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Major Win for Democrats, Minor Debate for Republicans · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: Hey, Dan.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Good to have you down here in L.A.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen you guys in 72 hours.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Dan is sick of our faces.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: No, we're not sick of his. That's for sure. On
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: today's show, we got a big election day for Democrats
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to talk about and a somewhat meaningless debate for Republicans
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: who are vying for second place in the GOP primary.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: The 2023 elections were excellent for Democrats and those of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: us who want to keep abortion legal. In Ohio, two
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: ballot measures, one to enshrine abortion rights in the state
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: constitution and and the other to legalize marijuana, both passed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: by a margin of 57 to 43%. In Virginia, Democrats
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: held the state Senate and flipped the statehouse, which means
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin will not be able to pass the 15-week
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: abortion ban that he and Republican candidates campaigned on. And
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in deep red Kentucky, pro-choice Democratic Governor Andy Beshear defeated
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: anti-abortion extremist Daniel Cameron by 53 to 48%. Democrats came
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: up short in the Mississippi governor's race, but only by
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: about five points. We also picked up a state Supreme
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Court seat in Pennsylvania and a few more seats in
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the Democratic-controlled New Jersey legislature. As you can imagine, most
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of these results gave the pundits on Fox and Newsmax
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a case of the sads. You know, ever since Roe v.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Wade was overturned, Pretty much every time the Democrats have
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: run on abortion, they have won. And was last night
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a harbinger for 2024, as you were alluding to, Aisley?
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Most people that are Republicans are probably pro-life.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: But what's most important?
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: Republicans taking over and Republicans being able.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: To keep our country.
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: What an epic failure by Governor Youngkin.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: This is a huge loss.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It does seem like the Republican Party generally has a
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: real problem with with winning.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: And you put very sexy things like abortion and marijuana
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: on the ballot and a lot of young people come
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: out and vote. Thank goodness that most of the states
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: in this country don't allow you to put everything on
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: run a country.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That was Rick Santorum, the winner of the 2012 Republican
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Iowa caucuses.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Have you guys noticed that Steve Doocy has been the
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: voice of reason on Fox and Friends a lot recently?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Clip that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Put that out.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Dan, I'm just telling it to you straight. People at home.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I love the hot take on Newsmax. Republicans seem to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: have a problem with winning.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Sure do. Rick Santorum.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Rick Santorum, democracies are the problem. It's like we're getting
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that message from the Republicans.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: And they have a plan to solve that.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: We hear you loud and clear. So it seems like
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the big headline out of Tuesday is that wherever abortion
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: access is on the ballot, choice wins. Dan, is that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: your takeaway? Did you have other big takeaways from the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: night before we get into each state?
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: That is the takeaway. It is clear that abortion, which
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: was for decades the single most polarizing partisan issue in
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: American politics, has now actually transcended partisanship. You have the
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Democratic governor of Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump won
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: by 26 points campaigning for. on stopping abortion bans, who
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: ran an incredibly powerful ad opposing abortion bans without exception.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: You see it across the board in all of these states.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: In Ohio, the initiative to amend the Constitution to protect
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: abortion rights did better in almost every single county than
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden did in 2020. It is a tremendously powerful
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: and galvanizing issue, remains so today, 18 months after the
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which is sort of
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: stunning in our attention span of an amoeba media culture
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: we live in. And I think we will look back.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: There are certain things in history that fundamentally shift the
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: way politics are conducted, that change electoral coalitions in real ways.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: And I think the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Wade is one of those things that has changed politics.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: It doesn't mean the Democrats will win every single time,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: but it means that politics is different today than it
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: was before that day, because an unelected Supreme Court took
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: away a constitutional right for more than half of this country.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: And that is not something that has happened in American history.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And there were, I saw a few takes before these
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: elections that were like, will abortion still have the same
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: power it had in the 2022 midterms and some of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: these specials? And by all accounts, it sure did.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Well, in Mississippi, Presley, the Democrat, was not pro-choice and
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: he lost.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: And that is something that you can look at when
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: you One of the things going into this election that
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: we were worried about was we had this election in
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Louisiana where Democrats did terribly across the board, had low turnout,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: didn't get to 30% in most of the statewide races.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And the question was, even though we'd all agreed to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: never speak of that, was that a warning sign that
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: the sort of Democratic enthusiasm, the anti-MAGA majority had finally
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: succumbed to the political gravity that we see from traditional
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: political gravity from presidential approval ratings, people's opinions of the economy?
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: And that was a state where abortion was not the
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: issue that is elsewhere because the incumbent outgoing Democratic governor
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: was anti-choice.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about a few of the big races. In 2019,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Andy Beshear barely won his first term as Kentucky governor
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: by less than half a percentage point. Of course, it
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: was an incumbent Republican governor at the time, Matt Bevin.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: In 2020, Trump won the state by 26 points. And
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: now in 2023, Beshear wins a second term by five points. Tommy,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: we were all in Louisville a few weeks ago knocking
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: on doors.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Louisville.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Louisville.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Louisville. We're knocking on doors with Planned Parenthood.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Why do you think Bashir won?
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: A few reasons.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Because we knocked on doors.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: That was the answer I was hoping for.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Because Lovett chased down that woman with the golden doodle. One. Two,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to beat an incumbent governor. The Cook
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Political Report said that only two incumbent governors have lost
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: re-election since 2018. One of them was Bevin in Kentucky.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: In Bashir's case, he's also extremely popular. I think his
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: approval rating was consistently in the 60s, which is insane
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: to any of us who worked in national politics.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Most popular governor in America.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also the son of a previous two-term popular governor.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: That helps. He is seen as competent, empathetic, approachable by voters.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: They all just call him Andy. He did a great
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: job responding to COVID and all these natural disasters that
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: were hitting the state. I saw Nate Cohn, I believe,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: at the New York Times yesterday. suggest that Bashir actually
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: did better in counties that had been hit hard by flooding,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: which speaks to maybe the response.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: We heard that from people in Louisville. I don't know
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: if you guys were with, I don't know who it was.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I can't remember.
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: Louisville.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was, but some people who
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: live there were saying that we've been through a lot
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: in the last couple of years, disaster-wise, and he's just
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: been there. And he's been there for the whole state
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and everyone sort of rallied together.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: For sure. As you guys mentioned, he ran hard on
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: abortion rights. I do think his opponent, Daniel Cameron, made
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: it easier to run that kind of campaign because Cameron
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: had an extreme position on abortion that made him susceptible
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: to that messaging. But also, Bashir was smart. He ran
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: a Kentucky-focused campaign. He did not allow it to get nationalized.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: In his victory speech, he talked about how he campaigned
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: with Jack Harlow, who's from Kentucky, not Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: who's from Arkansas. Bashir also hammered Cameron on school vouchers
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: and then organized labor. Loves Bashir. The president of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: UAW local 862 organization said about Beshear, quote, I take
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: a bullet for him. He's that important to the families
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: of my union.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: He also, yeah, I mean, that's a hell of a quote.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: He also raised a lot more money than his opponent.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So just all around a hell of a candidate, hell
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: of a governor, hell of a campaign.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So Beshear 2028? That's what people are saying. Many people
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: are saying it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Many people are tweeting.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: That's great. It's great. It's good news for Kentucky, good
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: news for Andy Beshear. Virginia Democrats were predicted to hold
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the state Senate. The state house was seen as a toss-up.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin went all in to get his trifecta. His
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: PAC spent nearly $ 8 million on these races, including half
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a million of his own cash, which he's rich enough
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that that doesn't seem actually so much.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Four of that was on vests, unfortunately.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Campaigned all across the state, campaigned specifically on a 15-week
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: abortion ban by presenting it as some kind of a compromise.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: That was the big, that was the Republican geniuses think
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: that the 15-week abortion ban, this is what Lindsey Graham
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: tried to do in the Senate too. They think this
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: is the, This is the solution for them, their political solution.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Did not work in Virginia. Dan, what's your takeaway? And
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: does this mean the Youngkin is 2024 GOP savior boomlet
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is finally over?
