Latest / Pod Save America / Did Trump's Supreme Court Rig the Midterms?

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Did Trump's Supreme Court Rig the Midterms? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to pod.
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  Speaker 3: Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. John is out of town today,
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  Speaker 3: so I am delighted to have with me the one
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: and only Alex Wagner. Alex, thanks for doing this.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Oh, what a thrill, Dan. I love when John goes
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  Speaker 4: out of town. It is a thrill.
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  Speaker 5: pale imitation of him.
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  Speaker 3: Not at all. An improvement, many would say.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: We've got a lot to talk about on today's show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth is on the hill trying to defend a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: war nobody wants. Trump is laser focused on his grudges
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: and perceived enemies like Jimmy Kimmel and Jim Comey. We've
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: got a huge Supreme Court decision in the Voting Rights
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Act and Maine Governor Janet Mills dropping her Senate bid,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: as well as a possible reboot of The Apprentice. Then
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Tommy talks to Iowa Senate candidate Zach Walz. Before we
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  Speaker 3: get to all of that, I just wanted to say
• 2:15
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  Speaker 3: and Polar Coaster with the one and only Dan Pfeiffer.
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  Speaker 3: Hope you'll take a moment and head to crooked.com slash
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  Speaker 3: friends and subscribe. Okay, let's get to the news. The
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: conservative super PAC, Americans for Prosperity, released a memo on
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  Speaker 3: Thursday warning that Republicans may lose the Senate if They
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  Speaker 3: don't sharpen their affordability message because, according to their polling,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Democrats are now more trusted on prices in the economy.
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  Speaker 3: So is Donald Trump taking that advice? Not so much.
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  Speaker 3: He spent this week laser focused on one of his
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: least popular programs, his vengeance tour against his political enemies.
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  Speaker 3: Let's start with Jim Comey. The FBI announced on Tuesday
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: that it had secured a second indictment against the former
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  Speaker 3: FBI director, this time for, quote, making threats against the
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  Speaker 3: president in a 2025 Instagram post featuring seashells. Here's Trump
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  Speaker 3: trying to explain this in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
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  Speaker 4: Do you really think.
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  Speaker 6: That he was endangering your life or threatening your life?
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  Speaker 7: Well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86,
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  Speaker 7: you know, it's a mob term for kill them. People
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  Speaker 7: like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians
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  Speaker 7: and others. He's a dirty cop. He's a crooked man.
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  Speaker 3: Alex, can you explain this indictment?
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  Speaker 5: First of all, I just want to say as someone
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  Speaker 5: who's worked in restaurants, 86 means hold the mayo or whatever.
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  Speaker 5: 86 the mayo, 86 the chicken parm. It does not
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  Speaker 5: mean kill the chicken parm.
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  Speaker 4: Just saying.
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  Speaker 8: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: See, this is an important, you are, Jim Comey should
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: hire you as his attorney.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I don't even think Jim Comey really needs an
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: attorney here. Cause I am, I am, I'm fairly confident
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  Speaker 5: that this is going to get dismissed, but what do
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  Speaker 5: I know? I just play a lawyer on TV and podcasts. Um, Daniel,
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  Speaker 5: remember the last ill-fated attempt this administration made in criminally
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: finding Jim Comey guilty of any crimes? That was the
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  Speaker 5: indictment secured, and I put that in quotes, by unlawfully
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: appointed prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, representing the Eastern District of Virginia.
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  Speaker 5: The judge in that case concluded that Halligan's indictment of Comey,
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  Speaker 5: which sought to find him guilty of lying to both
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  Speaker 5: Congress and, I believe, the Senate Judiciary Committee, The judge
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  Speaker 5: tossed that indictment out because Ms. Halligan was unlawfully appointed
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  Speaker 5: to her post. Therefore, all matters flowing from that appointment
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  Speaker 5: were equally unlawful.
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  Speaker 4: It was clownish.
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  Speaker 5: But I do think the term beclowned itself belongs in
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  Speaker 5: this indictment because it is so foolish as to make
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  Speaker 5: clowns look like serious people.
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  Speaker 4: First of all, if you've read the indictment, it's so short.
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  Speaker 4: It's a page. And this is how it goes. Just
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  Speaker 4: can I read a little excerpt of it?
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  Speaker 3: Please do, yes.
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  Speaker 5: On or about May 15th, 2025, in the Eastern District
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  Speaker 5: of North Carolina, James Brian Comey did knowingly and willfully
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  Speaker 5: make a threat to take the life of and to
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  Speaker 5: inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States,
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  Speaker 5: in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet
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  Speaker 5: social media site Instagram, which depicted seashells arranged in a
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  Speaker 5: pattern making out 86-47. 47 being the number of Trump's
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  Speaker 5: second presidency. 86-47, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar
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  Speaker 5: with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of
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  Speaker 5: an intent to do harm to the President.
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  Speaker 4: Of the United States.
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  Speaker 5: To which I say, prosecutors, would a reasonable recipient interpret
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  Speaker 5: a seashell message on the beach as a serious expression
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  Speaker 5: of an intent to do harm to the President of
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  Speaker 5: the United States?
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  Speaker 4: It seems to me, Dan, and again, I'm not a lawyer.
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  Speaker 5: But if you have the word seashells in your indictment,
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  Speaker 5: you're already losing. Comey has said he did not actually
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  Speaker 5: even arrange the seashells, that he saw them on the
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  Speaker 5: beach and took a picture of them, posted them to Instagram,
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  Speaker 5: which makes me say, will the real beach mob boss
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  Speaker 5: please stand up?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, like who is this person and will they come
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  Speaker 3: forward or are they going to let Jim Comey take
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: the fall for their sand art? I mean, this whole
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: thing is so embarrassing. It's ridiculous. Like, no one can
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  Speaker 3: actually possibly believe that this was a real threat. The
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: gym company is making a real threat. No matter how
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  Speaker 3: you interpret the number 86, it is ridiculous. Like, I
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  Speaker 3: guess I will say I have wondered what was going
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  Speaker 3: to happen to, you know, like kidnappers and serial killers
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  Speaker 3: used to cut out letters from magazines. Like, how were
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: they ever going to survive in the post, in the death,
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  Speaker 3: in a world after the death of print media? And
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: the answer is seashells.
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  Speaker 4: Can I say also the bar here is really high.
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  Speaker 5: Like there are previous cases that have been adjudicated at
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  Speaker 5: like very high levels of our judicial system that give
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  Speaker 5: a lot of leeway for free speech for, you know,
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  Speaker 5: including expressions of real intentional harm directed toward the president
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  Speaker 5: of the United States. And in North Carolina, I believe
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  Speaker 5: the criminal statute says that threats fall outside of protected
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  Speaker 5: speech only if they show the speaker had a reckless
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  Speaker 5: disregard for the strong likelihood that his listeners would be
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  Speaker 5: incited to do harm to the president.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I am sorry.
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  Speaker 5: Reckless disregard and beachcombing don't go together.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this is embarrassing. This is like they are
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: so scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: fulfill Trump's desire for Jim Comey to see the inside
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  Speaker 3: of a jail cell. Like, It is embarrassing. There are
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: some reports today as well that they are in Virginia
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: trying to make another run at Comey, this time for
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  Speaker 3: leaking information from Congress. We'll see what happens there. But, like,
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  Speaker 3: it's embarrassing.
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  Speaker 5: Can I just say, if you haven't been paying attention
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: to what is happening inside the Department of Justice at
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  Speaker 5: the level of the U.S.
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  Speaker 4: Attorneys, you should.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: Jeffrey Toobin has an op-ed in the New York Times
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  Speaker 5: this week detailing some of the absolutely clownish people who
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: are being tasked with carrying out these clownish endeavors. And
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  Speaker 5: they're literally like right-wing podcasters.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a right-wing podcaster at the charge of
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: the FBI.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. Right.
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  Speaker 5: These people are so utterly unserious that I would say
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  Speaker 5: everybody gird your loins because there's going to be more
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: of this bullshit coming down the pike for as long
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: as Trump's controlling the DOJ.
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  Speaker 8: I mean, let's not.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Look down our nose at podcasters taking high-level government positions,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: just for the record.
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  Speaker 7: Right.
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  Speaker 4: Well, when you are Secretary of State, we'll all say
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: what a great turn of events that was.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I would say there are– I'm unlikely to get an
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  Speaker 3: appointment in any subsequent administration, but I would suggest that
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Secretary of State is quite low on the list. That's
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: really Tommy's job.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, I can find many other cabinet agencies that
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: you would be fit to– I mean, especially compared to–
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: I don't know, literally every single.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Appointee in the Trump administration.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: That's fair. Fair enough.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: But I digress.
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: These are clownish people doing clownish things. And hopefully our
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: judicial system will continue to do the important work that
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: it's doing by dismissing them.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Trump is also trying to take down Jimmy Kimmel again.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: As we talked about on Tuesday's show, the White House
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: is pretending to be big mad about a joke Kimmel
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: made days before the Correspondents Center about Melania being an
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: expectant widow. The FCC has now launched an early review
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: of all of ABC's broadcast licenses and They said this
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: was part of a longer-running anti-DEI investigation, but the context
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: is pretty clear. And the White House communication director did
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: tweet that Kimmel is a, quote, shit human being and
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: that ABC needs to fire him immediately and he should
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: be shunned for the rest of his life. Alex, what
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: is going on here with the FCC? Is this a
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: real threat?
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, yeah, it's a real threat insofar as
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: Disney's going to have to comply.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: The FCC can do this, right? It's difficult.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: It's an unusual process, but they can absolutely do this.
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: And they can make life expensive and challenging for Disney
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  Speaker 5: and its affiliates as they seek to gum up the
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  Speaker 5: works and throw sand in the machinery.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: And it is, I think, an.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: Escalatory move from the last time the FCC took on
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, which was just to pull them
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  Speaker 5: off the air. And I don't think it's a good
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  Speaker 5: development in terms of our democracy and the First Amendment
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: and the freedom of the press and freedom of speech. So,
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think it's definitely problematic. I think, though
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: this time is a little bit different, first of all, Disney,
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: I think, learned its lesson when everybody, a lot of
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: people who are Disney Plus subscribers started canceling their subscriptions,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: outraged over Disney pulling Kimmel off the air for a
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: week or however long it was. And I think also
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: these networks are understanding that if you allow an administration
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: to terrorize you based on a whatever joke said on
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: one of your broadcast networks, that is both the end
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: of television and comedy. And neither of those things is
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: good for business if you're a broadcast network.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: Or an entertainment network.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: So I think there's more I would hope there's more
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: fight in Disney's belly this time around. And I think
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: an early indicator of the change dynamics is the posture
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: of the National Association of Broadcasters, which released a statement on,
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: I think it was Wednesday, saying effectively what the FCC
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: is doing here is bogus. And if it wants to
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: do this to Disney ABC, then we're all, you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: that equally affects us. So, you know, An opening salvo
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: against Disney is an opening salvo against all of us,
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: which I think is a hopeful sign that corporate America
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: has learned some lessons since 2025 when everybody was taking
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: the knee to Donald Trump and his winged monkeys as
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: they sought to terrorize them and encourage them to pledge
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: allegiance to.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think in the end of the day,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: nothing bad is going to happen to ABC here, other
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: than that, like you said, they're going to have to
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: work a little harder to get a result they were
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: going to get anyway. But there is a chilling effect
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: from this sort of action from the FCC. It sends
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: a message. Like, if you're Jimmy Kimmel and you're ABC,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: you feel pretty good about what's going to happen here.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: You have the power to fight back. If you're a
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: smaller network, you may not. If you're someone who does
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: not have Jimmy Kimmel's cloud, I mean, Jimmy Kimmel's basically
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: known as the mayor of Hollywood, he's so popular, then...
