Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Neera Tanden - The Democratic Party's Credibility Problem — And How to Fix It
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
- 0:02Speaker 1: by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about medicare is
- 0:06Speaker 1: somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere, and you're skeptical
- 0:12Speaker 1: of that, as you should be. I get it. I mean,
- 0:14Speaker 1: there's a federal lawsuit going on right now over exactly
- 0:18Speaker 1: this companies that branded themselves as unbiased while allegedly pointing
- 0:22Speaker 1: people toward whatever would pay them the most, as some
- 0:26Speaker 1: sort of broker. So if your default is to distrust
- 0:28Speaker 1: everyone in this space, honestly, I get it. I'm a
- 0:31Speaker 1: bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole reason I
- 0:34Speaker 1: want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent medicare advisors
- 0:38Speaker 1: whose entire model is that their advisors are not paid
- 0:42Speaker 1: to push any one plan. They're just trying to help. Yes,
- 0:46Speaker 1: there's compensation that goes with it, but it's across the
- 0:49Speaker 1: board is what they're trying to do. At the end
- 0:51Speaker 1: of the day, they're advocating for you. They're not the
- 0:53Speaker 1: insurance companies themselves. They're an actual person who actually goes
- 0:57Speaker 1: through your doctors, your prescriptions needs, and then compares them
- 1:02Speaker 1: to every single plan available to find the best one.
- 1:05Speaker 1: That will work for you and hopefully send save you
- 1:07Speaker 1: a couple of dollars too. And here's the part that
- 1:11Speaker 1: sets Chapter apart. They don't disappear once you've been in
- 1:14Speaker 1: a role. They will keep advocating for you. They're kind
- 1:17Speaker 1: of like almost like a concierge service. You're just there.
- 1:19Speaker 1: I need help. You're like customer service. You know the plan,
- 1:22Speaker 1: you know, help me navigate this again. So you ever
- 1:24Speaker 1: get hit with a wrongful medical bill, they'll help you
- 1:28Speaker 1: fight it. They want to stay an advocate for you
- 1:31Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
- 1:35Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
- 1:38Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
- 1:41Speaker 1: When I like about these Chapter folks, I've spent time
- 1:44Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is Medicare,
- 1:49Speaker 1: and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
- 1:53Speaker 1: The whole point of this is to make this easier
- 1:56Speaker 1: and less confusing. Okay, so look, take this cupticism you
- 2:00Speaker 1: already have in all of this, pointed at your own
- 2:03Speaker 1: plan for twenty minutes. It's free, there's no pressure, and
- 2:06Speaker 1: then call Chapter today at nine eight zero seven three
- 2:09Speaker 1: four three nine eight five. Well, joining me now is somebody.
- 2:20Speaker 1: If you're on social media you see her a lot.
- 2:22Speaker 1: I think near atandon Is is sometimes a one woman
- 2:25Speaker 1: defense mechanism on X, since pretty much everybody on Team
- 2:29Speaker 1: Blue Left X not a ton of folks there. You
- 2:34Speaker 1: may also know her from her days working for the
- 2:36Speaker 1: Biden whine House, the Obama whine House, Hillary Clinton for President.
- 2:40Speaker 1: I've known her an incredibly long time, even though we
- 2:43Speaker 1: look so youthful, the two of us, and our current
- 2:48Speaker 1: job title is President of the Center for American Progress,
- 2:51Speaker 1: and in many ways it is you could argue, and
- 2:54Speaker 1: I don't know whether she'd pushed back on this or not.
- 2:55Speaker 1: I'll let her decide. It's kind of the democratic government
- 2:59Speaker 1: in exile, perha Apps. The next democratic administration in exile
- 3:03Speaker 1: is a a what in that you certainly are incubating
- 3:08Speaker 1: governing strategies for the next time Democrats are in charge.
- 3:11Speaker 2: No, I mean, I like.
- 3:12Speaker 3: To say that we're developing ideas for the country's most
- 3:16Speaker 3: significant problems, and those people.
- 3:20Speaker 2: Would be great leaders in the future.
- 3:23Speaker 1: But I don't like the word exile, like you know.
- 3:27Speaker 2: I mean, I don't mind.
- 3:28Speaker 3: I don't mind government and exile, but I just think,
- 3:31Speaker 3: you know, our focus is on the next generation of ideas.
- 3:36Speaker 1: Let's talk about in some ways your You're I feel
- 3:40Speaker 1: like you're you're now working for the Hailey Stevens campaign.
- 3:43Speaker 1: I'm sure you, and you're trying really hard not to.
- 3:47Speaker 1: I know, I take your point, like, I see what
- 3:49Speaker 1: you're trying to do on social media. So let's start there.
- 3:54Speaker 1: What do you think is happening inside the Democratic Party
- 3:56Speaker 1: right now? Take yourself out of it for a second. Right,
- 3:58Speaker 1: you're on a side here, understandable, there is definitely a
- 4:02Speaker 1: side trying to go after the establishment. What is happening?
- 4:06Speaker 1: How do you explain this outsiders?
- 4:10Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 4:10Speaker 3: Maybe I could just start off with what I think
- 4:13Speaker 3: is the opportunity for like Democrats or people who like rationality,
- 4:20Speaker 3: and I'll definitely answer this thing.
- 4:22Speaker 1: Well, that's fine, I get it because this reminds me
- 4:25Speaker 1: and I want to get it. This reminds me of
- 4:26Speaker 1: Republicans twenty ten and twenty fourteen. They had this huge
- 4:30Speaker 1: opportunity in front of them, and they were having a
- 4:32Speaker 1: huge fight about who should lead in this huge opportunity.
- 4:35Speaker 1: This is Democrats in twenty six in my opinion.
- 4:38Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think what's happening in the country.
- 4:42Speaker 3: I think what's happening in the Democratic Party is a
- 4:44Speaker 3: combination of a real anger.
- 4:49Speaker 2: Towards the Trump administration.
- 4:51Speaker 3: And I guess I would say, you know, at a
- 4:53Speaker 3: very high level, what I think is so interesting about
- 4:56Speaker 3: the discourse is like we act like this just started today,
- 5:00Speaker 3: and you know, there was actually a first Trump administration.
- 5:04Speaker 2: And during the first Trump administration we.
- 5:06Speaker 3: Have the rise of the DSA, and for the first
- 5:10Speaker 3: time DSA had one beat incumbent Democrats, kind of famously
- 5:16Speaker 3: Alexandria Casio Cortez beats Crowley, and there's the growth of
- 5:21Speaker 3: the Squad. Now what also happened is Biden, Joe Biden
- 5:26Speaker 3: was elected and people forget this part, but two of
- 5:30Speaker 3: the squad members are defeated in primaries in part because
- 5:33Speaker 3: they were not considered supportive enough of Democrats, and the
- 5:38Speaker 3: DSA actually as a membership organization really kind of collapsed.
- 5:42Speaker 3: And now we're in the second Trump term and it's
- 5:45Speaker 3: Trump is worse, right, And I'd say, what's happening the
- 5:49Speaker 3: Democratic Party is also we should be totally honest, like
- 5:52Speaker 3: the job the Democratic Party was to keep Trump out
- 5:56Speaker 3: of office, and the establishment.
- 5:57Speaker 2: Did fail in doing that. Now there's ironies.
- 6:02Speaker 1: I'm want to stop. Let me let's let's put up
- 6:04Speaker 1: let's put up in. Yeah, this has been my thesis
- 6:07Speaker 1: as to what's driving this. It was sort of like
- 6:10Speaker 1: one Trump term. We can chalk it up to an anomaly. Yeah,
- 6:15Speaker 1: but you at one job, Joe Biden, right, and whether
- 6:18Speaker 1: this is fair to Biden or not. And I always
- 6:22Speaker 1: thought this is what made his presidency so difficult to
- 6:24Speaker 1: gain traction because the one thing people wanted out of
- 6:28Speaker 1: Joe Biden he accomplished on his first day in office,
- 6:31Speaker 1: and then everything else became Okay, now what are you
- 6:33Speaker 1: doing for us? And then it's like, wait a minute,
- 6:36Speaker 1: he's back. You were supposed to change the narrative enough
- 6:41Speaker 1: that there wouldn't be a demand for him back. So
- 6:44Speaker 1: you do see that as almost the central for animating
- 6:48Speaker 1: force right now of this sort of anti establishment left.
- 6:52Speaker 3: I mean, what is odd to me, honestly is if
- 6:59Speaker 3: you think that it was wrong for Joe Biden to
- 7:03Speaker 3: run again. The kind of irony of the situation we're
- 7:06Speaker 3: in is that it was Nancy Pelosi, who kind of
- 7:11Speaker 3: queen of the establishment, who thought the con thought, you know,
- 7:16Speaker 3: Joe Biden was probably going to lose, and it could
- 7:18Speaker 3: have been. I had never talked to her about this, but
- 7:21Speaker 3: I imagined she thought that they electoral consequences could be
- 7:26Speaker 3: quite grave of that, and chose to act. I mean,
- 7:30Speaker 3: the irony Again, we don't go off on this for
- 7:32Speaker 3: a long.
- 7:32Speaker 1: Time, but it was like acting after June twenty seventh.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Anybody could do make that decision. Sorry, the question was
- 7:41Speaker 1: where were you? Yes, where were you January? Where were they?
- 7:46Speaker 1: Where was Nancy Pelosi? Frankly December of twenty two when
- 7:50Speaker 1: it should have been, Hey, we did it. We had
- 7:54Speaker 1: the best midterm of sitting democratic president has had in
- 7:56Speaker 1: a generation. And I can't wait to pass the Batona.