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I know I tried to start that boom.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I know you did. I was wondering if you'd remember
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: your take.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I remember all my takes and I just hope others don't.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I think it's probably the end of the, at least
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: the 2024 Youngkin boomlet. What is interesting here is the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Republicans in that state ran ahead of Trump in 2020,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: but behind Yunkin in 2021.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: That's a little one piece of news that isn't quite
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: as good as all the rest. When I dug into that,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, they all ran ahead of Trump.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Well, it's like Virginia is a purple state that's pretty
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: close to blue. And just across the board, demographically, it
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: models very well with the post-Trump Democratic coalition. It is
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: a high turnout state because of for that very reason.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: And so it's one where Democrats should do well. But
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: The fact that Democrats did well with a president of
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: their own party in the White House is a huge aberration.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: It's very rare. Virginia always has these off-cycle elections. And
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: usually the party of the president fares poorly in that time.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: And so this is a huge exception. And that says,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: I think, a lot about the power of abortions we're
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: talking about and also the failure of this Republican strategy.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Because I think these elections are testing grounds. for the
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: national parties, particularly in Virginia, about what messages work and
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: what don't. This was the test. If that had worked here,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: every Republican would be adopting it by the end of tomorrow.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: By the time you hear this podcast, that did not happen.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: And that says a lot about how far the Republicans
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: have to go to solve their abortion problem, which may be, frankly,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: insoluble given Donald Trump's role in this, the their long
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: history on it. And that's a positive sign for Democrats.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I just saw before we started recording J.D. Vance say,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we got to try for this 15-week abortion ban because
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of what happened. And like, that's the key. And it's like,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: have you looked at the real, did you just see
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: what happened to Glenn Youngkin and Republicans in Virginia?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I think you probably can't overstate how big of a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: tactical error it was for Youngkin to come out for
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the 15-week abortion ban. If he had not proactively proposed that,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: there wouldn't have been much for Democrats to run against.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: If they'd run some boring, bland, sort of economic-focused, inflation-focused campaign,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: they very likely would have done better and potentially have won.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: But giving Democrats this 15-week ban to rally against was
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: an enormous shot in the arm.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: And Youngkin has national ambitions, and it'd be very hard
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: for a Republican governor in a post-Dobbs world to not
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: advance some sort of ban. So he was trying to
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: split the difference between being seen as a rhino, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: a six-week ban. And that obviously did not work, as
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: voters understand what is at stake here, and they see
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: through the bullshit.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And you can tell that's why Donald Trump and all
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: these other Republican candidates have been so squirrely on a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: national ban and said things like, oh, well, I mean,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: whatever comes to me, you know, maybe I'll sign, but
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it's never going to get that far, or worse, Trump said,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to make the best deal. I'm going
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to make the best deal on abortion. Because, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Youngkin did this, and it didn't work out too well
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Trump is dumb in a lot of ways. A lot
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: of things he says are very stupid. But politically on
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: this issue, he's been very savvy in terms of just
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: not letting this primary drag him further to the right
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: on an issue that he knows is toxic for him. And,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just worth pointing out that the Democrats
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: in the state ran on keeping abortion legal through 26
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: weeks and then the third trimester allowing abortion access if
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: you've got three referrals from three different doctors and So
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: incredibly onerous requirement for the third trimester, but they did
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: try to put some constraints on abortion access, which is
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: worth mentioning.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: I just think it's important that every single Democrat who's
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: running for office, who is talking to voters, assert that Republicans,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: if they get a trifecta, are going to pass a
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: national abortion bill.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: There is no way that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: and Speaker Mike Johnson, of all people, are not sending
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: a national abortion ban to Donald Trump's desk. And there's
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: no way he's not signing that.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: No doubt.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't care how many Pinocchio someone gives you
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: or that, that is reality.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: No, let's dig into it. Like to think that that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't happen, you would have to believe that either that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell would save the filibuster if he has the Senate, right?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: If he has a Republican Senate would save the filibuster
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and then say no abortion ban because I'm keeping the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: filibuster or Mitch McConnell, who is like, A lot of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Republicans in his caucus now aren't really where Mitch McConnell is.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: He's like the rhino Republican. And we think that if
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Republicans take the Senate in 2024, and there'll be even
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: more crazy Trumpy Republicans there, will Mitch McConnell even be
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: majority leader at that point?
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I think there's a good chance Mitch McConnell is going
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to run for majority leader again.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And then the next person is going to be a
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: MAGA person. And of course, they're going to get rid
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of the filibuster. Mitch McConnell was pretending that he was
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: going to hold on to the filibuster until Maybe because
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: he thinks of himself as some institutionalist, but I don't
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: see this as a possibility. I don't care if you...
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You're right. Even if you go fact check this, it
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: takes a lot to believe that they would preserve the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: filibuster and not pass a national abortion bill.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: The most likely person to be Senate Majority Leader, if
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: it is not Mitch McConnell, is John Thune. I worked
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: on two campaigns against John Thune in South Dakota a
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: long time ago, and he's about as far right on abortion.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: As it gets.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: All right, so Ohio. In the 2022 midterms, Tim Ryan
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: lost the Ohio Senate race to J.D. Vance by about
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: six points. One year later, one year later, the voters
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: have guaranteed abortion rights and legalized marijuana, 57-43. Tommy, what
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: do you think's going on in Ohio? And does this
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: give you more hope that Sherrod Brown could pull out
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: another win in 2024?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: So this result was driven by very strong Democratic turnout.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I think I read that self-reported Biden voters in the
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: exit polls said, outnumbered Trump voters by two points. But again,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: this is a state Trump won by eight points. However,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: it was low turnout generally. 3.86 million ballots were cast
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: on issue one compared to 4.14 million votes in that
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Senate race, the Tim Ryan Senate race last year. So
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: low turnout, but lots of Democrats. The margin of victory
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: was driven by really strong support from women, 63% of
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: whom voted yes. Black voters, 83% voted yes. Latino voters,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: 73% voted yes. And then young voters, nearly 80% of
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: voters 18 to 29 voted yes, as opposed to only
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: 45% of voters 64 or older. It was also driven
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: by college graduates, unmarried people. So, you know, in addition
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: to this just being a really strong Democratic turnout, there's
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a broader coalition of support for abortion rights than there
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: was for Tim Ryan or for Democrats on the ballot usually, right?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, issue one did better than Ryan did with
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: unmarried men, Trump voters, independents, and moderates. I think if
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: anyone can recreate that group of excited Democrats turning out
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: and able to persuade traditional conservatives, it is someone like
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Sherrod Brown. I do think, though, the electorate is going
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to be completely different in 2024. I think I read
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: that the electorate is likely to be 60% to 90% higher,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: larger in 2024 than it was this cycle. So it's
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: going to be really tough in an election year to
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: win Ohio, but Sherrod's the kind of candidate that can
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like another 2 million voters in Ohio over
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the midterms.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was almost 6 million voters in 2020.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, and also, by the way, the much maligned
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: New York Times poll, which we'll get to. Oh, please.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: In that poll, it has 40% of Trump voters saying
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: that abortion should be always or mostly legal. And I
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: think that also helps explain there was 18 counties in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Ohio that voted for Trump and that also voted for
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: this abortion amendment. Now, some of that is turnout differential, right?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Because so you look at a county like that, like
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a Trump county, and it's only Democrats in that county
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: turned out for the abortion accident. That's possible. But The
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: New York Times poll also suggests that there are some
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Trump voters, which Trump obviously knows, who like Trump and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: will vote for Trump, but also want to protect abortion access,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: which again, voters are fucking weird. I've said it a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: million times.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: 24% of white evangelicals voted yes on issue one.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: According to exit polls.
