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“Killing it on the economy.” · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:22
Speaker 4: Later in the pod, you'll hear Tommy's interview with digital
0:24
Speaker 4: strategist Tara McGowan, who's been keeping close tabs on how
0:27
Speaker 4: Trump and all the Democratic candidates are spending on digital
0:30
Speaker 4: ads and why it's important. But first, we're going to
0:33
Speaker 4: talk about Trump's long phone call with Vladimir Putin, the
0:37
Speaker 4: recent strong jobs numbers, Nancy Pelosi's 2020 strategy, and the
0:41
Speaker 4: debate over electability in the Democratic primary and Westeros.
0:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right. We should say Lovett's on the road.
0:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
0:50
Speaker 3: But he'll be joining you and Dan on Thursday.
0:51
Speaker 2: That's right, he will.
0:52
Speaker 3: Look forward to that.
0:53
Speaker 4: And he's just finishing up his Texas tour. You can
0:57
Speaker 4: hear the Houston episode of Love or Leave It that
0:58
Speaker 4: features Emily Heller, former NFL great and current podcast star
1:02
Speaker 4: Arian Foster, and Mercedes Fulbright from the Center for Popular Democracy.
1:06
Speaker 3: I really like Arian Foster. When we talked to him
1:08
Speaker 3: in Houston, he and I spent 20 minutes talking about, like,
1:11
Speaker 3: cosmos and shows we liked about science and stuff. astrology
1:14
Speaker 3: on netflix he's a great guy he's a great guy
1:17
Speaker 3: hell of a running back too that's.
1:18
Speaker 4: Right um all right let's get to the news on
1:22
Speaker 4: friday donald trump initiated a telephone call with the man
1:25
Speaker 4: who sabotaged our presidential election vladimir putin but did not
1:29
Speaker 4: say a word to him about that attack or any
1:31
Speaker 4: future attempts to interfere with our elections trump tweeted that
1:35
Speaker 4: they quote discuss trade venezuela ukraine north korea nuclear arms control,
1:40
Speaker 4: and even the Russia hoax.
1:42
Speaker 2: Very productive talk.
1:44
Speaker 4: In an interview on Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
1:47
Speaker 4: had an explanation for why election interference wasn't covered during
1:50
Speaker 4: the 60 plus minute call. Quote, sometimes conversations just aren't
1:55
Speaker 4: long enough to include every issue.
1:58
Speaker 2: Tommy, you buy that one? I do not. That sound
2:00
Speaker 2: like a good explanation to you?
2:01
Speaker 3: I do not. I mean, also the Russian readout said
2:03
Speaker 3: it was a 90 minute call. So that does seem
2:06
Speaker 3: like some time now.
2:08
Speaker 2: That's a lot of time on the phone. Who talks
2:09
Speaker 2: to someone for 90 minutes on the phone?
2:11
Speaker 3: Well, calls with Putin are a pain in the ass. One,
2:13
Speaker 3: he gives long speeches, long diatribes about the legacy of
2:18
Speaker 3: Western intervention and this place and that place. And then
2:21
Speaker 3: our president is a bumbling idiot who gives long speeches
2:24
Speaker 3: about Fox and Friends and whatever, and then it all
2:26
Speaker 3: has to get translated.
2:27
Speaker 2: So they both need translators.
2:28
Speaker 3: That's right.
2:30
Speaker 2: Who doesn't speak English? Neither does Trump. Exactly.
2:34
Speaker 3: So that is a mundane reason that could account for
2:37
Speaker 3: why it would take a long time. But either way, like, hey,
2:41
Speaker 3: you know, the head of the CIA, I'm sorry, the
2:43
Speaker 3: head of the FBI is flashing warning lights saying that
2:47
Speaker 3: these guys are going to interfere in the 2020 elections.
2:49
Speaker 3: Kirstjen Nielsen, the former DHS secretary, was told not to
2:53
Speaker 3: raise it with Donald Trump, but she was so worried
2:55
Speaker 3: about it that she was pulling together her own cabinet
2:57
Speaker 3: meetings to talk about the subject. So it's a huge problem.
3:01
Speaker 4: Sometimes I like to play let's pretend what it would
3:03
Speaker 4: be like if we had a normal president. So if
3:06
Speaker 4: we had a normal president and Russia has already sabotaged
3:11
Speaker 4: our election in 2016, but you don't necessarily want to
3:16
Speaker 4: escalate tensions with Russia at this point, right? You don't
3:18
Speaker 4: want to like start a new war. Like we wouldn't
3:22
Speaker 4: want Obama to get on the phone with Putin and
3:24
Speaker 4: start screaming at him and making all these threats. But
3:27
Speaker 4: how do you deal with a, ongoing threat like Russia,
3:31
Speaker 4: which has targeted our elections in the past, is going
3:34
Speaker 4: to target it again in the future, is going to
3:36
Speaker 4: target not just our elections, but our infrastructure with cyber attacks.
3:41
Speaker 2: What do you say if you're the president?
3:43
Speaker 4: What can you do that's short of escalating tensions, but
3:45
Speaker 4: also lets them know that you mean business?
3:47
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think what you say is probably
3:51
Speaker 3: less important than what you're doing. So I do think
3:53
Speaker 3: you have to let them know that We're watching what
3:56
Speaker 3: you're doing, and we will take steps to respond as
3:59
Speaker 3: a way to try to deter them. And so back
4:01
Speaker 3: in the day, in 2016, Obama put together a bunch
4:05
Speaker 3: of sanctions. We kicked a bunch of Russian spies out
4:07
Speaker 3: of a fake consulate. There were a bunch of steps
4:11
Speaker 3: taken to create a cost for this activity. In the
4:15
Speaker 3: interim period from then until now, when Donald Trump has
4:18
Speaker 3: been president, what he should have done was bolster our
4:20
Speaker 3: cyber infrastructure. He should have given the National Security Agency
4:24
Speaker 3: more authorities to deter Russian aggression. We know that he
4:27
Speaker 3: didn't because Mike Rogers admitted during congressional testimony that Trump
4:31
Speaker 3: hadn't authorized any new authorities. And you send a strong
4:34
Speaker 3: message that we are watching you. We know what you did.
4:37
Speaker 3: If you do it again, we will respond in a
4:39
Speaker 3: significant fashion. That might be through sanctions at the UN
4:43
Speaker 3: Security Council, unilateral sanctions. It might be a covert action program.
4:46
Speaker 2: Cyber attacks of our own. Right.
4:48
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that that's a good response because, you know,
4:52
Speaker 3: there's not many rules of the road there and things
4:53
Speaker 3: can get dicey real quick when it comes to cyber attacks.
4:56
Speaker 3: But you want to let them know that this is
4:59
Speaker 3: not acceptable. And to accept Putin at his word that
5:03
Speaker 3: they didn't do this again and again and again makes
5:05
Speaker 3: him feel like there will be no cost.
5:06
Speaker 4: Well, I was going to say, what kind of signal
5:08
Speaker 4: do you think Trump's words and actions are sending to Putin?
5:12
Speaker 4: Whether or not Trump intends to send the signal, right? Like,
5:15
Speaker 4: whether you believe, you know, that Trump feels somehow like
5:20
Speaker 4: Putin has leverage over him and he has to do
5:21
Speaker 4: what Putin say. Or that Trump's just a bumbling idiot who,
5:26
Speaker 4: you know, wants to be friendly to Putin because he
5:28
Speaker 4: has an affinity for authoritarians or because he knows that
5:32
Speaker 4: if he's not friendly to Putin that somehow it delegitimizes
5:35
Speaker 4: his election. Whatever you may think, what are the signals
5:37
Speaker 4: getting sent to Putin by Trump not really coming down
5:40
Speaker 4: hard on this?
5:41
Speaker 3: I mean, I think before this call, after this call,
5:44
Speaker 3: Putin probably views the 2016 election interference as the most
5:47
Speaker 3: successful thing propaganda, info, espionage operation in the history of
5:54
Speaker 3: the Russian government because he got the guy he wanted
5:57
Speaker 3: elected president. He divided our nation and we remain as
6:01
Speaker 3: divided over the issue today as we were then, right?
6:03
Speaker 3: We're still fighting about the Mueller report. We're talking about
6:07
Speaker 3: impeaching Trump, bottling up, tying him down. So, you know,
6:13
Speaker 3: I don't know that Putin is particularly deterrable through words
6:16
Speaker 3: right now. It would have to be pretty strong consequences.
6:18
Speaker 4: I mean, what do you think Democrats should be saying
6:23
Speaker 4: and doing about the fact that, you know, Russia intends
6:28
Speaker 4: to interfere again? Or at least according to the FBI,
6:32
Speaker 4: according to the CIA, according to all of our intelligence,
6:34
Speaker 4: it seems like Russian attempts to interfere in our election
6:38
Speaker 4: to target our infrastructure with cyber attacks is ongoing.
6:41
Speaker 2: Like, how much of it... Do we make this a
6:43
Speaker 2: big deal?
6:44
Speaker 3: I think so. I mean, I think we should be
6:45
Speaker 3: holding hearings and they should call... Nielsen to testify and
6:49
Speaker 3: get her to confirm or deny on the record that
6:52
Speaker 3: she was told by the White House chief of staff
6:54
Speaker 3: not to raise these issues with the president of the
6:56
Speaker 3: United States. If that's true, that is a dereliction of
6:59
Speaker 3: duty by the president. It's a national security crisis, and
7:02
Speaker 3: we need some accounting of what has been done, what
7:04
Speaker 3: steps have been taken to protect us in the 2020
7:07
Speaker 3: election before it's too late, right? I think we need
7:09
Speaker 3: to lay the groundwork, and people understand this is a
7:11
Speaker 3: big-ass problem.
7:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like we should have a bunch of hearings.
7:14
Speaker 4: I mean, Chris Wray, the FBI director, said just the
7:17
Speaker 4: other week on Russian sabotage, quote, we are very much
7:21
Speaker 4: viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for
7:24
Speaker 4: the big show in 2020.
7:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's fucking scary.
7:27
Speaker 3: Right. I mean, look, buried in the Mueller report was
7:29
Speaker 3: the fact that someone in a county in Florida clicked
7:34
Speaker 3: on a phishing email that gave Russian agents access to
7:37
Speaker 3: that county's election information, you know, digital infrastructure. Lucky for us.
7:42
Speaker 3: We have this stupid, antiquated, county-by-county, state-by-state system that's such
7:46
Speaker 3: a mess that you can't penetrate one computer and get
7:49
Speaker 3: a hold of the whole thing. But that is a
7:51
Speaker 3: warning sign. They're going to try this again.
7:53
Speaker 4: And we know that they're going to try this again
7:55
Speaker 4: or that they're continuing to try this because in 2018,
7:58
Speaker 4: the Treasury Department levied sanctions on Russia because they were
8:03
Speaker 4: trying to target not only our elections infrastructure, but other infrastructure, energy, nuclear, water, aviation, manufacturing.
8:10
Speaker 4: I mean, it's sometimes, I think, hard to get people
8:14
Speaker 4: in this country to understand what a big deal the
8:18
Speaker 4: social media campaign the russians ran was the hacking stuff
8:21
Speaker 4: like that hacking into election machines and hacking some of
8:25
Speaker 4: our infrastructure you know potentially being able to cause a
8:29
Speaker 4: blackout stuff like that that seems like people will get
8:32
Speaker 4: that a little bit more than they get just like, oh,
8:34
Speaker 4: my mind was convinced because of a Facebook ad.
8:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
8:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:38
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I think that they're likely to probe
8:40
Speaker 3: all kinds of U.S. computer systems, all kinds of infrastructure,
8:44
Speaker 3: not necessarily to do something about it. But World War
8:49
Speaker 3: III will start with a massive cyber attack that will
8:51
Speaker 3: take down the Internet, that will take down power structures,
8:53
Speaker 3: that will God knows what. And people should just know
8:56
Speaker 3: that because we've seen it in Ukraine. We saw it
8:58
Speaker 3: in Libya. I mean, This is the way of the
9:00
Speaker 3: world now.
9:01
Speaker 4: And we don't have a president who has shown any
9:04
Speaker 4: willingness or ability to protect us from that.
9:06
Speaker 3: No, and look, not to be alarmist, right? Because you
9:08
Speaker 3: do have a bunch of hawks sitting in the White
9:10
Speaker 3: House who don't want our country attacked. You have an
9:14
Speaker 3: entire military and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all
9:17
Speaker 3: this infrastructure designed to protect the United States. But senior
9:21
Speaker 3: level attention from the president of the United States focuses
9:23
Speaker 3: the U.S. government on a problem like nothing else. And
9:25
Speaker 3: when you're not allowed to raise the issue with him, that's.