- 8:00Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on finishing this term strong. I'm
- 8:02Speaker 1: not seeking reelection, and he would have done it from
- 8:04Speaker 1: a position of strength.
- 8:07Speaker 3: Sure, you know I've been I have like one hundred
- 8:10Speaker 3: percent agreeing that part of the critique of the like
- 8:13Speaker 3: the establishment is that they maybe allowed this to go
- 8:17Speaker 3: on so long.
- 8:17Speaker 2: I mean, the thing that I just take.
- 8:18Speaker 3: A little I find a little bit of an like
- 8:21Speaker 3: an ironic twist of history is that the people who
- 8:24Speaker 3: were supporting President Biden to even like at the end,
- 8:29Speaker 3: were Senator Sanders and a congressman a cousin Ortez, We're
- 8:33Speaker 3: not a democratic establishment. I mean, I don't know what
- 8:36Speaker 3: to make Someone should ask them, you know. It's like,
- 8:38Speaker 3: if people are so concerned about the failures of the
- 8:40Speaker 3: democratic establishment, someone can ask them. I mean, I don't
- 8:44Speaker 3: generally know what to make of it, but I guess
- 8:46Speaker 3: what i'd say instead of like, I do think this
- 8:48Speaker 3: is why the establishment has less credibility than it has
- 8:53Speaker 3: had in the past, And like, I get that one
- 8:55Speaker 3: hundred percent. What I would say, regardless of the establishment
- 8:59Speaker 3: or the anti establishment. Let me paint a vision of
- 9:03Speaker 3: what I think is possible over the next few years.
- 9:07Speaker 3: And what i'd say is and you know this is
- 9:12Speaker 3: as well, if not better than I do. Which is
- 9:14Speaker 3: what we are seeing now for the first time in
- 9:18Speaker 3: the Trump era, is people who have been with Trump
- 9:21Speaker 3: a very long time are breaking away. My kind of
- 9:25Speaker 3: rough estimate here the way talk about this at a
- 9:28Speaker 3: very high level. In the first year, Trump lost people
- 9:31Speaker 3: who voted for him one time, right, he kind of
- 9:34Speaker 3: had lost He lost young people, he lost Latinos, he
- 9:39Speaker 3: lost Asians. These are people who kind of voted for
- 9:44Speaker 3: him in twenty four over over twenty or sixteen. Okay,
- 9:50Speaker 3: now with the Iran war on top of the tariffs,
- 9:56Speaker 3: and you know, sort of this like out of ice situation.
- 10:02Speaker 3: People who voted for him three times mostly i'd say
- 10:07Speaker 3: disproportionately white, non college women, that people who haven't gone
- 10:11Speaker 3: to college, who formed the backbone of his support. There
- 10:14Speaker 3: are groups of those voters who are thinking, I'm kind
- 10:19Speaker 3: of peace out here, like this has been too much
- 10:21Speaker 3: for me. They're not running to the Democratic Party, but
- 10:24Speaker 3: they are definitely expressing concern about Trump. That is how
- 10:28Speaker 3: you get from the low like mid to low forties
- 10:31Speaker 3: to the high thirties.
- 10:32Speaker 2: That is like my attention.
- 10:34Speaker 3: So the real problem of this last ten years, in
- 10:38Speaker 3: my mind, has been that the elections are so close, right,
- 10:43Speaker 3: Every election is like a fifty to fifty election, right,
- 10:47Speaker 3: and it doesn't it's not big enough to repudiate any
- 10:51Speaker 3: of the tactics of the other side.
- 10:54Speaker 1: And by the way, there's no self reflection because you think, geez,
- 10:58Speaker 1: if only so.
- 10:59Speaker 3: Close reflection, no need to think hard about a different path.
- 11:05Speaker 3: Since every election is close enough, you don't get the
- 11:09Speaker 3: members of Congress at the lowest level wondering like, oh,
- 11:12Speaker 3: what are we doing? Because they can still win their races,
- 11:16Speaker 3: or enough of them can win the races. So in
- 11:19Speaker 3: my mind, like the goal of the next three years
- 11:24Speaker 3: should be to have actually break out of the cycle,
- 11:29Speaker 3: to have an election which is a consequential election where
- 11:32Speaker 3: it's you know, win by four or five points hard
- 11:35Speaker 3: to imagine, but doable four or five points and have
- 11:38Speaker 3: a large scale electoral college victory. So at all parts
- 11:43Speaker 3: of the Republican Party people really wonder about a pathword
- 11:47Speaker 3: and whether there's a non Maga pathword. And the reason
- 11:50Speaker 3: why this matters to me, I would just say for
- 11:53Speaker 3: me is because I don't want to do politics the.
- 11:54Speaker 2: Rest of my life.
- 11:55Speaker 3: I don't want every election to be super influential. I
- 11:57Speaker 3: would like to be able to think, like, not read
- 12:00Speaker 3: the newspaper every day, worrying about what person's going to
- 12:03Speaker 3: get picked off the street or whatever, like you know,
- 12:06Speaker 3: whether we're going to go to war.
- 12:08Speaker 2: I mean, the consequences of politics have become so huge
- 12:12Speaker 2: and I would like to return to a world and
- 12:15Speaker 2: we're never going to go like this.
- 12:16Speaker 3: I think it is wrong for Democrats to think of
- 12:19Speaker 3: a return to normal, but they can think of a
- 12:25Speaker 3: different kind of stability in the country, and so to me,
- 12:29Speaker 3: just to bottom line it is, yeah, you should really
- 12:31Speaker 3: think of what that coalition is needed need.
- 12:35Speaker 1: I mean, you and I both know that. I mean
- 12:36Speaker 1: it's look, I mean, the fact is, I'm sort of
- 12:39Speaker 1: a dog with a bone. I'm sort of in a
- 12:43Speaker 1: bad place with both parties right now because it's so
- 12:46Speaker 1: obvious how to build a sixty percent coalition, but nobody
- 12:51Speaker 1: wants to do it, right, The Republicans don't want to
- 12:53Speaker 1: do it, and the Democrats don't want to do it.
- 12:54Speaker 3: You can, well, I want I really, I I just say,
- 12:57Speaker 3: speaking for myself, I feel really interested in doing that.
- 13:00Speaker 1: No, I understand you do. But you see, like it is,
- 13:04Speaker 1: you know, do I think Chuck Schumer would like to
- 13:07Speaker 1: do that? Sure, but everybody wants it on their terms.
- 13:10Speaker 1: Nobody wants it on the voters terms, right like which
- 13:14Speaker 1: is you know I'm watching you know, take believe I'm
- 13:19Speaker 1: one of these people that believes forty of our fifty states,
- 13:25Speaker 1: our fifty to fifty states, as long as you know
- 13:27Speaker 1: where the fifty percent marker is, because the problem is
- 13:30Speaker 1: not every fifty percent line is in the same spot. Yeah, right,
- 13:35Speaker 1: And there's always overreach by one party or the other
- 13:38Speaker 1: there's always an opportunity if you're willing to do it right,
- 13:41Speaker 1: if you're willing to be Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, if
- 13:46Speaker 1: you're willing to be John Bell Edwards in Louisiana. Right,
- 13:49Speaker 1: we've seen this, and it does seem as if that
- 13:56Speaker 1: that is that winning. I mean, you keep pointing this out.
- 14:00Speaker 1: I don't think the left wants to win. Right, I go,
- 14:03Speaker 1: and I keep the phrase I love Lately, as Matthew
- 14:05Speaker 1: Iglesias sort of ripped off a phrase from the TV
- 14:09Speaker 1: show and Or, where the main character says do you
- 14:14Speaker 1: want to fight or do you want to win? And
- 14:18Speaker 1: Matthew's whole point was he's it's increasingly obvious that the
- 14:22Speaker 1: left's more interested, particularly DSA. We know that, but even
- 14:25Speaker 1: DSA adjacent is more interested in having the fight over
- 14:29Speaker 1: the direction of the Democratic Party rather than winning a
- 14:32Speaker 1: majority and seeing if you can incrementally make progress on
- 14:36Speaker 1: covering more people on healthcare.
- 14:39Speaker 3: Yeah, I think let me do something unusual, which is
- 14:44Speaker 3: perhaps rented the defense of the left. But the place
- 14:48Speaker 3: I would say that I think the left is more right.
- 14:55Speaker 2: Than moderates is the following, which is, I think.
- 14:59Speaker 3: A lot out of normy liberals or kind of normal democrats.
- 15:06Speaker 3: A real problem where moderates have lost credibility is in
- 15:09Speaker 3: the following, which is, I think sometimes moderate sound like
- 15:14Speaker 3: they are for like incrementalism, and I think the hard
- 15:20Speaker 3: thing there is it is hard to look at the
- 15:22Speaker 3: United States and say, you know what, our problems are
- 15:27Speaker 3: kind of small, and if we just do them, do
- 15:29Speaker 3: issues around, We're just like.
- 15:31Speaker 1: Why do you define incrementalism? This is what bothers me. Okay, okay,
- 15:35Speaker 1: I've used the example. One could argue civil unions was
- 15:39Speaker 1: a incrementalist policy. Yeah, but you couldn't have gotten the
- 15:44Speaker 1: same sex marriage without people realizing this civilist unions thing.