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, it makes you wonder if part of the
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: messaging is libertarian as well. It's just sort of like
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: keeping these decisions away from the government.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Of course, the Ohio legislature already is saying that they're
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: going to try to overturn the will of the voters
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: on both weed and abortion.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Shocker.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Please don't do that on the November 2024 ballot.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Don't.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And by the way, the marijuana referendum was a total afterthought.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: When we were in Cleveland, we were talking to some folks,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: some electeds, some folks of the state party. They were
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: not focused on this at all. It just kind of
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: got tossed on the ballot by, I think, a different
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: group of activists and organizers. And it just got pulled
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: over the line, I think.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I was reading that because it's not obviously an amendment
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: like the abortion amendment is, it could be easier for
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the Republican legislature to screw with the marijuana measure by
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: just like reappropriating funds and passing some law than it
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: will be with the abortion amendment. It's much harder to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: screw with the constitutional amendment, though they claim they're going
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to try.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So, of course, yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Speaking of 2024, there has been a lively debate on
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the internet about and cable news about what these results
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: might mean for Joe Biden's re-election campaign. Our friends at
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Playbook laid out the two theories of the case, as
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: only they can do. Theory one is called time to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: chill out. Polls are one thing, actual votes are another.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: These are not election returns consistent with Biden's 40% approval ratings.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Beshear won despite tons of GOP money that was spent
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: trying to tie him to Biden, so there's plenty of
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: room for the incumbent to recover. That's the theory that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign likes. We've been seeing that online a lot, too.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Theory two is called time to freak out. The polls
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: are absolutely right. The problem isn't the Democratic brand. It's
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. The anti-MAGA coalition that showed up in 2018,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: 2020 and 2022 is still intact, but it's not going
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to show up for just anybody. Trump will bring his
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: voters out next year and Americans are giving every possible
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: signal that they won't be happy if the alternative is Biden. Dan,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: what do you think? You get to pick one.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: There is no nuance.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: No, Dan. Pick one.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: This is playbook. We're playing playbook rules, Dan.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: There is black and white, left and right.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I love that the choices are everything is fine, do
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: not worry, or everything is doomed, give up. There is
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: nothing in the middle. There is so much to say
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: about this. I just want to start by trying to
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: explain how it is possible that Joe Biden could be
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: behind Trump tied with or behind Donald Trump in several
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: swing states. And at the exact same moment, Democrats can
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: win huge victories in states like Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: And here is why. I think it's a very simple explanation,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: which is that voters that Joe Biden is having the
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: most trouble with right now are less engaged voters. They're
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: the voters who did not show up. So in the
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: New York Times Siena polling, this analysis that Nate Cohn
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: did prior to this most recent poll, in all of
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: their polling to date prior to this one, Joe Biden
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: is up by four points among people who voted in
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the 2018 election. He is down by several points with
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: people who did not vote in the 2018 election. The
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: turnout in 2024 is likely to be 30 to 40
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: percent higher than it was in 2022. So a whole
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: bunch of people who are telling pollsters that they are
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: currently not happy with Joe Biden did not turn out
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday. Did not turn out in 2022, but are
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: going to return.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Didn't turn out in 2018?
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: They're going to return to election. We are now the party.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Democrats are now the party of the most highly engaged voters.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: And because of the changes in the media environment, particularly
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: since 2020, the chasm between the highly engaged voters and
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: everyone else has never been greater.
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And so that is why it is possible.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: This is the entire theme. Of the last season of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: The Wilderness, in case you want to go check it out.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And I could like.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Get a plug in.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: What else we got?
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Message box?
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: There's also several... I have a fury-fueled message box on
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: this coming out tomorrow. But so the point here is
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: special elections, particularly off-site elections like this, are not great
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: predictors of what is going to happen. We'll take the
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: example of in 2012, Democrats tried to recall Wisconsin Governor
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Scott Walker. Was Walker easily won that election, easily defeated
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: the recall only a few months before president Obama was
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: going to take on Mitt Romney in that state. Obama
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: then won Wisconsin by seven points because the turnout was
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: massively higher.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin, AKA Paul Ryan's home state.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It was on the ticket.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. Exactly.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel like I needed to say that, but
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: thank you. But it doesn't mean that there isn't relevant
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: information in what happened. Everything that happened yesterday, first, is
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: good for America. It's good for the people of those states.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: There are people whose lives are saved because these abortion
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: bans will not.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Go into place.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Which is why we started with all that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: That's the most important thing.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Right. And if Glenn Youngkin had gotten his trifecta, a
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: whole bunch of really terrible gun laws would have been
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: passed in Virginia. And that did not happen. So that's
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: point one. Point two is that it's also what is
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: evidence of some good news for Democrats of what to
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: look at. It's not a predictor, but it is an indicator.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And some of the good news in there is, one,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: as we've talked about, abortion is still the number one issue.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: That is very important. That is a wind at Joe
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Biden's back.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Well, not the number.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: For the electorate that showed up and for a good
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: chunk of the Democratic Party, it is an extremely salient issue.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: But if you look at the Democratic voters that Joe
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Biden is currently struggling with, abortion is a huge issue
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: for them.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: For them.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: So that means there's work to do there, right? That's
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: how we should view these polls as a roadmap of
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: who the voters we have to talk to and how
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: we have to convince them. And to abortion is going
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: to be a hugely important issue to reconstitute the 2020
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: coalition that elected Joe Biden. Two, I think this is
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: really important is, That turnout is not an accident, right?
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: These election victories are not just the result of some
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: sort of rule about who can vote and who can't.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: It's the Democratic campaign machinery is working. Yeah. And it
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: is kicking Republican asses left and right. And that is important.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: The other thing is, and this is not getting enough attention,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: and you could write, Donald Trump is winning in that
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: New York Times poll in those swing states, but there's
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff underneath. You guys talked about some
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: of this in the Tuesday podcast. That should be very
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: alarming for Donald Trump and Republicans. They are terribly divided
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: on abortion. They're terribly divided on Donald Trump, who is
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: actually less popular than Joe Biden.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even in that poll.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Even in that poll.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Within his own party's voters.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: And the other thing is really important, and this played
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: out in a lot of these races around the country,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: is Donald Trump is forcing, at political gunpoint, a series
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: of Republican candidates to adopt his lies on the 2020 election,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: which kills them with a huge swath of voters. And
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: that is going to happen up and down the ballot
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: in 2024 if Donald Trump's the nominee.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Which in Tuesday night's results, Republican Secretary of State candidate
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky was the only one on the ticket, only
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: statewide candidate to like reject election denial. And he's the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: secretary of state and like ran on that. And he
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: did better than every other Republican on the ticket.