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: it could cause you to think twice before you say
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: certain things or do certain things, or it could cause
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: the executives at smaller networks or maybe networks who have
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: more in front of Trump, like at Paramount, right? Who
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: have more stake in what the Trump administration does than
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: ABC does to, you know, take it, you know, kill
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: a story, right? The thing is, you know, that we
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: know about the jokes that happen or the stories that
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: happen in the comments that happen that then get some response, right?
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: What we don't know about are the stories and the
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: jokes that don't happen because people are afraid of the response.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: And that is ultimately what Bend and Carr is trying
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: to do here.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: Can I say, though, I think there is one reality
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: that corporate America is particularly and increasingly acutely aware of,
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: which is the House is likely to change hands and
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: the Senate could change hands. And 2028 isn't that far
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: off if you're a corporate executive who looks at things
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: in multi-year forecasts. And the reality is that these, Paramount
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: is a great example, they have so alienated themselves from
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: the party that is likely to take power, at least
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: in the legislative branch in the coming year, that they
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: have some work to do.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: And the more they make.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: These arrangements with the Trump administration, the more they do
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: the bidding, the more they're going to have to go
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: to the Hill and testify as to how this isn't
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: a corrupt practice. And I think that they're going to
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: have to, I think they understand that there's going to
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: be a call for some accountability on this. which I
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: do think is why you have, for example, you know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: Paramount has done everything, bent over backwards for this administration.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: But Nora O'Donnell, who is on CBS, who is, which,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: you know, as part of 60 Minutes, has asked Trump
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: some probably of the toughest questions that any journalist has
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: asked him in the last month relating to his role
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: in the Epstein files in the wake of the White
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: House correspondent's shooting. So I think, or attempted shooting. I mean,
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: I just think I'm not like a corporate stooge here, Dan.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that, despite this long defense of corporate America.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: My story defense of the C-suite.
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: But I do think there are financial realities that are
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: going to come into play here. And Trump is a
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: lame duck, not just politically speaking, but in terms of business.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: At some point, he becomes dead weight. And these kinds
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: of fights are only going to, I mean, I think
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: you can only wage them on Trump's behalf for so
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: long before you're actually putting yourself in harm's way.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's true. I think hopefully people are
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: beginning to realize that. We're going to get to an
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: exception on this later in the podcast when it comes
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: to the Amazon Corporation. But if you even take the
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Nora O'Donnell report, like the Nora O'Donnell, she did a
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: good job. She asked the tough questions. That was an
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable situation to be in, and she persevered through it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: But there is a report today that CBS really edited
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: out a bunch of sort of Trump nonsense. You know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: there was that, that the term everyone was using back
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: in the day was like sane washing to make them
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: sound more normal. And, but there's apparently a lot, you know,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: according to this one report, a lot of stuff that
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: would have been not good for Trump that did not
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: get in that, you know, is that because that was
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: a legitimate journalistic decision about how to fit this interview
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: into this, you know, the allotted chunk. Is it because
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: they have already been sued by Trump for various issues?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: I look forward to this exact thing.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: When will Kamala Harris sue CBS for whatever, $ 38 million
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: because it's deemed election interference in the 2028 election?
• 15:53
  Speaker 8: I digress.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Honestly, that would be one of the best things she
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: has done since the election. It would be very popular.
• 16:08
  Speaker 9: Pod Save America is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company.
• 16:11
  Speaker 9: You ever buy some, quote unquote, seafood, and then you
• 16:15
  Speaker 9: read what it actually is?
• 16:16
  Speaker 8: It ain't seafood at all. It's not crab.
• 16:18
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• 16:19
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• 16:22
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• 17:35
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• 18:53
  Speaker 3: There's also been a lot of back and forth lately
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: about Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. The DOJ recently dropped its
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: bogus investigation into him over the renovation of the Fed building.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Not only is Powell not going to trial, he's rewarding
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Trump's effort by sticking around the building longer. Let's take
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: a listen.
• 19:10
  Speaker 10: After my term as chair ends on May 15, I
• 19:12
  Speaker 10: will continue to serve as a governor for a period
• 19:15
  Speaker 10: of time to be determined. These legal actions by the
• 19:18
  Speaker 10: administration are unprecedented in our 113-year history, and there are
• 19:23
  Speaker 10: ongoing threats of additional such actions. I worry that these
• 19:27
  Speaker 10: attacks are are battering the institution. I will not leave
• 19:30
  Speaker 10: the board until this investigation is well and truly over
• 19:33
  Speaker 10: with transparency and finality. And I stand by that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: Trump, of course, responded on True Social. Jerome, too late, pal,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: wants to stay at the Fed because he can't get
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: a job anywhere else. Nobody wants him. Alex, did you
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: ever think that Jerome Powell would be the hero we
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: were waiting for? Is his decision really a big deal?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, listen, I think Jerome Powell, and I know
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: this sounds pretty like heavy handed, but I do think
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: he represents, as we talk about like resistance 2 or 3.0,
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: he's the face of a different kind of resistance warrior,
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: which is.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: Someone who otherwise- Do you have a Jerome Powell bobblehead?
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's still at the factory, Dan. It takes
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: a minute because of the straight Hormuz closures.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: That's right. It's stuck on the other side of the
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: street right now and it cannot get to you.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I understand.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: It's just like I'm waiting. I do check religiously every day.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: But Jerome Powell, you know, his refusal to go quietly
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: into the night, I think really has provided a template
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: for many other kind of conservative institutionalists who would never
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: stick their necks out to– say, fuck no. And the
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: fact that he is refusing to leave as a governor
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: of the Fed is a real fuck.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: You to Trump.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: You know, I mean, and also, who knew Jerome Powell
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: was this tenacious? Like, what a pain in the ass
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: it must be to be Jerome Powell, right? Like, the
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: dude doesn't need to work again. I mean, and he
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: certainly could get another job. But the fact that he
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: is sitting there largely to be a thorn in Trump's
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: side and show to the incoming director of the Fed,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: Kevin Warsh, what resistance and an independent, autonomous body looks like,
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: That is super important. And hats off to Jerome Powell
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: on angel's wings.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: Go get it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the reason why it's specifically important is
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: it denies Trump another vacancy on the Fed board.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, that too.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I think this is a couple of things. One, Jerome
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Powell knows how power is deployed and how to use it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: And this gives him leverage over Trump for the investigation.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Because the original investigation was dropped because Tom Tillis would
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: not approve Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair. until
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: the investigation into Jerome Powell was dropped by the DOJ.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: The fact that you can just drop the investigation at
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: the whim of a senator suggests it was not that
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: serious an investigation to begin with. But of course, we
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: knew that. And it also, I think, says something about
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: how Jerome Powell feels about Kevin Warsh, or at least
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: some fears that Kevin Warsh might be more of a
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Trump stooge than he suggested in his hearings. And so
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: he wants to be there to keep an eye on him.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: So I think Hats off to Jerome Powell.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: Jerome Powell, we salute you, really, honestly.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Get Tony DeCoppo on the line. Can I say one
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: other thing?
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: And that is, don't forget that Jerome Powell was appointed
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: by Donald Trump.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, he was.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: So maybe whatever magic Jerome Powell has in his fingertips
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: can be sprinkled onto Kevin Warsh as he takes the
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: reins of the Fed.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Well, from your- From your lips to Kevin Walsh's ears.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: One last thing on the Department of Justice. As we discussed,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Trump is trying to use the correspondence dinner attack to
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: justify building his ballroom, which is his true passion project.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: The Department of Justice filed a brief on Monday asking
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: a judge to dismiss the lawsuit that's holding up construction. Alex,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: I think you noted that the language in the filing
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: was a bit unusual, so to speak.
• 22:48
  Speaker 8: What do you know?
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: Well, can I just read you a little excerpt from this?
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: For people who haven't, you would be- This is your
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: second legal document reading of this podcast. Listen, I play
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: Andrew Weissman on this podcast.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Watch out. Watch out for strict scrutiny.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Watch out, Kate Shaw, Leah Littman, Melissa Murray. Okay.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: This filing is like, I mean, literally, it was dictated
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: by Donald Trump, if not actually written by Donald Trump
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: and then just printed out on DOJ letterhead. Like, here's
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: some of the language in it relating to the ballroom.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: If any other president had the ability, foresight, or talents
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: necessary to build this ballroom, which will be one of
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: the greatest, safest, and most secure structures of its kind
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: anywhere in the world, capital W on world.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: There would never have been a lawsuit. But because it
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: is all caps, Donald J.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: Trump, a highly successful real estate developer who has abilities
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: that others don't, especially those who assume the office of president.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: This frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed. Again, it's called,
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: all caps, Trump Derangement Syndrome. On top of everything else,
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: this project is a gift to our country from President
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: Trump and other donors. It is free of charge to
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: the American taxpayer. Who could ever object to that? A
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: lot of title case in there that I didn't get
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: into because it just was becoming too much. But clearly,
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: you know, if you're wondering whether Todd Blanche wants to
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: be attorney general, this kind of thing is the only
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: proof you need. And if you were wondering if literally
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: the dumbest people in the world may be now populating
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: our Department of Justice, here's confirmation that the dumbest people
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: in the world are perverting our justice system to be
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: an ego boost for Donald Trump.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I guess the best thing I can say about Donald
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Trump is that his desire for the ballroom is his
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: most authentic self. It still remains wild to me that
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: after someone brought a gun to potentially try to assassinate
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, his first instinct, like a more magnanimous person
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: would call for national unity, call for the toning down
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: of political rhetoric, would look inward. at perhaps the things
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: they had said, the way they'd celebrated the deaths of
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: their political enemies, the riot they sparked at the Capitol,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the calls for the hanging of their vice president. It
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: would have done those things. Or a cynical person would
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: use it to advance their political agenda in some way, shape,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: or form. And instead, Trump used that moment to push
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: for the ballroom because that is the thing he truly
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: wants more than anything else. It's the thing he cares about.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: It's the thing he's obsessed with. Um, it is very,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: very strange. It is quite unpopular. It is a gift
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: to Democrats. It is just like a, like God bless
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: him for doing it. I hope he does it all
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: the time. I hope he runs a ballroom fall campaign.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I hope he tours ballrooms in the battleground States. I
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: hope he brings swing voters to a round table where
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: they discuss the marble to be used in the ballroom.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I hope they do all of those things like more ballroom,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: the better Donald Trump.
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: Just to note, to the point of how unpopular it is,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: the Washington Post is out with a poll today showing
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: Americans reject Donald Trump's planned ballroom, I believe, by a
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: two-to-one margin, Dan.
• 26:02
  Speaker 8: It's pretty good.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: It's pretty good. He's not going to let the public
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: stand in the way.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Of his ballroom.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: Reason, financial, politics, reason, politics. law, none of it will
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: stand in the way of this ballroom.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Speaking of affordability, Pete Hegseth was on the Hill on
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Thursday for a second day of testimony defending a war
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: that has now driven the price of gas to an
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: average of $ 4. 30 a gallon. Of course, Hegseth was his
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: typically modest and contrite self. Here's a sampling.
• 26:28
  Speaker 11: Many congressional Democrats, as I pointed out, want to declare
• 26:31
  Speaker 11: defeat two months in.
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: Iraq took how many years?
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Afghanistan took how many years?
• 26:36
  Speaker 11: And they were nebulous missions that people went along with.
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: This is different.
• 26:40
  Speaker 11: The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless,
• 26:45
  Speaker 11: and defeatist words of congressional.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Democrats and some Republicans.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Can I speak or are you just going to monologue
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: falsehoods all over the place?
• 26:54
  Speaker 8: It's not a falsehood.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: We moved 7,500 troops off of the X based on
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the intel.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Stop.