9:28
Speaker 2: A real problem.
9:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I do think this needs to be a
9:30
Speaker 4: bigger part of the Democrats' message, and especially, I think,
9:33
Speaker 4: the Democratic candidates, too, because, you know, so Charlie Pierce
9:36
Speaker 4: wrote in Esquire, like, why aren't we seeing this president
9:39
Speaker 4: as a national security crisis?
9:40
Speaker 2: I agree.
9:40
Speaker 4: And it is, and I think, you know, usually Republicans
9:44
Speaker 4: are the party that, like I say, will protect you
9:45
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, but there's a case to make,
9:48
Speaker 4: I think, on national security, particularly around Russian interference and
9:51
Speaker 4: foreign sabotage, that Donald Trump is not up to the
9:53
Speaker 4: job protecting this country.
9:54
Speaker 3: No, look, he's not. I mean, every foreign policy effort
9:59
Speaker 3: he's undertaken has failed so far. I think, you know,
10:02
Speaker 3: Seth Moulton got in the race because he wants to
10:04
Speaker 3: make a national security argument against President Trump. I think
10:07
Speaker 3: that's an interesting strategy. And it could, you know, it
10:10
Speaker 3: could wear well over time. But it's also the place
10:12
Speaker 3: where the president has the most flexibility and leeway to
10:15
Speaker 3: do whatever he or she wants. So, you know, I
10:18
Speaker 3: don't think voters are ever going to, vote on national
10:21
Speaker 3: security judgment writ large per se. I think you need
10:25
Speaker 3: an event like the Iraq War to really focus people
10:27
Speaker 3: on these issues, but it should be part of our case.
10:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:30
Speaker 4: So in addition to Russia, Trump and Putin also talked
10:32
Speaker 4: about Venezuela. Trump told us that Putin, quote, is not
10:35
Speaker 4: looking at all to get involved in Venezuela other than
10:38
Speaker 4: he'd like to see something positive happen. Then on Sunday,
10:41
Speaker 4: Russia's foreign minister met with his Venezuelan counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
10:46
Speaker 4: who's scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Mike
10:48
Speaker 4: Pompeo on Monday, has urged the United States to back
10:51
Speaker 4: off what he described as, quote, an irresponsible plan to
10:53
Speaker 4: force out Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Tommy, what is the
10:58
Speaker 4: extent of Russia's involvement in Venezuela, and why would Trump
11:01
Speaker 4: just repeat spin from Putin that contradicts his own Secretary
11:06
Speaker 4: of State and government?
11:07
Speaker 3: The latter question I don't have an answer for, and
11:10
Speaker 3: we will never have an answer why. He just believes Putin...
11:13
Speaker 3: his word on any issue, right? Remember when Putin told
11:15
Speaker 3: him that the North Koreans didn't actually have like an
11:17
Speaker 3: ICBM capability and he's like, oh yeah, well, I believe him,
11:20
Speaker 3: not my CIA director. Why? I don't get it.
11:23
Speaker 4: Um, yeah, the, the, the worst case scenario is that
11:26
Speaker 4: somehow Putin's got something on him. The best case scenario
11:29
Speaker 4: is he's just fucking gullible.
11:30
Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. So the Russians have extensive economic
11:34
Speaker 3: interests in Venezuela for the last decade or so in
11:37
Speaker 3: exchange for loans or bailouts, the Russians have given them
11:41
Speaker 3: a bunch of cash in exchange for portions of Venezuelan
11:43
Speaker 3: oil fields or big pieces of Sitco, their national oil company.
11:49
Speaker 3: And then in exchange, also the Russians have sold the
11:51
Speaker 3: Venezuelans guns and tanks and planes. They do joint military exercises.
11:55
Speaker 3: So I assume the Russians are really rightfully worried that
11:59
Speaker 3: a new regime would default on some of those loans
12:01
Speaker 3: and that they'd be left up Schitt's Creek. Now, I
12:04
Speaker 3: do think that the, you know, I've reached out to
12:07
Speaker 3: some smarter people than me before the show to take
12:09
Speaker 3: their pulse on this. And I do think that the
12:11
Speaker 3: military factor in terms of Russia's presence in Venezuela is exaggerated.
12:17
Speaker 3: It might be 100, 200 so-called security types. But I mean,
12:23
Speaker 3: we learned in Syria that a small but dedicated Russian
12:27
Speaker 3: intelligence or military presence can really tip the balance of
12:32
Speaker 3: a fight against an insurgency. So it's something we should
12:35
Speaker 3: worry about. The other thing they really do is they
12:37
Speaker 3: help them evade sanctions and they help Maduro fight diplomatic
12:42
Speaker 3: efforts to isolate or pressure him.
12:45
Speaker 2: So once again, Trump, Trump not really getting it.
12:48
Speaker 3: Well, but also, but like on top of that, you know,
12:51
Speaker 3: we know that the Russians have this huge interest, but
12:54
Speaker 3: whenever they want to criticize someone for the role they
12:59
Speaker 3: play in destabilizing Venezuela, they turn and they slap the
13:02
Speaker 3: Cubans around.
13:03
Speaker 1: Right.
13:03
Speaker 3: And, Part of that is because the Cuban president is larger.
13:07
Speaker 3: I mean, the administration says there's 20,000 intelligence or military personnel. Again,
13:12
Speaker 3: people I talk to think that's probably exaggerated. A lot
13:15
Speaker 3: of them are likely to be doctors or social service types.
13:17
Speaker 3: But there's certainly a significant Cuban presence that the Trump
13:21
Speaker 3: administration is constantly shadowboxing. Although once he gets on the
13:24
Speaker 3: phone with Putin, someone who has real influence and You know,
13:27
Speaker 3: you could work with Putin, say, to negotiate Maduro's exit,
13:30
Speaker 3: or you could work with the Cubans to negotiate an
13:32
Speaker 3: exit for Maduro. They just won't do that kind of
13:34
Speaker 3: diplomacy with the people that matter.
13:36
Speaker 2: Shit show.
13:37
Speaker 4: Finally, last foreign policy question before we move on. How
13:39
Speaker 4: big of a deal is North Korea firing off a
13:41
Speaker 4: test missile on Saturday? And why did Trump then tweet
13:45
Speaker 4: about Kim Jong-un, quote, he knows that I am with
13:47
Speaker 4: him and does not want to break his promise to me?
13:50
Speaker 3: He's so weird. So I don't obviously have access to
13:55
Speaker 3: intelligence anymore, so I don't know exactly what kind of
13:59
Speaker 3: missile it was. But I reached out to some different
14:02
Speaker 3: smart people and their take was think Al Capone, right?
14:05
Speaker 3: Like this is a brick coming through your play glass
14:08
Speaker 3: window with a note that says pay up or next
14:10
Speaker 3: time it's going to be a bomb coming through your window, right?
14:13
Speaker 3: So Kim never promised to freeze short range missile tests,
14:17
Speaker 3: but if this was a ballistic missile, it would still
14:19
Speaker 3: be outlawed under the UN Security Council. Regardless, it does
14:23
Speaker 3: feel like he is slowly but surely ratcheting up the
14:26
Speaker 3: pressure on Trump. because when they walked away from the
14:28
Speaker 3: Hanoi summit, Kim didn't get what he wanted, which was
14:32
Speaker 3: sanctions relief, which he had promised to his people. So,
14:36
Speaker 3: you know, he's going to lash out, I suspect, until
14:39
Speaker 3: he gets some sort of movement there or another round
14:41
Speaker 3: of talks or whatever it is. But the thing that
14:44
Speaker 3: was remarkable to me is over the weekend, I think
14:47
Speaker 3: it was Pompeo was on one of the Sunday shows.
14:49
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
14:49
Speaker 3: And he was asked about the test. And he basically said,
14:55
Speaker 3: you know, it was a short-range weapon, so it's not
14:58
Speaker 3: a huge deal. Well, it's a huge deal if you
15:00
Speaker 3: live in Seoul, or if you live in Japan, or
15:03
Speaker 3: you're one of the 28,500 U.S. service members in the region,
15:07
Speaker 3: in South Korea proper. So, you know, they clearly don't
15:11
Speaker 3: want to deal with the fact that diplomacy so far
15:14
Speaker 3: has failed, and they don't seem to have any plan
15:16
Speaker 3: for how to deal with it.
15:17
Speaker 1: Right.
15:17
Speaker 4: And look, we've said this before, North Korea is an
15:20
Speaker 4: extremely tough challenge for any president, whether it was, you know,
15:24
Speaker 4: a dumbass Republican president like Donald Trump or.
15:27
Speaker 2: A smarter Democratic president.
15:29
Speaker 4: But it is clear that Kim believes what Putin believes,
15:32
Speaker 4: which is that Trump is someone who you can push
15:35
Speaker 4: around and he's gullible and he will believe anything you
15:39
Speaker 4: say because he is horny for a deal all the time.
15:41
Speaker 2: Right.
15:41
Speaker 3: And we're a godawful ally if the Secretary of State
15:44
Speaker 3: goes on TV and says, well, the only thing we
15:46
Speaker 3: really care about is ICBMs launched in North Korea that
15:49
Speaker 3: could hit the U.S. We should care about our allies
15:51
Speaker 3: in the region who we have security deals with. The
15:54
Speaker 3: other thing I just want to say about Venezuela before
15:56
Speaker 3: we move on is three and a half million Venezuelans
15:59
Speaker 3: are estimated to have left the country. Now, Marco Rubio,
16:02
Speaker 3: Lieutenant Marco Rubio, private Marco Rubio, floated the idea of
16:07
Speaker 3: giving those Venezuelans TPS or temporary protected status. That is
16:10
Speaker 3: a very good idea. That would allow them to come
16:12
Speaker 3: to the United States to seek asylum, have certain protections.
16:16
Speaker 3: When John Bolton was asked about that proposal about TPS
16:20
Speaker 3: on another Sunday show, He basically ducked the question. So,
16:23
Speaker 3: to me, that gives up the game. They don't give
16:25
Speaker 3: a shit about the Venezuelan people.
16:26
Speaker 2: Of course not.
16:27
Speaker 3: This whole thing is about jockeying with the Russians and
16:29
Speaker 3: jockeying with the Cubans for, you know, moving political pawns
16:34
Speaker 3: around the, like, global board. They're talking about the Monroe
16:37
Speaker 3: Doctrine and all these, like, stupid, neocolonial-sounding theories of the case.
16:43
Speaker 3: I mean, there are people suffering. There are people starving.
16:47
Speaker 3: There are people in no medical care. And this administration
16:49
Speaker 3: won't do anything to help them.
16:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, they want to break shit in other countries, but
16:53
Speaker 4: because they're all xenophobes, they want to close our borders
16:55
Speaker 4: to the refugees that their foreign policy creates. It's pretty
16:59
Speaker 4: clear that that seems.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, they want to float the idea of a military intervention.
17:04
Speaker 3: They want to go have big meetings in the tank,
17:06
Speaker 3: which is where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet and
17:08
Speaker 3: have the most sensitive conversations they have. But, you know,
17:11
Speaker 3: no one in Venezuela actually wants a military intervention, at
17:14
Speaker 3: least not the majority of the people that oppose Maduro.
17:18
Speaker 2: Whew, okay, good times.
17:29
Speaker 4: Alright, on Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment
17:32
Speaker 4: rate has fallen to 3.6%, the lowest level we've seen
17:35
Speaker 4: in half a century. This comes after the Commerce Department's
17:37
Speaker 4: April report that the economy beat expectations by growing more
17:40
Speaker 4: than 3% in the first quarter.
17:43
Speaker 2: Of the year.
17:44
Speaker 4: White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow recently celebrated the news
17:48
Speaker 4: by recording a video where he twice said that the
17:50
Speaker 4: Trump administration is, quote, killing it on the economy, something
17:53
Speaker 4: that he finds, quote, totally awesome. Uh, Tommy, how well
17:59
Speaker 4: is the economy doing and does Trump deserve any credit?