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: So once again, election denial.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, interestingly, look, if you if you locked a
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: bunch of nerds in a room and you gave half
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: of them, I mean, like what we just did right here,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: what we're currently doing. If you locked a bunch of
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: nerds in the room and you gave them only the
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: polling potentially about these races, these results are not surprising.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: If you lock those same nerds in a room and
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: gave them Joe Biden's approval rating in all these other
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: states and told them there was an off year midterm election,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: these results would be very surprising. Right. So this is
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the kind of disconnect we're trying to work through. I
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: think the challenge for Biden in that New York Times
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: poll is that a lot of the problems were specific
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: to him, in particular age and concerns about his handling
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: of the economy. And then if you look at the crosstabs,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: he has particular challenges with young voters and voters of color.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's the case that if the 2024 campaign is
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: all about abortion rights, that that issue can bring back
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: those young voters and those voters of color and get
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: them to turn out and not stay home. And that's
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: how you make up difference in that times poll and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: you win reelection. But I don't think that's a guarantee.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I think obviously the Biden campaign has a lot of
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: agency here. This is going to be something they focus on.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: But the other challenge is, as you said before, Dan,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the electorate is going to be incredibly different in 2024.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: You're going to have a lot of kind of disaffected,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: less engaged voters. They tend to vote against incumbents, especially
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: when they're super pissed off. And one thing we know
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: from every poll is that the wrong track number is
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: at like 70%. It's historically high. And that's a really
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: challenging setup for an incumbent president going into a reelection.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I brought up the wilderness, not just for the plug,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: but because I- But also for the plug. Also for
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the plug.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Mostly for the plug.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: But also when I saw the New York Times poll,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and I've seen other polls since then, like it brought
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: me back to the focus groups that I did for
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the wilderness. And at the outset, I thought that the,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I did a focus group in Virginia of Biden voters
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: who then switched to Youngkin. And I was like, oh,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: those are going to be the tough voters because they
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: voted Republican. Those were the people who were most like, oh,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I did it for whatever reason. I'll come back to Biden.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I still like the Democrats. I'm pro-choice. They were the best,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania voters who were like slightly disaffected. They were
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: all like ready for Fetterman, all that kind of stuff.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: The voters that were most disappointed in Biden that were
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: crankiest were the young voters in California, the black voters
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and the Hispanic voters in Las Vegas, the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: very groups that that Joe Biden's having a problem with.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: And then I talked to like a ton of strategists
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and pollsters in the party who all agreed that this
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: is the issue. So this is not like Nate Cohn
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times and some media pollsters doing this.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: These are like Democratic Party strategists. All know this. John
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Della Volpe, Joe Biden's, one of his pollsters in 2020
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: just had an op-ed in the New York Times that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: says Joe Biden's in trouble about young voters. So Linda
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Lake has been talking about needing to reconstitute, who's another
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: pollster that we've had on this podcast. and who also
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: has worked for Joe Biden, she's talked about it too.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: So this is not like, and I'm not saying this
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to like freak people out, right? Like Joe Biden, we
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: want him to win. We will do everything we can
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to get him to win. Like, I still think he
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: can win. I think there's a clear path for victory here.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: But like, I don't think it does anyone any good
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to just sit there and be like, oh, the media
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: said red wave and they're wrong again. And every time
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that every time there's an election, they just prove the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: media wrong and all the pundits and blah, blah, blah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, No, actually, the polls have been right every
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: single special election and midterm now for the last several
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: cycles where they've been off of the presidential races, which,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: by the way. are the races that have this completely different,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: bigger electorate, which is harder to measure in polls.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: In which way have they been off, John, in the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: presidential races?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been more favorable to Democrats.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, copium is not a good drug to get hooked on.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: No one should. None of us want to repeat this
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: mistake to 2016. So no one's trying to bum anybody
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: out or suppress her. I mean, I do like I
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: understand why Biden supporters are kind of taking a victory
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: lap and dunking on people who are critical of him because,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: you know, you get those jobs, you care deeply about
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: your candidate and you want to push back. But, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I think we all should be clear eyed. No one
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: wants to repeat mistakes we all made in 2016 of
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: thinking there's no way we could lose. One last thing.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Just how nice was it to not have anyone contesting
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: the results of the election? Even the craziest right wingers,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: like nobody was like that I saw was saying that
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: they're the Cameron was like, let's all pray for Bashir.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: They're all saving it up for 2024.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Also, when you lose.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: By five points, it's hard to contest it.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Don't tell Donald Trump that.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I'll say one more thing about this pool of voters
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: who are going to show up in the general election
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that have not, in the presidential election that have not
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: shown up in these specials and midterms. Like if you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: look at the New York Times polling, and Nate Cohn
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: says this in his piece today, the folks who showed
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: up for these 2023 off-year elections are like the Democrats
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: that showed up are pretty favorable towards Biden. You brought
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: up the Ohio exit poll that's plus two Biden. So
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: it's not like it's, there are specific problems that Biden
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: might have, but What I get nervous about is not
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: just problems that Biden may have, but like this pool
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of voters, this disaffected pool of voters. They're more moderate.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: They are younger. They're voters of color. They're they sort
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: of more cynical about politics and institutions. They're harder to reach.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: They don't consume as much news. They're harder to reach
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: with ads I just worry about them long-term for the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: party because I think it is easier for Republicans to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: make a case like, aren't you pissed about shit and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: don't you want to tear institutions down? It's a longer-term
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: issue that I actually worry about that goes beyond Joe Biden.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: We talked about this after 2020. There were obviously very
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: troubling signs among Republicans Black voters and Latino voters, younger
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: voters without college educations across the board. And there was
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: a big sigh of relief after 2022, but we didn't
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: really test the proposition because the voters we're most concerned
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: about did not vote in that election. They are not
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: midterm voters. And so we don't know, like this poll
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: is consistent with, the New York Times poll is consistent
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: with that trend continuing, right? And we'll see.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And look, it's possible that a good chunk of these
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: disaffected voters don't show up in the presidential elections.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: That's also bad.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Which is bad for democracy, but also the electorate then
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: could possibly look more like a midterm election.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Low turnout?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not rooting for low turnout, but I'm just saying
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: there's different scenarios where it's going to be okay for Democrats, right?