• 26:59
  Speaker 11: Just address the election issue, please.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Well, again, that's the most important thing.
• 27:03
  Speaker 11: It's what's happening. It's yet another gotcha hypothetical, which is
• 27:08
  Speaker 11: your specialty.
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: It's not.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Tell the American people, will you deploy the uniformed military
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: to our polls to collect voter rolls or machines?
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Are you accusing me of performing because you're performing for
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: cable news right now? What stood out to you from
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the two days of hearings, and how do you think
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Democrats did overall?
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: You know, I love these Hill hearings. You do?
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: Well, just because they were, I mean, if you needed
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: any more evidence that this is a group of idiots
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: and stooges and corrupt actors who populate.
• 27:40
  Speaker 11: The president's cabinet.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Clowns, if you will, to tie it all back together again.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: And by the way, it's a curse.
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: Actually going up to the hill because you see who's
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: gone up and like they've been summarily dismissed shortly thereafter.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: And Hegseth is always on thin ice, right? I mean, Bondi, Noam,
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: now Hegseth. Amazing that this is the first testimony that
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: he's given in the 60 days of this war, near
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: 60 days of this war.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: I was struck by his impertinence.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, duh, but it is so galling in a
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: moment when a war is being conducted at the expense
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: of the American taxpayer in America's name, and is killing
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: American service members. The idea that you as a Secretary
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: of Defense would go up there and have an attitude
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: towards lines of questioning about how much the war cost,
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: that you wouldn't be transparent about how American lives have
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: been lost, and would just offhandedly mention that there was
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: a 14th casualty as if that wasn't a big deal,
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: a 14th American casualty, I should say. And just utterly,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: you know, refuse to recognize that the people who decide
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: whether any of this is worth it, the people who
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: decide whether they want to pay for it are not.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: not the Secretary of War, not the Secretary of Defense,
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: it's the American people. And these are their elected representatives
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: asking legitimate lines of questions about what's happening. And I just,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: I think it's all fucked, but this in particular, this
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: war is so fucked and so not what the American
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: public wants that to not even begin to try and
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: sell it or explain what is happening is such a
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: betrayal of the sort of foundational parts of our democracy.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: And the other piece of it, I would say, Dan,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: is just the corruption inside that Pentagon is really obvious, right?
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: Like, there are two lines of questioning.
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: Today, when he's up at the Senate, he's asked– or actually,
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: I think yesterday as well, he was asked about his
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: special advisor, Tim Parlatori, the president's former personal lawyer, who
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: is clearly representing either unsavory people or foreign actors in
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: his private law practice, but now through a sleight of hand,
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: is a senior advisor at the Pentagon and has access
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: to classified information.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Hegseth knows this is a liability.
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: He knows there's something very crooked in all of this
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: and refused to really answer any questions or shed light.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: On that arrangement.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: And then Hegseth was asked about, from Elizabeth Warren today,
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: about stock trades that happened right before the Pentagon announced
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: we were going to, we were attacking Iran. And Hegseth
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: refused to answer any questions about people inside the DOD
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: who might be profiting off of Trump's catastrophic war in
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: the Middle East, in Iran. There's so much bad stuff
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: happening at the Pentagon, it's hard to know where to begin.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: This hearing is, tells you something you see in the
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: press conferences too that Hexit does, which is that in
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: his mind, he is not accountable to Congress. He's not
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: accountable to the Senate that approved his nomination. He's not
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: accountable to the American people. He's not accountable to the Constitution.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: He is accountable only to Donald Trump and no one else.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: This is all a performance for Trump. That is who
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: it is for. That is what he is trying to do.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: He knows he is on He's kind of on thin
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: ice because Trump has repeatedly pointed out that going to
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: war was Pete Hexeth's idea, which is usually the sign
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump is looking for someone to take blame
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: for an unpopular idea. He definitely knows down deep in
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: that very vacuous soul of his that he is totally
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: in over his head. He's trying so hard not to
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: look like he is scared shitless that he looks scared
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: shitless to be in this job. This is not an
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: important part, but I do think it's funny that in
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: that part where he declares, like this should not be
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: washed over, that the greatest adversary the American military faces
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: is not Iran. It's not some of Iran's allies around
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: the world who are helping them in this war like Russia.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: It is Democratic members of Congress for their rhetoric. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: in doing that, what is the best part about that is,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: is that he says in there, at this point, As
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: if they went through the testimony and they were like, look,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: we need a caveat in here just in case another
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: threat emerges, we must say, at this point. The whole
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: thing is fucking bananas every time he speaks. It is
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: an embarrassment to the Pentagon, to the country, to the
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: troops who serve at his command. It is just terrible.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: It is terrible, terrible, terrible.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: I thought it was great that the Democrats, I mean,
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: it's not that these people happen to be on these committees,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: so it's not like they were championed by leadership, but
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: that you had so many veterans who know from combat,
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: whether it's Mark Kelly and Alyssa Sladkin or Jason Crow,
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: who were incredibly tenacious.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: And Pat Ryan, yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Pat Ryan.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: These people know what war is, and they know what
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: the battlefield is. And for them to be going after
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: and really pointed, and I think emotional, like they're clearly
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: very angry. For them to be exasperated and outraged... With Hegseth.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: I think is meaningful.
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: And it's also a different side of the Democratic Party, right?
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: Like we just, the tent is so big, but you know,
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: you can be, I don't know. I think it's a
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: good moment for Democrats when that is the sort of juxtaposition.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: You know, everyone has been, you know, Trump ran as
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: the no wars president. He's been very, very sensitive to
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the political costs of these wars. So there has been
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: this question, why did this happen? And Ashley Parker and
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Mike Shearer of The Atlantic had an incredible piece this
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: week called The YOLO Presidency that kind of answers the question.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: And they quote someone close to Trump saying this. He's
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: been talking recently about how he is the most powerful
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: person to ever live. He wants to be remembered as
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: the one who did things that others couldn't do because
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: of his sheer power and force of will. This includes Iran.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: According to sources in the story, Trump doesn't care about
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: losing the House. He only slightly worries about losing the
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Senate because it would mean a longer impeachment trial. What
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: did you think of this piece?
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: It's like, I think my favorite piece that I read
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: this week, it's so, it is full bonkers. You mentioned
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: that Trump is his full self when he's talking about
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: ballroom renovations.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: He's his full self when he is in like home
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: reno mode.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: He is, according to this reporting, walking around gluing challenge coins,
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: those military commemorative coins. He's gluing challenge coins to the
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: doors of the White House, to various offices in the
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: administration in the White House. Like, like an old grandpa,
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: just like dusting off his fishing rods to put on
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: display in the garage. I mean, it's literally the idea
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: that Trump has just has forsaken political reality and doesn't
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: give a shit about the midterms or the legislative branch.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: And instead thinks of himself as a man who has
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: embarked on a great mission, a la Alexander the Great, Napoleon,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: and Julius Caesar. Those are the three great men mentioned
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: in this piece. Like, first of all, I guarantee you
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: that Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon Bonaparte could
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: get the motherfucking Strait of Hormuz open, okay? They're like
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: the greatest military tacticians in world history. The idea that
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: Trump puts himself on that level is both deluded and dangerous,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: and it should inform our thinking about any kind of
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: quote unquote strategy that comes from this White House, right?
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: It is a cult.
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: It is no longer, you know, he's not the head
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: of a party. He's just, I mean, he is in
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: the worst way, in the way that dictators care only
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: about their legacy and no longer about the country or
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: the republic or whatever it is they're governing.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: That's Trump. I mean, it's, it's, he doesn't care about,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: he apparently.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: Didn't care about his running mate in 2024 because he
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: said at one point in the article, who cares?
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: I'll be dead.
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: I don't care about what happens to MAGA after. I mean,
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: just think about that as the organizing principle. Next time
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: you wonder why Trump's doing that, something that so obviously
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: is going to disable his party in the coming midterms
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: or 2028 presidential elections.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: It is a great piece. Mike and Ashley are top notch.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: They're at the Post for a long time, North Atlantic now.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: They're great reporters and great writers. The funny part of
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: the piece is it begins with this rhetorical question about
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: whether Trump has been reading the works of Hegel because
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: of Hegel's theory of world historical individuals, like sort of
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: great man theory. And obviously, Mike and Ashley don't think
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: that Trump is doing that. But in the piece, it says,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: Like they asked some Trump aides if he'd been reading Hegel,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and they all sort of laughed with the idea that
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Trump's not much of a reader, which I know we
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: know that. But there just is something very concerning about
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: the fact that the president doesn't read. Yeah.
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: Right?
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: He doesn't read books, doesn't read briefings.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, doesn't read.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: He kind of reads the New York Times, I guess.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: I think it was Skansa Headlines.
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: Skansa, he has the human printer print out the headlines
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: that are favorable to him. He is a fundamentally incurious person.
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: But it's more than that. The self-absorption has reached true
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: malignant narcissism. And we're just along for the ride, Dan.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: We're just along for the ride.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: And what a bumpy ride it's been.
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: Runaway country.
• 36:38
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• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Even as Trump is dead set on doing unpopular things
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: like focus on the ballroom and the war in Iran,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: the Supreme Court's conservative majority and Florida Republicans are riding
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: to his rescue. In a ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Court threw out Louisiana's congressional map and hollowed out the
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act even further. Louisiana's Republican governor announced on
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Thursday that the state will delay its House primaries on
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: May 16th in order to redraw the map, which could
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: see at least one majority black district drawn out of existence.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: In her dissent, which he read from the bench, Justice
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Kagan wrote, the court's decision will set back the foundational
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: right Congress granted of racial Alex, what do you make
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: of this ruling? I think the ruling is important because
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: it is a statement from the highest court in the
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: land about racism and what the court believes about.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: Racism lawfulness of measures to combat racism, right? Effectively, the
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: court says gerrymandering is fine if it's partisan gerrymandering, never
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: mind if that partisan gerrymandering.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: Has explicitly racial and racist undertones.
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: Adam Serwer writes so beautifully and compellingly about the court
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: and race in America. And his assessment of this, I think,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: is worth noting. Serwer states that the court has ruled
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: that the state is oppressive when it interferes with the
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: right to discriminate and respects liberty when it allows discrimination.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: And I think that's totally true, right?
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: That it's trying to disenfranchise black voters, which is exactly
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: what's happening here. In the court's eyes, that's not racist.
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: But preventing Louisiana from disenfranchising black voters, that is racist
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: because it ultimately redounds to the disadvantage of white people.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: Like it is so, the logic here is so upside
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: down and at, first of all, at odds with how
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: we understand racism in America, to say nothing of public opinion.
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: Did you know, Dan, that 50% of black America lives
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: in the South? I mean, the implications for this are vast, right?
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Like in Louisiana has, I think a third of the
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: population is black and it's, you know, they're trying to
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: create two majority black districts out of six. And what
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: the court has done here is just a wholesale inversion of,
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: First of all, what Congress intended in its reauthorization of
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: the Voting Rights Act in the 1980s, we're not going
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: to get, I mean, we don't need to get into
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: this sort of intent versus effects piece of this, but nonetheless,
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court, which when convenient, defers to Congress, has
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: chosen to completely upend congressional intention here, which is pretty clear,
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: in furtherance of a project that began decades ago and
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: which Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas and John Roberts were
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: all a part of when they were young staffers and
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: a young judge during the Reagan years. And like the
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: project of unwinding civil rights progress, the project of reversing
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: attempts to make a more equitable society has long been
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: one of the foundational goals of the right wing movement
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: that began in the wake of, you know, the 1960s
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: and 1970s.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: So, like, congrats, I guess, to the Roberts Court for
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: doing this. This is like a real.