- 15:50Speaker 1: Actually it's kind of silly, it's kind of unnecessary. But
- 15:53Speaker 1: before we got to marriage, you had to sort of
- 15:56Speaker 1: show it, and then suddenly the public is like, oh, yeah,
- 15:59Speaker 1: there's no difference, there's nothing here. And what happened support
- 16:03Speaker 1: for same sex marriage and the idea that there's a
- 16:06Speaker 1: distinction between civil unions and marriage. Right, it was, But
- 16:10Speaker 1: I could make the case that if you never tried
- 16:12Speaker 1: civil unions you may never have gotten same sex marriage.
- 16:16Speaker 1: Social security is the greatest. My point is is that
- 16:20Speaker 1: I'm tired of hearing because I call myself an incrementalist,
- 16:25Speaker 1: and to me, incrementalism has is exactly how we've gotten
- 16:30Speaker 1: major changes. Social Security is one of my favorite incremental
- 16:34Speaker 1: incrementalism stories. It started literally just to prevent old widows
- 16:39Speaker 1: from living in poverty, and then we said, you know what,
- 16:43Speaker 1: how about people with disabilities? You know what, how about
- 16:46Speaker 1: everybody who's retired? Right Like, yes, over time we got there.
- 16:51Speaker 1: You could not have passed that big idea all at once.
- 16:56Speaker 1: So I do think, you know, this gets back at
- 16:59Speaker 1: where I think the left in the center, I agree
- 17:02Speaker 1: with you, moderates don't know how to sell that incrementalism
- 17:05Speaker 1: actually leads to major, you know, to hockey stick moments
- 17:09Speaker 1: in public policy, and the left doesn't understand that. If
- 17:14Speaker 1: you in a country of three hundred and fifty million people,
- 17:16Speaker 1: if you believe in pluralism, and I've had people on
- 17:19Speaker 1: the left tell me f pluralism, I'm done with it.
- 17:22Speaker 1: That's a whole nother story. If you want to f pluralism,
- 17:25Speaker 1: then you're getting rid of America in the Constitution. But
- 17:27Speaker 1: go for it. Yeah, But I do think many in
- 17:31Speaker 1: the left don't understand how many of the policies we've
- 17:35Speaker 1: successfully gotten to make progress in this country. All had
- 17:39Speaker 1: to start with incrementalism. You wouldn't have gotten Civil Rights
- 17:42Speaker 1: Act in sixty four and sixty five without Harry Truman
- 17:45Speaker 1: right doing the executive order in the US military. So yeah,
- 17:49Speaker 1: I just sort of ye, I almost want to give
- 17:53Speaker 1: a defense of incrementalism. Incrementalism has been the greatest change
- 17:57Speaker 1: agent in American government.
- 17:59Speaker 2: I mean, I guess i'd say a few things.
- 18:02Speaker 3: Number One, this whole debate is basically encapsulated in the
- 18:09Speaker 3: kind of left now center debate on the ACA. Like
- 18:13Speaker 3: I think it's a fundamental failure for people not to
- 18:17Speaker 3: understand what a huge success getting forty five million Americans
- 18:21Speaker 3: covered through the Affordable Care Act.
- 18:25Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is a question.
- 18:26Speaker 3: When we're going through the debate, the Conservatives weren't attacking it,
- 18:29Speaker 3: laid us to incremental and now people are you know,
- 18:32Speaker 3: now the thing is it's all incrementalism. But I think
- 18:36Speaker 3: the thing I would say to people and is the
- 18:41Speaker 3: truth is that things that can sound incremental to you
- 18:45Speaker 3: are not perhaps incremental to the public. And I'll give
- 18:49Speaker 3: a great example of this, which is a Medicare drug negotiation.
- 18:54Speaker 3: Like when you actually talk this was like the most
- 18:56Speaker 3: popular thing Joe Biden did. It was our top testing
- 19:00Speaker 3: like accomplishment, and the administration.
- 19:02Speaker 1: Still felt like they didn't talk about it enough.
- 19:03Speaker 3: I still fel like I didn't talk about it enough.
- 19:06Speaker 3: It was hugely successful.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Even successful. Trump took it over and were trying to
- 19:10Speaker 1: keep it.
- 19:11Speaker 3: Yeah, and to people, you know, actually, if you go
- 19:15Speaker 3: to people and say the government is going to ensure
- 19:19Speaker 3: that the price of I mean, it started with ten drugs,
- 19:22Speaker 3: so like you know, fifty drugs a year, the prices
- 19:25Speaker 3: will come down. People would think of that as a
- 19:28Speaker 3: really big change in their lives. And this is where
- 19:30Speaker 3: I think the kind of like, you know, I will criticize,
- 19:34Speaker 3: I will have arguments with the left because you know,
- 19:36Speaker 3: the real problem and medicure for all is not like
- 19:39Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure insurance companies don't like it.
- 19:41Speaker 2: The real problem and medicure for all is humans are
- 19:44Speaker 2: very changeaverse on healthcare.
- 19:47Speaker 3: That is why we had to build in the system.
- 19:49Speaker 3: We ad to get the AFFORDABLELEK. Correct, I mean, but
- 19:52Speaker 3: when people forget as we were talking to liberals and
- 19:54Speaker 3: the left, we're talking about socialized medicine for thirty years
- 19:57Speaker 3: and it wasn't moving the dial. And finally we did ACA,
- 20:02Speaker 3: which built truly built on the healthcare system. It wasn't
- 20:06Speaker 3: a radical restructuring and uh and it was able to pass.
- 20:10Speaker 2: I mean it took sixty folks, but we were still
- 20:11Speaker 2: abuilt to pass it.
- 20:12Speaker 3: And the thing, like my most seminal learning during the
- 20:17Speaker 3: whole debate on the ACA was being in focus groups
- 20:21Speaker 3: where people were so change avers, like they didn't want
- 20:25Speaker 3: to lose their insurance. They were very susceptible to any
- 20:28Speaker 3: story of how they were going to lose their insurance
- 20:32Speaker 3: or have to pay more or do anything. And that
- 20:34Speaker 3: is the problem with like people want to point to
- 20:40Speaker 3: entrenched interests, and oftentimes there are obviously entrenched interests in
- 20:44Speaker 3: Washington that stopped a strong majority.
- 20:46Speaker 2: That happens all the time. They're not wrong about it.
- 20:48Speaker 3: But on some of these more transformative changes, like when
- 20:52Speaker 3: you tell people you know the government is going to
- 20:55Speaker 3: control healthcare, that means Donald Trump and RFK would be
- 20:58Speaker 3: in control, everyone would start paying. Right, But like, you know,
- 21:02Speaker 3: you don't have these like rational discourses because it becomes
- 21:06Speaker 3: a discourse of not a policy debate, but a debate
- 21:10Speaker 3: about motives.
- 21:11Speaker 2: Right, you don't like, you know what.
- 21:14Speaker 3: I feels like just to be totally candid about the
- 21:17Speaker 3: debates that we have in the Democratic Party. And I'm
- 21:20Speaker 3: online and I disagree with people, and the basic would
- 21:23Speaker 3: be like you're a murderer, progenocide or something. And you know,
- 21:26Speaker 3: I'm now like old enough. I was in debates in
- 21:30Speaker 3: twenty sixteen where people took videos political leaders who would
- 21:35Speaker 3: not say keep it on the ground on climate and
- 21:37Speaker 3: they were called murderers. And then I was in twenty
- 21:39Speaker 3: twenty and people took videos of leaders who wouldn't support
- 21:43Speaker 3: so like Medicare for all. They were called murderers, and
- 21:46Speaker 3: the same thing happening. And I guess my take here
- 21:49Speaker 3: is like the world would be better off if we
- 21:51Speaker 3: just honestly debated, like you didn't think I was opposed
- 21:54Speaker 3: to you because I'm some kind of corporate person. And
- 21:58Speaker 3: the real problem is we have to build a majority
- 22:01Speaker 3: in the country in a country that's kind of conservative
- 22:04Speaker 3: on a lot of issues.
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- 23:48Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. We're a libertarian country. We
- 23:56Speaker 1: were founded. I always say this. We're kind of found
- 23:58Speaker 1: it more libertarian than anything else, you know, it's funny
- 24:01Speaker 1: about it. I want to say a libertarian and both
- 24:04Speaker 1: parties Oh, and I would argue is that both parties
- 24:07Speaker 1: literally reflect one half of that libertarianism. Right. Essentially, the
- 24:12Speaker 1: Democrats are a little more culturally libertarian and the Republicans
- 24:15Speaker 1: are a little more economically libertarian. Right, and which which
- 24:19Speaker 1: is why there's never been a successful I've always said
- 24:21Speaker 1: the reason why the libertarians and theory, even though they're
- 24:24Speaker 1: basic things because we're an individualist society, right, we were
- 24:28Speaker 1: sort of founded that way. Everybody you know, it's American
- 24:31Speaker 1: dream is an individualistic goal, right, we don't talk about collectives.
- 24:35Speaker 1: You know, that just isn't the United States. And I
- 24:39Speaker 1: do think both parties that's usually when one party overreaches
- 24:46Speaker 1: on that, right, looks like they're talking down and telling
- 24:49Speaker 1: you how to live. Either telling you how we're going
- 24:51Speaker 1: to tell you how to live your life, you know,
- 24:53Speaker 1: big government way the way strong government way Trump's doing now,
- 24:56Speaker 1: or we're going to tell you how to live your
- 24:57Speaker 1: life culturally, you know, what you can laugh at and
- 25:00Speaker 1: who can tell a joke? Right in Any time you
- 25:04Speaker 1: move too far away from that, I think that is
- 25:06Speaker 1: when you see you actually see the boomerang.
- 25:10Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, okay, this is so odd because I'm
- 25:14Speaker 3: going to defend left and we're ver dry, and I
- 25:20Speaker 3: think there are a lot of people in the middle.
