Latest / Pod Save America / Pete Buttigieg Thinks Democrats Can't Go Back

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Pete Buttigieg Thinks Democrats Can't Go Back · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: slash Crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire. Welcome
1:48
Speaker 1: to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. My guest this
1:51
Speaker 1: Sunday is Pete Buttigieg. former mayor of South Bend, Indiana,
1:56
Speaker 1: presidential candidate in 2020, transportation secretary in the Biden administration.
2:01
Speaker 1: And now he's just Pete. He's just out there and
2:04
Speaker 1: he's making the rounds. And we're really excited that he
2:07
Speaker 1: sat down with us at Pod Save America. We talked
2:09
Speaker 1: about the future of the Democratic Party, whether we're a
2:12
Speaker 1: dictatorship yet, J.D. Vance, AI, Biden and the 2024 campaign, Gaza,
2:18
Speaker 1: lots more. It was a great conversation with Pete. And
2:21
Speaker 1: stick around after the conversation. Because John Lovett is going
2:25
Speaker 1: to join me and we are going to answer a
2:27
Speaker 1: few listener questions. Now, here's my conversation with Pete Buttigieg. Pete,
2:36
Speaker 1: welcome back to the pod.
2:38
Speaker 3: Thanks. Good to be with you again.
2:40
Speaker 1: So we are now six months into Donald Trump's second term.
2:45
Speaker 1: Feels like six years. How are you feeling?
2:49
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not great.
2:51
Speaker 2: Right.
2:51
Speaker 3: So many of the things that we worried about that
2:54
Speaker 3: we feared that we saw coming, we're seeing even more
2:57
Speaker 3: of that than we would have guessed. And one of
2:59
Speaker 3: the things that strikes me is it's not just the
3:02
Speaker 3: things that the left worried about or that liberals worried about.
3:05
Speaker 3: It's things that traditionally conservatives worried about. Like I've been
3:09
Speaker 3: thinking back to dorm room arguments I had with libertarians,
3:13
Speaker 3: you know, when I was in college who who thought
3:15
Speaker 3: that like someday if we weren't careful, there would be
3:18
Speaker 3: you know, masked federal agents snatching people off the streets
3:22
Speaker 3: just because of what they put in an op-ed. And
3:23
Speaker 3: I was like, that is such a crazy libertarian fever dream.
3:27
Speaker 3: And now that's happening. So all of that, obviously very bad.
3:33
Speaker 3: At the same time, you know, I'm also seeing a
3:36
Speaker 3: lot of people standing up to this, even with very
3:39
Speaker 3: little power in Washington. I see people taking a stand
3:42
Speaker 3: where they can. What's going on with Texas Democrats has
3:45
Speaker 3: been a good example of that. And the other big
3:47
Speaker 3: thing on my mind is that, you know, with all
3:49
Speaker 3: of these things, all these institutions in our government, our
3:52
Speaker 3: society being burned down, it's a terrible thing, but also
3:56
Speaker 3: presents a very important moment in our, I think, near
4:00
Speaker 3: future to rebuild them on better terms. There's just the
4:04
Speaker 3: fact that we have to get out of this moment
4:06
Speaker 3: in order to get to that one.
4:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about getting out of this moment. Rachel
4:11
Speaker 1: Maddow said on her show this week, we do now
4:14
Speaker 1: have a consolidating dictatorship. in this country. And I hadn't
4:19
Speaker 1: thought about it in quite such stark terms until she
4:23
Speaker 1: said it. Do you agree? Do you think that's where
4:25
Speaker 1: we are?
4:25
Speaker 3: Well, it's definitely what they're trying to do. You know,
4:30
Speaker 3: we could argue the finer points of how successful they've been,
4:32
Speaker 3: but the biggest mark of success by the Trump administration
4:37
Speaker 3: in terms of trying to be that controlling, trying to
4:39
Speaker 3: be dictatorial, to me, isn't what's happening directly with the government.
4:45
Speaker 3: It's what's happening indirectly. It's The self-editing that we're seeing
4:49
Speaker 3: happen at broadcasters and universities and private firms, law firms
4:56
Speaker 3: and others, that's the real hallmark of losing your grasp
4:59
Speaker 3: on freedom. It's not just direct government interference with everyday
5:03
Speaker 3: private life. It's a society that begins to do things
5:08
Speaker 3: differently because they don't want to run the risk of
5:11
Speaker 3: pissing off the government. And that's just, again, whether you're
5:14
Speaker 3: liberal or conservative or libertarian, that's so the opposite of
5:18
Speaker 3: what America is about. But for that very reason, I
5:21
Speaker 3: think this can be overcome.