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: Dismantling of civil rights progress and will have vast repercussions,
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: not just electorally and politically, but for our society. When
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: you disenfranchise 20% of this country, it will also affect
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: Latinos and Asians in states like California. When you disenfranchise
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: people of color in this country, you have a less
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: representative democracy. You have a less just country. You don't
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: have the America that I think we all aspire to.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: There's so much to say about this ruling, and I'll
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: get to the political impacts in a second. But John Roberts,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: who has gotten a bit of an improved reputation over
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the years about some of the rulings and the tariff case,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: a couple other anti-Trump ones. But long before Trump, John
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Roberts' main project as chief justice was the dismantling of
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: the Voting Rights Act. Through these decisions, Shelby County first holder,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: there's Brnovich, there's now this one. This is to destroy
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: in American history. All the headlines are like, they hollowed out,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: which I said here, they limited. That is maybe true
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: in the words that Alito used, but in actual practice,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: they struck down Section 2, as we understand it. What
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: was left here is they allowed partisan gerrymandering as a
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: principle in Shelby County. Now what they have done is
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: essentially said, that the last possible way in which you
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: could prevent gerrymandering, which was designed and inherently always will,
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: dilute the power of black voters. If you were trying
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: to dilute the power of Democratic voters in a state,
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: the way in which you do that is you dilute
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: the population that votes at 80 to 90% for Democrats.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: And so they're now saying that is okay, that is
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: what is happening here. It has dramatic implications. You say Louisiana,
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: 30% of its population is, is black. They're going to
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: only have one representative at best when this is over.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: In several states like Arkansas, like Alabama, Mississippi, after this
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: is all said and done, at some point in the future,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: we'll have no black representatives, even though they have 30%
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: of their population is black. They are going to eliminate
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: the Democratic delegations in most southern states because of this.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: They are going to cut down the number of black
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: members in places like North Carolina and elsewhere. And by
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: some estimates, 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus would be
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: gone if the Republicans push forward to maximum advantage with
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: gerrymandering with these new laws. So the question is, in
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: this midterm, what is the actual impact? The Republicans are
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: going to get one more seat out of Louisiana. I
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: think we're going to talk a minute about the map
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: in Florida, but this gives more legal cover to what's
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: a pretty illegal map in Florida. And then in Tennessee,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: there are a handful of states– because this is coming
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: so late in the cycle, there's limits to what Republicans
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: can do. The filing deadlines have passed in all 50 states.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Many states have held their primaries. Other states have held
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: their– have not held their primaries, but early voting has
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: already started. And so it's very– like it would create
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: mass chaos to do– to redraw the maps at this
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: late stage of the game. But there are some places
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: where they can do it. Tennessee is one of those places.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: There is one Democratic district in Tennessee. Steve Cohen in
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: the Memphis area, I believe, hosts it or represents it.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: Trump spoke to the governor of Tennessee today to try
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: to encourage him to redraw the maps before the election.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Marsha Blackburn, who is the senator from Tennessee, who's running
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: for governor in Tennessee, called for this. You could see
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: that happening here. They could do something similar in Missouri,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: in South Carolina. I'm not sure they'll be able to
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: do that. In Georgia, where early voting has started, it
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: started this week, I believe. There are some Republicans calling
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: for a special session to redraw the maps. Would Brian
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Kemp do that? I don't know. But you can sort of,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: it's going to help Republicans in this election. But the
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: longer term consequence is a House that's going to be
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: less Democratic, small D, less Democratic, big D. It's going
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: to be much whiter, which one of my Substack subscribers
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: said would be like adding white food coloring to mayonnaise.
• 46:03
  Speaker 8: So, which I.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Thought was very funny.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: And not aioli. We're not talking aioli. We're talking about Hellman's.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, we are talking about super white Hellman's mayonnaise. And
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: it's just, it's like, this is terrible for democracy. And
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: it's going to mean going forward, a structural advantage for
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Republicans in the House that is akin to the one
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: they currently hold in the Senate. Can Democrats take the
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: majority under that scenario? Absolutely. And we might win enough
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: seats this time to do that even under a post
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court decision map. But you're going to need a
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: bigger wave every time to do it. It is This
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: is a very, very bad decision in the long run.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's not going to cost us the
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: House this election, but it's going to hurt in the
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: long run.
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: Can I ask, because I'm a loyal MessageBox subscriber, a
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: paid subscriber, as all true Americans should be.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, all true Americans.
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: And you said it, I'll quote you, Dan, pretending we're
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: still playing.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Legal documents and MessageBox in the same episode.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: Listen, I came with fucking receipts, dude. What do you think?
• 47:04
  Speaker 7: You did.
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: You think I'm going to Favreau my way through this?
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: I show up when Dan Pfeiffer asks me to be
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: his guest on Pod Save America. Pretending we're still playing
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: the old game is how we lose the house for
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: a generation. Every governor's race, every state legislative chamber, every
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: secretary of state contest in 2026 is now a redistricting fight.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: Act accordingly. Mic drop.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: Those are good marching orders.
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: If you weren't fired up about a Secretary of State
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: contest in your state, get fucking excited because it matters.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: And this is going to mean that Democrats across the
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: country are going to have to do what Democrats in
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Virginia and California did, which is they're going to have
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: to redraw their maps to maximum effect. That's going to
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: mean Illinois, New York, Maryland, where there was resistance this time,
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: and states that have anti-gerrymandering ballot initiatives or constitutional amendments.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: We should try to undo those if they were in
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: blue states.
• 47:55
  Speaker 11: Sad.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: The high road.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: Gone.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: I think gerrymandering is bad.
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: But we have to do this up until the moment
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: where we have enough power to pass a national ban
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: on partisan gerrymandering. And just worth remembering, every single Democrat
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: voted for a bill that would ban national gerrymandering. And
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: every single Republican voted against a national ban on gerrymandering.
• 48:19
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: Can I ask something even more explosive than that?
• 48:22
  Speaker 8: Yes, of course.
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: I know you're looking at Republican state houses, but what
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: about the Republican Supreme Court? Isn't it time to think
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: about this body of, this body is so under, I
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: understand they are constitutionally outlined to have these powers, but
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: what the court is doing is so undemocratic. And I
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: think Alito and Thomas or Alito or Thomas could retire
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: at the end of this court term and allow Trump
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: to appoint two zygotes and solidify a conservative majority.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: You know, zygotes are human beings.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: And like, should there not be a conversation if Democrats
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: retake power around court reform?
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, 100%. I thought that we should have undertaken that
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: effort when we had power in 2021. Now, we didn't
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: have enough Democrats to get rid of the filibuster to
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: do that. And there certainly wasn't support for court expansion.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: But I they're like, this is one of those things
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: that I don't think we need to run on. But
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: when once we do win, we should do it, which
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: is like, there should we should look at term limits,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: we should look at court expansion, there should obviously be
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: a code of ethics for these corrupt assholes who are
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: doing things like like, yes, like there, this is a gigantic, problem.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: And long after Trump has moved on to work full-time
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: on ballrooms and home reno projects at Mar-a-Lago, his legacy
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: for decades afterwards is going to haunt us because of
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: this court. And so every option should be on the
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: table to deal with that.
• 49:51
  Speaker 5: If you're wondering how we got to this point where
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: so many conservatives populate our federal judiciary and our highest
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: court in the land, I have a book coming out
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: this fall that details the.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Rise of all of it.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Alex, what's your book called?
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: It's called The Steal.
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: The Steel.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: And can people pre-order it now?
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: I believe they can, although I think I'm supposed to
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: be doing some swishy rollout for all of it in
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: social media. But yes, if you Google Alex Wagner, The Steel,
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: I have a cover here somewhere. Anyway, it's coming out
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: September 15th, I think I should release it.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Do you know what the number one item on everyone's
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: swishy book rollout for liberal political books is?
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: What?
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: Positive America. Okay, actually it's Heather Cox Richardson. That's this show.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: Wait a second. That's this show.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, you're on it. You're not even just guest on it.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: You're hosting it. Good Lord.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: Oh my God. This is going to be great.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: Google this book.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: Dan, don't think this is the only promotion we're doing
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: for that book on this show, but I respect the
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: time that we're allotting to book promotion right now.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Trust me, as someone who has written three books since
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: I've been a Posse America co-host, I can shake a
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: stick at no one's book promotions because mine have been
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Quite voluminous. Shameless. I basically annoyed people into buying my books.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: No, you're never annoying.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: That works. You should try it.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: You're never annoying.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: Also on Wednesday, just to add to the bad news here,
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Florida advanced its aggressive new congressional map, which could net
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Republicans four seats in the House. There's been some speculation
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: that this new map will be a, quote, DeSantis' dummy-mander.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: What do you make of that?
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: Um... I, I, I meant to look up meatball Ron
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: and whether that was his nickname and I didn't do it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: That was a, it was a, I looked it up.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: It was a private nickname that Trump was reported to
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: use Ron. I'm not, I don't know if it ever
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: made it a true social, but he, it was.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: I expect all bad things to come out of Florida.
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: Are you asking me whether I mean, like, do you think, do,
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: do I think this is going to happen?
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Yes. I think this is going to happen.
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: I think we should expect the worst craziest shit to
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: emanate from Ron DeSantis is Florida.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: So this is no exception.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so a dummymander is a term of art for when... No,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: it's okay. No, no, I'm happy to jump in here.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: A dummymander is a term of art for when the
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: new map performs worse than the old map. And so
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: there's some question here because most experts thought that DeSantis
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: could add two seats safely. And once you add four seats,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: you're at risk of spreading the peanut butter too thin here.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: So the math of gerrymandering or redistricting is pretty simple.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: You have a static number of Republican voters. To make
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: more Republican districts, you must move them out of safe
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Republican districts and put them into Democratic districts. Then you
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: must take those Democratic voters and move them from Democratic
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: districts and put them into Republican districts. And if you
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: do that poorly, then you put a bunch of seats
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: at risk. I don't know if this will be a dummy-mander,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: but the way DeSantis did this is he did not
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: shore up the two most vulnerable Republicans in Southern Florida.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: And the four new safe seats are probably not even
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: going to be ranked as safe by the Cook Political Report.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: They're probably lean Republican at best, or maybe likely Republican.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: But they're going to end up being about seats that
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Trump won plus nine in 2024. And that's within the
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: realm of what is possible for Democrats. The other thing
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: here that I think is just worth noting is we're
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: using the 2024 results in Florida as the baseline for
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: how safe these seats are. Trump won Florida by like
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: 13 points. But that was because, which is a huge margin,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: a gigantic margin of what was like the prototypical swing
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: state for many, many races, is Trump won because he
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: won Latinos by 13 points in 2024. To give you
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: a sense of how Nuts, that is. He lost them
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: by five in 2020, and he lost them by 27
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: in 2016. So there's a 40-point swing over the last
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: eight years among Latinos in Florida. And there's a mountain
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: of evidence, both in polling and in election results in
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Florida and elsewhere, that 2024 was an outlier in terms
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: of Latino support. So if you really do... And the
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Latino vote in Florida is incredibly complicated because it's very diverse. Um,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: so it's not, you can't just look at numbers in
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: other parts of the country and transpose them to Florida,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: but there is, there is risk here that if Latinos
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: really are swinging back to Democrats, if not the 2016 levels,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: but close to that, then some of these seats Republicans
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: are counting on may turn out to be democratic. So there's,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: there's some risk here for meatball.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: Meatball and, and, and also Mike Johnson, another kind of meatball.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: Another, a different, a slimmer meatball, a more petite meatball.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: A bespectacled meatball. I'm not even going to give him slimmer.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: As we know, Dan, Ron DeSantis is a petite man.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: But anyway. Yes, he's short. But he will use some
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: lifts in his boots to improve his stature. All right.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Speaking of elections, on Thursday morning, Maine Governor Janet Mills
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: surprised many by suspending her Senate campaign, citing a lack
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: of financial resources that paves the way for Graham Plattner,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: who's been consistently around 30 points ahead of Mills in
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: the polls to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. for the
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Senate seat where he'll face Susan Collins. Alex, you and
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I have talked about the Maine race once or twice
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: on some podcasts over the last few months. What do
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: you make of Mills' decision to drop out before any
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: votes were cast?