- 25:26Speaker 2: On the left, like maybe even.
- 25:28Speaker 3: Some conservatives, I don't know conservative, maybe it's just independence,
- 25:33Speaker 3: but definitely a lot of working class people. So I
- 25:35Speaker 3: guess to me, I would say, if I were just
- 25:37Speaker 3: a strategist for the Democratic Party, which I'm definitely not,
- 25:41Speaker 3: I would be trying to organize elections and so that
- 25:46Speaker 3: you could an organize messaging so you could attract a
- 25:50Speaker 3: larger group of working class people into the fold. And
- 25:53Speaker 3: this should not you know, like the party has normally
- 25:55Speaker 3: been considered the party of the underdog.
- 25:58Speaker 2: It should be something we think about it.
- 26:00Speaker 3: And I'd say, you know, I do think a lot
- 26:03Speaker 3: of people walk around and wonder, in a country as
- 26:07Speaker 3: wealthy as this, how is it, you know, where you
- 26:09Speaker 3: have a trillion error, how is it that like people
- 26:13Speaker 3: have to struggle to make ends meet working two jobs.
- 26:16Speaker 2: That is like a legitimate thing.
- 26:18Speaker 3: I think a lot of working class people think that
- 26:21Speaker 3: are kind of economically populist in ways. Now that doesn't
- 26:24Speaker 3: mean they're socialists and redistributors, but I do think they think, wow,
- 26:28Speaker 3: we should tax super rich people more, and like I
- 26:31Speaker 3: think we should tax super rich people more too, and
- 26:34Speaker 3: I think those are like reasonable pastures. I think the
- 26:37Speaker 3: difficulty in the Democratic Party is that sometimes we don't
- 26:40Speaker 3: acknowledge that working class people have bigger security concerns. And
- 26:45Speaker 3: my favorite not my favorite, and that I love it
- 26:47Speaker 3: so much, but a good example of this is crime.
- 26:49Speaker 3: Working class people experience crime at a higher rate than
- 26:52Speaker 3: college educated people, and they are more sensitive to crime.
- 26:56Speaker 3: And I think sometimes the debates in the Democratic Party
- 27:00Speaker 3: come much more focused on not like how like really
- 27:06Speaker 3: struggling working class people have to like live their lives
- 27:08Speaker 3: and it's in those spaces. I mean, we're like, when
- 27:12Speaker 3: you really look at working class voters, they care, they
- 27:15Speaker 3: care about crime and immigration and security issues.
- 27:19Speaker 1: And you know, you said like al from from nineteen
- 27:22Speaker 1: eighty seven, and I don't I.
- 27:23Speaker 2: Don't have to say they're kind of.
- 27:25Speaker 1: I don't mean that as a negative either.
- 27:26Speaker 3: No, but I mean like they're also more economically populist
- 27:29Speaker 3: in terms of they do think you should. I don't
- 27:31Speaker 3: even know if this is popular or just mainstream Democratic
- 27:34Speaker 3: at this point, but like, I think the it is
- 27:40Speaker 3: odd how little we've discussed the fact that we've done
- 27:44Speaker 3: five rounds of tax cuts for super super rich in
- 27:47Speaker 3: corporations in the course of two Republican administrations, and it
- 27:52Speaker 3: is a weird country that people do struggle to make
- 27:56Speaker 3: ends meet and there's so much wealth. And I do
- 27:58Speaker 3: think one last point, like I actually you think under
- 28:00Speaker 3: Trump there's a greater concern about like I'm not sure
- 28:05Speaker 3: people know what this means, but like a true meaning
- 28:07Speaker 3: of oligarchy, that the super rich have so much power
- 28:10Speaker 3: over the political system and those are like super legitimate
- 28:15Speaker 3: anxieties in the country, like you should.
- 28:17Speaker 1: That's like to drill down because there's a policy issue
- 28:21Speaker 1: that I think the Democrats have given up on on taxes.
- 28:25Speaker 1: Might look. My frustration is, I'm not a big fan
- 28:29Speaker 1: of trying to create a new ser tax when if
- 28:33Speaker 1: you just got rid of loopholes. Yeah, you know, if
- 28:36Speaker 1: you know, if the if the rich actually paid thirty
- 28:39Speaker 1: nine percent without the loopholes, and basically guess what you
- 28:43Speaker 1: get once you have an income over five million, there
- 28:45Speaker 1: are no more tax deductions. You don't get any right,
- 28:48Speaker 1: you know, you could create you know that that instead
- 28:52Speaker 1: of adding on, because when you add on, you actually
- 28:55Speaker 1: only create the conditions for more loopholes, right, and for
- 28:59Speaker 1: more of that and that. But I don't want to
- 29:02Speaker 1: be distracted. I'll give you the one place where I
- 29:04Speaker 1: think there's money in the Banana Stan when it comes
- 29:08Speaker 1: to populism, and that is the inheritance tax. Frank Lunz.
- 29:18Speaker 1: Frank Lunz and Grovin Norquists, God bless them. The creation
- 29:22Speaker 1: the myth of the death tax was one of the
- 29:25Speaker 1: greatest political campaign victories of our generation. It was brilliant
- 29:31Speaker 1: and it I arguably scared the lapt from going after
- 29:35Speaker 1: it anymore. It has been something that nobody proposes, Nobody
- 29:39Speaker 1: touches this anymore. And yet this if you want to
- 29:43Speaker 1: prevent an oligarchy, if you want to prevent essentially I mean,
- 29:47Speaker 1: look at half the problem with it. I'm going to
- 29:50Speaker 1: absolutely stereotype here, but these second generation wealthy kids, whether
- 29:55Speaker 1: they're super maga or super socialists, they're the ones causing
- 29:59Speaker 1: our problems that falla because they've never actually had to
- 30:01Speaker 1: have a job, they've inherited money, or they're living off
- 30:04Speaker 1: their parents and they're you know, suddenly deciding to pick
- 30:09Speaker 1: up the hobby of politics. So that the last part
- 30:12Speaker 1: is a little bit of my own old man yelling
- 30:14Speaker 1: at cloud. But I do think you would get popular
- 30:17Speaker 1: support on the inheritance tax situation in these days.
- 30:21Speaker 3: One hundred resent Like, I'm a big fan of the
- 30:24Speaker 3: inheritance tax.
- 30:25Speaker 1: And as you know, that's you know what people love
- 30:27Speaker 1: about tax You know, when people people are always in
- 30:30Speaker 1: favor of taxing somebody else, nobody. What's that everybody thinks
- 30:34Speaker 1: their taxes are too high, and everybody else's taxes are
- 30:37Speaker 1: too low, right, Well, what's the best way to rally
- 30:40Speaker 1: a majority of the country for somebody to have their
- 30:42Speaker 1: taxes raised. It's rich people when they die.
- 30:45Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the truth of I mean, I guess
- 30:48Speaker 3: my view of this, which I think you're getting to, is,
- 30:51Speaker 3: I think one of the things really ails the country
- 30:55Speaker 3: is that, you know, people are so deeply pessimistic that
- 31:01Speaker 3: their kids will do better than they will, and deeply
- 31:03Speaker 3: pessimistic that the American dream really exists today. And I think, like,
- 31:09Speaker 3: you know, if you're trying to think of, like why
- 31:11Speaker 3: are we in the space that we have been for
- 31:12Speaker 3: the last ten years of like the Trump like in
- 31:15Speaker 3: power or trying to get in power but having more
- 31:19Speaker 3: popular support than he really should. Is I think that
- 31:22Speaker 3: a lot for a lot of people, it really feels
- 31:25Speaker 3: like the basic social contract of the country that you
- 31:28Speaker 3: can go as far as your talents can take you
- 31:32Speaker 3: has been eroded. And one of the reasons why it
- 31:35Speaker 3: has been eroded is you can you are more today
- 31:40Speaker 3: in a superclass than before. I mean, when you think
- 31:44Speaker 3: of the way that people can pass on the super
- 31:49Speaker 3: rich can pass on to the generational wealth and when
- 31:53Speaker 3: they do, they have a much better chance of getting
- 31:56Speaker 3: into eleade colleges. They have the networks to get the
- 31:58Speaker 3: best jobs. They are in just a different kind of
- 32:03Speaker 3: stratosphere than everyone else. And you know, I will say,
- 32:05Speaker 3: like I grew up kind of struggling, and I feel
- 32:09Speaker 3: like I'm really really lucky. I have lived the American
- 32:14Speaker 3: dream my parents. I've experienced deep poverty, and I am
- 32:18Speaker 3: now in a job like this and I went from
- 32:21Speaker 3: deep poverty to working in the White House. But I
- 32:23Speaker 3: think the like and that's why, to me, like, the
- 32:26Speaker 3: most fundamental issue for today and into the future is
- 32:31Speaker 3: is that promise going to be alive? And there are
- 32:35Speaker 3: positive ways to ensure that there's real mobility for people,
- 32:39Speaker 3: but we should also recognize that people have a legitimate
- 32:44Speaker 3: anger at a world where there is entrenched wealth that
- 32:49Speaker 3: people who did nothing to earn that wealth. All you were,
- 32:53Speaker 3: All that happened is that you, like won the genetic
- 32:56Speaker 3: lottery and you have access to a world that very
- 33:01Speaker 3: few other people can even strive to get into.
- 33:04Speaker 2: And I think that to me, if you believe in merit,
- 33:07Speaker 2: like for all the.
- 33:07Speaker 3: Conservatives who genuinely believe in merit and argue for merit.