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: But it all depends on the shape of the electorate
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is our point here. It depends on which vote. It's
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: apples to oranges comparisons to just say the media said
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: this in 22 and red wave here. It's like a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: presidential electorate is so, so, so different from midterm electorate.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: We just used to live in a world, and this
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: was true under President Obama and previous Democrats, was midterms
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: were bad for Democrats. Presidential years were better. And that
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: has shifted under Trump. That has fundamentally shifted.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: And the reason it has is because college-educated older voters,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: whiter voters, used to be heavily Republican. And that has
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: changed in the Trump era.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: And the last thing I'll say about this is this
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: is very... challenging in execution. But there has never been
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: a race where it was more clear on how you win.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: You know exactly who the voters are. You know how
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: you get them back is hard. But we do not
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: have to go get a bunch of people who voted
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: for Republicans in the midterms. You don't have to get
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people who voted for Trump in 2016
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: or voted for Trump in 2020. You just have to
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: get the people who voted for Joe Biden in six
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: states to do it again. And that is not an
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: easy thing to do, but it is a clear, clear path.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: And that means we actually have agency here.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Right. And that is a very, very powerful thing, which
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: is why you can have some more confidence about Joe
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Biden's ability to win than the polls would necessarily suggest,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: because there are voters we have to get back. They
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: are not people who we previously never had before.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And to get granular about it, everyone has people in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: their lives who were not political junkies like you all
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: are listening to the show and these disaffected voters, they
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: don't just like live in one place. Like they're, they're
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: all around us. And I do think that is going to,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: what's going to make the difference there is going out,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: talking to people, persuading people, not being pissed off when
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: someone just doesn't say like, Oh, I'm, I might not
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: vote and yelling at them for it. Like it's really
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: going to take some, some persuasive work.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: And every live show Q and a thing we've ever done.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: People are saying, how do I talk to my mag
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: uncle Thanksgiving? Fuck your mag uncle. Find your Biden skeptical cousin, right?
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: That's who you want, right? Is your Biden skeptical cousin.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: What if you're married?
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: What if you're Mike Johnson? Where's your accountability partner?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, another bonus. There's a lots of, a huge pool
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: now of super well-informed Trump jurors that will be voting
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: for the first time.
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: Oh, wow.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: That's exciting.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: He's doing persuasion for us.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Before we get to break, just a one quick housekeeping
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: note in case you missed it. Love it. Tommy and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I wrote a book, and it's coming out June 25th, 2024.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Guess what?
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: I've read the book, people.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Dan read the book.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: It's quite good.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Dan.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Tommy's supposed to have a whole script here, but he
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't have it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to read that.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It's called Democracy or Else, How to Save America in
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: 10 Easy Steps, and we just revealed the official cover
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: this week. Was that a big moment for you?
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: On every single book PR plan, the cover reveal is
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: a huge moment.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Step one is buying it because Crooked's donating the profits
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: to support Vote Save America, its partners, and other organizations
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: mobilizing for progressive outcomes in the 2024 election and beyond. Dan,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you got any tips for us in promoting a book?
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: I thought putting yourselves on Mount Rushmore as the cover
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: art was kind of a weird choice, but.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Did we do that? Oh, no.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Don't be worried for a second.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: That was a big mistake.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: You gave cover approval to love it and there we went.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: God damn it. We did do that probably.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: You're doing it right, people.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Well, check out the cover now and pre-order at Cricut.com
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: slash books or wherever books are sold. Exclusive signed editions.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: What?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Let's get through this.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Are available from bookshop.org. It's hard to believe, but we're
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: only one year out from the 2024 elections. Time flies
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: when you're having fun and nightmares.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: We got some big plans to cover 2024, the presidential race,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: the fight to take back the House and keep the Senate,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: state and local elections, and what all of us can
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: do to stay in the fight without losing our minds.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of you have asked how to support Crooked
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and our mission, and one great way is to sign
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: up for Friends of the Pod. Friends of the Pod
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: is our subscriber community. You get a ton of awesome
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: content that's just for subscribers. You get to be part
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of our Discord, which is basically like a secret Twitter
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that's just for us. And by signing up, you'll be
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: supporting Vote Save America.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Vote Save America has already raised $ 55 million for progressive
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: candidates and causes and signed up over 500,000 voters, volunteers,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: and donors. And we're just getting started.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: So please head to cricket.com slash friends to sign up
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: for Friends of the Pod today. It means a lot
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: of us to get to be part of this community
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: with you. Next year may be a slog, but at
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: least we have each other. And drugs is what it
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: says here. This message has been paid for by Vote
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Okay,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: we're back. The third Republican debate was Wednesday night. It
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: was hosted by NBC in Miami, Florida, moderated by Lester Holt,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Kristen Welker, and Tommy's favorite pundit, Hugh Hewitt.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I could do an hour on that guy.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Why he should not be there.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: The debate featured Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and Chris Christie. And it was two hours of what?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: What was that? What was that we just watched? I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: think we all went into this thinking this debate wouldn't
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: really matter much. Anything happen to change your mind on that, guys?
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: No.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: No.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: A lot of obscure foreign policy fights, which I enjoyed. Yeah,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Tommy was into it. I was talking about boats and
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: sanctions and getting jollies off, but no.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: You know, my view of this debate was, if we
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: can just escape a second Donald Trump presidency, we're going
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to beat a lot of Republicans all the time.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Those people were not good. They were not good. I'm
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: not afraid of any of those people.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: The whole thing was surreal. They all dressed up. They
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: wore ties. The moderator showed up with serious questions on
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: serious issues. And everyone involved knew that none of those
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: people were ever going to be president of the United States.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Ever.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Like, they took time to ask them repeatedly with follow-up
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: questions about the specific ships that they would commission in
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: the U.S. Navy if they were president.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: Whoa, spoilers.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Skipping ahead.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: There's not a person listening to this who did not
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: watch this debate.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: So.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Thank God for Lester Holt and Kristen Wilker. I think
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: they have been the best moderators so far.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: I think they're both great. And for anyone who's mad
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: at the questions, I seriously doubt that they wrote a
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: lot of these questions. I'm sure this was made by
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: network brass and producers, et cetera.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: But just in terms of controlling the audience, controlling the candidates,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: there was some clapping in this, but then Lester Holt
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: kept trying to calm them down, and then they would
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: really jump in when the candidates started talking over each other.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I think they did a great job. Thank God for
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Lester Holt. He finally kicked off A Republican debate by
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: asking directly about Donald Trump and what each candidate would
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: say to Trump supporters whose votes that they presumably want.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And here's what we heard from from Ronnie D.
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: And Donald Trump's a lot different guy than he was
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: in 2016. He owes it to you to be on
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: this stage and explain why he should get another chance.
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: He should explain why he didn't have Mexico pay for
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: the border wall. He should explain why he racked up
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: so much debt. He should explain why he didn't drain
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: the swamp. And he said Republicans were going to get
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: tired of winning. Well, we saw last night, I'm sick
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: of Republicans losing. In Florida, I showed how it's done.
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: One year ago here, we want a historic victory, including
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: a massive landslide right here in Miami-Dade County.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: So honestly, for those who didn't watch the debate, that
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: might have been Ron DeSantis' best moment. And that was
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: literally minute two.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the top. You've probably been at one.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley complained about debt. Donald Trump, you know, racking
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: up debt.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And he said that Trump was getting weak in the knees,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: I think on Ukraine.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: On Ukraine.