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: I mean, I just think, what are the fucking chances
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: that you and I would be recording Pod Save America? together,
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: the day that Janet Mills dropped out. It's like someone
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: has it in for me. Mea culpa, mea culpa. I
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: just want to say, I've been talking about Janet Mills,
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: not as the great defender of Janet Mills. I've just
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: been asking some questions, and not in the vein of
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: Tucker Carlson, about the way we talk about women with
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: experience who are older and just whether... in fact, Graham Plattner,
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: who is an incredibly dynamic political figure who has run
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: a really interesting, I would say, innovative campaign. But whether
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: that's going to pass muster with the crazy Mainers who
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: are going to decide whether Susan Collins is going back
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: to the Senate, right?
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: So I'm just asking questions.
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: Now, it is unquestionable that like Democratic primary voters wanted
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: Graham Plattner to be the nominee.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, he clearly earned it.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: The fact that Janet Mills came into the race the
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: way she did. And I know you have lots of
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: thoughts on this, but with DSCC backing and Chuck Schumer,
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: you know, tells you, and you wrote a message box
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: about this. I don't want to, I don't want to
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: encroach on your, uh, in late.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: Feel free to quote from it if you'd like to.
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: Well, I didn't, I didn't think it was, I, I,
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: I didn't, I ran out of cut paste room on
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: my documents. Um, you know, it says a lot about
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: the state of play inside the party and what, you know,
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: the liabilities attached to institutionalists and, uh, the desire for
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: new blood and a new DNA. And I get that,
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: you know, I am a worrier and I do worry.
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, Susan Collins has been thus far, she is
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: our iron lady, right?
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: Isn't that what they called Thatcher?
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: And, you know, she is a special place in my
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: heart for her vote, putting Brett Kavanaugh over the top
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: as she claimed there would nothing bad would happen to
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: Roe v.
• 57:21
  Speaker 11: Wade.
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: She's betrayed her label as a moderate and an independent
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: countless times when it really mattered.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: And, um, you know, I don't think she deserves those
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: labels at all.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: So I would love to see someone else replace, uh,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: Susan Collins, I do worry. Graham Plattner has a lot
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: that there are a lot of dynamics. There's a lot
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: of weather that converges over that candidacy. But at the
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: same time, he's doing things, I think, for the party,
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: especially as a veteran talking about the Iran war in
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: a really important and compelling and foundational way. He's established
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: a dialogue that I think is missing from a lot
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: of parts of party leadership or you don't hear from
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: party leadership. So I'm hopeful that he can inject some
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: real life into not just the party, but the political
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: conversation if he does get elected. So that is me
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: waving the white flag, saying I was wrong in thinking
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: that Janet Mills would gain more traction or had like
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: some secret support somewhere in the state, I think.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: And let's see what you do, Greg Flanner.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Let me come to your defense here, because the way
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: we've had this, we had this debate on Positive America
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: a long time ago. We had this debate a couple
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: of times on Political Experts React. And I think it's
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: overly simplified as Alex is pro-Janet Mills and Dan is
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: pro-Graham Plattner. At no point in this did you argue
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: that Janet Mills was going to win the primary. The
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: conversation you and I have had has been about Graham
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: Plattner's electability, which I think remains an open question. We
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: don't know if he's electable until he actually wins. And
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: there's obviously a dump truck's worth of opposition research based
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: on the tattoo, on his online posts, and we do
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: not know yet how that's going to play. As you
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: point out, I think there are are some takeaways from this.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: It's not surprising that Janet Mills dropped out because she
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: clearly was losing by a lot and was out of money.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: She had stopped running TV ads. They'd even stopped running
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: the Facebook ads you run to raise money. So like
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: you are really out of money when that happens. But
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: it is like if you take a step back, like
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: the idea that the two-term incumbent governor of the state
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: endorsed by the DSCC and endorsed by Chuck Schumer has
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: to drop out a month before the election is sort
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: of like that seems– that's shocking, right?
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: Sign of the times.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: But you're right. It is a sign of the times.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: It is like Janet Mills is 78 years old. She
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: will be 85 at the end of her first term.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: She said she was only going to serve one term. Now,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Janet Mills is not Joe Biden. I interviewed Janet Mills.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: She seemed nothing like Joe Biden, certainly the Joe Biden
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: on that debate stage. But she was paying a price
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: for Joe Biden, right? Just a– in a Democratic– a
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: 78-year-old establishment politician endorsed by the same establishment politicians who
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: told everyone that Joe Biden was good to go. It's
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: like that's too much of a burden for someone to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: overcome in a post- Trump in a Trump Biden era, right?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Just you cannot do that. And Plattner is a good candidate, right?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: People want change. He represented change. She represented the status quo.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: The Schumer endorsement was a big problem for her. Like,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: and it just, he endorsed her and then was immediately
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: asked questions about would you support Schumer for leader? And
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: she didn't answer the question. She said, you know, I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: haven't decided yet. Well, no one buys that because Schumer
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: endorsed her and recruited her into the race. So like,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: like even if she really felt that way, that was
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: just like hard for people to, to believe when, especially
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: when Platner was saying, I will not vote for Schumer.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: And so like, this is where we are. Like, you know,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: we need, now we need Grant Platner to win. Susan
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Collins has, there is no path to the majority without this,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: without Maine. Like we absolutely have to win Maine in 2020.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: Susan Collins outperformed Donald Trump by 18 points. She won
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: by nine points and Biden won by nine points, which
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: is like just that level of crossover voting in the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: 2020s is unheard of. And so she's a very tough candidate.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: We need him to win. And now hopefully everyone can
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: unite around Plattner and we can go make this happen
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: because we have to.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: It's non-negotiable, as they say.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: And now we have nothing left to talk about.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the last time you and I will
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: podcast together. Unless Graham Plattner loses, then.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: You can podcast.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Then I will have to be on your podcast every
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: day for a month.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: I hope that does not come to pass, Dan.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I would love to be on your
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: podcast every day for a month. That would be an
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: enjoyable use of my time.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: You are invited every day for a month, no matter
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: what happens.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: But that's not the circumstances in which I would like
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: to do it. Okay, one last thing before timing this
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: conversation with Zach Walls. In the latest sign of the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: coming apocalypse, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: that Amazon Studios executives have been discussing a reboot of
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: The Apprentice with none other than Donald Trump Jr. as
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: the new host. What the hell is going on here? Alex,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: do you think Americans are really yearning for more Apprentice
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: on their TV? Or is it possible? that Jeff Bezos
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: and the folks at Amazon may have an ulterior motive here.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, why would you think that?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Just because they spent $ 3 trillion.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: On a Melania Trump documentary that made them like five cents. Um,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: first of all, we should just note that it is
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: not an active production for all of you listeners on
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: the West coast. You know what that means, but everybody
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: else in the country, like it's unclear if this is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: really going to happen.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: However, discussing it, they're discussing it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: They're talking about it. Um, it's like literally the least
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: surprising thing ever. And, um, I, You know, I know
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: we started this conversation talking about the way in which
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: corporate America may be.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: Feeling a little bit, you know, maybe.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: Itchy to stop being such stooges, such butlers for Trump. Well,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: I guess that memo didn't get to Jeff Bezos because
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: clearly Amazon's just relentless, shameless currying of favor with the
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: Trump administration has not come to a conclusion. The idea
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: that we would reboot The Apprentice with another Trump in
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: the hot, in the lead seat, in the, in the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: captain's chair is like nauseating to me. And yet, um, I, if,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: if Amazon doesn't bite, I would assume someone else would,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: because there is some certain percentage of the country, you
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: have a built-in audience for it. And I'm sure, you know,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: the powers that be would love to, you know, the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: grooming ground for Republican presidential candidates isn't Senate's isn't the,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: isn't the governor's seat.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: It's being a reality TV star. So yeah, if Don Jr.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: Is going to have a future in politics in this country,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: he better get into an Apprentice reboot and stat.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Someone should tell Jeff Bezos that the Supreme Court has
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: gutted our campaign finance laws so much that we basically
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: exist in an environment of legalized bribery. So he does
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: not have to, to use your term, but clown himself
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: to bribe Donald Trump. He does not have to buy
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: bad documentaries. He does not have to remake terrible shows.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: He can basically just write Donald Trump a check. He
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: can write it to Trump's library. He can write it
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: to the ballroom. He can write it to a super PAC.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: He can buy a bunch of crypto coins. It's not
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: necessary to embarrass himself to get the result that he wants,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: which is he wants Trump's Pentagon to give Blue Origin,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: his space company, some contracts so they can compete with SpaceX.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: And he is doing everything in his power to make
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: that happen. But he is not savvy enough to realize
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: that he is embarrassing himself and making his political position
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: harder in the medium term in the long run by
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: doing this in such In ass-clown-like fashion.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: End of rant.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: Switzerland got, like, a reduced tariff rate just for giving
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: him a gold bar.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: Like, it's cheap. You don't even have to try this hard.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: Someone tell Bezos.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: All right. When we come back, Tommy's conversation with Zach Walls.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Where the rooms feel finished, where you sleep until you
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  Speaker 3: That's a, what a life.
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  Speaker 2: It could be yours.