18:03
Speaker 3: Just first of all, I know we have a lot
18:06
Speaker 3: of technologically savvy, smart listeners out there. Could someone please
18:11
Speaker 3: just remix it? with something yeah there wasn't enough remixes
18:14
Speaker 3: of that i don't care what the beat is maybe
18:16
Speaker 3: use tiktok like whatever it takes just he also sounded
18:18
Speaker 3: like a qvc spokesman so i think you could have
18:21
Speaker 3: like a number on the bottom of the screen like
18:23
Speaker 3: act now call now we're killing it he's such a
18:25
Speaker 3: goober and he can't shake the like 1980s style blue
18:28
Speaker 3: shirt with the white collar who thinks that looks cool
18:31
Speaker 3: fucking boiler room yeah get a reservation at dorsia buddy
18:34
Speaker 3: um i think that democrats need to focus more on
18:37
Speaker 3: anecdotal stories we hear from factory workers and waiters and
18:41
Speaker 3: farmers who feel like they are working harder and longer
18:44
Speaker 3: than ever before, but they're not making more money. So
18:47
Speaker 3: when unemployment is this low, wages are supposed to go up,
18:50
Speaker 3: but that's not happening nearly fast enough. And, you know, again, anecdotally,
18:54
Speaker 3: last year, a record number of U.S. workers went on strike.
18:58
Speaker 3: The BLS said 485,000 workers were involved in work stoppages
19:02
Speaker 3: in 2018. That is not because unions are particularly strong
19:05
Speaker 3: these days either, right? It's because people are deeply frustrated
19:08
Speaker 3: about how this economy is working for them. So I
19:11
Speaker 3: just think like we probably should look past what the
19:15
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal is writing about and just talk to
19:18
Speaker 3: people in Lordstown, Ohio, where the GM plants are closing
19:21
Speaker 3: and people don't know what the hell they're going to do.
19:23
Speaker 3: Those are the people the Democratic Party was designed to help.
19:27
Speaker 3: Those are the policies we care about. And let's figure
19:29
Speaker 3: out what they need and work backwards.
19:30
Speaker 4: I think the best, most charitable thing you can say
19:35
Speaker 4: about Donald Trump and the economy is that he has
19:37
Speaker 4: not so far fucked up the recovery and then expansion
19:41
Speaker 4: that began under Barack Obama. And then you could say,
19:44
Speaker 4: if you really wanted to give them credit, that the
19:47
Speaker 4: tax cuts that they passed may have temporarily boosted GDP
19:52
Speaker 4: because it gave businesses more cash. That's a temporary boost.
19:57
Speaker 4: But you can also say that at a time where
20:01
Speaker 4: the economy's roaring, where unemployment is low, where GDP is
20:05
Speaker 4: going well, there's 40% of Americans who couldn't pay for
20:11
Speaker 4: a $ 400 emergency expense, as Kamala Harris always says. Or,
20:16
Speaker 4: you know, as Bernie Sanders was saying about this the
20:18
Speaker 4: other day, he was like, think of the people making $ 9,
20:21
Speaker 4: $ 10 an hour and they're barely putting food on the
20:23
Speaker 4: table or the people who are working two or three jobs, right? Like,
20:26
Speaker 4: as you said, wages have inched up, wages have not
20:29
Speaker 4: kept up with productivity, which means that people are actually
20:31
Speaker 4: working a lot harder and they're not making more money
20:34
Speaker 4: for it and so they're working their asses off and
20:36
Speaker 4: they can barely afford And I think, like, Trump has
20:40
Speaker 4: a good approval rating on the economy, right? Like people are,
20:43
Speaker 4: you know, 60% of people say, oh, yeah, the economy
20:45
Speaker 4: is good and Trump's good on this issue or whatever
20:48
Speaker 4: it is. But in a recent poll, only about 40%
20:50
Speaker 4: of Americans believe that Trump is fighting for people like them.
20:53
Speaker 2: There's on his side.
20:54
Speaker 4: And the on your side fighting for people like you
20:56
Speaker 4: rating is tracking almost exactly with his approval rating.
20:58
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
20:59
Speaker 4: And then the other thing I thought was interesting is
21:01
Speaker 4: in that same poll, 60% of Americans think the way
21:03
Speaker 4: that broad economic statistics get reported on the news are
21:06
Speaker 4: not reflective of the economic reality that the average American faces,
21:09
Speaker 4: which is exactly what you were just saying about the headlines. Like,
21:12
Speaker 4: I think Democrats, when it comes to the economy, should
21:15
Speaker 4: be running against Trump, the Republican Party... and the happy
21:20
Speaker 4: headlines in the financial press. Every time there's some, yeah,
21:23
Speaker 4: the stock market's doing well. Rich people have never been
21:26
Speaker 4: doing better, right? Like all these businesses took the, tax
21:29
Speaker 4: cut and they stashed it away. They did buybacks. They
21:33
Speaker 4: gave CEOs more money, but you're not doing any better.
21:35
Speaker 4: At the time that the economy is doing better than
21:37
Speaker 4: it's ever been, if you're still struggling to make ends meet,
21:40
Speaker 4: what the fuck is wrong with the economy? I think
21:41
Speaker 4: it should be central to the democratic.
21:43
Speaker 3: I agree. I mean, every president gets credit or blame
21:45
Speaker 3: for the things that happened on his or her watch.
21:48
Speaker 3: So it just, it's how it goes fairly or unfairly.
21:51
Speaker 3: I agree with you though, that I do not believe
21:53
Speaker 3: that the Trump tax cut is somehow the reason that
21:56
Speaker 3: the economy has been improving for the past decade. As
21:59
Speaker 3: everyone predicted, almost all of that tax cut went to
22:03
Speaker 3: companies to buy back their own stock, which means there
22:06
Speaker 3: are fewer shares outstanding, so the price of the stock
22:09
Speaker 3: goes up. That is fantastic. If you own a million
22:11
Speaker 3: shares of said company, it means nothing to you if
22:15
Speaker 3: you don't own any shares or if you only own
22:17
Speaker 3: a few or if they're in your 401k, right?
22:19
Speaker 2: Right.
22:19
Speaker 3: This was a tax cut by business and for business.
22:22
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I would love to see Democrats like
22:26
Speaker 3: Sherrod Brown has this pitch perfect. No surprise.
22:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:28
Speaker 3: He's talking about factory workers in Ohio who are losing
22:32
Speaker 3: their jobs, who don't give a damn about, you know,
22:35
Speaker 3: what the Fed's projections look like or what GDP is.
22:38
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, I talked to Tara about
22:40
Speaker 3: this later. We need to develop and deliver that message
22:45
Speaker 3: today to those individuals on Facebook, on Instagram, on banner ads,
22:49
Speaker 3: on websites. We can start talking to these people right
22:52
Speaker 3: now about how Trump has let them down.
22:54
Speaker 4: And I think Elizabeth Warren has nailed this message. Bernie
22:57
Speaker 4: Sanders gets this message right.
22:59
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
22:59
Speaker 4: I sometimes worry a little bit that when we talk
23:01
Speaker 4: about how Democrats should be focusing on an economic message
23:04
Speaker 4: and inequality and talking about factory workers, there's some people
23:07
Speaker 4: who think, well, this is about trying to get those,
23:10
Speaker 4: you know, white non-college educated workers back. It partly is,
23:13
Speaker 4: but it's also about like, look at African-American unemployment. Look
23:17
Speaker 4: at wages for Latinos, for young people, unemployment for young people,
23:21
Speaker 4: the long-term unemployment rate. Like there are, there are a
23:24
Speaker 4: lot of constituencies that vote for the, for Democrats who
23:27
Speaker 4: are not doing well under this economy. The only Democratic
23:30
Speaker 4: constituencies doing well is like the college educated postgrads that,
23:34
Speaker 4: you know, are in the media and that you see
23:36
Speaker 4: as pundits and stuff like that. Like, but most people
23:38
Speaker 4: in the party, most people that vote for Democrats or
23:41
Speaker 4: have voted for Democrats in the past are still struggling.
23:44
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, look, if you, there's been a
23:46
Speaker 3: bunch of big pieces on this Lordstown GM plant, which
23:48
Speaker 3: was closed because they stopped making a specific car and
23:51
Speaker 3: now people are trying to get relocated or figure out
23:52
Speaker 3: what to do with their lives. I mean, that is
23:54
Speaker 3: not a whole bunch of white Trump voters. They're white,
23:58
Speaker 3: they're black, they're Latino. And fundamentally, at its core, the
24:02
Speaker 3: Democratic Party has to believe in helping those people and
24:05
Speaker 3: then do everything in your power to deliver on that promise. So, yeah,
24:08
Speaker 3: of course we have to help them.
24:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:10
Speaker 4: One way that Trump could still screw up this economic
24:12
Speaker 4: recovery is through his trade wars. Over the weekend, he
24:14
Speaker 4: threatened China with more tariffs as negotiators prepared for high-stakes
24:17
Speaker 4: talks taking place this week. Trump's tariffs have already hit
24:20
Speaker 4: the agriculture industry, caused the price of certain consumer goods
24:23
Speaker 4: to rise. Tommy, should this be a part of the
24:25
Speaker 4: message as well?
24:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:26
Speaker 3: I mean, look, he is making an argument That we
24:30
Speaker 3: need to put a 25% tariff on cars or auto
24:33
Speaker 3: parts for national security reasons. You can't convince me that
24:38
Speaker 3: that's not disrupting the manufacturing or the way these plants
24:41
Speaker 3: are run. Absolutely. The trade war is ridiculous. It's hurting farmers.
24:45
Speaker 3: It's hurting regular people. No one knows why he's doing it.
24:48
Speaker 4: Stock market's down today because he's tweeting random shit at China.
24:52
Speaker 4: This is the way he could fuck up this recovery.
24:55
Speaker 4: Or at the very least, fuck it up in places...
24:59
Speaker 4: like where there's a heavy agricultural industry, where there's people
25:03
Speaker 4: who are trying to buy consumer goods, where the prices
25:05
Speaker 4: are up and stuff like that. So it's not as
25:08
Speaker 4: spread out evenly throughout the country, some of the pain
25:10
Speaker 4: of these trade wars, but it is certainly hitting certain
25:13
Speaker 4: parts of this country very hard.
25:14
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right.
25:15
Speaker 2: Okay, let's turn to 2020.
25:16
Speaker 4: In an interview with the New York Times, House Speaker
25:19
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi said that she's worried President Trump will refuse
25:22
Speaker 4: to accept the results of the next election if it's
25:26
Speaker 4: too close. Here's a nugget from the piece which was
25:29
Speaker 4: reported by Glenn Thrush. Quote, we have to inoculate against that.
25:32
Speaker 4: We have to be prepared for that, Ms. Pelosi said
25:35
Speaker 4: during an interview at the Capitol on Wednesday as she
25:36
Speaker 4: discussed her concern that Mr. Trump would not give up
25:38
Speaker 4: power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin
25:41
Speaker 4: next year.
25:43
Speaker 1: Ms.
25:43
Speaker 4: Pelosi, the de facto head of the Democratic Party until
25:45
Speaker 4: a presidential nominee is selected in 2020, offered Democrats her, quote,
25:49
Speaker 4: cold-blooded plan for decisively ridding themselves of Mr.
25:52
Speaker 2: Trump.
25:53
Speaker 4: Do not get dragged into a protracted impeachment bid that
25:55
Speaker 4: will ultimately get crushed in the Republican-controlled Senate, and do
25:59
Speaker 4: not risk alienating the moderate voters who flocked to the
26:01
Speaker 4: party in 2018 by drifting too far to the left. Quote,
26:04
Speaker 4: own the center-left, own the mainstream, Ms. Pelosi said. Quote,
26:08
Speaker 4: our passions were for health care, bigger paychecks, cleaner government,
26:11
Speaker 4: a simple message, she said. So let's take these two
26:14
Speaker 4: things separately, because will Trump give up power voluntarily, and
26:19
Speaker 4: how do Democrats should beat him has sort of been
26:21
Speaker 4: conflated in this story, and they shouldn't be.
26:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like worrying about whether or not Trump
26:26
Speaker 3: will give up power if we beat him is like
26:28
Speaker 3: maximum security's ownership group worrying about how he will look
26:31
Speaker 3: in the winner's circle at the Kentucky Derby before the
26:34
Speaker 3: race has been run, right? Like, let's just beat the
26:36
Speaker 3: fucker and then work on the rest later.
26:38
Speaker 4: I was going to say, I think it's scary as
26:40
Speaker 4: hell that we're in a situation where the Speaker of
26:43
Speaker 4: the House is talking about the margin of victory we
26:47
Speaker 4: need to have over the President in order for him
26:49
Speaker 4: to peacefully give up power. I know that's very scary
26:53
Speaker 4: in itself, but I think all Democrats would agree. Like,
26:57
Speaker 4: do you think we should beat Trump by a slim
26:59
Speaker 4: margin or a big margin? We want to beat him
27:01
Speaker 4: by as much as possible.