- 33:12Speaker 3: I believe merit is a really important thing. And as
- 33:14Speaker 3: a result, personally, I don't really understand why people who
- 33:21Speaker 3: have done nothing other than be genetically lucky should be
- 33:27Speaker 3: have not just one but all the Like.
- 33:29Speaker 1: Now we've done the numbers on this in that like,
- 33:32Speaker 1: what could I mean because obviously the best way to
- 33:35Speaker 1: make a case, you know, like I said, I think
- 33:37Speaker 1: our inheritance tax structure is anti capitalist. That it's prol
- 33:42Speaker 1: or dark it is. And it wasn't always that way. Actually,
- 33:45Speaker 1: we actually had.
- 33:46Speaker 3: No we had we used to believe in meritocracy.
- 33:50Speaker 1: Right, it was about democratizing things, right, small democratization. And
- 33:56Speaker 1: you know this is a very recent but like I said,
- 33:58Speaker 1: Frank Lunson, Grovenor Quis got lesson right that death tax
- 34:01Speaker 1: marketing was brilliant, but it really did create help I think,
- 34:07Speaker 1: accelerate this classify. Yeah, and also I mean that's a
- 34:12Speaker 1: big one.
- 34:12Speaker 3: If you like the one of the issues with the
- 34:15Speaker 3: wealth tax is that it's hard to evaluate year to year.
- 34:19Speaker 2: That what this end.
- 34:22Speaker 1: Easy budget is that what I mean if you're trying
- 34:23Speaker 1: to do ten year budgeting stuff.
- 34:24Speaker 3: Is that well it's also like you just don't know
- 34:27Speaker 3: what the value of things are and then it's a
- 34:29Speaker 3: little bit hard to tax.
- 34:30Speaker 2: And also I think this room court.
- 34:32Speaker 3: Will be pretty smart that it's not a it's not
- 34:37Speaker 3: an actual income tax, and you know, I don't think
- 34:40Speaker 3: it'll be found custodutional. But regardless, the merits of this
- 34:43Speaker 3: of a wealth tax apply to an estate tax. It's
- 34:47Speaker 3: just it's and you know, at death you can of
- 34:49Speaker 3: value all the things that people have, and you can
- 34:52Speaker 3: do this, it has to pass to somebody else, right,
- 34:55Speaker 3: So that's an interesting.
- 34:56Speaker 1: So you think the wealth tax might be unconstitutional and
- 34:59Speaker 1: you almost have to do it as a death tax.
- 35:01Speaker 3: Well, I think so, just just as a reminder, uh,
- 35:07Speaker 3: we had to pass a constitutional amendment to get an
- 35:11Speaker 3: income tax because it was not. So the game of
- 35:15Speaker 3: the wealth tax is to say for people who propose
- 35:18Speaker 3: a wealth tax, is to say that it can be,
- 35:22Speaker 3: you know, just defined as an income tax. And I
- 35:26Speaker 3: personally suspect even Elena Kagan is not going to like
- 35:29Speaker 3: fall through that one. So I do think progressive should
- 35:33Speaker 3: really think about another version of the tax. And then
- 35:37Speaker 3: a state tax doesn't have that failure. I mean, you
- 35:39Speaker 3: have to find doing it.
- 35:41Speaker 1: State and obviously if you do it state by state.
- 35:44Speaker 1: All you're doing is pitting states against each other.
- 35:46Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, I mean and also, I personally don't
- 35:49Speaker 3: think it's like the greatest idea when like you have
- 35:52Speaker 3: a state like California that really relies on very wealthy
- 35:56Speaker 3: people to stay there to I mean, they're I mean,
- 35:58Speaker 3: nobody thinks of this, but it is true.
- 36:01Speaker 1: Were in New York Cities mayor in New York City
- 36:03Speaker 1: is learning this?
- 36:06Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean in just to say, in California,
- 36:09Speaker 3: I know this like blows everyone's like heads, like, can't
- 36:12Speaker 3: imagine it's true. But actually, for working class people, middle
- 36:17Speaker 3: like very middle class people, taxes are the same in
- 36:20Speaker 3: California as they are in Florida and Texas. Texas are
- 36:24Speaker 3: much higher, and very wealthy people and they basically help
- 36:27Speaker 3: fund the system. So I mean, I guess my view
- 36:30Speaker 3: is that for people who think we don't tax wealthy
- 36:35Speaker 3: people enough, and that argument does come from the left,
- 36:38Speaker 3: they're right, we don't.
- 36:39Speaker 2: Text.
- 36:39Speaker 3: I mean, this is a system where we've done like again,
- 36:42Speaker 3: don't do it.
- 36:43Speaker 1: You should actually still be fair about how you do it,
- 36:45Speaker 1: and in some ways, right, it needs to be across
- 36:48Speaker 1: the board, it needs to be in the tax code
- 36:50Speaker 1: and there you know, it almost needs to be very.
- 36:52Speaker 3: Transparent and an't should be federal. It should be for everybody,
- 36:56Speaker 3: and it should be And I guess i'd say of
- 36:58Speaker 3: all the people who to me are the least sympathetic
- 37:01Speaker 3: in terms of I mean, I think we should tax
- 37:03Speaker 3: everyone more, every super wealthy person more. That the people
- 37:06Speaker 3: who I have the like least sympathy for are the
- 37:08Speaker 3: people who just again didn't do anything to earn the money.
- 37:13Speaker 3: You know, like you could say, I mean, people can
- 37:16Speaker 3: have their requims with Jeff Bezos, but he like did
- 37:18Speaker 3: something creative to like make this money, and I definitely
- 37:21Speaker 3: think he should be tax more. But I think of
- 37:24Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos's errors as completely different. Like
- 37:27Speaker 3: Elon Musk kid kids, what do those people do? Like,
- 37:30Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just like, you know, I mean, I
- 37:32Speaker 3: just think it's so and I think that that contributes,
- 37:35Speaker 3: like to a sense of the democracy is kind of
- 37:39Speaker 3: undermined when you have like essentially no kind of economic
- 37:43Speaker 3: nobility in the country now.
- 37:45Speaker 1: And this is where I think. Look, I think the
- 37:47Speaker 1: messaging challenge in the past used to be that why
- 37:51Speaker 1: is it that somebody who wouldn't be affected by this
- 37:53Speaker 1: tax hike. Why are they against this tax hike because well,
- 37:56Speaker 1: back then people believe, well, maybe they'll be rich someday
- 37:58Speaker 1: and they don't want to pay that high time, right.
- 38:01Speaker 1: And that's how you you would find working class people
- 38:04Speaker 1: who would have benefited from the tax hike on the
- 38:06Speaker 1: on the wealthy deciding now they're against that because of
- 38:10Speaker 1: the fear that it would just you know, there's two fears.
- 38:14Speaker 1: And I think that that's the messaging challenge for the left,
- 38:17Speaker 1: which is to say I'd be just calling a tax fairness,
- 38:21Speaker 1: right and then and then finding a way to make
- 38:23Speaker 1: it about tax fairness.
- 38:25Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think, look, a big problem in politics,
- 38:28Speaker 3: in my experience is someone will have an experience, you know,
- 38:34Speaker 3: ten twenty years ago and think it will be the
- 38:36Speaker 3: same today as it was then.
- 38:38Speaker 2: And that's true for.
- 38:39Speaker 3: Politicians like the over indexed and the lessons of their
- 38:42Speaker 3: first campaigns or their big politician.
- 38:45Speaker 1: I always want to know, tell me how they think
- 38:47Speaker 1: they won their first campaign, and I'll tell you how
- 38:48Speaker 1: they'll government exactly, and.
- 38:49Speaker 2: Then they'll value everything. And so the truth about that,
- 38:53Speaker 2: you know, it's true.
- 38:54Speaker 3: The right ran a death tax campaign and really undermined
- 39:01Speaker 3: the estate tax, and I just think like that really
- 39:04Speaker 3: took hold and the year nineteen ninety nine, two thousand.
- 39:07Speaker 3: But attitudes in the nineties were radically different. I mean,
- 39:10Speaker 3: just to remind everyone, inequality did grow in the nineties.
- 39:13Speaker 1: It was the house on Days Mann, you know, the
- 39:16Speaker 1: nineties now looked like the nineties now look like the twenties. Yeah,
- 39:22Speaker 1: you know, you're just like, what the hell was happening?
- 39:24Speaker 1: You know what the hell was like? People were like
- 39:26Speaker 1: in this like, yeah, Lilli's.
- 39:30Speaker 3: This is very instructive about America, right, Okay, in the nineties,
- 39:34Speaker 3: every income group moved up, like the bottom twenty, the
- 39:38Speaker 3: bottom forty, the bottom sixty, the.
- 39:39Speaker 1: Biody made money, but the rich made money faster.
- 39:41Speaker 3: They made a lot more like Inequality definitely grew in
- 39:45Speaker 3: the nineteen nineties and were.
- 39:48Speaker 1: Bill Clinton produced more millionaires I think than any president before.
- 39:51Speaker 3: Yes, he also, I mean, I feel like we had
- 39:53Speaker 3: a little less economic a little less political polarization because
- 39:57Speaker 3: everyone was doing a lot better than they had been doing.
- 40:00Speaker 3: And again he'd also passed one of the most generous,
- 40:05Speaker 3: generous wealthry distributions of the last fifty years. He did
- 40:08Speaker 3: a substantial increase in the earned income tax credit, so
- 40:12Speaker 3: like working people were also I mean, the economy is
- 40:15Speaker 3: doing well, but they also got more money. And like
- 40:19Speaker 3: my take of this is, I think there are really
- 40:22Speaker 3: important lessons and I think the erosion of economic mobility
- 40:28Speaker 3: for the bottom fifty percent over the last two decades
- 40:31Speaker 3: might contribute to a different assessment of an estate tax
- 40:34Speaker 3: today than they might have thought of.