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And she said, we can't live in the past. We
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: got to look at the future. Vivek went on this
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: whole thing, we've become a party of losers, it's the establishment.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: He then called on Ronna McDaniel to resign as RNC chair,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: which is fair.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she's not done a great job. He
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: invited her to come on stage, which would have been
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a cool moment. He also said that Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: and Joe Rogan should be moderating.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he also hit the moderators. He attacked Welker.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: He said the media rigged the last election. It was
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a whole fucking show for Vivek.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: He mentioned Hunter Biden's laptop within the first nine minutes
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: of the debate.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And again, to Kristen Welker's credit, this ranting, raving lunatic
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: is screaming at her from the stage and she just
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: smiled at him.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she didn't take the bait.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And he looked so, small.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And he wanted her to take the bait so badly.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Kristen and Lester did a great job. These are also
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: the first actual reporters to moderate a Republican debate.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I forget who the other moderators were.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: They all work for Fox.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Christy talked about Hamas, Putin, all the world on fire
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: kind of thing.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: And then he said Trump's going to spend the rest
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: of his campaign in jail or in courtrooms.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: He said, why are we going to nominate someone who's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: just trying to stay out of a courtroom for a year?
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Which we said, fair point, sir.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: And then Tim Scott, who someone gave a tranquilizer to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: before the debate, was so slow the whole time. All
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do was like speed him up the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: whole debate. And he's talked slower than he has in
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: previous debates. It was really weird. But anyway. He didn't
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: mention Trump at all. He pledged to attract independent voters,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: restore faith, Christian values, blah, blah, blah.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I really tuned out a lot when Tim Scott was talking.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So here's my question. That was basically the only time
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that any of the candidates drew any contrast with Donald Trump. Again,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: the person who is leading in every single national poll
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and every single state poll, not by a little, but
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: by 20, 30, 40 points still. What was the strategy there?
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Was there a strategy? Because I know these people have
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: high-priced consultants, right? They sit in debate rooms. They do
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: debate prep. What are they thinking as they head into
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: this debate?
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I think what this boils down to is none of
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: them think they're going to be president. They're not trying
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: to be president. They're not doing anything to ensure they'd
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: be president. As best that I can tell, they like
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: visiting Iowa and New Hampshire and spending as little time
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: as possible with their families.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Dan and I also share a theory that Vivek Ramaswamy
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: started running thinking it would be great advertising for his
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: anti-woke investment ETFs and financial products, caught a little bit
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: of fire in that first debate, and then slowly has
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: been plummeting and doesn't realize yet that he's not got
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: a chance.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: He seemed to be trying, but he was mostly, I mean,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I wrote down a bunch of the attacks. He mostly
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: spent his time attacking Nikki Haley.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: He, of everyone on that stage, looked like he's auditioning
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: for something else, for sure. Whether it's being a pundit,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: whether it's a spot in the Trump administration, whatever. I'll
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: try something out on you guys. Dan, your answer could
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: be very correct here, but I'm wondering if they're thinking, okay,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the only chance we have is if, again, Trump dies,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: gets convicted, the poll numbers change, whatever, and... in order
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to be the next choice, the second choice of everyone
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party, I need to maintain my favorability
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: rating by not attacking Donald Trump too much and also
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: not attacking all the other candidates too much. I don't
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: want to be too nasty towards the other candidates. And
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: so that's why we got the sort of muddled mess.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is correct. But I think that's
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: less about beating trump in some case like sure if
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: he were going trump going to jail is not going
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: to really help them since that is likely to happen
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: after all.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: The delegates are allocated but i guess it's like what
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: if he imagine a conviction in march right and he's
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: already got a bunch of the delegates but suddenly i
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: can't get convicted in march well the trial starts march
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: 4th yeah so maybe convicted in april okay convicted in
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: april This is just a fantasy scenario.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Let's do it, Sorkin.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: And suddenly the polls really change, right? We saw in
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the New York Times poll, there's a bunch of Republican voters,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: a bunch of voters who said, I would actually vote
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden if Trump gets convicted. And so we
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: see all these polls change and all the Republicans are
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: freaking out. And then one of these goofballs is thinking,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: this is my time.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Sure. I think, yeah.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, there, yes. I think it is more about
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: managing their role in whatever comes next. In the post,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: either Donald Trump wins, and now you have to exist
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: in Donald Trump's Republican Party.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Or 2028.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Or 2028, and you're going to need Trump's voters. So
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: you're trying to play out the string here, land this
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: plane without lighting the rest of your political career on fire.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But it feels like that ship has sailed for DeSantis.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, kind of.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: He still has very high favorability ratings among Republican voters,
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: higher than Trump in most cases.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he has high approval, and he's got a ton
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: of money, and he's got a bunch of advisors sitting
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: around him saying, anything can happen, sir. Stranger things have happened.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump could get arrested. He could die, whatever. Like,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: you could catch fire in Iowa and New Hampshire. I mean,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: so I did come away thinking that DeSantis really was
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: campaigning for something tonight. I think Nikki Haley is too.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I think Chris Christie's on a mission, which is to
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: attack Donald Trump and to get himself invited into green
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: rooms from Washington to New York.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Even on that, though, I would say that, like, what
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: was Chris Christie doing? Like, if you're on that mission, like,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: he could have gone after Trump a little harder. Like,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I actually think that some of his regular policy answers,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not to agree with him so much on domestic policy,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: at least on some of the foreign policy, like, he
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: sounded like the more reasonable Republican, which I think is fine.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I guess that's just who he is. But I was like,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: what are you doing up here? I thought your whole
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: thing was, like, going after Trump.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: I think he genuinely regrets not running for president in 2012,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: and he's just going to run that campaign as if
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: it's 2012. It's like, this is what he would have done.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: This is like fantasy camp.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: This is what he would have done.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: The only person up there, I mean, like Vivek previewed
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: with a reporter that he was going to act, what
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: was the term?
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Unhinged.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Act unhinged.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, said he was going to be unhinged.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Well done, sir. Mission accomplished.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Nailed that one. Tim Scott was the only one up
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: there who I kind of wondered if he was going
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: to drop out of the campaign at a commercial break.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: He just sort of like seemed a little bit lost there.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Even the goatee was awful. He seems like, I don't know.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: It was really bad. It was a really bad performance
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: from Tim Scott.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: He seems like a guy who's probably fundamentally like a
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: pretty nice person. And the world he's in on that
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: stage is just horrible. And it must be very hard
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: play acting with those people.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: It was really weird, but it wasn't even like he, yeah,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: enough talking about Tim Scott. There weren't that many fireworks
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: between the candidates except for the the running, will they,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: won't they, bit between Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. Here's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: where it really got heated.
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: That's the choice we face.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Do you want a leader from a different generation who's
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: going to put this country first, or do you want Dick.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Cheney in three-inch heels?
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: All right, Mr.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Ramaswamy.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: In which case, we've got two of them on stage.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Ramaswamy, thank you.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I'd first like to say they're five-inch heels, and I
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: don't wear them unless you can run in them. Um.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: We've got two of you on stage.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: The second thing that I will say is I wear heels.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: They're not for a fashion statement. They're for ammunition. Ambassador Haley,
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: what is your take on more funding for Ukraine? I
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: am telling you, Putin and President Xi are salivating at
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: the thought that someone like that could become president. They
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: would love to see that.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: The fact of the matter is she doesn't answer the question.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: So this is what I will tell you.
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: You're driving Russia into China's hands because of these foolish policies.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: You have your time to talk. The ambassador has the floor.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: So you might want to take care of your family first.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Leave my daughter out of your voice.