27:02
Speaker 2: Everyone agrees on that.
27:03
Speaker 3: We worked ourself into a lather about this in 2016,
27:06
Speaker 3: that he wouldn't concede when he lost. And then he
27:08
Speaker 3: won and he complains about not winning the popular vote
27:12
Speaker 3: and pretends that millions of, of, immigrants voted illegally, right?
27:15
Speaker 3: I mean, so like who cares what he's going to say?
27:17
Speaker 4: Well, and he's going to make those complaints if the
27:19
Speaker 4: Democratic nominee beats him by 1% in a couple electoral
27:23
Speaker 4: votes or 10% in 100 electoral votes. Like he's going to,
27:26
Speaker 4: of course he's going to do this either way.
27:28
Speaker 2: Let's win. All right.
27:28
Speaker 4: So then the question is, what do you think of
27:30
Speaker 4: her cold-blooded, her quote unquote cold-blooded plan, which is don't
27:34
Speaker 4: get dragged into impeachment, own the center left, own the mainstream?
27:39
Speaker 3: You know, look, I think that might be a great
27:42
Speaker 3: plan to protect the new majority that she's got in
27:45
Speaker 3: the house. I'm not sure that it's going to exactly
27:47
Speaker 3: track with whatever presidential candidates, uh, strategy that emerges from
27:52
Speaker 3: this primary.
27:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:54
Speaker 4: I also don't, she, I think is conflating that suddenly
27:58
Speaker 4: going through impeachment would be somehow ideologically like lurching to
28:03
Speaker 4: the left, which I don't necessarily think it is like,
28:06
Speaker 4: this goes back to my, I mean, we've talked about
28:08
Speaker 4: this a million times already, but, um, I do think
28:12
Speaker 4: the Democrats can walk and chew gum at the same time.
28:14
Speaker 4: I do think that Democrats in the House can go
28:18
Speaker 4: through an impeachment proceeding, can focus the country's attention on
28:22
Speaker 4: Trump's crimes and misdeeds, which may help them in beating
28:26
Speaker 4: him in 2020, while the Democratic presidential candidates are out
28:29
Speaker 4: there talking about exactly what you and I just talked about,
28:32
Speaker 4: which is the fact that this economy is only working
28:34
Speaker 4: for the Trump's rich and powerful friends and not a
28:38
Speaker 4: lot of other people. I don't see those as mutually exclusive.
28:41
Speaker 3: So right now, the Hill is trying to get former
28:43
Speaker 3: Trump officials like Don McGahn to testify. They're trying to
28:46
Speaker 3: get Bob Mueller to come in and testify. And the
28:49
Speaker 3: Trump administration is throwing down and saying we will block
28:53
Speaker 3: either of those men from testifying at all costs, which
28:55
Speaker 3: I assume means that will extend out to any other
28:58
Speaker 3: administration officials that we try to subpoena or call. I
29:01
Speaker 3: do think Trump's obstinance there could help Pelosi lay the
29:05
Speaker 3: groundwork for an impeachment proceeding down the road. Because if
29:09
Speaker 3: you're not going to allow for basic oversight to dig
29:11
Speaker 3: into what a lot of people view as an impeachment roadmap,
29:14
Speaker 3: that is obviously totally unacceptable. Now, I'm still very much
29:18
Speaker 3: of the belief that we should begin Watergate committee style
29:21
Speaker 3: hearings and not call them impeachment in an effort to
29:24
Speaker 3: bring to life and bring on TV all the things
29:27
Speaker 3: that were in that 448 page report that no one's read.
29:30
Speaker 3: and just continue to hammer this on Trump. I'd love
29:32
Speaker 3: to see Don McGahn testify. I'd love to see his
29:35
Speaker 3: chief of staff. I'd love to see Bob Mueller. That said,
29:37
Speaker 3: I don't think that none of these individuals is likely
29:40
Speaker 3: to give us a silver bullet testimony. Bob Mueller in particular.
29:44
Speaker 3: We've been talking about this with some friends over the weekend.
29:46
Speaker 3: He is like the most buttoned up by the book
29:48
Speaker 3: person on the planet. He sent a mildly sternly worded
29:53
Speaker 3: letter and Mueller watchers called it the second harshest thing
29:56
Speaker 3: he's ever written in public life. Which would be like
29:59
Speaker 3: the nicest tweet you and I have sent in the
30:01
Speaker 3: last six months. So, you know, like I'd love to
30:04
Speaker 3: see all this happen. But I just want us to,
30:06
Speaker 3: you know, stretch this out, phase it, collect more information
30:10
Speaker 3: and do damage to Trump politically by bringing these stories
30:13
Speaker 3: to TV.
30:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:14
Speaker 4: And just just to test this out. Imagine if you
30:16
Speaker 4: are a Conor Lamb. or an Antonio Delgado or Lauren Underwood, right?
30:22
Speaker 4: You're in one of these districts. You only won by
30:24
Speaker 4: a slim margin. It's a district that Republicans have won forever.
30:28
Speaker 4: Some of them are Obama-Trump districts. And we're in the
30:31
Speaker 4: middle of impeachment proceedings, and it's getting close to 2020,
30:33
Speaker 4: and you're running again. Reporter asks you an event. What
30:37
Speaker 4: are you going to do about the fact that Democrats
30:38
Speaker 4: are just out there trying to impeach Trump? And that
30:42
Speaker 4: could be politically damaging to you. And if you're that candidate,
30:44
Speaker 4: you say, I've been to 100 town halls. All I've
30:47
Speaker 4: been talking about is health care. At the same time,
30:50
Speaker 4: I support holding the president accountable because no person is
30:52
Speaker 4: above the law. And the independent special counsel said that
30:56
Speaker 4: he obstructed justice. So I'm glad the House Democrats are
30:58
Speaker 4: doing what I'm doing is going around this district and
31:00
Speaker 4: making sure that everyone has health care, that we don't
31:02
Speaker 4: elect Republicans again because they're going to take away the ACA.
31:05
Speaker 2: Like, is that hard?
31:06
Speaker 3: No, that's not hard. Here's my fear. My fear is,
31:09
Speaker 3: you know, impeachment proceedings start. There's a vote in the House.
31:13
Speaker 3: We probably lose some Democrats who vote against impeachment. Then
31:17
Speaker 3: it goes to the Senate.
31:18
Speaker 2: We lose there.
31:18
Speaker 3: We lose overwhelmingly. Joe fucking Manchin probably doesn't vote to impeach.
31:23
Speaker 3: And then Trump runs around the country and says, Bob
31:25
Speaker 3: Mueller says no collusion, no obstruction. And the Democrats and
31:28
Speaker 3: Republicans both agreed that what I did was not an
31:31
Speaker 3: impeachable offense. This is a witch hunt, blah, blah, blah.
31:34
Speaker 3: In the interim, they are doing all the investigating of
31:36
Speaker 3: the investigation itself. How did it start?
31:38
Speaker 2: Which they'll do anyway.
31:39
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, Ukraine, right. But I'm just saying like... I
31:42
Speaker 3: still don't see an endgame for this that is particularly positive.
31:47
Speaker 3: So that's why I'm very much in the don't call
31:49
Speaker 3: it impeachment, do Watergate hearings, Watergate-style hearings, and try to
31:54
Speaker 3: get all the information and make news.
31:56
Speaker 4: I think he's going to say all of those things
31:58
Speaker 4: you just said, no matter what, whether there's impeachment or not.
32:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I just want to avoid the Democrats voting
32:02
Speaker 3: not to impeach. I think that would be incredibly damaging.
32:06
Speaker 2: Oh, some Democrats voting not to impeach.
32:09
Speaker 3: I don't know.
32:09
Speaker 2: I don't know either way. Like, I think.
32:11
Speaker 4: Again, and this goes to your Watergate-style hearings thing, I
32:15
Speaker 4: think Trump is going to say what Trump is going
32:17
Speaker 4: to say. He's going to investigate the investigators. He's going
32:19
Speaker 4: to say that he's investigating the investigators. He's going to
32:21
Speaker 4: say he's been exonerated no matter what. If the eyes
32:24
Speaker 4: of the nation are trained on impeachment hearings or Watergate-style
32:28
Speaker 4: hearings or whatever they may be, then it's up to
32:31
Speaker 4: people to make up their own minds. Do you believe
32:33
Speaker 4: Donald Trump or do you believe what Robert Mueller and
32:35
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of other witnesses testified in front of
32:36
Speaker 4: the country?
32:37
Speaker 3: Just the Watergate committee over several months... brought forward 37 witnesses, 3,000
32:43
Speaker 3: pages of testimony. They did what, in my view, would
32:47
Speaker 3: essentially be what we'd expect to see out of an
32:50
Speaker 3: impeachment hearing without a vote at the end that is
32:52
Speaker 3: almost undoubtedly going to go against us.
32:55
Speaker 2: But they went to impeachment, obviously.
32:57
Speaker 3: Right, because they had the smoking gun of the tapes
33:00
Speaker 3: that they were able to get.
33:01
Speaker 1: Right.
33:02
Speaker 4: Well, our problem is we have the smoking gun of
33:03
Speaker 4: the Mueller report.
33:04
Speaker 3: Of the tweets.
33:05
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look.
33:05
Speaker 4: 400 prosecutors, Democrats and Republicans, signed a letter today saying
33:10
Speaker 4: that this president would be indicted on obstruction of justice
33:13
Speaker 4: if he were not for the DOJ.
33:14
Speaker 3: I know all the arguments for why it's factually and
33:18
Speaker 3: morally the right thing to do.
33:19
Speaker 4: What I'm looking for is a political... I think it's
33:20
Speaker 4: politically the right thing. I think it's the politically right thing.
33:22
Speaker 4: That's my argument.
33:23
Speaker 3: I mean, there was a poll out of early states
33:25
Speaker 3: today that even early state voters aren't necessarily sold on impeachment.
33:30
Speaker 4: Oh, they're not there yet. Of course not, because we
33:31
Speaker 4: haven't had the hearings. Once you have the hearings and
33:33
Speaker 4: it's an impeachment proceeding, it's going to work.
33:35
Speaker 3: I just think we banked so much on the Mueller
33:37
Speaker 3: report moving people. And then we'd be banking a lot
33:41
Speaker 3: on the hearings. And I'm wondering, like Pelosi seems to be,
33:44
Speaker 3: if there's a middle ground that would baby step us
33:48
Speaker 3: up to that line.
33:48
Speaker 4: And I think there is. I think the problem is
33:50
Speaker 4: the Trump administration is not going to play along with
33:52
Speaker 4: the middle ground.
33:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, that's a big problem. And that's where,
33:55
Speaker 3: you know, you need to use the threat of subpoenas.
33:56
Speaker 3: You need to use the threat of... you know, maybe
33:59
Speaker 3: impeach Bill Barr. I mean, there's a whole bunch of
34:01
Speaker 3: steps that I'd be in favor of.
34:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're going to force them into impeachment.
34:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, that might happen. And I think that's actually an
34:06
Speaker 3: advantageous place to be as a Democrat.
34:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, let's talk about the candidates.
34:11
Speaker 4: Now that Joe Biden has entered the race as the frontrunner,
34:13
Speaker 4: we are once again embroiled in a great debate about electability.
34:16
Speaker 2: And here's why.
34:17
Speaker 4: A recent Quinnipiac poll gives Biden a 26-point lead over
34:20
Speaker 4: his nearest rival, 38% for him to 12% for Elizabeth Warren.
34:26
Speaker 2: What is driving this lead?
34:27
Speaker 4: Well, only 23% of Democrats in that poll say that
34:30
Speaker 4: Biden has the best policy ideas, but 56% say he
34:34
Speaker 4: has the best chance of winning. A new CNN poll
34:36
Speaker 4: also shows Biden and Bernie Sanders with six-point leads against
34:39
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, Beto O'Rourke with a 10-point lead against Donald Trump,
34:42
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete with smaller leads. The candidates
34:45
Speaker 4: themselves are starting to talk about electability, with Harris telling
34:49
Speaker 4: the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday that, quote, conversations by
34:52
Speaker 4: pundits about electability that suggest certain voters will only vote
34:55
Speaker 4: for certain candidates... are, quote, short-sighted, wrong, and meant to
34:58
Speaker 4: put Americans in, quote, simplistic boxes.
35:02
Speaker 2: Tommy, is she right?