- 40:36Speaker 1: No, I took look, I just think it is a
- 40:39Speaker 1: I think it is. It sounds like you and I
- 40:41Speaker 1: both agree here. It's like that's not a dead issue anymore,
- 40:44Speaker 1: like you know, the politics that used to make that toxic.
- 40:48Speaker 1: I don't think that the conditions exist and that there's
- 40:52Speaker 1: there's it's probably a more pragmatic way. If you're looking
- 40:54Speaker 1: for some new revenue, it's probably the most pragmatic place
- 40:57Speaker 1: to look.
- 40:58Speaker 3: And I guess i'd say, you know, like I definitely
- 41:02Speaker 3: think that there are you know, ways in which you know,
- 41:10Speaker 3: the rise of DSA are really challenging.
- 41:13Speaker 2: But I think, you know.
- 41:14Speaker 3: Smart leaders can try to understand what's energizing any kind
- 41:19Speaker 3: of movement. And here, you know, I mean, I don't
- 41:24Speaker 3: think you have a rise of the DSA unless without Trump,
- 41:29Speaker 3: this term.
- 41:30Speaker 1: Oh look, the history of politics is reactionary movements create
- 41:35Speaker 1: reactionary movements.
- 41:36Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, and so my but like is.
- 41:40Speaker 1: This was inevitable. The second Trump term was going to
- 41:43Speaker 1: turn the base of the Democrats into blue MAGA, and
- 41:48Speaker 1: we're seeing it. I know, I know some people don't
- 41:50Speaker 1: like it, but it does look more like blue Mega
- 41:54Speaker 1: than people want to admit.
- 41:55Speaker 2: Well, this is what I would say. I mean, we'll
- 41:58Speaker 2: see what. We'll test all this out probably the next
- 42:00Speaker 2: couple of months.
- 42:01Speaker 1: Well, Michigan is the great I mean, Michigan's the great
- 42:03Speaker 1: Petri Dish potentially, you know.
- 42:05Speaker 2: One, because just to sit back, I don't believe.
- 42:07Speaker 1: Black voters are going to pick the socialist over and
- 42:10Speaker 1: I think I'll do else. I had knowsed this, and
- 42:12Speaker 1: I noticed he's trying to try to find some distance
- 42:16Speaker 1: with the DSA. So you got that. Just to say,
- 42:20Speaker 1: then whether if he gets a nomination where they can
- 42:22Speaker 1: actually win, I don't know.
- 42:23Speaker 2: Well, so.
- 42:25Speaker 3: I feel like I could talk about I talk about
- 42:28Speaker 3: that race all the time.
- 42:29Speaker 1: But you know I would notice I feel like your
- 42:32Speaker 1: X feet is only that race.
- 42:34Speaker 3: So just for just for the record, about this whole situation,
- 42:37Speaker 3: I just want to say for myself, you know, I
- 42:41Speaker 3: mean I worked with Hailey Stevens. I worked with her
- 42:44Speaker 3: in the she actually worked on the Hillary campaign. She
- 42:47Speaker 3: also worked on the Obama campaign. My singular experience with
- 42:50Speaker 3: Hailey Stevens was she came to me and a lot
- 42:53Speaker 3: of other people, including like people you know, Brian Deese,
- 42:56Speaker 3: Jeans Spurling when Obama won that race, when like all
- 43:00Speaker 3: the staff members on the campaign were like, how do
- 43:03Speaker 3: we go to the White House? And Haley came to
- 43:05Speaker 3: me and went to them too, they're all witnesses, and said,
- 43:08Speaker 3: I want to go work on the Auto task Force.
- 43:10Speaker 3: I'm from Michigan. I want to help those people. Like
- 43:13Speaker 3: that's my like, she knows people who worked in not
- 43:16Speaker 3: and so seminal experience for me. And so then when
- 43:19Speaker 3: I look online and people are making fun of her
- 43:21Speaker 3: accent and like doing these things, like making fun of
- 43:24Speaker 3: the way she looks and all this stuff, I will say,
- 43:27Speaker 3: kind of triggering, and so I felt the need to
- 43:30Speaker 3: defend her.
- 43:30Speaker 2: And as you can see, there's a lot of.
- 43:32Speaker 3: Count response, but apart from Michigan, Like when you look
- 43:37Speaker 3: across the country, this isn't one hundred percent, But when
- 43:40Speaker 3: you look across the country, Democrats in swing states seem
- 43:44Speaker 3: to still remember that they are swing states, right, So
- 43:49Speaker 3: in Iowa, I really loved Zach Walls. I think Zach
- 43:52Speaker 3: Walls is a great candidate, but was he was perceived
- 43:57Speaker 3: as more liberal than Josh Durick, who actually came from
- 44:00Speaker 3: a district that.
- 44:01Speaker 1: He had read It wasn't a red district, but it
- 44:04Speaker 1: was redder.
- 44:05Speaker 2: Than what wheter rehdder.
- 44:07Speaker 3: He'd been in a district that Trump won by six
- 44:10Speaker 3: and then he won by six not super red, but
- 44:14Speaker 3: he was able to pull some Trump voters suicide. He won,
- 44:18Speaker 3: you know, he won that primary pretty handily. Like obviously
- 44:22Speaker 3: Texas is a very complicated place. But my own view
- 44:25Speaker 3: is that a lot of Liberals voted for Teleerigo because
- 44:28Speaker 3: they thought he had a better chance of winning against
- 44:32Speaker 3: whoever the Republican is going to be and.
- 44:36Speaker 2: We're just one kind of dark.
- 44:40Speaker 3: And and so I think this is a big question
- 44:45Speaker 3: in I mean, what's really happening in the Democratic Party
- 44:48Speaker 3: is not is a debate about who can win general elections.
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- 46:49Speaker 2: Is that the diffence in swing states?
- 46:51Speaker 1: Now?
- 46:51Speaker 3: I think in place like Colorado, if we want to
- 46:53Speaker 3: be really honest, in a state like Colorado, if people
- 46:56Speaker 3: think of themselves as kind of a blue state, it's
- 46:58Speaker 3: a blue city.
- 46:59Speaker 1: What do you make of Minnesota? Because Minnesota that Democratic
- 47:02Speaker 1: primary for Senate. Look, I'm watching what the left is
- 47:07Speaker 1: doing in Minnesota, and I think they see an opportunity. Hey,
- 47:09Speaker 1: Minnesota is a pretty reliably blue state. Maybe if we
- 47:12Speaker 1: shift the politics from center left to progressive left, we
- 47:16Speaker 1: can be a great experiment. Except I think that's a
- 47:19Speaker 1: recipe for turning Minnesota rep. And But I don't know
- 47:22Speaker 1: if Minnesota Democrats know that yet.
- 47:25Speaker 3: I mean it's a little complicated. I think that's a
- 47:28Speaker 3: little complicated. I mean, I like both the Canada's I'm
- 47:30Speaker 3: I'm I'm from Clober.
- 47:34Speaker 2: Again more than I.
- 47:35Speaker 1: Know any Globishar's decision to run for governor probably solved
- 47:42Speaker 1: a huge what would have been a huge potential, you know,
- 47:46Speaker 1: for for for your side of the aisle. It was
- 47:50Speaker 1: turned in and you know, look, there's you know, there's
- 47:54Speaker 1: another there's another version of events where Clober Shark comes
- 47:57Speaker 1: in and she gets strayed like Michael Bennett right by
- 48:00Speaker 1: by the insiders. But that wasn't the case. And I
- 48:03Speaker 1: think part of it was the fear that Walls was
- 48:06Speaker 1: going to bring down the whole party, right, And it
- 48:08Speaker 1: is interesting to me when there's fear of losing, voters
- 48:13Speaker 1: immediately head to the center left when they think it's
- 48:16Speaker 1: a free vote, those same primary voters are more likely
- 48:20Speaker 1: to scratch.
- 48:21Speaker 3: Yeah, so let me be optimistic here, Okay, Like, just
- 48:24Speaker 3: let's put Michigan aside. I guess to me, and I said,
- 48:27Speaker 3: those public guys of this to the New York Times
- 48:29Speaker 3: after DSA one, and you have these DSA candidates win
- 48:32Speaker 3: in New York. From my perspective, like lefty candidates winning
- 48:38Speaker 3: in blue cities. Like maybe that's a headache for leadership
- 48:41Speaker 3: or something or the other, but like, actually, it's not
- 48:43Speaker 3: like the worst saying in the world.
- 48:44Speaker 2: I mean, and we there.
- 48:46Speaker 3: Are some pretty left candidates I'm the Democratic Party in
- 48:49Speaker 3: some of these places, but they are they farther to
- 48:53Speaker 3: the left than some of the kind of proto fascists
- 48:56Speaker 3: we see on the far right winning in these like
- 48:58Speaker 3: these very very very very red business.
- 49:00Speaker 2: I don't know someone else good design.
- 49:02Speaker 3: I think you could still be a healthy party and
- 49:05Speaker 3: have lefty candidates win in blue cities as long as
- 49:08Speaker 3: you are willing to give space to people who have
- 49:13Speaker 3: the ability to attract independence and Republicans in swing states.