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• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: My guest today is a Democrat serving in the Iowa
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: State Senate. Now he is now running the Democratic nomination
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: to represent Iowa in the United States Senate. Bit of
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: a downgrade going from Des Moines to D.C. But Zach Wallace,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: great to meet you.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 11: Tommy, it's good to be here.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 9: You're also running for Senate with a two-year-old. So you're
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 9: trying to do like the red panda, spin as many
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 9: places as you can at once.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 11: Yeah, you know, look, we can definitely talk more about
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 11: that later. I do not necessarily recommend it, you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 11: but thankfully I've got an incredible wife who two very
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 11: supportive grandparents who are a 15 minute drive away from
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 11: my house, a sister who helps out a lot. Actually,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 11: they're watching him literally right now. And this campaign would
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 11: not be possible without their support. So if you're listening, God.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 8: Bless grandparents, truly.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 9: And also when you go on the road, like, you know,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 9: you're in LA right now, you don't have the Nananon.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: So that's kind of nice.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 11: I mean, look, we've got 33 days to go at
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 11: this moment. So it's kind of hard to get any
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 11: restful sleep at all, but Uh, thankfully Eli is mostly
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 11: sleeping through the night. He did learn how to climb
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 11: out of his crib recently, which was, and my poor
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 11: wife was alone.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 8: Uh, yeah.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 11: And like we were on the road and she's texting
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 11: me photos of how he's like pulled things off the
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 11: shelves in the room. And I'm like, Oh my God,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 11: I'm so sorry that I'm not there.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 9: My buddy would tell me like when his kids learned
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 9: to crawl out of the crib, he would just wake
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 9: up in the dead of night with a two year old,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 9: like three inches.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 8: From his face.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 9: There's nothing more terrifying.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 9: Um, Great to finally spend some time with you in person.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 9: Listeners might have heard of you because you gave this
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 9: speech back in 2011. You were a 19-year-old college student.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 9: It went super viral at the time. You were defending
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 9: the right for all Iowans to marry, but that was
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 9: a while ago. Can you tell listeners about yourself, your story,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 9: and the moment that led to that speech and what
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 9: you've been doing since?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 11: Yeah. Well, you know, that speech changed my life. It's
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 11: actually how I met my wife, Chloe. She was living
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 11: in New York at the time writing for a a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 11: feminist blog called feministing, which kind of this big deal,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 11: third wave feminist blog at the time. And she was
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 11: on blog duty the week that video went viral. And
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 11: she wrote up the video and the headline she put
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 11: on it was marry me, Zach walls, 100% true story. And,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 11: you know, I thought this was very cute and I
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 11: thought she was very cute. So I sent her an email.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 11: I was like, you know, I won't marry you, but
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 11: I'd be happy to do an interview. And, uh, anyway,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 11: we've been together for about a decade. Uh, we've got a,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 11: a two-year-old and, um, You know, it definitely changed my life.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 11: You know, led me into advocacy for families like mine
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 11: all over the state. ultimately across the country, and into
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 11: politics when I ran for the state Senate in 2018.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 11: I was only 27 at that point, so I was
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 11: the youngest member of the Iowa Senate when I was
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 11: first elected. Seven years later, I am still the youngest
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 11: member of the Iowa State Senate at 34. And when
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 11: we defeat Ashley Henson in November, I will be the
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 11: youngest member of the U.S.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 8: Senate.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 11: We'll dethrone John Ossoff, which I'm looking forward to.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 8: That as well.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 9: Yeah, actually talking to someone who's running for Senate with
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 9: a two-year-old is a rare thing. Usually it's a two-year-old grandkid.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 9: So again, that speech that you were talking about, it
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 9: was like a horribly bigoted Iowa law that they were trying.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 8: To jam through.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 11: So Iowa was the third state in the country to
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 11: recognize same-sex marriage. And I grew up with my two moms,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 11: Jackie and Terry. Um, my mom, Terry's a fifth generation
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 11: Iowa farm girl from Clayton County. Uh, my mom, Jackie, uh,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 11: is nurse from central Wisconsin. And it was incredible watching
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 11: them to have the chance to get married in 2009.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 11: After that Supreme court ruling two years later in 2011,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 11: I was a sophomore at the university of Iowa. I
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 11: was studying civil and environmental engineering.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 8: I was going to.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 11: Go build bridges and what have you. Uh, but then
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 11: when Republicans were pushing forward this proposal to reverse that
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 11: Supreme court decision by amending our constitution. I knew that
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 11: I had to speak up. And the reason that was
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 11: the case, and I haven't talked about this in the speech,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 11: but one of my very first homework assignments, I was
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 11: in the eighth grade, this is in 2004, was to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 11: watch the Republican National Convention, those speeches, and then talk
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 11: about it in class the next day. And I will
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 11: never forget what it was like watching some of the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 11: most powerful people in our country stand in front of
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 11: the nation talking about the war in Iraq the war
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 11: in Afghanistan, the war on terror, and then warn our
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 11: country about the enemy from within and this radical Supreme
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 11: court decision from Massachusetts and the threat of gay marriage
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 11: to our families, to our children and realizing they're talking
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 11: about my family. They are talking about children like me.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 11: And I was, it was, it was so scary. And
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 11: when I went into class the next day, you know,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 11: I knew that I should, should say something I wanted to,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 11: but you know, when I got there, I was scared.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 11: I felt like there was a target on my back.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 11: And so I didn't, and I stayed quiet. And that feeling,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 11: that shame, frankly, of feeling like I should say something
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 11: and didn't have the courage to do it, that stuck
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 11: with me. It just seared in my memory. And so
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 11: when I had the chance to give that testimony in 2011,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 11: I knew that I had to do it. When I
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 11: had the chance to run for the state Senate in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 11: 2018 and to fight back against terrible things that Republicans
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 11: are doing in our state, I felt like I had
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 11: to do it. And when we, my wife and I
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 11: were talking about this potential for this campaign last year,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 11: running for the US Senate with a two-year-old, you know,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 11: not easy. But it felt like it was something that
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 11: we had to do because I know what it feels
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 11: like to need someone who's willing to fight for you
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 11: when you can't do that yourself. And there are so
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 11: many people in our state, I think across our country
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 11: right now, who feel not exactly the same, obviously, the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 11: way that I did. Um, but I think everybody deserves
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 11: someone who's willing to go to bat for them. And
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 11: that's what this campaign is all about.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 8: Absolutely. So I lived in Iowa for a year in 2007. Um, uh,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 8: loved it.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 11: Like the, were you in Iowa city?
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 9: I was in Des Moines, but I just was on
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 9: the road all the time. So I went to like 70,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 9: some 73 counties with Obama, right?
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: 71 and counting doing what you're doing right now.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 9: So amazing experience loved every second of it. Obviously it
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 9: was colored by the fact that Obama won the Iowa
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 9: caucuses and that got us the nomination and the presidency,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 9: but you know, Iowa made this massive swing from 2008.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 9: In 2012, when Obama won it twice, to 2016, where
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 9: Trump won the state by like almost 10 points. Massive swing.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 9: And you could see it especially in all these kind
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 9: of river counties in the east. What do you think happened?
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 9: And how do Democrats get those voters back?
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 11: So I get this question a lot. You know, Obama, Obama, Trump, Trump, Trump.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 11: And one of the things that I think a lot
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 11: of folks can be hard to understand is is that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 11: the message that Barack Obama was running on in 2008
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 11: and 2012 about challenging the status quo, bringing change to Washington, DC,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 11: challenging the establishment to us, that sounds very different from
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 11: make America great again, but to a lot of the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 11: voters that our party has lost, they sound very similar, right?
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 11: People who are willing to challenge a broken status quo.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 11: And especially for a lot of folks in small town
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 11: and rural America, they have been failed by leaders in
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 11: both parties. And I would say in Iowa, going back
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 11: to the farm crisis in the 80s, our state has
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 11: had a reflexive skepticism of the establishment because of how
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 11: much damage that did to our state and what the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 11: kind of consequences of that have been over the last 40,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 11: 50 years. And so you've seen Iowa support people like
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 11: Bill Clinton in the 90s, Barack Obama in the 2000s,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 11: and now Donald Trump on that anti-establishment message. I also
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 11: will tell you, so I live in Coralville, which is
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 11: in Johnson County, a Democratic county. But my district, when
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 11: I was first running in 2018, included Cedar County to
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 11: the east and Muscatine County south and east. And I
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 11: spent a lot of time knocking on doors in Cedar
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 11: and Muscatine counties. And I talked to a lot of Obama, Trump,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 11: Walls voters. And whenever I would talk with somebody like this,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 11: of course, you want to know what are the issues
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 11: facing your community. And if they tell you that you're
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 11: voting for you, like what's going on here? And what
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 11: I would often hear from voters was something to the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 11: effect of, look, I don't agree with Donald Trump on
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 11: every single issue. But I feel like he's fighting for
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 11: me and for my family. And you're here.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 8: You're listening.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 11: You understand what's happening here. So you got my support too.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 11: And I think that is something that I learned actually
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 11: after that 2011 speech. I spent a lot of time
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 11: traveling around the state, traveling around the country. And the
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 11: marriage equality campaign was all about meeting people where they were,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 11: finding common ground, answering tough, sometimes wildly inappropriate questions from people,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 11: but bringing some grace and humility to that. rather than
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 11: I think the view that some folks have of Democrats
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 11: is that we look down on people or we judge
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 11: people if they disagree with us and condescension, whatever. But
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 11: if we had taken that approach and marriage equality, if
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 11: that kind of condescending looking down on people, marriage equality
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 11: would not have passed. And so having those lessons was
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 11: why I was able to win in small town rural areas,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 11: represent those areas for four years in my first term,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 11: three and a half now here in my second term,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 11: And it has made me a much better legislator. It's
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 11: made me a better candidate. And I think that is
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 11: why we're going to win this election in November, because
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 11: there's a really unique opportunity to win these voters back
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 11: because of how bad the Trump policies have been for
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 11: small town and rural America. But you have to have
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 11: a positive vision. It can't just be about how bad
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 11: things are. You've got to be looking forward to. Yeah.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 9: Let me ask you about one of those bad things.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 9: So Trump, you probably saw started a war with Iran.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 9: It is going terribly wrong. It's increased the price of oil,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 9: increased the price of gas. It has increased fertilizer prices.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 8: And availability all around the world.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 9: There could be a global hunger crisis if this thing
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 9: doesn't end soon. What has the impact been on Iowa
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 9: farmers and the Iowa economy? And then what role do
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 9: you think the U.S. Senate should be playing in ending
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 9: the war?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 11: Price of diesel is another part of oil and gasoline
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 11: going up. Basically, every piece of Iowa farm equipment runs
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 11: on diesel. So, you know, we're in the midst of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 11: planting season right now. I was looking at my watch.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 8: It's April 29th.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 11: We, you know, so all those machines that are out
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 11: in the fields right now, those are all a lot
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 11: more expensive to operate than they were three months ago.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 11: For fertilizer costs, you know, the vast majority of Iowa
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 11: farmers had already bought their fertilizer for the spring. So
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 11: if these fertilizer prices stay elevated into the fall, that's
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 11: when you're going to start to see some real issues. Now,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 11: that's not to say that every farmer had already bought
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 11: their fertilizer, but the vast majority, probably 80% had already.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 11: But again, depending on how this goes, how this is resolved,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 11: that's going to be a huge issue. And then, of course,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 11: the human toll as well. Two of the first six
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 11: fatalities were from Iowa. And look, we can't have another
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 11: endless war in the Middle East. And for what it's worth,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 11: I don't hear support for the war from people when
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 11: we're out campaigning. We've done almost 300 events across over
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 11: 70 counties now. And people don't like this idea that,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 11: you know, Trump is trying to say, well, we don't
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 11: have money for health care. We don't have money for schools,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 11: but we can get $ 50 billion more to go bomb Iran.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 8: That's crazy.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 11: And when we talk about Washington, D.C. that has failed
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 11: states like Iowa, people all over the country, it's exactly
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 11: what we're talking about.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 9: Let me ask you about some Washington stuff. So you
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 9: criticize your opponent, Josh Turek, who we interviewed a couple
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 9: weeks back, for getting support from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 9: Can you describe what support he's getting to listeners and And,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 9: you know, you're sort of thinking on Schumer. Are you
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 9: saying you wouldn't vote for him for minority and majority leader?
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 8: Do you have a horse?
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 9: If not, Senator Schumer, would you reject DSCC funding if
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 9: you do win the primary?