35:03
Speaker 3: There's some truth to that argument. I do think, you know,
35:06
Speaker 3: the best way to make an electability case is to show,
35:09
Speaker 3: not tell, and to win support, to do well in
35:13
Speaker 3: key early states, win a primary, win a caucus, whatever, obviously.
35:16
Speaker 3: We're a long way from here to there, and all
35:18
Speaker 3: these candidates are going to need to make a case
35:20
Speaker 3: for why they're the most electable. I have to imagine
35:22
Speaker 3: that a lot of the Biden... appeal and electability is
35:28
Speaker 3: just the sense of familiarity. You know, like the guy's
35:31
Speaker 3: been around for 30 years. He's been the vice president
35:34
Speaker 3: to one of the most popular presidents in democratic history, right?
35:38
Speaker 3: I mean, they will take shots at him and that
35:41
Speaker 3: may diminish over time, but I do think that familiarity
35:45
Speaker 3: is going to be really powerful.
35:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
35:47
Speaker 4: Look, we've talked about electability before and we've said that,
35:50
Speaker 4: you know, don't focus so much on electability because, you know,
35:55
Speaker 4: Donald Trump was elected president and Barack Obama was elected
35:58
Speaker 4: president and no people thought that they were electable.
36:00
Speaker 1: Right.
36:01
Speaker 4: I think it's important to say it's not that electability
36:03
Speaker 4: doesn't matter. It does matter in a way. And I
36:07
Speaker 4: understand why it matters to a lot of voters, because
36:10
Speaker 4: we just elected fucking Donald Trump president United States. And
36:13
Speaker 4: it feels like a national emergency. And as people are
36:15
Speaker 4: looking to 2020, most voters, most Democratic voters are thinking
36:20
Speaker 4: to themselves, I just fucking want someone who can win.
36:22
Speaker 1: Right.
36:23
Speaker 2: And you can't blame them for thinking that.
36:24
Speaker 3: That's how I feel.
36:25
Speaker 2: Right.
36:26
Speaker 4: The problem with electability is it's nearly impossible to measure.
36:30
Speaker 4: And it's not just impossible to measure. It changes so
36:32
Speaker 4: frequently and it changes over the course of the race.
36:34
Speaker 3: Right.
36:35
Speaker 4: So, you know, Hillary Clinton and then we have the history,
36:39
Speaker 4: the track record. Hillary Clinton was seen as the most
36:41
Speaker 4: electable candidate in 2016 and in 2008. Didn't win either time.
36:45
Speaker 4: Romney was most electable in 2012. McCain was most electable
36:48
Speaker 4: in 2008. John Kerry was most electable in 2004.
36:52
Speaker 2: They all lost.
36:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:54
Speaker 4: So, so far, every Democratic candidate for the last decade
36:56
Speaker 4: or so who people have said, I think that's the
36:59
Speaker 4: most electable candidate, has gone on to lose when the
37:02
Speaker 4: candidates that they didn't think were as electable, Barack Obama
37:04
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump, end up winning.
37:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:07
Speaker 3: We should just be clear that the word electability is ill-defined,
37:11
Speaker 3: if not meaningless.
37:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:13
Speaker 3: You know?
37:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:14
Speaker 3: Because what will elect a candidate changes over time from
37:17
Speaker 3: year to year. If this were 2004, I guarantee you
37:21
Speaker 3: that the Democratic Party darling would be Seth Moulton, an
37:24
Speaker 3: Iraq war veteran, young, dynamic, who could go against Bush
37:28
Speaker 3: and fight on national security grounds. The landscape has changed
37:32
Speaker 3: dramatically since then. We're not talking about Iraq every single day.
37:35
Speaker 3: We're barely talking about it.
37:38
Speaker 4: I think in a vacuum, when voters don't have a
37:40
Speaker 4: lot of information about a candidate, electability is often linked
37:44
Speaker 4: to race.
37:45
Speaker 2: It's linked to gender.
37:46
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
37:47
Speaker 4: It's linked to ideology, right? So a white moderate man
37:50
Speaker 4: has traditionally been seen as electable. And it's also in
37:55
Speaker 4: Biden's case, who has, you know, all three of those
37:57
Speaker 4: other things, it's linked to familiarity.
38:00
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
38:00
Speaker 4: So right now people see, you know, Joe Biden and
38:04
Speaker 4: he supposedly is able to get back some of these
38:07
Speaker 4: white working class voters that we lost in 2016 and
38:11
Speaker 4: And everyone knows him. And look, and it's not just
38:14
Speaker 4: like he has high approval ratings and people are backing
38:17
Speaker 4: him who are white, but he's also got incredibly high
38:20
Speaker 4: ratings in the African-American community as well. But again, all
38:24
Speaker 4: of this, I think, is linked to familiarity. The question is,
38:28
Speaker 4: if you're another candidate and you know that people care
38:31
Speaker 4: about electability, how do you show electability?
38:35
Speaker 2: How do you make that case?
38:36
Speaker 4: Because I do think it's a mistake If other candidates
38:39
Speaker 4: just complain about electability and complain about pundits talking about electability,
38:43
Speaker 4: I don't think that's going to really move the needle.
38:45
Speaker 4: I think you actually have to sort of redefine what
38:47
Speaker 4: electability is to be favorable towards your own qualities and
38:51
Speaker 4: your own traits.
38:51
Speaker 3: Yeah. Let's be clear what electability is not. It's not
38:54
Speaker 3: decided on the set of Morning Joe. Right? It is
38:57
Speaker 3: a term that's not just ill-defined.
38:59
Speaker 2: It's not decided on Pod Save America.
39:00
Speaker 3: That's damn right it isn't because we fucked that up
39:02
Speaker 3: royally in 2016. It's also, you know, in addition to
39:05
Speaker 3: being ill-defined, it's a loaded term that you, as you said,
39:08
Speaker 3: is part racism, is part sexism. But the irony of
39:11
Speaker 3: that is that Barack Obama, in part because he was African-American,
39:16
Speaker 3: could get historic levels of African-American turnout, which made him
39:19
Speaker 3: more electable. So I think like I don't know what
39:22
Speaker 3: to tell people listening besides just try your best not
39:26
Speaker 3: to think about it. The way that candidates can show
39:28
Speaker 3: that they're electable is build a big grassroots base in
39:31
Speaker 3: the early states. Right. When Barack Obama walked into the
39:34
Speaker 3: Harkin steak fry in September of whenever that was, 2007,
39:39
Speaker 3: with hundreds, if not thousands of people behind him. And
39:42
Speaker 3: we had a literal drum line with the ISIS rats
39:44
Speaker 3: like people looked up and said, holy shit. This guy
39:47
Speaker 3: is building a grassroots army. He can organize. There's a
39:50
Speaker 3: huge infrastructure behind him. He's going to win. And that's
39:53
Speaker 3: what it takes.
39:54
Speaker 2: And that's where it started, right?
39:56
Speaker 4: And when that happened, polls showed that Clinton, people believe
40:00
Speaker 4: that Hillary Clinton was the more electable candidate than Barack Obama, right?
40:03
Speaker 4: And then he starts doing that at the steak fry.
40:04
Speaker 4: And then when we won the Iowa caucus, and how
40:07
Speaker 4: did we win the Iowa caucus, right? By bringing in
40:10
Speaker 4: young people, non-voters, more African-Americans that had ever... caucus before
40:15
Speaker 4: in history, some independents and Republicans. It didn't fall neatly
40:19
Speaker 4: along these ideological demographic lines that we all talk about.
40:21
Speaker 4: He won by bringing in some Republicans and young people
40:24
Speaker 4: and African Americans and expanded the electorate. Once he won
40:26
Speaker 4: that Iowa caucus, suddenly polls showed that people believe that
40:29
Speaker 4: Barack Obama was the more electable candidate than Hillary Clinton.
40:32
Speaker 3: In particular, African American voters in South Carolina who were
40:36
Speaker 3: worried that it was just too soon, that white people
40:39
Speaker 3: wouldn't vote for Barack Obama. I think a lot of
40:40
Speaker 3: South Carolina voters saw white voters caucus for Obama in
40:44
Speaker 3: Iowa and thought, holy shit, this guy could do it. Now,
40:46
Speaker 3: in the middle, we got our asses handed to us
40:49
Speaker 3: by Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Important data point.
40:52
Speaker 4: Black voters gave Hillary Clinton a huge margin in South
40:55
Speaker 4: Carolina before the actual primary because they just didn't think
40:59
Speaker 4: that Barack Obama was electable.
41:01
Speaker 2: Or they didn't know him.
41:02
Speaker 3: And had enormous critical endorsements from people like John Lewis.
41:06
Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
41:07
Speaker 4: And I think when we talk about electability, the other
41:10
Speaker 4: thing to think about is you know, a lot of
41:14
Speaker 4: this flows from what happened in 2016. And so if
41:17
Speaker 4: you believe that the only reason that Hillary Clinton lost
41:21
Speaker 4: in 2016 is because she lost some of these non-college
41:23
Speaker 4: white voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, then you think
41:28
Speaker 4: to yourself, okay, the way we win in 2020 is
41:31
Speaker 4: to win those voters back. But, and you know, we
41:34
Speaker 4: dug into this in the wilderness a lot, that isn't
41:37
Speaker 4: the only reason that she lost. There were cities where
41:41
Speaker 4: African-American turnout wasn't quite as high. There were, as Cornell
41:45
Speaker 4: Belcher said in the last pod, there were 4 million
41:47
Speaker 4: Obama voters, 4 million plus Obama voters who voted for
41:50
Speaker 4: Obama in 8 and 12, who didn't then vote for
41:52
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, who stayed home in 2016. So those voters
41:57
Speaker 4: seem very gettable by a Democrat if they stayed home.
42:00
Speaker 4: And so the other factor in electability is who can
42:04
Speaker 4: actually excite and inspire people to come out to vote
42:07
Speaker 4: who might otherwise stay home, who didn't stay home in 2016.
42:10
Speaker 4: And I do think ultimately it's a mix. In 2018,
42:14
Speaker 4: look at Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, right? She wins Michigan
42:18
Speaker 4: back after Hillary Clinton loses it in 2016.
42:21
Speaker 2: How does she win?
42:22
Speaker 4: Well, turnout in the cities among African-Americans went up, but
42:27
Speaker 4: also she won back some of the non-college educated white voters.
42:29
Speaker 2: It is both.
42:31
Speaker 4: And I think you need to figure out which of
42:32
Speaker 4: these candidates is going to be able to, yes, win
42:35
Speaker 4: over some independents, yes, maybe even win over some disaffected Republicans,
42:39
Speaker 4: but also at the same time, excite the base of
42:41
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party, get young people out to vote, get
42:43
Speaker 4: people of color out to vote, and get new voters
42:45
Speaker 4: out to vote. And if you can find a candidate
42:47
Speaker 4: that can do both of those things, then I think
42:48
Speaker 4: you're in a strong position.
42:49
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. Look, you should do whatever you need
42:53
Speaker 3: to do to vet and learn about and pick your
42:55
Speaker 3: candidate and watch him or her and see how well
42:57
Speaker 3: they're doing. But then turn off the podcasts, whether it's
43:00
Speaker 3: us or FiveThirtyEight, and realize that states like Florida, we
43:05
Speaker 3: hemorrhage votes everywhere. this past cycle. Andrew Gillum should be
43:09
Speaker 3: the governor. And why was that? Because we didn't do
43:11
Speaker 3: what we needed to do in Miami, for example. So
43:13
Speaker 3: we need to start organizing now to make sure we're
43:16
Speaker 3: prepared to turn people out in those states now. That's
43:19
Speaker 3: why we're working with this amazing group, Organizing Corps, to
43:22
Speaker 3: raise money to train a whole bunch of kids who
43:25
Speaker 3: are between their junior and senior year in college, get
43:28
Speaker 3: them a bunch of reps knocking on doors, signing up
43:30
Speaker 3: voters so that when there's a general election candidate and
43:33
Speaker 3: they have to scale from 300 field organizers to 3,800
43:37
Speaker 3: They're doing it with well-organized, well-trained, ready-to-go people. That's the
43:41
Speaker 3: shit we can do today to win this election. Stressing
43:44
Speaker 3: about the crosstabs, well, we're going to do it here
43:46
Speaker 3: because we love doing it.
43:47
Speaker 2: We're going to do it here.
43:48
Speaker 3: But we can do both at the same time.
