had actually decided to do something and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: it was all about how he realized that He hated
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: making phone calls. He hated going door-to-door But he he
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: realized that if he wanted Barack Obama to be president
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: then he needed to do something about it in his neighborhood.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, the last couple of weeks was
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: all about taking conversations like that and making sure they
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: knew what to do on caucus night. And I feel
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: like that campaign, you know, that's, there are thousands of
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: stories like that of people who did not intuitively want to,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: don't consider themselves political, but he appealed to them. And
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: the idea of him as president appealed to them. And
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: so they decided, despite their discomfort, to do something about it.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know this man who is your precinct captain,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: but I love him. It's so funny listening to this
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: and just having, you know, still being in the process
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: of doing this Iowa series. In some ways, nothing has changed, right?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: There are still nearly 1,700 precincts, which means you need
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: a precinct captain in all those locations because you, the organizer,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: can't physically be in all the places that you're in
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: charge of. But also, it's funny talking to these campaigns
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: now where you guys spent a lot of time dialing
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: through the voter file, traditional voters. Ultimately, Obama's strategy had
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: to be to bring in new people who'd never caucused
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: before because we just wouldn't have won otherwise. But today,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: the kids that are dialing through the voter file are
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: not reaching anyone. They're reaching like six out of 100 people.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: And so it's all this relational organizing. I mean, Do you,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: are you like upped on how the organizing has changed?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Do you ever like talk to these field organizers about
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: what they're doing and compare notes?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: I did talk to someone last week who is an
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: intern for one of the campaigns in Iowa. And she
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: was talking about, you know, what I said, so, so
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: do you think you want to go on to another
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: state after this? And she was like, you know, I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: love this, but what I'd really like to do is
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: work at Crooked Media.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: I was like, wow, that did not exist until you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: asked me to. Uh, one of the biggest changes though,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: is like Twitter did not exist.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Uh, you know, so like when we had our staff trainings,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: you know, you or someone from the communications office would
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: get up and basically be like, no one can talk.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: To the press at all. Do not talk to the press. Right.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: Or Josh Earnest will kill you. Right. Josh Earnest, the
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: nicest person on the planet will kill you.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: And, uh, you know, the big difference now is you
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: can watch what these organizers do all day just by
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: following them on Twitter. Um, and so you, you can
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: get a sense in a way that just wasn't possible
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: before of the relationships they're forming, the connections they find
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: with people, you know, uh, by happenstance or through relationships. Um,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: but I, you know, I've only been back for the holidays,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: so I haven't spent a ton of time talking to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: people who are there now. Um, but what I, but
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: I think you're right. There is sort of a timeless, um, uh,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: sense with the caucuses. Like ultimately this is about, um,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: finding other people in your neighborhood who are willing to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: stand in your corner. And the basics of that don't change.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: And convincing them. Yeah. I love this book because there
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: have been so many movies, TV shows, books written about
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: the White House. But like you said, nobody gets the
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: campaign right. And it's not like you're fictionalizing a story.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: You're just talking to people about these experiences. And it's
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: so much better when you win. it's so much worse
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: than you could imagine when things are bad. Like, do
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: you remember the Des Moines office got the cruise ship virus,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: the Nora virus in our, in our, it's swept through
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: our disgusting shithole of an office and everyone was laid
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: up for weeks. Like things like that happened all the time. Yeah.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: I think so. You know, when I worked in Iowa,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: I was in Iowa city, which was, you know, pretty sweet.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: Yes. It's good turf. Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: Uh, very, uh, non-hostile turf. Um, But one of the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: things I didn't realize until I started doing this was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: how different that experience was compared to somebody who was
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: in a rural area. And I just walked away with
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: so much respect for people who, no matter the candidate
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: they're doing this for, are the only people doing it
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: in their area when they're not expected to win. And
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was one person I talked to who,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: I think before you do anything in politics yourself, the best...