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 8: Describe this criticism.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 11: Let's take a step back and let's talk about the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 11: extension of what you were just talking about with Obama
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 11: and Trump. My view is this party needs new leadership.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 11: It's part of the reason why I'm running for the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 11: seat in the first place. And that was part of
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 11: why When we launched the campaign back in June of
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 11: last year, I said, this is before Josh got in
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 11: the race. I would not support Senator Schumer to remain
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 11: as the leader. There's two reasons for that for me.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 11: Number one, you look at his track record as leader.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 11: I don't think that it has met the moment. I mean,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 11: we are facing in Donald Trump an existential threat to
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 11: our country, to our democracy. I mean, this is a
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 11: guy who just a few weeks ago was tweeting about
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 11: nuking Iran, right? Um, the things that they have done
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 11: just this morning, I saw another Supreme court ruling on
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 11: the VRA. I'm sure we can get to that. Save
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 11: America Act. I mean, they are January 6th. There's so
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 11: many things that this administration is doing that are such
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 11: a threat to us that you need more effective response
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 11: from Senate Democrats. And Schumer's not provided that. Second, and
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 11: I will never forget this, Chuck Schumer said on television,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 11: it is fine for our party to write off rural
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 11: voters and blue collar voters, because for every one of
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 11: those votes we lose, we're going to make up two
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 11: more in the suburbs. And that math might work in
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 11: New York. It definitely does not work in Iowa. And frankly,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 11: that's not the Democratic Party that I want to belong to.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 11: Since the New Deal, this is the party that has
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 11: fought for workers' rights and civil rights and women's rights.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 11: We are the party that fights for people who have
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 11: lost their jobs to being offshored or now being replaced
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 11: with artificial intelligence. We fight for people who need a champion,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 11: no matter who you are or where you come from.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 11: That is a Democratic Party that I believe in, and
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 11: that is the Democratic Party that we have to fight for.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 11: And to get that, we need new leaders. Representative Turek
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 11: obviously gets in the race a couple months later, has
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 11: not taken the same position that I have. And so
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 11: Senator Schumer has been supporting him. There's a super PAC
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 11: that has been spending a significant amount of money bolstering
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 11: Representative Turek in our primary. The DSCC has been promoting
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 11: various events and opening doors for Josh. And look, they
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 11: can do that, right? But what I will tell you
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 11: is if we want to win in November and we
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 11: want to win back those voters that our party has lost,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 11: who are frustrated with a rigged system that has done
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 11: devastating damage to our state's economy, that has, through their
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 11: campaign finance system, corrupted our politics, I think it is
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 11: going to be a hell of a lot easier to
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 11: win those voters back with a candidate who can look
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 11: voters in the eye and tell them, I don't know
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 11: Chuck Schumer a damn thing. I'm here to work for you,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 11: not for Schumer, not for Trump, not for Elon Musk
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 11: or the billionaires, the big corporations. We need a senator
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 11: who's going to do what's right for Iowa. That's what
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 11: I've done in the state Senate, and that's what I'll
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 11: do in the U.S.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 8: Senate. So, look, I.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 9: agree with a lot of your critique there of not
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 9: meeting the moment, a.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 8: Lot of it.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 9: I'm just curious, like sort of how the, how would
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 9: this manifest in a general election? Like, does it mean
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 9: rejecting money from the DSCC? Does it mean rejecting like
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 9: Democratic national committees? Here's what I tell you.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 11: Look, there's, you know, obviously if we win the nomination,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 11: the reality is, and there's been reporting on this, uh,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 11: Democrats in DC still want to win this seat, but
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 11: you win the seat and then you have the ability
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 11: to help shape what the general election looks like on
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 11: your terms rather than on Washington's terms. And Tommy, I
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 11: don't need to tell you, folks in Washington have not
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 11: had a great track record in Iowa over the last
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 11: 14 years, right? And so from my perspective, I think
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 11: that having a nominee who has been able to run
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 11: against the establishment to say that actually we are going
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 11: to talk with voters in a way that we believe
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 11: reflects a way that actually wins on the ground. We've
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 11: been investing in organizing very early. And I will also
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 11: tell you, The message that we've been running on, which
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 11: is about the economy, it is about the corruption, it
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 11: is about a new vision for the future of small
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 11: town and rural Iowa, and I hope we can get
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 11: to some of that in a minute, that is resonating
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 11: with a lot of people. When we turned in our
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 11: nominating petitions, this is about a month and a half
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 11: ago now, 15% of our signers were registered independents and Republicans.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 11: We had signers from all 99 counties and tripled the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 11: number of signatures that you needed from folks to legally
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 11: get on the ballot. I was also the first candidate
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 11: in the race, Democrat or Republican, to get a grassroots
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 11: contribution from Iowans in all 99 counties. Our 99th county
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 11: was Wright County, which is up in North Iowa. 25
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 11: bucks from a guy named Gary. Gary gets us thematic
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 11: number 99. So we're thrilled. Get Gary on the phone
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 11: so I can say thank you and learn about why
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 11: he's supporting the campaign. Gary tells me he's a retired
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 11: small-town lawyer. He's excited to see a new generation step up.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 11: He's president of his local school board. Loves my passion
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 11: for public education. He's a Vietnam veteran. And then Gary
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 11: tells me that he's a registered Republican and he loves
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 11: our anti-corruption message. And so now Gary and his wife, Susan,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 11: are some of our best volunteers. And in fact, because
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 11: of Gary and Susan, we turned 174 signatures from Wright
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 11: County as a part of getting onto the ballot. And
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 11: we have been unable to determine the last time a
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 11: Democratic candidate for Senate came anywhere close to that amount.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 11: And so we think it's an example of how our approach,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 11: our message, and the structure of our campaign is resonating.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 11: And so if we win the nomination and folks from
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 11: Washington and want to work with us rather than us
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 11: working with them, if that makes sense. And the vision
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 11: that we have for how we win this race, that's
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 11: their decision, right?
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 9: So it sounds like you're saying, like, if you win
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 9: the nomination, the DSCC is going to spend, and you're
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 9: not going to stop them, and you'll work with them,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 9: but you feel like you will have better negotiating terms.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 11: On our terms, yeah. And, like, again, I think, to me,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 11: that illustrates the strength of this grassroots campaign, right? The
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 11: fact that we've been able to have, you know, we've
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 11: out-raised my opponent in the primary, despite him having every
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 11: door open for him. by the committee, all those various things,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 11: we are working our tails off, right? And Iowans respect
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 11: hard work. And frankly, they respect people who are willing
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 11: to say out loud the things that they know are true,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 11: which is that there are leaders in both parties who
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 11: have failed states like Iowa, and we need change. And
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 11: we have to have somebody who's willing to push for
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 11: that change. And look, it may not work, but I
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 11: will tell you, I think it is going to work.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 11: And I think that is exactly the message that we
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 11: are going to ride straight into November And I hope
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 11: that we can talk about Ashley Henson because I bet
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 11: a lot of your listeners probably don't know a lot
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 11: about her, but she is one of the worst.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: So I do want to ask about her, but on
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 9: the reform stuff. So voters are furious at Washington. They're
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: mad at the political system. They're mad at Congress. I
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 9: think Gallup had a poll out the other day that
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 9: found the congressional approval rating is 10%.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 9: They're like, you know, 60 points underwater. So what's your
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 9: plan to kind of reform the Senate, fix the image
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 9: of it being broken? Like, are we getting rid of
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 9: the filibuster? Are we banning PAC and lobbyist money? Are
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 9: we talking term limits? Like, tell us your plan.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 11: Did you read my campaign website?
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 8: Tell me, tell me.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 11: So really early in the campaign, anti-corruption, this reform really
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 11: emerged as something that we heard from Iowans on the trail.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 11: And so we've got literally, so we launched our Iowans
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 11: over insiders tour. This was about two and a half
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 11: weeks ago now. And we've started with our anti-corruption plan.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 11: That includes filibuster reform, which is not a position that
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 11: my opponent has taken in this primary. It includes overturning
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 11: Citizens United, which I've made a promise I will be
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 11: a day one co-sponsor of an amendment to the U.S.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 11: Constitution to do that. I've made a promise I'm only
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 11: going to serve two terms in the U.S.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 8: Senate if elected.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 11: I've become a big believer in term limits. I've seen
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 11: firsthand in the state legislature what happens when good people
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 11: stay for too long, and it is so much worse
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 11: when bad people stay for too long. And we can
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 11: all see that playing out in the U.S.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 8: Senate.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 11: Uh, the third thing that we talk about is banning
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 11: members of Congress. And I made a promise to follow
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 11: this by examples as well. Um, no owning, trading stocks,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 11: cryptocurrency prediction markets. Um, people deserve to have a government
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 11: that they trust is actually working for them, not for
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 11: their own bank accounts. And the other thing too, I
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 11: think that is so important for us as a party,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 11: you know, I mean, I go back to this point
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 11: since the new deal, right? The things that we fought
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 11: for Democrats believe that government can do really good things
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 11: to make people's lives better. Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure, public education.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 11: But if people don't trust the government, then it's going
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 11: to be a hell of a lot harder to do
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 11: those things. And so I think restoring that trust is
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 11: incredibly important. And getting that money out of our politics
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 11: is incredibly important for the economy as well, because people understand, like, can,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 11: you know, every Iowa voter explain the difference between a
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 11: 527 or a C4? Like, no, of course not. But
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 11: do people understand that there is a direct connection between
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 11: how rigged the economy is and how corrupted our politics
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 11: have become by these super PACs and billionaires and dark money? Like, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 11: Everybody gets that. You know, Donald Trump was not wrong
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 11: when he said that we need to drain the swamp.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 11: The problem is that he's not draining the swamp at all.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 11: If anything, he's like floating in it.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 8: Just building in these swamps. Totally. Totally. Like Pete Hegsath
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 8: in there and a bunch of other douchebags.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 9: Well, let me ask you like some of your, what
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 9: your critics would say, like, Supporters of your opponent would
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 9: point out that you ran a PAC in a previous job,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 9: the NextGen 50 PAC. They would say, like, did you
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 9: find religion on this issue because money was getting spent
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 9: against you? Like, how did you come to this and
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 9: how do you explain that previous job?
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 11: Yeah. I mean, look, so first of all, there was
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 11: no federal independent expenditure of that organization at all, right?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 11: So it's a complete apples and oranges situation. But I
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 11: would tell you, I think like a lot of young
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 11: voters of our generation, I'm going to say our generation here,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 11: I think that concern about money in politics has been
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 11: something that we've seen for a long time. And part
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 11: of that, I think, is growing up in the post-Citizens
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 11: United era, going back to 2010. I mean, it's funny.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 11: I still remember watching those episodes of the Colbert Report
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 11: where Stephen is like explaining, you know, his dark money
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 11: group and the Stephen Colbert pack and everything and just
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 11: thinking about how absurd that was. And I was a
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 11: college student then. And now, like actually being in elected office,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 11: you know, you can see it so much so. But
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 11: I will tell you, tell me one story about the
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 11: influence of money in politics. My very first years in 2019,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 11: these large out-of-state investment companies started coming to Iowa, buying
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 11: mobile home communities and trailer parks and proposing outrageous increases
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 11: to the monthly lot rent, 50%, 60%, 70%. And like,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 11: I would be very unhappy if my mortgage went up 70%.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 11: And these folks have a lot less flexibility in their
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 11: budgets than I do. And this one company from Utah
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 11: bought 15 communities across the state, three of them in
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 11: my Senate district, two in Johnson County, and then one
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 11: in Cedar County, the more rural part of my district.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 11: And as their state senator, I took it upon myself
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 11: to go knock doors in my communities to hear from
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 11: my constituents, my people about what was going on. And
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 11: the stories I heard were heartbreaking. I met a woman
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 11: named Candy. Candy was a widow and her late husband
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 11: had saved up, bought her this beautiful double wide trailer,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 11: and she had a place to call her home and
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 11: she was worried about her own home. She was terrified
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 11: about what would happen to her neighbors. And I, you know,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 11: I was so angry about what I was hearing that
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 11: I was able to take these stories and I went
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 11: to my Republican colleagues. And even though I was a
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 11: freshman and even though we obviously didn't agree on every issue,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 11: That experience that I had as an advocate for marriage equality,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 11: about finding that common ground and being able to bring
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 11: people together. We brought together a bipartisan group. We hammered
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 11: out a bill that we could all support. And as
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 11: a freshman, I got that bill with the help of
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 11: people like Candy and her neighbors who came to the
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 11: state house to fight for that bill. We got it
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 11: through the Senate 48 to zero. Everyone assumed this was
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 11: a done deal. And then two days later, I get
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 11: a text message asking me to come over to the
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 11: house side for a closed door meeting about my bill.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 11: And I remember it like it was yesterday. Walking in,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 11: first person I see is the lobbyist representing these big companies.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 11: And the second person I see is a state representative
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 11: who's holding my bill, shaking her head. That state representative
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 11: is now a member of Congress. And she's my Republican
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 11: opponent in November, Ashley Hinson. And I was in the
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 11: room and I watched as Ashley Hinson killed my bipartisan
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 11: bill as a favor to that lobbyist. And after this
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 11: was over, I looked up how much money this lobbyist
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 11: had bundled for her reelection campaign. You want to guess
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 11: how much it was?