43:50
Speaker 4: And mainly I want to talk about it because now
43:52
Speaker 4: the candidates are dealing with themselves. And Kamala giving a
43:56
Speaker 4: speech about that. Bernie Sanders has been making an electability
43:59
Speaker 4: argument in this race, which is interesting, too. He's been
44:01
Speaker 4: showing polls in those three states, in the states of
44:04
Speaker 4: the blue wall, Sanders- was outperforming Trump, so he's talked
44:08
Speaker 4: about that. Elizabeth Warren was asked the other day about electability,
44:10
Speaker 4: and she said what we've been saying, which is no
44:13
Speaker 4: one thought that Donald Trump was electable or Barack Obama
44:15
Speaker 4: was electable, and it's very early right now. So all
44:18
Speaker 4: of them are going to make their case on electability,
44:20
Speaker 4: but I do think you're right that showing electability is
44:23
Speaker 4: better than just talking about it.
44:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. Look, it's an important conversation. We should debate it.
44:28
Speaker 3: We should vet these candidates because God help us. We
44:30
Speaker 3: need to win this election. But also, if you wake
44:33
Speaker 3: up and you're anxious and you're sweating this, know that
44:34
Speaker 3: there are things you can do today to make whoever
44:37
Speaker 3: the candidate is more electable by helping them build infrastructure
44:40
Speaker 3: and organize in key swing states.
44:41
Speaker 4: Easier to knock on a door and ask someone for
44:43
Speaker 4: their vote than to predict what other voters might do.
44:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, or move to Canada if Trump gets reelected. That's right.
44:49
Speaker 2: All right, when we come back, we will have Tommy's
44:51
Speaker 2: interview with Tara McGowan.
45:01
Speaker 3: On the line from Washington, D.C. is Tara McGowan, the
45:05
Speaker 3: founder and CEO of Acronym, a progressive digital strategy company. Tara,
45:09
Speaker 3: thank you for joining the show.
45:10
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me, Tommy. Excited to be on.
45:12
Speaker 3: So I wake up every morning and have like probably
45:16
Speaker 3: 400 separate text chains with former Obama people, as I
45:19
Speaker 3: imagine you do, too. We just make each other anxious
45:23
Speaker 3: about a variety of things. One is, you know, the
45:25
Speaker 3: fact that presidents usually get reelected. The other is the discordance.
45:30
Speaker 3: jumbled Democratic field. And then a frequent topic of conversation
45:34
Speaker 3: is the lack of digital spending and infrastructure from Democrats,
45:40
Speaker 3: given what Trump has been doing. And you are an
45:42
Speaker 3: expert on this. So I wanted to bring you onto
45:45
Speaker 3: the pod to make everyone else anxious, too, because we
45:48
Speaker 3: could actually do something about this one.
45:50
Speaker 1: We can, and we need to. And I never thought
45:53
Speaker 1: that I would become an expert in how Donald Trump
45:57
Speaker 1: is investing to Maintain power of the White House. It's
46:01
Speaker 1: really an unfortunate turn of events, generally.
46:04
Speaker 3: Well, so let's give it a look. What's the lay
46:05
Speaker 3: of the land? Like, what does Trump spend in terms
46:08
Speaker 3: of digital ads and digital spending in recent, let's say, six,
46:13
Speaker 3: ten months, whatever you want, however you want to scope it?
46:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so since the midterms last November, Trump's campaign has
46:20
Speaker 1: already spent over $ 8. 5 million on Facebook and Google alone
46:25
Speaker 1: to reach voters. Those are the platforms that we can track.
46:29
Speaker 1: because they're providing reporting on their own right now. So
46:33
Speaker 1: that's a significant amount of money. And they have committed,
46:39
Speaker 1: Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, who used to be his
46:42
Speaker 1: digital director, has committed to spending at least $ 2 million
46:46
Speaker 1: a month from here on out on digital to reach voters.
46:51
Speaker 1: So when you compare that to what Democrats running for
46:55
Speaker 1: office and Democratic campaigns and committees are spending, And, you know,
47:00
Speaker 1: the top spender on the Democratic side is just over
47:04
Speaker 1: a million dollars in that same amount of time. So
47:08
Speaker 1: the discrepancy is huge.
47:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. You have written about the particular challenge we're seeing
47:15
Speaker 3: in Florida and Trump's efforts, Republican efforts, really, to reach
47:19
Speaker 3: Latinx voters in Florida. Can you explain what you're seeing
47:22
Speaker 3: and why it makes you worried?
47:23
Speaker 1: Sure. So. Donald Trump's campaign is not only spending online
47:31
Speaker 1: to build a list of supporters or expand his supporter
47:35
Speaker 1: base or fundraise, which are really common and effective ways
47:38
Speaker 1: of reaching people online to build their campaigns. But what
47:43
Speaker 1: the campaign is doing that's particularly worrisome is that they
47:48
Speaker 1: are targeting very specific voting blocks that are critical for
47:54
Speaker 1: their success in 2020 in the reelection. And Florida is
47:59
Speaker 1: one example. They have invested heavily in Florida to drive
48:03
Speaker 1: very specific narratives among certain voters. So the example that
48:07
Speaker 1: we've been tracking through our newsletter for what it's worth
48:12
Speaker 1: has been a heavy investment in Spanish language ads targeting
48:18
Speaker 1: Venezuelan expats, Cuban Americans in the states, with messaging and
48:23
Speaker 1: advertisements specific to the Trump administration's aggressive position on what's
48:28
Speaker 1: happening in Venezuela right now. So they're really defining this
48:34
Speaker 1: issue to build support among these voters that they need
48:38
Speaker 1: to essentially lock in to be able to win that
48:41
Speaker 1: state in 2020. And they're doing it right now. They're
48:45
Speaker 1: not waiting for a traditional general election timeline to They're
48:51
Speaker 1: talking to these voters and they're delivering these messages day
48:53
Speaker 1: in and day out. And they're doing it in a
48:56
Speaker 1: number of different places with a number of different messages
48:59
Speaker 1: in this way.
48:59
Speaker 3: Yeah. Always great when Florida politics drive terrible foreign policy
49:03
Speaker 3: decision making. But I digress.
49:06
Speaker 1: It's a problem, but it's really scary because they are
49:10
Speaker 1: shoring up votes now. They're really running a general election campaign.
49:14
Speaker 1: And of course, on the Democratic side, we're just getting
49:19
Speaker 1: into the heat of a really crowded and exciting primary.
49:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're pushing on an open door right now. Have
49:24
Speaker 3: they gotten better at using Facebook or Google in the
49:28
Speaker 3: past three years? I mean, there was a lot of
49:29
Speaker 3: talk shortly after 2016 about how the Trump campaign allowed
49:34
Speaker 3: Facebook staffers to embed with them to make their ad
49:36
Speaker 3: buys more efficient. I mean, are you seeing improvement or...
49:40
Speaker 3: or is it just the same stuff?
49:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing to correct there in sort of that
49:47
Speaker 1: storyline is that the Hillary Clinton campaign and organizations like Priorities,
49:52
Speaker 1: where I ran the digital program in 2016, were all
49:55
Speaker 1: offered the same level of support from Facebook, from their
50:01
Speaker 1: ad sales team, to be able to help run programs.
50:04
Speaker 1: I do think that the Trump campaign, in the sense
50:08
Speaker 1: they were an underdog, right, they had really nothing to lose,
50:11
Speaker 1: did throw a lot more at the wall and took
50:14
Speaker 1: a lot more risks and invested differently than traditional campaigns have,
50:19
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to investing in digital and platforms
50:22
Speaker 1: like Facebook. And I think that the more experience you
50:27
Speaker 1: have working on these platforms, especially because they change on
50:32
Speaker 1: their own whim for a number of different reasons, the
50:36
Speaker 1: more effective your programs that you run are going to be.
50:39
Speaker 1: I think that one thing, though, that's important to note
50:41
Speaker 1: is that a smart strategy when it comes to messaging
50:45
Speaker 1: and messaging specific to audiences you're trying to speak to
50:49
Speaker 1: about issues they care about is a smart strategy regardless
50:53
Speaker 1: of where you meet them. as long as you're meeting
50:55
Speaker 1: them where they get their information.
50:57
Speaker 2: Right.
50:57
Speaker 1: So it's not enough, right, to just spend a ton
51:00
Speaker 1: of money on Facebook with ads that don't really relate
51:04
Speaker 1: to your audience or that are just, you know, trying
51:07
Speaker 1: to get you to donate dollars. You need to really
51:11
Speaker 1: think about meeting people where they are with the issues
51:14
Speaker 1: that matter most to them. And I think that's where
51:17
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign really took a really smart tactical approach
51:21
Speaker 1: and continued to do that. They are talking to voters
51:24
Speaker 1: about the issues they care about, whether you're, you know,
51:28
Speaker 1: a Venezuelan that's now living in Florida and you can
51:33
Speaker 1: vote there and you care about what's happening in your
51:36
Speaker 1: home country and you're being told by the president that
51:39
Speaker 1: he's doing something about it. That's really powerful. Yeah.
51:43
Speaker 3: So you talked about how you did work for priorities
51:45
Speaker 3: last cycle. I mean, if you had... $ 40 million right
51:50
Speaker 3: now in an ad company making digital ads for you.
51:54
Speaker 3: What would you be doing? And how would you want
51:57
Speaker 3: to soften Trump up as we go into 2020?
52:00
Speaker 1: It's a great question. So at Acronym, the organization I
52:03
Speaker 1: started after 2016, we do run digital media and organizing programs.
52:09
Speaker 1: So we do the same kind of work that the
52:11
Speaker 1: Trump campaign does. The major difference is that we have
52:16
Speaker 1: run into so many barriers in terms of trying to
52:21
Speaker 1: fundraise and be able to actually run these types of
52:25
Speaker 1: programs at scale because it's still a new model and
52:28
Speaker 1: it's very disruptive compared to how most campaigns and programs
52:32
Speaker 1: have been run for many years. If we were to
52:36
Speaker 1: have $ 40 million right now, I would put a program
52:41
Speaker 1: together that reached very specific needs audiences of voters in
52:47
Speaker 1: states that are critical, given their placement on the electoral map,
52:54
Speaker 1: to really start to engage people about how the Trump
52:58
Speaker 1: administration has, you know, hurt them when it comes to
53:02
Speaker 1: the economy and the, you know, be able to actually
53:07
Speaker 1: inform voters about what's happening in terms of the Mueller report.
53:11
Speaker 1: and the allegations against the members of the administration and
53:15
Speaker 1: the president to be able to break down how layoffs
53:20
Speaker 1: that have been caused by their tax reform have impacted
53:25
Speaker 1: families in key states. The information is all there. The
53:29
Speaker 1: impact of this administration on so many people's lives in
53:33
Speaker 1: this country is factual and exists, but we aren't telling
53:39
Speaker 1: that story right now to voters. And so we're essentially
53:43
Speaker 1: losing ground with them because the Trump campaign is telling
53:47
Speaker 1: a very different story on their terms.
53:49
Speaker 3: I guess that would be my follow-up question, which is,
53:51
Speaker 3: are there any groups out there sort of following that
53:55
Speaker 3: kind of strategy with any sort of significant ad buys?
53:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, not right now. We can track all
54:01
Speaker 1: of the spending from the committees and the PACs and
54:05
Speaker 1: the organization's on the left. And I think they're all,
54:09
Speaker 1: I mean, there's sort of two different challenges here. One
54:14
Speaker 1: is resources. I think that the Democratic side has been
54:20
Speaker 1: slow to evolve our strategy for reaching voters and for
54:23
Speaker 1: communication generally. The way that people communicate and where they
54:28
Speaker 1: get their information and how has changed dramatically over the
54:32
Speaker 1: past 10 years and the approach that to running campaigns
54:38
Speaker 1: and really communicating and informing voters on the Democratic side
54:42
Speaker 1: has been very, very slow to change. So I think
54:45
Speaker 1: that's one challenge. I do think that there are some organizations,
54:49
Speaker 1: including ACRONYM, that are taking a different and more modern
54:53
Speaker 1: approach to this work, but it's been really difficult to
54:56
Speaker 1: raise the resources to be able to do this. We
55:00
Speaker 1: have this primary right now, so a lot of the
55:03
Speaker 1: energy and money in the Democratic Party is going towards
55:08
Speaker 1: that contest. And it's a really, really important contest and debate.
55:14
Speaker 1: But the thing that keeps me up at night is
55:15
Speaker 1: that we are losing so much ground in really defining
55:19
Speaker 1: the 2020 election on our terms, regardless of who our
55:22
Speaker 1: nominee is. Yeah.