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: The representation in pop culture that you have is essentially
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: the West Wing or movies like it. And this one
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: person talked to me about how she had this expectation
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: before she went out to Iowa that this is going
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: to be me and a bunch of other people about
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: my age working really hard, but sharing an office together,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: having the shared experience, forming these great bonds. And when
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: she got to Iowa, she was told, you need to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: go to Charles City, this 8,000 person town. And she
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: was the only staffer in Charles City. So she drives
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: into this place. She doesn't know a soul. It's 45
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: minutes away from Mason City, which is the big landmark.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: And for people who aren't from Iowa, Mason City is.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: Not that big, but big for the area. And basically
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: in Minnesota. Yeah.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: And, you know, for many people who came to Iowa,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe they'd grown up in a more metropolitan area.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: Like if you're used to shopping at Whole Foods, the
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: Casey's General Store menu is is going to be a
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: bit of a culture shock when you get there.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: And, and so hearing about how, um, her and others, uh,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: you know, you show up, you don't know a soul
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: and the way they would describe going through the act
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: of building community, it wasn't like, this is how I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: made this experience fun. It was like, this is how
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: I decided I would survive this experience. Like you have
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: to embed yourself in the community and then build a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: new one around the campaign. And so this 84-year-old man
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: became her best friend. And he took her to church
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: and introduced her to people at the church who introduced
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: her to other people. And it's not like all these
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: people are Obama supporters. They're just people who live there.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: And so hearing about how people had formed relationships, not
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: just in the more metropolitan areas where you would have
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: peers your age, but in places where you were the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: only one doing this work. And you would have to
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: find a way to motivate yourself.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: Lonely. And what passed as an office was often not
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: an office in any real sense of the word, too.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, people were on an island. And what was
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: just so extraordinary to me was the way people, like
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: you said, built friendships, built community, and got people to
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: caucus for Barack Obama that probably didn't really care about politics,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: but really cared about that organizer. That's right.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was something again and again. And I interviewed
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: about an equal number of organizers and volunteers for this.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: And what was moving about those interviews is the volunteers
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: would talk about the organizers as if they were, you know,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: in some cases, their surrogate children, like they had adopted
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: them in this community. And they would talk about, you know,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: years later going to their weddings or, you know, introducing
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: them to their grandkids or, you know, these relationships that
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: you form in this really intense moment that have the
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: potential to last far beyond it.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're enduring. So there's probably a bunch of field
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: organizers listening to this show who want to be you, right?
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: They want to work in Iowa and and then win
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: and then work in the White House someday. But they've
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: been sprinting towards caucus day and living and breathing this
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: moment every day for as long as they've been on
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: this campaign. And then at some point, someone has said,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: dial into this conference call, you're going somewhere else after
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: or your job is over. Do you have any advice
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: for them? for how to manage that uncertainty and that anxiety? Yeah,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: I guess, um, I guess I have two kinds of advice.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: So there's a, there's a whole scene in the book
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: about people getting on that conference call the day after
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: the caucus, um, and discovering, uh, one person described caucus
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: night as this cliff we went off with no understanding
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: of what was beneath it because you didn't know how
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: it was going to turn out. No one had said
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: to you, people will go on to other States. Like
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: it literally didn't occur to people. I can keep doing
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: this until this conference call. And so, But they were
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: scattered across about 25 different states afterwards. So I got
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: sent to Alabama Almost everyone I work with got sent
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: to Nevada and I guess I so I would say
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: two piece of advice is one is What everyone would
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: stress was that because Iowa was first in the nominating
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: process The campaign and this is true of other campaigns
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: too had put so many resources into Iowa That other
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: states hadn't been getting so what they discovered when they
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: went to other States was that whatever they thought they
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: hadn't had enough of in Iowa was about 10 times worse.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: It's like, Oh, you had a printer. Oh, that must've
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: been nice. Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: And then for me personally, I mean, a mistake that
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: I made after Iowa, um, which other people didn't make
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: because they had had the experience of going someplace new
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: was to assume their experience in Iowa would be universal. Um,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: and you know, the mistake that it took me a
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: while to understand is, um, when you go into a
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: new place, the, uh, The cultural dynamics, the social dynamics
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: of that place are completely unique. They need to inform
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: how you organize. And so being in listening mode as
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: much as possible while at the same time understanding we
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: have to do this thing in a relatively short amount
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: of time is something I wish I had known before.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: Respect and power include, man. How was Alabama?
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Where did you live?
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: What did you do?