- 49:16Speaker 1: And that this feels like the gap right, That feels
- 49:19Speaker 1: like the gap that the last that it looks to
- 49:22Speaker 1: me that at least the DSA and those that are
- 49:24Speaker 1: more a little more DSA adjacent have this sort of
- 49:29Speaker 1: I remember Jim dement on the right saying I prefer
- 49:32Speaker 1: a Senate of thirty Jim dementz than Republican control with
- 49:35Speaker 1: like rhinos right. And you're like, okay, well, if you
- 49:40Speaker 1: pursue that, Jim DeMint, you're going to be in the
- 49:42Speaker 1: forever minority. Congratulations.
- 49:43Speaker 3: Well, the thing I'd say to democrats in this space,
- 49:46Speaker 3: and I will say this, I said this to everybody.
- 49:51Speaker 3: If you believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat
- 49:57Speaker 3: to democracy, to our basic rights, that he is a
- 50:03Speaker 3: person who is freeing up like a domestic police force
- 50:11Speaker 3: to abuse immigrants, then you know you don't have the
- 50:15Speaker 3: luxury of like your perfect be the enemy of the
- 50:19Speaker 3: good like you know, I guess that's my And I
- 50:22Speaker 3: think this is a question for kind of normy liberals
- 50:25Speaker 3: in some of these places, which is it is absolutely
- 50:28Speaker 3: the case that they have lost faith in an establishment
- 50:31Speaker 3: being able to produce winners when it hasn't.
- 50:33Speaker 2: There have been pretty big victories.
- 50:35Speaker 1: Why why do you think what could be a STEP's
- 50:37Speaker 1: let's do this. We talked about what the establishment could
- 50:41Speaker 1: have done pre twenty four. That's one are in the bridge,
- 50:46Speaker 1: you know I can.
- 50:48Speaker 3: But I say, like, look, you make your own evaluation
- 50:50Speaker 3: about America today.
- 50:51Speaker 2: Man, do you think of the big problem is that
- 50:53Speaker 2: there's to.
- 50:53Speaker 1: Me that that's the question is in twenty five and
- 51:00Speaker 1: and sort of post twenty four. I think the fairest
- 51:03Speaker 1: critique of the democratic establishment is that there doesn't appear
- 51:06Speaker 1: to be any self reflection. Why is it that the
- 51:08Speaker 1: same people are in charge of the party, right, Chuck Schumer,
- 51:12Speaker 1: A King, Jeffreys, you know, Nancy Pelosi in some ways
- 51:15Speaker 1: is still sort of right, the grand the grand dam
- 51:18Speaker 1: a little bit as well that there wasn't And it
- 51:21Speaker 1: goes back to the close election problem. Right, but well
- 51:24Speaker 1: the election was closed, and you know, it's still a
- 51:26Speaker 1: very narrow center, and it's still a very.
- 51:28Speaker 2: Narrow house and all this, so the thing there.
- 51:32Speaker 1: Is, and yet the establishment didn't there you know, electing
- 51:39Speaker 1: a new DNC chair wasn't the repudiation that I think
- 51:42Speaker 1: Democratic primary voters were looking for with the establishment. Right,
- 51:46Speaker 1: if Chuck Schumer had said this is on me, I'm
- 51:50Speaker 1: taking the fall here, it's time to move on. Do
- 51:53Speaker 1: you think that takes wind out of the sales of
- 51:55Speaker 1: the left alone?
- 51:55Speaker 3: I mean, I think that at least, like, with all
- 51:58Speaker 3: due respect, doesn't make a whole out of sense in
- 52:00Speaker 3: the following way.
- 52:01Speaker 2: The real the real problem for.
- 52:05Speaker 3: You know, I mean, like I don't know why, I
- 52:08Speaker 3: really don't want to re litigate any of this, But.
- 52:13Speaker 2: The problem was not.
- 52:16Speaker 3: It's we should It would be great if there was
- 52:18Speaker 3: an autopsy to fully understand and have accurate data as
- 52:22Speaker 3: to what the problem is. But if you think the
- 52:24Speaker 3: problem was that the singular problem for the singular problem
- 52:32Speaker 3: of twenty twenty four is that Joe Biden was too
- 52:34Speaker 3: old and should not have run again, then it is
- 52:37Speaker 3: the establishment that did.
- 52:39Speaker 2: Ultimately push him out.
- 52:41Speaker 3: They've not pushed him out. No, no, let me I'm
- 52:43Speaker 3: saying the opposite. They pushed him out. And the real
- 52:45Speaker 3: problem for taking out your anger at Chuck Schumer is
- 52:49Speaker 3: that Kamala Harris lost four swing states that the Democratic
- 52:56Speaker 3: Senate get a one in So say what you will
- 53:01Speaker 3: about your Schumer. Maybe he acted too late or whatever,
- 53:03Speaker 3: but he he was definitely part of a group of
- 53:06Speaker 3: people trying to push the president to not stay in
- 53:09Speaker 3: the race, and that might have meant meant the difference
- 53:13Speaker 3: between a Senate of forty three and a Senate of
- 53:16Speaker 3: forty seven Democrats. And just to say to everybody, we
- 53:20Speaker 3: would not be talking about the possibility of a Democrat
- 53:23Speaker 3: accident twenty twenty things or maybe twenty eight or even
- 53:25Speaker 3: twenty thirty two. Maybe I don't say for those candidates.
- 53:28Speaker 1: Winning fair I get I'm not even going to say
- 53:32Speaker 1: that life's not always fair. But when you choose to
- 53:35Speaker 1: be the leader of the party and you're the senior leader,
- 53:37Speaker 1: now you're the guy that's now been there, generation.
- 53:42Speaker 2: Give it. The failure was the failure? Really, I don't know.
- 53:46Speaker 1: It's symbolic. I know you can say it's not fair,
- 53:50Speaker 1: it's like, but the fact is, I think that was
- 53:55Speaker 1: one of those like you know, sometimes you have to
- 53:57Speaker 1: fire the manager or the coach of a team because
- 54:00Speaker 1: the fan base is just not going to buy the tickets,
- 54:03Speaker 1: right or the donor base isn't going to give the money,
- 54:06Speaker 1: so you got to do something to change things. And
- 54:08Speaker 1: I just it is it is a road not taken.
- 54:11Speaker 1: There was no actual there was nobody held accountable in
- 54:16Speaker 1: twenty five for what happened in twenty two. But that's
- 54:20Speaker 1: I think that's what the left argument is.
- 54:22Speaker 3: Yeah, but really there, I actually don't think that's where
- 54:25Speaker 3: the left argument is. I think that the legitimate criticism
- 54:29Speaker 3: is that.
- 54:34Speaker 2: Bank.
- 54:35Speaker 3: I think the I think the debate here, I'll just
- 54:38Speaker 3: leave it at this, I guess is the debate here
- 54:40Speaker 3: is about what the what the president did, not what
- 54:44Speaker 3: like senate leadership.
- 54:45Speaker 1: Did Let's Democrats win the House in the Senate, Well,
- 54:53Speaker 1: how should they spend their twenty twenty.
- 54:54Speaker 3: Seven They should absolutely spend their time in twenty twenty
- 54:59Speaker 3: seven focused on how they can make life better for
- 55:03Speaker 3: people who are struggling to make ends meet.
- 55:07Speaker 2: I would like even.
- 55:09Speaker 1: If that means passing a bill that they get Donald Trump.
- 55:11Speaker 3: To sign, I think that means if they win the
- 55:14Speaker 3: House and Senate, I think that they should put up
- 55:16Speaker 3: bills that lower healthcare costs. I mean, and cap has
- 55:20Speaker 3: ideas and all of these healthcare costs, energy costs, utilities costs.
- 55:25Speaker 3: They should end food tariffs immediately. They should pass bills
- 55:29Speaker 3: that you can explain housing costs. You pass bills where
- 55:34Speaker 3: you can explain to people this legislation will save you
- 55:39Speaker 3: eight hundred dollars a year, save you seven hundred dollars
- 55:43Speaker 3: a year. Pass bills I mean, and just you know
- 55:46Speaker 3: the history as well as I do. In two thousand
- 55:48Speaker 3: and seven. In two thousand and eight, Democrats put up
- 55:51Speaker 3: a lot of bills between the House and Senate that
- 55:54Speaker 3: Bush vetoed. It did create a lot of momentum the
- 55:57Speaker 3: twenty and the presidential primary. People could imagine he's a
- 56:01Speaker 3: Democratic president would just pass these bills immediately that actually
- 56:04Speaker 3: did happen. Barack Obama got elected. He passed like six
- 56:07Speaker 3: bills quickly. He was still at a gigantic agenda on
- 56:10Speaker 3: top of it. But to me, and there's a lot
- 56:12Speaker 3: of things that people need to do. They definitely need
- 56:14Speaker 3: to investigate the massive corruption here. They need to pass
- 56:19Speaker 3: I would pass like just as a standalone an anti
- 56:22Speaker 3: Jerrman like a national prohibition on gerrymandering across states.
- 56:26Speaker 2: There's a lot of things we need to pass. But
- 56:28Speaker 2: I would say, if you want to.
- 56:30Speaker 3: Build that coalition that could allow us to have a
- 56:34Speaker 3: big majority, and really, at the end of the day,
- 56:37Speaker 3: like have a country that we don't feel like to
- 56:40Speaker 3: imagine a country where we are not at each other's strokes. You,
- 56:45Speaker 3: we need to have a politics that is attracting a
- 56:48Speaker 3: big majority, and that means a multi racial coalition on
- 56:54Speaker 3: the Democratic side that has college educated voters. And just
- 56:57Speaker 3: imagine if we got forty four percent of white college
- 57:00Speaker 3: voters like Barack Obama did in twenty twelve, that is
- 57:04Speaker 3: a super mature, almost near supermajority in the country.