55:24
Speaker 3: I mean, look, that literally keeps me up at night, too.
55:27
Speaker 3: The other thing that worries me a lot is, you know,
55:29
Speaker 3: Brad Parscale is not someone who any of us had
55:32
Speaker 3: heard of before 2016, but it's interesting and notable that
55:36
Speaker 3: Trump took his digital director and made him his campaign manager.
55:40
Speaker 3: And on the Democratic side, you tend to see these
55:43
Speaker 3: sort of all powerful TV ad making general consultants that
55:48
Speaker 3: still pour tons of money into traditional TV ads, because
55:52
Speaker 3: in part, let's be honest, they get paid with percentages
55:55
Speaker 3: of those ad pies in many cases. So I worry
55:58
Speaker 3: about all the inertia that might prevent Democrats from, you know,
56:02
Speaker 3: looking at a campaign in 2020 and making the obvious,
56:05
Speaker 3: obvious decision that digital spending is a better way to
56:08
Speaker 3: reach people, a better way to target people. And it's
56:11
Speaker 3: a more efficient ad dollar buying, right?
56:14
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. And there's the conventional wisdom that we're
56:19
Speaker 1: up against. And then there's, of course, the special interests,
56:22
Speaker 1: the folks that have you know, made their living off
56:26
Speaker 1: of television ads and television buys who are smart strategists
56:31
Speaker 1: and they're trusted, but they have been averse for the
56:34
Speaker 1: most part to adapt to a changing media landscape. And
56:39
Speaker 1: the information marketplace, the way that exists right now, it's distributed.
56:43
Speaker 1: It's not controlled. So whereas television used to be the
56:46
Speaker 1: only vehicle to reach a large audience in a everyone
56:52
Speaker 1: self-selects and they're getting their news and information on their
56:56
Speaker 1: Facebook news feeds and on Instagram and on apps, on
56:59
Speaker 1: their phones. And so if we're not also reaching people
57:03
Speaker 1: with the information they need about this election and the
57:06
Speaker 1: stakes there in those places, we are doing voters a
57:10
Speaker 1: huge disservice and we're not competing with the information that
57:13
Speaker 1: the other side is providing them. Yeah.
57:16
Speaker 3: The other lesson learned for me in the 2016 cycle
57:17
Speaker 3: was You know, I think we all saw outlets like
57:21
Speaker 3: InfoWars or Breitbart or The Federalist, and we mocked them
57:25
Speaker 3: rightly because their content is garbage or dismissed them as irrelevant,
57:30
Speaker 3: as opposed to, say, a Washington Post clip or The
57:33
Speaker 3: New York Times. But when you look back at sort
57:35
Speaker 3: of the nodes of communication of things that really moved
57:38
Speaker 3: around the internet because of Facebook, for example, or Twitter,
57:42
Speaker 3: it was those fringy outlets. And I saw you recently
57:45
Speaker 3: wrote about how an outlet I'd never heard of before
57:48
Speaker 3: called the Epoch Times, which is a sort of made
57:50
Speaker 3: up pro-Trump site, literally spent more money on Facebook ads
57:54
Speaker 3: than some of the presidential campaigns, and that they're pumping
57:56
Speaker 3: conspiracy stories about Biden and Ukraine into the Facebook ecosystem.
58:00
Speaker 3: I mean, we've talked a lot about Russian interference, and
58:04
Speaker 3: rightly so, but I worry about the ability to make
58:07
Speaker 3: up a news outlet, put $ 500, 000 in Facebook ads behind
58:12
Speaker 3: it and drive a made up narrative like this? I mean,
58:15
Speaker 3: how do we what do we do about that?
58:17
Speaker 1: Well, there's a few things. Unfortunately, that is that there
58:21
Speaker 1: are so many properties like the Epoch Times that exist
58:25
Speaker 1: at the local and national level and that that are
58:28
Speaker 1: that are taking advantage of this, right, that they're they're
58:32
Speaker 1: writing narratives that are strategic for the the candidates and
58:37
Speaker 1: political issues that they endorse and then reaching very specific
58:40
Speaker 1: voters with those messages. I am very much a proponent
58:46
Speaker 1: of not leaving sort of that vacuum to them in
58:53
Speaker 1: terms of the information space. I don't think that, you know,
58:58
Speaker 1: I think that false information and misinformation needs to be
59:01
Speaker 1: shut down and there is a huge, I mean, that
59:04
Speaker 1: is really on the platforms, but also on readers and
59:09
Speaker 1: users who can this information for the time being until
59:12
Speaker 1: we really have regulation. But the other piece of this is,
59:16
Speaker 1: I don't think that Democrats need to peddle misinformation to
59:21
Speaker 1: win these debates and these contests. And so what we
59:25
Speaker 1: just need to do is start actually reaching people in
59:29
Speaker 1: these spaces. with our own fact-based information about the stakes
59:34
Speaker 1: of these elections. And so I would really love to
59:38
Speaker 1: see more media companies and properties, even like Crooked and
59:42
Speaker 1: Pod Save America, that are really, you know, unafraid to
59:46
Speaker 1: talk about the issues and provide information to people who
59:49
Speaker 1: are hungry for it. That can help them also feel
59:53
Speaker 1: very informed about the choices they make for voting. I
59:56
Speaker 1: don't think that we are going to see the elimination
1:00:01
Speaker 1: of properties like the Epoch Times anytime soon. I think
1:00:04
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to see them invest more heavily
1:00:08
Speaker 1: on platforms like Facebook. And, you know, this is something
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Republicans have been doing for a really long time in
1:00:14
Speaker 1: terms of owned media infrastructure, everything from Fox News to
1:00:19
Speaker 1: Breitbart to local political sites like the big league that
1:00:25
Speaker 1: broke the North End story back in January in Virginia.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: What we need to do is be really diligent about
1:00:32
Speaker 1: monitoring them. But I also think that we need to
1:00:33
Speaker 1: be building our own media infrastructure. I think that that
1:00:37
Speaker 1: is fact-based and that is providing this information that isn't
1:00:41
Speaker 1: reliant on short-term advertising dollars. I think that model is broken. And,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: you know, corporate brands have learned that lesson. And, you know,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: everybody is a content producer now. And so it would...
1:00:56
Speaker 1: benefit the Democratic Party greatly if we were also investing
1:01:02
Speaker 1: in media and owned content streams beyond just relying on
1:01:07
Speaker 1: the earned media filter bubble.
1:01:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think we're likely
1:01:10
Speaker 3: to see a proliferation of Epoch Times-like outlets, not a
1:01:15
Speaker 3: shortage of them. And, you know, groups like Sleeping Giants
1:01:19
Speaker 3: and Media Matters have done incredible work calling out advertisers
1:01:23
Speaker 3: that are spending on Breitbart to at least let them
1:01:25
Speaker 3: know or spending on Fox News to try to peel
1:01:28
Speaker 3: away some of those ad dollars. But ultimately, you know,
1:01:30
Speaker 3: if you're some outlet that's backed by a Republican billionaire
1:01:34
Speaker 3: as part of a broad disinformation campaign, there's not a
1:01:37
Speaker 3: whole hell of a lot Democrats can do to shut
1:01:39
Speaker 3: that down unless you have access to that individual.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: No. And it's so interesting to me because, you know,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: advertising dollars and campaigns has always been really triggered by
1:01:50
Speaker 1: competitive reporting. on how much the other side is spending
1:01:55
Speaker 1: on television to reach voters. So you don't want to
1:01:58
Speaker 1: get outspent because it means your message gets drowned out.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: And yet now we have access finally to competitive spending
1:02:05
Speaker 1: on digital platforms, but we're not really seeing a deepening
1:02:09
Speaker 1: of investment on the Democratic side, even though the information
1:02:12
Speaker 1: is right in front of us in black and white.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: And that's what I hope changes in the very, very,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: very near term because we've already given up the field
1:02:21
Speaker 1: the past six months.
1:02:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. So there's the traditional, there's the advertising
1:02:26
Speaker 3: spending that we just talked about, but there's also newer
1:02:29
Speaker 3: technological tools to organize or register voters or what have you.
1:02:34
Speaker 3: How do you feel about how Democrats are doing in
1:02:37
Speaker 3: developing and using those kinds of tools to mobilize the grassroots?
1:02:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is an exciting time on sort
1:02:45
Speaker 1: of the political school marketplace side of things. A lot
1:02:50
Speaker 1: of folks came up with new tools and technology to
1:02:53
Speaker 1: empower people to organize themselves in their communities after 2016.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: The biggest challenge, though, we found at Acronym, we do
1:03:02
Speaker 1: a lot of training and capacity building, too, for campaigns
1:03:06
Speaker 1: and progressive organizations, is that if you don't have buy-in
1:03:11
Speaker 1: for evolving your strategy at the very senior level of
1:03:15
Speaker 1: a campaign to make embed these tools into your work. So,
1:03:21
Speaker 1: for instance, you know, peer-to-peer texting is a really big
1:03:25
Speaker 1: new tool and, you know, everybody, all of your listeners
1:03:27
Speaker 1: who get all these text messages from campaigns or organizations
1:03:31
Speaker 1: are sort of the audience that is getting hit with this.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: It's an amazing piece of technology to be able to
1:03:38
Speaker 1: reach people, you know, where they really are engaging on
1:03:41
Speaker 1: their mobile devices. And yet, if You don't have a
1:03:46
Speaker 1: strategy that allows for organizers to leverage those tools as
1:03:51
Speaker 1: part of their day-to-day programs. They're not going to be adopted.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: So my big fear is that, you know, you build it,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: they don't come. If we don't change how we run
1:04:03
Speaker 1: campaigns and how we think about organizing in a digital
1:04:08
Speaker 1: age that we live in now, and we still rely
1:04:11
Speaker 1: on calling landlines and just knocking on doors and not
1:04:15
Speaker 1: weaving in tools like peer-to-peer texting into organizing teams, then
1:04:20
Speaker 1: we're not really going to adopt this new behavior and
1:04:23
Speaker 1: maximize their potential. So I think there's a lot of
1:04:26
Speaker 1: opportunity when it comes to these new tools, but I
1:04:30
Speaker 1: think we really do need to shift our way of
1:04:32
Speaker 1: thinking about how we run campaigns and maximize the volunteer
1:04:38
Speaker 1: capacity and time. So we're really reaching more people where
1:04:42
Speaker 1: they are more effectively.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm glad to see that
1:04:47
Speaker 3: there are new incubators and accelerators like Higher Ground Labs
1:04:51
Speaker 3: that are trying to develop exactly this kind of political
1:04:54
Speaker 3: technology for these campaigns. But you're right that if the
1:04:57
Speaker 3: campaigns don't understand that they need to use them and
1:05:00
Speaker 3: use them significantly with significant dollars behind that usage, I
1:05:05
Speaker 3: don't know that it will do enough, right?
1:05:08
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. They'll invest in one tool because they've
1:05:12
Speaker 1: been told it's great. They'll think of it as a
1:05:14
Speaker 1: silver bullet because maybe that's how it's been sold. And
1:05:17
Speaker 1: then they don't see a return quickly because they haven't
1:05:20
Speaker 1: created a strategy around that tool. And then they'll never
1:05:24
Speaker 1: use it again. We really do need to infuse digital
1:05:29
Speaker 1: tools and technology and best practices into everything a campaign does.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: So we can run modern campaigns. And that's a huge
1:05:38
Speaker 1: culture shift. And it's been very, very difficult and slow moving.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: But I am confident that this primary race, we will
1:05:47
Speaker 1: see entirely new models of campaigning. I think we already are.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: That will hopefully accelerate that shift.
1:05:53
Speaker 3: That's good news. I'll try to end on a positive note.
1:05:55
Speaker 3: I mean, what do you see out there that makes
1:05:57
Speaker 3: you excited or hopeful? And who is doing digital organizing
1:06:02
Speaker 3: or using digital advertising buys well right now in the
1:06:06
Speaker 3: presidential field?