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: Well, in Alabama, I lived in Mobile. Been there.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: It's nice. Yeah.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: And when I first, something that I was not great
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: at and still struggle with is breaking away from brand
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: familiarity when choosing places to eat.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: So I would eat at the Waffle House about two
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: or three times a day.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's a pretty good choice.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: For the entire four weeks I was in Alabama.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: Some LBs get packed on? Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: But, you know, the crippling anxiety that I carried throughout
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: that experience meant that I didn't actually eat that much.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: So it really balanced itself out in a way.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: was such a relief to be reunited in later states
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: with people I had worked with in Iowa. Because in
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: that period where there were so many states voting at
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: the same time, you know, no one had the resources
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: to stay together. Like you had to go someplace on
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: your own and work it. Um, and so, you know,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: when we got back to Texas, I saw all these
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: people I'd worked with in Iowa again, and it was
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: like this, uh, reunion.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: And it still feels that way, if we're being honest.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, any field organizers in Iowa listening to this,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: and I know I'm really, uh, delivering for a niche
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: audience here, but I can't help myself. It's like Joe
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Klein wrote this piece in time after Barack Obama won Iowa.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: And he basically said that, you know, these young field
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: organizers will see themselves in the West wing someday and
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: just know How much that experience contributed to Barack Obama
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: being president. I mean, I just think that people that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: give of themselves and give their entire life to a campaign,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: no matter which campaign it is, no matter what state
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: they work in, no matter what the job is, are
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: heroic people in my book because it takes a lot
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: out of you. Yeah.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, one of the, I mean,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: it turns out after doing this as, as heroic as
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: that is, you can't really make 11 chapters just about
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: knocking doors and, uh, and making phone calls. Uh, so
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: things people would talk about were just the personal cost
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: of doing this for a year and a half, like
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: the physical and mental and emotional, um, toll and, uh, how, uh,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: it was only later looking back that they realized, you know,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: they had either put themselves in some, um, dangerous driving
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: situations or like they hadn't been taking care of themselves
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: in any way. Um, but they would always say like
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: the person that made me recognize I need to change
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: something about what I'm doing was always an older volunteer
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: who would care enough to insist that I eat more
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: or go to bed earlier.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: Um, any stories that really jumped out of you?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, um, uh, I guess so, um, One
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: thing that jumped out at me, almost everyone I talked
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: with had some version of, I got into a car accident.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: And it almost always seemed to happen in the final
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: month before a major election day.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: And so those kind of would stick with me when
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: people would talk about those. But I think the place
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: that that comes from is people really care about this
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: stuff and the the the way they would describe it
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: was um i felt like any moment i wasn't working
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: was a moment that i was letting down this bigger
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: cause and not just not barack obama who to many
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: of them became this you know like it quickly was
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: not about him yeah uh is the way people would
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: talk about it like they were interested because of him
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: and obviously wanted him to win but it became about
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: the other people you're working with. It became about not
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: letting them down.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Um, and so like Paul two's down,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'll be like Mary Grace, these people, these
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: leaders that we loved. Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: And, uh, so that was something that people would talk
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: about a lot that I think, um, stuck with me. Uh,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: and I think too, you know, it's easy to think
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: that this was somehow unique to these people or this moment,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: but I think that spirit that animated these people is
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: something that I feel like is here again. Like it's
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: the same spirit that animated people in the women's march,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: or in the 2018 midterms, or, you know, I listened
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: to the Wilderness podcast this week, and this woman, Angela,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: in episode two.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, she's incredible.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she started this, her own group in Pennsylvania. I mean,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: the same spirit, this desire for something to be different
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: that animates these people today, I think is what was
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: animating these people then.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I have to tell you, from my time
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: in Iowa with the Warren campaign and Booker's, Cory Booker's campaign, like,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: There's the same vibe with a lot of these groups.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's really inspiring. Man, you jogged my memory
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: about a car story. I remember being in Des Moines
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: and we were driving with Ted Sorensen, who is a
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: Kennedy speechwriter, you know, famous, legendary person. And I was
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: in the van with him, with like me and Marvin
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: Nicholson and someone else and someone was driving. And there
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: were tornado warnings. So the Secret Service guys hit the
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: gas and we're doing like 90, You can barely see
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: because it's raining so hard. And like somehow the whole
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: mental orientation of the people in every one of these
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: cars was like, we got to get to this event
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: on time with Obama. And Sorensen finally turned to the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: driver and he said, son, I'm 90 years old. I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: can barely see, but I can see that van in
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: front of us. Could we please slow down? And he's like, okay,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: you know what? He's got a point. You know, one
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: very important reader of your book was your editor. I believe,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: who obviously gave you notes, but now is also going
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: out to Canvas for the last few weeks? Yeah.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: So Colleen Lowry, the editor for this book, is going
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: out to Iowa for the last 10 days or so
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: leading up to the caucus to be a part of
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: what these people were a part of.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: What's her turf?