- 57:06Speaker 2: So for me, I would ask my.
- 57:10Speaker 3: Very my wonderful liberal friends and college educated friends and
- 57:14Speaker 3: the Democratic Party to stretch yourself to imagine the people
- 57:18Speaker 3: struggling the most and do what we can to pass
- 57:21Speaker 3: legislation for them, because.
- 57:23Speaker 2: Ultimately, that is what the Democratic Party is supposed to
- 57:25Speaker 2: be about.
- 57:25Speaker 3: It is about help for the underdog, not the people
- 57:29Speaker 3: who are doing the best, people who are struggling to meet.
- 57:31Speaker 1: You know, there's going to be some that say, no,
- 57:33Speaker 1: it's about getting Trump and you gotta hold Trump accountable. Yeah,
- 57:36Speaker 1: maybe do.
- 57:37Speaker 3: That, But I'm also like, you have my own thing
- 57:40Speaker 3: here is is like can we just have a conversation
- 57:43Speaker 3: amongst adults, Like the Supreme Court is eliminated any like
- 57:47Speaker 3: criminal activity, there's not sixty seven votes in the Senate
- 57:51Speaker 3: like at some point like we're responsible for us Okay,
- 57:55Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I just feel like like we
- 57:58Speaker 3: should acknowledge reality. Republican Party is like I think, is
- 58:02Speaker 3: there a Publican party that is like are we going
- 58:04Speaker 3: to get him out of office? Then you're just making
- 58:07Speaker 3: a choice of what you care about.
- 58:10Speaker 1: Where are you on this issue of fear? What do
- 58:14Speaker 1: you make Let me put it this way, what do
- 58:16Speaker 1: you make of the fact that so few elected Republicans
- 58:19Speaker 1: signed on to what Trump did last Thursday night? That
- 58:23Speaker 1: give you comfort.
- 58:25Speaker 3: I mean, I think we I think two things are true. One,
- 58:30Speaker 3: you're seeing more Republicans crack or move away from Trump.
- 58:34Speaker 3: Then then in the last you know, in the first
- 58:39Speaker 3: year and a half. On the other hand, I mean,
- 58:42Speaker 3: it's also true that they are tolerating which should be intolerable,
- 58:50Speaker 3: exactly like it is like when I try to be optimistic,
- 58:53Speaker 3: I tell people, well, you know, they are breaking away.
- 58:55Speaker 3: They do understand, of course you want to be cynegal.
- 58:58Speaker 3: It's after a lot of them gone through their primaries
- 59:01Speaker 3: and it's a little bit of a free vote for
- 59:03Speaker 3: a lot of them.
- 59:04Speaker 2: But it is it is true that, you know.
- 59:07Speaker 3: I mean, I think, if you want to be optimistic
- 59:09Speaker 3: about America, we are not Worbon's, Ourbon's Hungary or Russia's Like,
- 59:14Speaker 3: people don't agree.
- 59:15Speaker 1: We don't have this system, and I think we've all learned.
- 59:18Speaker 1: Maybe Trump would have if we had, If our system
- 59:21Speaker 1: was so weak that he could have created that, he'd
- 59:23Speaker 1: have done it already. Yeah, And our system is is
- 59:27Speaker 1: durable and to withstand it.
- 59:30Speaker 3: The biggest difference between those places and here is like
- 59:34Speaker 3: the truth about Orbon's Hungary is that Worbon was popular
- 59:39Speaker 3: for like thirteen or fourteen of the sixteen year receives
- 59:42Speaker 3: true power.
- 59:43Speaker 2: And Trump is unpopular.
- 59:45Speaker 1: He's actually never been popular.
- 59:47Speaker 3: He's never been popular, and he's just last sun right,
- 59:52Speaker 3: less unpopular than the other person.
- 59:54Speaker 1: Right.
- 59:54Speaker 3: And actually the thing, yeah, I don't want to be
- 59:57Speaker 3: like I'm not like America is like Nirvana at the moment.
- 59:59Speaker 3: But the the fact is he chose to take the
- 1:00:03Speaker 3: country into he gambled to take the country into a
- 1:00:08Speaker 3: war with Iran. He is losing that war, and the
- 1:00:12Speaker 3: country thinks it was a terrible idea. And he has
- 1:00:16Speaker 3: made a series of bad choices and that is why
- 1:00:19Speaker 3: he is losing support.
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: And not only that, you know, yeah, how you know
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: he knows he's made a series of bad choices because
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: even his most conspiratorial self hasn't been able to find
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: a left wing boogeyman on this one. Like you and
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: I both know, if he could blame somebody else for this,
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: he would be and he could blame that Yahoo, and
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: he's chosen not to so far. I bet you started it.
- 1:00:40Speaker 2: And then he said.
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: It's coming and I'm going to be fascinated to see
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: how some handle that. When at some point Trump's just
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: gonna say, well, it's all his fault. He's not there
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: yet because right now then it admits he takes orders
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: from somebody else, right like his that's the but I
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: think we both know he can't stand taking blame on anything.
- 1:01:03Speaker 3: Well, the whole psychological problem for Trump, and this is
- 1:01:06Speaker 3: why my whole theory of what's happening with this election's
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: craziness that he's doing is and like a lot of
- 1:01:12Speaker 3: people disagree with him, but it is my theory that
- 1:01:16Speaker 3: he can't lose, Like the basic social contract with his
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: magabase is that he is always a winner. So when
- 1:01:22Speaker 3: he gets this massive hopefully massive repudiation I remember, might
- 1:01:27Speaker 3: not happen depending on what the Democratic Party does, but
- 1:01:30Speaker 3: if the Democratic Party is rational, should be able to
- 1:01:33Speaker 3: get like muster a big repudiation Trump and I think
- 1:01:36Speaker 3: he's setting the groundwork to blame the Congress for not
- 1:01:39Speaker 3: passing the Save Act, even though passing the Save Act
- 1:01:44Speaker 3: would not really solve any problem in America.
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: And the irony of that is, if it actually was
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: put into law, it probably would favor the left just
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: because they would follow every crawl unbroken glass to vote
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: in a way that I don't know, Yes.
- 1:02:00Speaker 3: And also the people that are hurts the most are
- 1:02:04Speaker 3: like women in rural places who don't take their husband's
- 1:02:07Speaker 3: name and don't have a who did take.
- 1:02:10Speaker 2: Or who did take their husband's name?
- 1:02:12Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I can't find it, don't have a passport.
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this. What's
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: your favorite center race? Nobody talks about, you know, the
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: ones that are not in the top tier that you're like, man,
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: I can't I that's my favorite race, or it doesn't
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: have to be a center race. Maybe it's a GOV race,
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: but like a race, it's too under it's very under
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: the radar for a variety of reasons. And you're like,
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: it's I can't, you can't help but check out.
- 1:02:40Speaker 2: I mean, I.
- 1:02:41Speaker 3: Think that people are so burned on Florida that they
- 1:02:45Speaker 3: that they can't imagine.
- 1:02:47Speaker 2: And I think Florida is like I'm out.
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: On Florida racist but good luck, yeah, I know.
- 1:02:51Speaker 2: I mean, I think.
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: It's like David Jelly's is a as a person who
- 1:02:56Speaker 3: very much cross pressures Republicans.
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: And it ways interesting. I think I think it's very
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: I think he's got one very hard problem. He voted
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: to defund playing Paranhode in twenty eighteen. Ear it didn't happen.
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: That's the problem.
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: I get what I mean, like he's made that a
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: what idiot A lot of issues that You're right, it
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: puts cross pressures, but I think it puts pressures on
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: a lot of folks.
- 1:03:19Speaker 3: Yeah, but Alex Benman, I mean that's a big question.
- 1:03:22Speaker 3: She's not really well known. I like that those I
- 1:03:24Speaker 3: find that an interesting place. Uh you know this, I
- 1:03:28Speaker 3: mean this is not a like, this is not a
- 1:03:30Speaker 3: this is not a you know, unknown example. But I think,
- 1:03:34Speaker 3: you know, I've met Josh Sure recently. I think he's
- 1:03:36Speaker 3: really impressive.
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: My pet race is Amy Acton.
- 1:03:40Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the uh the uh.
- 1:03:47Speaker 2: Carrying the Yeah.
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: I think if she wins that that's going to be
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: considered the surprise of the night.
- 1:03:52Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: Her being close won't be a surprise anymore. Her winning,
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: which would be a surprise, And because Ramaswami is a
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: known quantity and people are like, wow, that.
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: Guy will yeah, yeah, no, that's a big one. I agree.
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: I would go with yours of her mind.
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see I was I was the wave state.
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: If it's a wave Iowa happens. If it's not a wave,
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: probably doesn't happen, right, Like it's yea for me, it's
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: the it's the it's the fifty yard line, right and
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: you cross or the baw line, however you want to
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: call it.
- 1:04:20Speaker 3: You know, you've had twelve years or some like until
- 1:04:23Speaker 3: years of Republican rule in.
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: That stage, and there is in my head I was
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: still wants to do this, still wants to win, chilled viper.
- 1:04:30Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:04:31Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not working out so great for them. Like,
- 1:04:34Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to be a farmer in Iowa today.
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: Well there's that Trump both loves Iowa and punishes his
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: voters there more than any other state.
- 1:04:41Speaker 2: Everywhere.
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: It's you know, Kansas and Iowa his own hit. The
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: people paying the price for his policies are all his voters.
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: It's fascinating.
- 1:04:49Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: Yeah, So he saying to you, all right
- 1:04:53Speaker 2: My friend, great to be with you.