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 8: 50 grand.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 11: $ 1, 500. Cheap date. And you will never guess, though, who
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 11: was some of her biggest supporters in her campaign for
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 11: the U.S. House or who did a fundraising event for
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 11: her in the Senate campaign just a few months ago.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 11: So when we talk about this connection between the rigged
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 11: economy and the corruption of our politics, I saw that
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 11: firsthand as a freshman legislator. And look, I will tell
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 11: you this. I was excited to run against Joni Ernst.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 11: But when I found out I was going to be
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 11: running against Ashley Hinson, I jumped out of bed the
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 11: next morning. Because this campaign is about a lot of things.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 11: It's about this rigged economy that is benefiting the big
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 11: investment companies at the expense of people like Candy. It
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 11: is about the corruption of money in our politics. It
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 11: is about that new vision that we have for the
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 11: future of small town and rural Iowa. But one of
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 11: those things is definitely the opportunity to end the political
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 11: career of the woman who killed my bipartisan bill, for $ 1, 500.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 8: Take a little spite. I like spite.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 9: I'm also very grateful that you said it's our generation
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 9: when you're 34 and I'm not.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 11: Don't think about it too hard.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 8: No, it's honestly the nicest thing anyone said to me today.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 11: Can I just one last thought?
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 8: Tell me more about Ashley though.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 9: So she, what do voters need to know about her
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 9: because she's not a well-known political.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 11: Totally. Well, you know, it's funny. When Ashley first got
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 11: in the race, this is back in September. So So
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 11: we get in June. And actually, it's funny. We were
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 11: in the planning process for the campaign, obviously. And then
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 11: on like June 3rd or something, Joni Ernst says, well,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 11: we all are going to die in response to a
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 11: question about Medicaid cuts.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that was not a good answer.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 11: It was not a good answer. And it was not
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 11: a popular position to take on health care. And so,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 11: you know, we had already been planning to announce the
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 11: campaign that happened a few days later. In August, a
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 11: poll comes out for the general election showing me leading
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 11: Joni Ernst by two points in a head-to-head matchup. uh,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 11: you know, 10 days later, she's out of the race.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 11: Ashley Hinson's getting in. I don't think we can take
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 11: all the credit for Joni withdrawing from the race, but
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 11: we'll take a little bit of the credit. And when
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 11: Ashley first got in, you know, to exactly your question,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 11: a lot of folks don't know who's Ashley Hinson. And
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 11: so I would kind of tell people, look, she's kind
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 11: of like the Marjorie Taylor green of the Midwest. The
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 11: problem is I can't use that comparison anymore because Marjorie,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 11: I know she seems reasonable compared to Hinson. I mean,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 11: Hinson is Look, she has all the same terrible votes
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 11: that Joni Ernst does for the Republican budget, the big
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 11: billionaire tax cut, cutting 800 billion from Medicaid, defunding Obamacare,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 11: all of that stuff. But in addition to all of that,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 11: she's co-sponsored a total abortion ban in the U.S.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: House.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 11: She has voted not once but twice against capping the
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 11: cost of insulin. She's voted against Medicare being able to
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 11: negotiate over prescription drugs. She's actually voted to cut Social Security,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 11: which not a lot of people know yet, but they
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 11: certainly will in November.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 8: Seems like a bad vote. Very bad vote.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 11: She is someone who's accepted millions of dollars from the
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 11: insurance and pharmaceutical industries. And so from my perspective, I
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 11: think that there is no one who I would rather
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 11: have the opportunity to run against in this election. And
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 11: I'll tell you, Tommy, when we defeat Ashley in November,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 11: I'm going to personally make sure that Candy and a
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 11: couple of her neighbors come out to Washington, D.C. for
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 11: the swearing in.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 8: There you go. I'm not a fan, I guess, of
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 8: Ashley Hinson. I feel convinced here.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 9: But so, as you know, we have a primary coming up.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 9: Vote Vets were the organization that you talked about earlier
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 9: that's endorsed your opponent and put a bunch of ad
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 9: dollars on TV in support of him. They released a poll.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 9: It has Josh at 20 points. I wonder if you think,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 9: if you agree with those numbers, and why you think
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 9: you are better positioned to win this race.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 8: Absolutely.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 11: So, look, I mean, it's an internal poll. Very little
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 11: detail provided about it. But look, they've spent five and
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 11: a half million dollars. And when we talk about how
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 11: super PACs have this disproportionate impact on our politics and
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 11: primaries like this one. And of course, this is not
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 11: our only race in the country where super PACs are
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 11: spending millions and millions of dollars. This is an example
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 11: of I think something that a lot of Democratic primary
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 11: voters are really frustrated with because it feels like the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 11: super PACs are drowning out the voices of individual voters.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 11: You've got, like you said, over five million dollars spent
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 11: so far. And that is a significant amount of money.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 11: What I will tell you is that we've been traveling
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 11: across the state. Folks are really resonating with our anti-establishment message.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 11: And it's not frankly just Gary and other Republicans or independents.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 11: A lot of Democratic primary voters are not happy with
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 11: what is happening in Washington right now. They are not
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 11: satisfied with the leadership of Chuck Schumer and they are
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 11: ready for real change. And so when we talk about
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 11: how we need to make that change a reality, that
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 11: is something that is resonating across the political spectrum. And
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 11: when you see, you know, to your point, candidates say, well,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 11: I'm opposed to dark money, I'm opposed to super PACs,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 11: and they're benefiting from millions of dollars of outside spending.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 11: I think voters aren't happy about that either. And so
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 11: what I would tell you is we're on to tomorrow
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 11: and we're going to continue, you know, during the final
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 11: stretch here. We've been on the last two and a
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 11: half weeks, our Iowans over insiders tour. We started with
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 11: a very comprehensive anti-corruption plan that actually Senator Elizabeth Warren
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 11: personally texted me to say that she really liked it,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 11: which I think about the highest honor you could get
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 11: for an anti-corruption plan. We had our plan on the
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 11: economic agenda. And one of the things I would just
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 11: point out on that, Tommy, is that when we talk
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 11: about things like a billionaire wealth tax, when we talk
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 11: about breaking up the corporate monopolies that have a stranglehold
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 11: on agribusiness in Iowa, so like four companies control the
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 11: global grain market, four companies control the fertilizer market. One
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 11: of those companies, by the way, is Koch Industries. I
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 11: think probably the only people who hate the Koch brothers
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 11: more than Pod Save America listeners are Iowa farmers. That
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 11: is something that resonates with people. You know, I think
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 11: some people in D.C. think of that as like a
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 11: progressive or left decoded thing. That is not the case
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 11: at all. I mean, you go talk to an average
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 11: swing voter in the state of Iowa and you ask
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 11: them about those two things, they're going to give you
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 11: a thumbs up 100 percent. And so that is how
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 11: we're going to win is because we have a message
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 11: that is not being filtered through super PACs. It's not
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 11: coming from Washington. It's not coming from pollsters. It is
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 11: coming from people across our state. And that's how you're
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 11: going to win.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 9: What do you say to people who are like, look,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 9: Iowa City is the most liberal part of the state.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 9: You haven't had to run against a Republican. Maybe you're
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 9: not ready for it. You know that you've heard this response.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 8: What do you say to them?
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 11: Yeah, well, look, I mean, if you think that I
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 11: haven't defeated Republicans, I would encourage you to ask Bob
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 11: Vander Plaats or any of the other folks who are
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 11: trying to change Iowa's marriage equality law back in 2011.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 11: And what I would tell you is that the you know,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 11: the idea that this election is going to be decided
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 11: based on where a candidate is from is absolutely absurd.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 11: I mean, same people who said that Barack Obama couldn't
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 11: win because he was from Chicago, Illinois, right?
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 8: And that was wrong, right?
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 11: People don't care about where you're from. They care about
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 11: why you're there. They care about what your vision for
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 11: the future is. And if you have a concrete idea
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 11: about how to make it a reality, we've got all.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 8: Of those things.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 11: Again, I will also tell you, I'm the only candidate
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 11: running on the Democratic primary who has represented small town
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 11: and rural Iowa. Cedar and Muscatine County, Obama, Trump, Walls Counties.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 11: And for years, I took really seriously the responsibility of
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 11: showing up to those listening posts and those legislative forums.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 11: I was often the only elected Democrat on the panel
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 11: answering questions from the audience, me and like five Republicans,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 11: you know, not quite Jubilee style, you know, or whatever,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 11: but like pretty close. And that experience, it made me
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 11: a better legislator. It's made me a better candidate for
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 11: this office. And that is the exact same approach that
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 11: we'll take as a U.S.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 8: Senator.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 11: I believe 100% in the importance of showing up, doing
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 11: town halls. Chuck Grassley famously does the 99 County tour
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 11: every year. We'll do that in the U.S.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 8: Senate.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 11: And we'll make sure that we have a candidate in
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 11: this race and then a senator who actually is listening
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 11: to the people and inviting to go to work for them.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 8: Will you emulate Grassley's Twitter style of just being like.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 11: My staff doesn't let me tweet anymore, which is probably
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 11: for the best.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 8: Smart move. Last question for you.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 9: Do you have a political hero or mentor or someone
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 9: you want to emulate in Washington if you win this?
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 11: Yeah, Tom Harkin, for sure. You know, look, my mom, Terry,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 11: was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was seven years old.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 11: It's a devastating disease. And I watched as I was
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 11: growing up her physical decline into a wheelchair. And, you know,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 11: having gay parents, even in Johnson County in the 90s
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 11: and early 2000s, was not easy. But having a parent
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 11: in a wheelchair was also really tough. And without the
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 11: Americans with Disabilities Act, and this is a point where
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 11: Representative Turk and I, I think both are incredibly grateful
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 11: to Senator Harkin for his leadership on that, that made
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 11: a huge difference for my family. That time was also
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 11: when I learned the importance of what a labor union
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 11: can do for a family. My mom, Jackie, was a
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 11: SEIU nurse at the University of Iowa Hospital. She was
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 11: laid off during the Great Recession. And that contract that
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 11: got negotiated on her behalf made a huge difference for
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 11: our family at a really tough time. And You know,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 11: I think about Senator Harkin. I think about his work
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 11: with Americans with Disabilities Act. I think about him being
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 11: a relentless champion for labor unions. I've been fortunate enough
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 11: to win the endorsement of 25 different labor unions and
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 11: organizations across our state in this race. In fact, I
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 11: was the iron workers local in Des Moines invited me
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 11: to become a member. So I'm now a news paying
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 11: iron worker.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 8: OK.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 11: Local 67. So if this politics thing doesn't work out,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 11: I got a future in the skilled trades.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah. And right on. Yeah. What are you going to
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 8: make me?
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 11: Well, I mean, data centers are the big thing right now.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 11: And that's a whole separate can of words. But the
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 11: thing right now that I would tell you is that,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 11: you know, fighting for a state where no matter who
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 11: you are, you know, how you're what your family is like,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 11: whether you have an ability or disability, what have you,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 11: that is really important. Fighting for the ability of people
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 11: to come together to negotiate good jobs, fair wages, great
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 11: benefits in an economy that works for us. Those two
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 11: things to me, that's what Senator Harkin represents. And those
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 11: are things that are really important to me as well.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 8: Well, Zach, best of luck in your campaign. Great to
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 8: spend some time with you and appreciate it.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 11: I really appreciate it, Tommy. Enjoy the conversation today. And
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 11: if anyone listening wants to learn more, join us at
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 11: our website, zachwalls.com. We'd love to have you on board.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 3: That's our show for today. Thanks, Alex, for co-hosting. Thanks
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: to Zach Walls for coming on.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: We'll be back in your feet on Sunday with a
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 3: conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders.
• 1:40:07
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