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: The next generation of Americans are using it. And that's
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: actually the point.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: You have her supporters propping her up. That's fine.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Here's the truth.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: You're just scum.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: The easy answer.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: You're just scum. She called him scum and it just
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: sort of was a throwaway line at the end.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I think Ravake, he had a little moment in the
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: first debate. In the second debate, I think almost everyone
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: watching realized he has a repellent personality. Going after someone's daughter.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should give everyone the context. It was
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: about TikTok. There was like a back and forth about
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: whether we should ban TikTok because... TikTok's just radicalizing all
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: of our children to become Hamas. So that was the debate.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And then he was like, oh, by the way, you're
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: tough on TikTok now, but your daughter is on TikTok.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So are you, Vivek.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, anyway.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: It was really.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: It was bad. He was really bad.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: She does not like him.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: She does not like him. There were a couple other
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: like kind of opposition research-based attacks that frankly did not land.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Like Haley was attacking DeSantis about some sort of Chinese
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: plane manufacturing company in Florida. It was like she had
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: clearly read so deep into the opposition research file that
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: she knew it backwards and forwards, but I guarantee you
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: that no one listening had any clue what she was
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: talking about. Haley attacked DeSantis about banning fracking. That might
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: play a little bit. Vivek attacked Haley about attracting Chinese
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: businesses to South Carolina and sending some welcome message to Ambassador.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Most of those attacks were just kind of confusing attacks.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: But Haley genuinely despises Vivek, which I'm with her.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I think it's her most relatable quality.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: Why she's had this boomlet.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, the Haley, DeSantis, Vivek attacks are, it's just,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: it's all so poorly done. We've sat in debate preps before.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: The research people come up with these hits. And so
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: often they're so esoteric that the candidate can't cannot get
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: them out with any context. You have no, the audience is,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: nobody were saying, and the consultant's like, do not leave
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: that stage without delivering this hit. And they just, they vomited.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Because in some focus group somewhere, they tested it. And
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the hit was the people were like, oh, we don't
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: like that at all. And then they make the mistake
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of translating what that focus group said to like a
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: national stage with no context.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: It's like they were fighting, DeSantis and Haley were fighting
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: over a economic development official. Who scrubbed a website about China.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: You got more than me.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I missed all that.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: It's just like everything else. It's low rent, poorly done.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Can I just make a point about DeSantis too? He sucks.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: His performance tonight, like he probably had a better performance.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: than he has in other debates. Like if you're counting points,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: but like just the paint by numbers, consultant stump speech,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: like every single answer. Like I realized technically when you're,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: prepping from someone for a debate and like, you're supposed
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: to give the answers to give the topic sentence first.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: And then you're, but it was just so cheesy. Everything
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: he says is so cheesy. I like, he sounded more
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: like a typical politician than anyone else on that stage
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: or like maybe anyone in the democratic primary in 2020
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: or anyone I've heard in a long time.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: He is a poor imitation of a typical politician.
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: It's like a character, like a poor imitation of Trump anymore.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: It's like poor imitation of any kind of politician.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: It is embarrassing. The alliteration, the from here to here, it's.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Just so embarrassing.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not in it for you. I'm not in it
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: for me. I'm in it for you.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: I'll take the hits for you.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he kept saying that. I'll take the hits. I'll
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: take the slings and arrows. What hits?
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: What is he talking about?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Really terrible. So the first full hour of the debate
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: was foreign policy.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Sure was.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, China, Venezuela, and just a full 20
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: minutes of discussion about boats.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what'd you think? Can you tell us what we
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: learned from that?
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Um, neocon BC. Does that work? When you write it down,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: con BC, neocon BC, like NBC.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, God. Talk about things needing some context.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: Talk about landing the plane. Who told you how to
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: get that hit in?
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You know, so our good friends at NBC, the liberal media,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: spent a good 25, 30 minutes, maybe an hour, trying
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: to push every candidate on the stage into the most
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: hawkish position possible on a whole bunch of issues. We
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: talked about the use of military force against Iran in
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: retaliation for Iranian proxy groups. We talked about restoring sanctions
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: on Venezuela and attacking the current Biden policy. Ron DeSantis
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: has a policy where he says he's going to send U.S.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: special forces into Mexico to attack cartels making fentanyl. And
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Hugh Hewitt's question to him was not, hey, you realize
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: that's starting a war with Mexico, right? Or like, what's
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: the legal basis for doing that, Ron? Or are you
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: worried about the Mexican military responding? Question mark? No, it
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: was how many, how often, what does it look like?
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: And then Ron DeSantis says, we're going to shoot them
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: stone cold dead.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: In the face. In the face.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: In the face.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: And then faux serious man Hugh Hewitt asked the ultimate
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: faux serious person question, which is how many Navy ships
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: are you going to build? Like these guys.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Every candidate got that question.
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: 339.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: He did not let them off the hook on that one.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: He followed up and he followed up and he followed up.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: What's with the boats?
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Is there something we're missing here? Is there a background?
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: The Chinese Navy is building a lot of boats. That's
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. The China hawks.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: There's a boat gap.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: There's a boat gap and it's silly because it's sort
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: of a silly debate because there's these ship killing missiles
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: that kind of render the whatever. This is boring. I'm
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: boring both of you.
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: I've lost the room. Ship killing missiles is the most
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: interesting thing that's happened in this podcast.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I tried to watch this debate understanding and I couldn't.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: So this is why I have you here on this
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: show right here.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: And then our China Hawk friends are talking about banning TikTok,
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: which we discussed earlier. And then shortly after that segment-
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: They went to commercial and we all sucked some TikTok ads.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: It was full circle.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: There was like TikTok grandmothers and a couple other TikTok ads.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: A young woman who started a restaurant and made a
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: living with her family.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: This is when I, and now I remember, this is
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: when I thought Chris Christie was being responsible because they
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: were all competing to see who could be the most bloodthirsty.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: About like, I'd tell Bibi Netanyahu to like.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Finish them.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Finish them. Flatten them.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Finish them.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Just see who could be the toughest there and then
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: who could be the toughest on Iran and then who
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: could be the toughest on China.
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: And like Christie was definitely Republican tough. Like if he
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: was debating some Democrats, we'd all have some critiques. But
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: he did. I was happy that he did not go there.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: John Vivek Ramaswamy said, I would tell Bibi Netanyahu to
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: smoke those terrorists on his southern border. I'll be smoking
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: terrorists on our southern border.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And then he was like. But we need to end
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: these endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He really tried to.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Smoke them if you got them. And then Tim Scott
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: was talking about blood dripping from Obama and Biden's hands.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He talked about blood a couple of times, Tim Scott.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: It got weird for them.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: So there was a section on the economy where the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: only policy solution they had for inflation is to drill
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: more and frack more. That was basically it.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Even though we're currently producing more energy than ever before.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Most of them want to raise the Social Security retirement age.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: No disagreement there. And then they finally get around to
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: a discussion on last night's election results and abortion. They
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: all tried to avoid answering whether they'd support a national
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: ban with the exception of Tim Scott. He advocated for
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: a national ban. He played Mike Pence because Mike Pence
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't there. Would you guys think of all the answers
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: around abortion in light of last night's election results?