1:06:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a ton to be really excited and optimistic about,
1:06:12
Speaker 1: especially in the primary race that we're seeing right now.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: So we've unfortunately lost some of our great members of
1:06:20
Speaker 1: our team at Acronym to presidentials recently. But we're really
1:06:24
Speaker 1: excited about it because we're all kind of we're all
1:06:27
Speaker 1: former campaigners and campaigners at heart. And it is it
1:06:30
Speaker 1: is the best way to really kind of innovate in
1:06:33
Speaker 1: this space. And so actually, our organizing director, Greta Karnes,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: just started as Mayor Pete's national organizing director a few
1:06:41
Speaker 1: weeks ago. which is really exciting because we really do
1:06:44
Speaker 1: believe in sort of the elimination of the word digital
1:06:47
Speaker 1: from campaigns. It's an adjective, right? It can mean the
1:06:50
Speaker 1: internet or technology or social media. So we really want
1:06:54
Speaker 1: to see just digital talent and tools embedded into everything.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: And so I've been really excited to see that with
1:07:01
Speaker 1: Mayor Pete's campaign in particular. They don't have a digital
1:07:04
Speaker 1: team or department. They're really just infusing it in everything
1:07:07
Speaker 1: they do. I think that we've seen a ton of
1:07:12
Speaker 1: increase in investment in digital to reach voters from Kamala
1:07:16
Speaker 1: Harris's campaign, Elizabeth Warren's campaign. Obviously, Bernie Sanders' campaign has
1:07:21
Speaker 1: been rolling out new tools and continues to invest heavily
1:07:24
Speaker 1: in driving their narrative online. So I think this is
1:07:27
Speaker 1: a really exciting time. I do think that digital savvy
1:07:33
Speaker 1: and investing in digital to reach supporters is a competitive
1:07:37
Speaker 1: advantage right now. So I think I believe strongly that
1:07:41
Speaker 1: whoever wins the nomination will do so in large part
1:07:45
Speaker 1: because of their ability to really organize and maximize digital
1:07:49
Speaker 1: tools and platforms to their advantage.
1:07:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. And I hope every one of these
1:07:53
Speaker 3: candidates or at least their teams is calling you to
1:07:55
Speaker 3: ask for advice. But if they don't do that, if
1:07:58
Speaker 3: they don't have your number, you and the team at
1:08:01
Speaker 3: Acronym write an amazing newsletter that really gets into the
1:08:04
Speaker 3: weeds on this in a fascinating way that's been very
1:08:06
Speaker 3: helpful for me. How can people find that newsletter and
1:08:09
Speaker 3: sign up if they want to follow this stuff more closely? Sure.
1:08:11
Speaker 1: So it's called For What It's Worth. It comes out
1:08:14
Speaker 1: every Friday and you can find up at anotheracronym.org backslash FWIW.
1:08:23
Speaker 3: All right.
1:08:24
Speaker 1: Which stands for For What It's Worth.
1:08:26
Speaker 3: Excellent. Tara, thank you for, I don't know, I think
1:08:30
Speaker 3: you probably raised my blood pressure, but you know. We
1:08:33
Speaker 3: got to do it now, right? We can't whistle past
1:08:35
Speaker 3: the graveyard here and then wake up in 2020 and
1:08:38
Speaker 3: figure out and say, what happened? We got to start
1:08:40
Speaker 3: working on this stuff.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I am confident that we can. And I think the
1:08:43
Speaker 1: more people that understand this, the better. And I'm really
1:08:47
Speaker 1: grateful for you giving me some time to talk about it.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: Well, I'm grateful to you.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Tommy.
1:08:51
Speaker 3: Thank you for making me smarter. Everyone should check out
1:08:53
Speaker 3: your newsletter. And Tara, thank you again for joining the pod.
1:08:56
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.
1:09:03
Speaker 4: Thanks to Tara McGowan for joining us today. And speaking
1:09:07
Speaker 4: of electability arguments, how about Game of Thrones last night?
1:09:11
Speaker 3: Spoilers! Spoiler alert. Here we are going to talk very
1:09:15
Speaker 3: slowly for you. people out there to turn off the pod.
1:09:19
Speaker 4: If you're driving and you're not paying attention because it's
1:09:21
Speaker 4: just us droning on, pay attention and turn off the
1:09:25
Speaker 4: fucking podcast.
1:09:25
Speaker 3: Turn off the podcast because we're going to talk about Thrones.
1:09:27
Speaker 2: I don't want your tweets.
1:09:28
Speaker 3: Thrones.
1:09:29
Speaker 2: Thrones. Okay.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: Last night. So they were clear there was less violence.
1:09:33
Speaker 3: There was less fighting. But I thought it was great.
1:09:35
Speaker 3: I like the interpersonal stuff. I like the rivalries developing.
1:09:38
Speaker 3: Very soapy.
1:09:39
Speaker 2: It's very soapy.
1:09:40
Speaker 1: It is.
1:09:41
Speaker 4: I feel like I know where this might be headed
1:09:45
Speaker 4: and I think people are going to be.
1:09:48
Speaker 3: pissed off interesting interesting are you are you backing off
1:09:51
Speaker 3: your uh democracy is no that's when that's why i
1:09:54
Speaker 3: think that i still think it's headed there and i
1:09:55
Speaker 3: think that's not going to be satisfying to a lot
1:09:57
Speaker 3: of people i don't so i don't know if our
1:09:59
Speaker 3: friend daenerys.
1:10:00
Speaker 4: Is uh is going to come out on top here
1:10:02
Speaker 4: that's i think that's an easy one but i think that's.
1:10:04
Speaker 3: Not she needs like a hand that's going to play
1:10:07
Speaker 3: dirty you know she needs a jacob wall you know
1:10:09
Speaker 3: she needs to she needs a post lobotomy lee atwater
1:10:12
Speaker 3: like that kid to really help her uh.
1:10:14
Speaker 4: I mean i think back to my favorite line of
1:10:17
Speaker 4: game of Thrones and one that they promoted a lot.
1:10:20
Speaker 4: So it's clearly important to the showrunners in the show
1:10:23
Speaker 4: when she talks about breaking the wheel. And I do
1:10:26
Speaker 4: think that game of Thrones at the end of this
1:10:28
Speaker 4: show is going to break the wheel, but I no
1:10:30
Speaker 4: longer think that Danny is going to be the one
1:10:31
Speaker 4: to break the wheel because her, her belief in this,
1:10:35
Speaker 4: it's a very political show, right? And they're getting back
1:10:38
Speaker 4: to politics, which is the best part of game of Thrones. Um,
1:10:41
Speaker 4: Her belief is, and she said this in last night's episode,
1:10:45
Speaker 4: she's like, you know, I'm here to get rid of tyrants.
1:10:49
Speaker 4: And I think getting rid of tyrants is a good thing.
1:10:51
Speaker 4: But in the process of getting rid of tyrants, like
1:10:54
Speaker 4: what makes her the benevolent ruler as she's fucking roasting
1:10:58
Speaker 4: people with her dragons?
1:11:00
Speaker 3: She's kind of tyrant light. Can we just be clear
1:11:03
Speaker 3: about one thing? Bran sucks. I'm so sick of that
1:11:06
Speaker 3: fucker just staring at people and randomly chirping everyone with
1:11:09
Speaker 3: annoying know-it-all-y insights. Like, hey, man, you clearly know what
1:11:15
Speaker 3: happened in all of history and what's going to happen
1:11:17
Speaker 3: in the future. Can you fill your friends in? Can
1:11:19
Speaker 3: you fill your relatives in?
1:11:20
Speaker 4: Well, so apparently this is– I looked this up because
1:11:24
Speaker 4: I am a dork. He can see the past and
1:11:27
Speaker 4: the present. He has vague visions of the future, but
1:11:30
Speaker 4: he doesn't know the future as well.
1:11:32
Speaker 3: I mean, that's still pretty damn good. We could probably
1:11:34
Speaker 3: be harnessing that ability. Also, can you guys... How hard
1:11:39
Speaker 3: is it for a dragon to duck a fucking arrow?
1:11:42
Speaker 2: I mean... Pay attention!
1:11:42
Speaker 3: You don't see the 14 boats whipping arrows at you?
1:11:46
Speaker 3: Can't you take a right or a left? They're not
1:11:48
Speaker 3: cruise missiles.
1:11:49
Speaker 4: The dragons have not had the best navigation. I do think,
1:11:54
Speaker 4: clearly they have been setting up that one or more
1:11:56
Speaker 4: of these dragons is killed with the crossbow for a
1:12:00
Speaker 4: couple seasons ago when Qyburn was down in King's Landing
1:12:05
Speaker 4: and showed the crossbow to Cersei. Like, you knew that
1:12:07
Speaker 4: was going to come up. But my bigger problem was
1:12:10
Speaker 4: when they go to plead with Cersei... at the end there,
1:12:14
Speaker 4: and the dragon's just sitting back there.
1:12:16
Speaker 3: Chilling on the ground.
1:12:16
Speaker 2: And there's fucking ten crossbows. Pick your dragon up.
1:12:19
Speaker 3: Pick up your dragon and fly away.
1:12:20
Speaker 2: Fly away.
1:12:21
Speaker 3: What are you doing? We don't need to all line up.
1:12:22
Speaker 3: We don't need this dramatic shot.
1:12:24
Speaker 2: And also, why did Circe not just waste those fuckers?
1:12:27
Speaker 3: I don't know.
1:12:27
Speaker 1: I don't know.
1:12:28
Speaker 2: So that was hard to believe. She's diabolical. She is diabolical.
1:12:31
Speaker 3: I love watching her face. You just see the evil
1:12:33
Speaker 3: coursing through it.
1:12:34
Speaker 2: But here's what I think, people.
1:12:36
Speaker 4: I think that somehow, and I don't know how, we're
1:12:39
Speaker 4: going to return to Bran being integral to the end
1:12:43
Speaker 4: of the show at some point.
1:12:43
Speaker 2: I hope so. I kind of hope so. I want
1:12:45
Speaker 2: to know where the nice change history was.
1:12:47
Speaker 4: If there's no other Bran shit, then I'm going to
1:12:50
Speaker 4: join the critics in saying this was bad. But I
1:12:53
Speaker 4: feel like we're going to get some more Bran at
1:12:55
Speaker 4: some point.
1:12:55
Speaker 2: More explanations.
1:12:56
Speaker 3: I'm just happy that I could actually see the screen
1:12:59
Speaker 3: this time. I was not one of those people complaining.
1:13:01
Speaker 3: I still think watching the torches go out one by
1:13:03
Speaker 3: one was one of the coolest shots I've ever seen
1:13:05
Speaker 3: in any TV show.
1:13:06
Speaker 4: But it was great to be able to see their faces.
1:13:08
Speaker 4: When Varys started talking, making an argument... for Jon's electability
1:13:12
Speaker 4: over Daenerys' to Tyrion. We were both watching together, and
1:13:16
Speaker 4: we're both like, oh, that's going to be a thing.
1:13:17
Speaker 3: That's going to be a lot of political takes. Yeah, look,
1:13:20
Speaker 3: I get that the views are offensive and misogynistic, but
1:13:23
Speaker 3: it's a terrible, misogynistic show.
1:13:26
Speaker 4: He literally even said, I think it could bring all
1:13:29
Speaker 4: the lords together of Westeros. Basically, I think that Jon
1:13:33
Speaker 4: could get the white working class vote.
1:13:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, the white walker class vote, yeah.
1:13:38
Speaker 2: It was a lot. But I thought it was a
1:13:40
Speaker 2: good episode.
1:13:40
Speaker 3: Great episode. What else happened that was fun?
1:13:44
Speaker 1: Poor.
1:13:45
Speaker 2: Arya.
1:13:46
Speaker 3: Can we just let her find love?
1:13:48
Speaker 2: And Arya, I thought you were going to say poor ghost.
1:13:51
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. You just abandoned your dog? What's wrong with you, dude?
1:13:55
Speaker 2: Held Leo close after that one. Yeah. Okay. That was
1:13:59
Speaker 2: tough to handle.
1:14:00
Speaker 3: Real cool.
1:14:01
Speaker 2: I feel like we have to see Ghost again too
1:14:03
Speaker 2: or else I'm.
1:14:03
Speaker 3: Going to be pretty pissed. Ghost is going to be like.
1:14:05
Speaker 4: He's going to come in at the end and just
1:14:06
Speaker 4: maul Cersei.
1:14:07
Speaker 3: That would be great. That would be a great ending.
1:14:09
Speaker 2: Great ending.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: All right.
1:14:11
Speaker 2: That's our Game of Thrones. We're just doing Game of
1:14:13
Speaker 2: Thrones recaps now.
1:14:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, look, we know where the culture's heading.
1:14:16
Speaker 2: That's where we're going.
1:14:17
Speaker 3: We're going to ride that dragon like Jon Snow.
1:14:19
Speaker 2: All right, everyone. We'll see you Thursday. Have a good one.
1:14:32
Speaker 3: Thank you.