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's been assigned yet. I'm not sure.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: I need to check. We're doing an event in Iowa
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: City um, about a week before the caucus or reading thing.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: So I'll see her there.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: I want Colleen in a tumwa. I want her to,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: I want her to gut it out, you know, go
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: somewhere where there's not gonna be a lot of Democrats. Yeah.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: Well, she was a, um, she was a, a out
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: of state volunteer in Pennsylvania in 08.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: No, that's, that's awesome.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: So I think when this came across her desk, she
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: recognized peace of herself in these people.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: And also, I mean, I think that's a good part
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: about the book again, is just volunteering. Like it's not
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: just really cold and it's not just scary sometimes to
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: knock doors. It's fun. It's rewarding. You'll meet people. You'll
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: have great experiences. It will be funny and weird at times,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: but it's like the book, I think, does a great
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: job of spelling out how meaningful this work is for people. Yeah.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: And yeah, that was something people would stress to me
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: again and again. So I hope that comes through.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: It did. It did. My last question for you, and
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: maybe it's more of a conversation starter than a question,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: but there's been this big dust up this week about
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in a conversation they had
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: a few years back where Elizabeth Warren felt like Bernie
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: Sanders said a woman could never be president. Bernie Sanders
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: denies that that happened. And I'm not trying to weigh
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: in on either side of that conversation because obviously I
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: wasn't there, but it did remind me of when I
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: sat down with you for this book and I realized
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: how bad my memory is. I mean, like, were you
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: surprised at how Much time you had to spend fact-checking
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: people or helping people remember things are just inaccurate memories? Yeah.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's, you know, because you're living this stuff,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: you know, you're really living the days when you're doing this.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: And so I think part of you thinks, well, I'll
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: never forget.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: Yes. This is a formative experience in my life.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: But it quickly fades. And so one of the mistakes
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: I made in doing this was no one interviewed me
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: before I started the project. So like all of my
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: memories got replaced by other people's.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: Is it weirder that happened? Yeah.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: But I managed to hold on to most of my
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: emails from this period.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's good.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: And so when I would do these interviews, I would
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: send people these emails ahead of time and anything I
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: could find about their turf to kind of help them remember,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: you know, this was a precinct captain. This was a volunteer.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: You know, tell me about that person. And I think,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: you know, to that point about Senator Sanders and Senator Warren,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: I think it's easy for people to forget just how
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: heated the 2008 primary got. And so one of the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: things that I was struck by when I went to
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 4: do these interviews, I interviewed some people who had worked
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 4: on the Clinton campaign, who came over to the Obama campaign.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: As part of this.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: And personally, just the amount of respect that I have
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: for people who made that choice was really hard. Because
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: they did everything everyone else did. And they worked as
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: hard as everyone else did. And almost immediately, so many
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: of them decided to join the general election campaign because
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: it was about more than one candidate. It was about
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: the effect this campaign will have on people's lives. And
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: so hearing them talk about that, going back and looking
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: at some of the things that Senator Clinton said, uh,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: shortly after her concession. Um, and I think what a,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: what an effect that had on the party being unified
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: by the end of that summer, um, I think was
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: really important. And I think as we think about 2020,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: you know, one, um, absolutely nothing that has happened this
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: year comes anywhere close to anything that happened that year.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, buckle up everybody. It's going to get so much worse.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: Um, but the other thing that I, you know, find
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: reassuring is, um, because people were able to come together
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: in 2008 after such a heated primary that went on
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: so long, um, that, uh, as long as people keep
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: this larger mission in mind that come the end, um, people.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: Will be together.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: Listen, I'm so glad you did this book. It, there
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: are funny stories. There are heartbreaking stories. There are stories
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: that make you, uh, remember why you got involved in
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: politics in the first place, you know, and just like
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: average people who did heroic work to elect this man president. So,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, they said this day would never come. It's
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: on bookshelves now. Chris, you know, thank you for putting
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: hundreds of hours into this thing. It really is like
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: a really important piece of history.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: Thanks for coming.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: All right. Thanks to Chris for joining us today, and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you on Thursday. Thanks to the New
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: York Times headboard.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: We're sorry. We like you.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: I feel a little harsh.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, there's some really awesome people. Charlie Wartzel's hilarious,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: great writer about technology. Jesse Wegman, very smart. Yeah, a
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: bunch of really brilliant people on there.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: I'm running out of bedroom Hillary endorsing Bernie.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: Shake the whole thing up. Rattle those cages. That's so funny.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator, and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.