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it seemed like most of them were
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: trying to avoid coming out in favor of a national
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: abortion ban because they know it's horrendous politics. I mean,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I guess Ron DeSantis is already completely on the record
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: about his six week abortion ban support in Florida. But
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: then I believe it was Vivek or no, it was
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott challenged Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis on the
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: 15 week ban. And Haley ended up saying, I would
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: support anything that would pass.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but she's like, let's be, she likes to use
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: this line, like, let's be honest with the American people about,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think we, whatever we have 60 votes in
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: the Senate for, because she's a filibuster believer, I guess.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I remember watching her CNN town hall with Jake Tapper
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: a while back, and she definitely struck a more reasonable sounding,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: moderate sounding position on abortion, but it kind of felt
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: like she undid it in one second there by saying
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: I would support anything that would pass. Maybe she's said
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: that before, but the context here was clearly a 15
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: week abortion ban. And if I were running a campaign
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: against her, let's say if I were Joe Biden, I
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: would use that clip as my evidence that of course
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: she'll put in place a national ban.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: She said it before. It's very Weasley. I think she's
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: never been put on the spot like that on trying,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: cause she's done the, like, I'll sign whatever comes to
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: me kind of thing. But obviously Tim Scott pushed her
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: on it. And, you know, cause she wanted to just
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: get away with her initial answer, which was like, I
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: don't judge people who are pro-choice. I hope people don't
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: judge me who are pro-life. I think we need to
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: find common ground, but then it's like, yeah, but if
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: you got a national ban, you'd sign it. She's like,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: I'll sign whatever comes to me.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Well, what she did first is she just like turned
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: into a punch bowl correspondent and was like, well, there
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: are only 45 pro-life senators and therefore it could never pass.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: And so her argument is it's a stupid conversation because
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: it will never come to my desk, which is very weaselly.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: And then... And then Vivek's like, speaking as a man,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: and I've been told that men have trouble speaking about this,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: I'm going to dance around the issue for the next
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: 45 seconds and not actually answer your question as far
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: as I can tell.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: You know what's one thing men have not had trouble
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: talking about? Abortion. That's the problem.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: He was like, we're all in this together, men and women.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Why are we? Are we?
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: I do think that Nikki Haley's answer about not judging
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: people who are on the other side of the issue
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: and not pushing people is the sort of rhetoric that
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: Republicans could adopt to sand down the edges somewhat. I think,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: as we've seen from the results from the election we
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: talked about earlier, there are real limits to that, but
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: that's the first time someone has actually tried out different
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: messaging that is trying to be more accepting of difference.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: And there was a long time, not all of it
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: was great, where Democrats were constantly reframing their language, particularly
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: in the 90s with Bill Clinton, around making our position
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: on abortion seem more appealing to a series of anti-abortion
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: voters who would otherwise support Democrats. There are a lot
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: of Catholic voters in Pennsylvania whose votes Clinton got. And
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: now you're seeing the politics have shifted. Republicans trying to
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: do the opposite.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: And I think that for DeSantis, too, it wasn't going
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to work too well because he obviously signed a six-week
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: ban and he was trying to do tonight the old,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: some states are doing things differently and it's bottom-up approach.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, then he said the word referenda a bunch
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: of times.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: So many times. Chris Christie's like, it should be decided
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: by the states. Clean answer. Got it. Vivek does the,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pound my chest and answer it as
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: a man and not answer your question. At least Nikki
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Haley enters the answer as a human being. She says,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: my husband was adopted. I had trouble getting pregnancy. So
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I understand that these are sensitive issues. Now, listen, as
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: someone who comes from a family where you've had struggles
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: getting pregnant, that would lead me to allow people to
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: have the freedom to make these choices themselves. But she
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: went a different direction with this. So I'd be- like
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: human answer in the start, horrible policy outcome. But I
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: still think better than Tim Scott or Vivek probably or
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Rhonda Santos.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Well, and I also think that there was a point
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: where language around this was important. That point was long
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: before Dobbs. And now Dobbs has made it so that like,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and this is where Nikki Haley ran into trouble. It's like,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: you're either for the national ban or you're not. I
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: don't care what your language is. I don't care how
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: accepting you are. I don't care whatever else. You either
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: want to ban abortion. or you want to make abortion available.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: And voters get that. That's what we saw on Tuesday night.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: And if Nikki Haley were to ever actually become a
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: threat and become the Republican nomination, then she would get
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: really pressured. She's under no pressure now because no evangelical
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: leader cares what she says because she's not going to
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: be in a position to implement those policies.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: So then they did their closing statements, which why do
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: they do closing statements? They were all boring. Except Vivek
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: really went off. He ended by saying we must end
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: this farce that Joe Biden is going to be the
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee. He needs to step aside, end his candidacy.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: He's a puppet for the managerial class and just let
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Michelle Obama or anyone else, whoever's going to do it, run.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: And it's like a very, it was wild. People online
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: were saying it's a very, it's like a, it's a
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: very QAnon thing.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, that makes sense.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: That Joe Biden's just like a puppet is going to
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: step aside and they're going to send out Michelle Obama
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: or whoever else. It's real. Yeah.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: He's just sort of like a walking Twitter reply guy.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: He also called. He replied to my tweet tonight.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Yes. Nice, man.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: What did you tweet?
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: I tweeted, I didn't realize on the heels thing that
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: he had said, and we have two of them on
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: the stage. I didn't catch that either. So I said,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: was his attack about a dick chaining at three inch
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: heels about Haley or DeSantis thinking I was making a
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: pretty clever statement. Yeah. DeSantis.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we all left here in the studio.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: And he responded both. No, obviously.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Thirsty.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: It was not Vivek himself since it was during the debate.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: You don't know that. I mean, he could have had
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: his phone under, firing away. Vivek also accused Biden, I guess,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: for the United States of, quote, celebrating a Nazi in
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: its ranks, a comedian in cargo pants, Zelensky, in the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: context of talking about Ukraine. Again, he's calling a Jewish
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: president in Ukraine a Nazi.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: That's just a shockingly weird thing.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: So that ended. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Florida, Donald Trump held
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: a rally because why the hell would he be at
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: that debate? And here is some of Trump's speech. We
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: haven't heard this clip yet, so I'm excited.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: We have him coming in from jails, from all of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: the places that you wouldn't believe.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Mental institutions.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: My people said, please don't use the term mental.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Insane Asylum.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: That's Silence of the Lamb, right? Silence of the Lamb.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Anybody ever heard of the wonderful Hannibal Lecter?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: We got him coming into this country now.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: You're doing like a VP search?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: So that's the guy that's winning.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: By a lot.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: But you're probably going to be the nominee. Any final
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: thoughts on that?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: That guy is up in five of six swing states,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: according to the New York Times.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: The Trump team put out a statement saying something like,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: when President Trump was in Florida having a street named
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: for him, Governor Ron DeSantis was being paved over at
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: the debate, which I thought looked funny.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pre-written, but accurate. Well, that's all we
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: got today, guys. Time well spent for everyone. We had
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: a great election and a terrible debate.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Terrible debate.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Well, you can't ask for much more than that.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: And Trump's skipping the next one.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: And Trump is skipping the next one.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: He announced tonight.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: So there we go. We're not going to get Trump
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: at a debate until the fall.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: Let's all skip it.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Let's all see.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: We'll see.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: This is content. You can hear Elijah screaming. All right.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: That's our show. We'll be in New Orleans Friday night.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: And then you guys will all hear that show on Monday.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: So we'll talk to you next week. Bye, guys. Bye, everyone.
• 1:01:49
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• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is
• 1:01:55
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• 1:01:59
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• 1:02:02
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• 1:02:09
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• 1:02:12
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• 1:02:15
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