5:24
Speaker 4: Yeah.
5:24
Speaker 1: So it feels to me like we are in this
5:29
Speaker 1: vicious cycle where a loss of trust in institutions caused
5:34
Speaker 1: people to turn away from politics or turn to Trump,
5:37
Speaker 1: who is now destroying those institutions, which is leading to
5:40
Speaker 1: even less trust. which is leading even more people to
5:42
Speaker 1: turn away from politics, which is letting Trump get away
5:45
Speaker 1: with even more destruction. Do you have thoughts on how
5:49
Speaker 1: we break that cycle? Obviously, if we gain power again,
5:54
Speaker 1: we can sort of use that power to restore people's
5:57
Speaker 1: faith in institutions. But first, we got to get back
5:59
Speaker 1: to power.
6:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think actually, both of those go hand in hand.
6:04
Speaker 3: So it starts by understanding that, you know, frankly, I
6:08
Speaker 3: think restore might not be the right kind of dominant
6:11
Speaker 3: word for us to be thinking about. I mean, I
6:13
Speaker 3: totally agree with you on restoring trust, but we're not
6:16
Speaker 3: just trying to put back what they've broken. Our political
6:19
Speaker 3: program has to be so much more than that, because
6:22
Speaker 3: it's not just that these institutions have been destroyed. It's
6:25
Speaker 3: that they've actually been on the wrong track for a
6:28
Speaker 3: long time. So you look at USAID, you look at
6:31
Speaker 3: the Department of Education. It is definitely wrong to burn
6:36
Speaker 3: them to the ground. However, it would also be wrong
6:40
Speaker 3: to just try to put them back the way they
6:42
Speaker 3: were in 2024. If we got a magic wand, we're
6:45
Speaker 3: suddenly in charge of everything. We'd be responsible for building
6:50
Speaker 3: institutions that actually made sense in the 2020s. And the
6:53
Speaker 3: reason I think this is related to the other part
6:54
Speaker 3: of your question is actually, I think what's right substantively
6:57
Speaker 3: is also very important politically, right? People don't want a
7:00
Speaker 3: restoration of the status quo. We won't win by saying
7:04
Speaker 3: everything they're doing is wrong. put us in charge, and
7:07
Speaker 3: we'll have it just back the way it was before.
7:09
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be here if people could tolerate the problems
7:14
Speaker 3: we were living with, with an economy, a politics, a
7:18
Speaker 3: society that was getting less and less responsive to what
7:21
Speaker 3: the people's needs were. I would argue throughout our lifetime,
7:26
Speaker 3: you and I are roughly the same age. I think
7:28
Speaker 3: our generation has witnessed more policy failure than not. If
7:32
Speaker 3: we're not on top of that, Not only will we
7:35
Speaker 3: not have the right answer should we come to power,
7:37
Speaker 3: but we're going to have a lot harder time earning
7:39
Speaker 3: our way back to power anyway.
7:42
Speaker 1: One decision I feel like Democrats have to make even
7:45
Speaker 1: before we get back into power is, you know, Trump 2.0
7:49
Speaker 1: consolidated a lot of power in the presidency through arguably
7:54
Speaker 1: legal means. For example, you know, the Department of Justice
7:58
Speaker 1: is supposed to be independent, but there's no law that
8:01
Speaker 1: says that. Should Democrats say, if you put us back
8:05
Speaker 1: in the White House, you know, we'll make sure we'll
8:07
Speaker 1: restore independence, integrity to the Justice Department and the FCC
8:12
Speaker 1: and the Fed? Or should Democrats say, you know, Trump,
8:16
Speaker 1: we're going to use the power that Trump accumulated to
8:19
Speaker 1: show people we can deliver and make sure that, you know,
8:23
Speaker 1: someone like Trump doesn't take power again?
8:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we really have to fix the systems.
8:28
Speaker 3: It can't just be about being an equal and opposite
8:31
Speaker 3: version of Trump. I think in many ways that's actually
8:34
Speaker 3: a contradiction in terms. And some of the things we're
8:36
Speaker 3: defending are, I don't know, good policies that you could
8:39
Speaker 3: do with the DOJ in the right hands. But one
8:42
Speaker 3: of the biggest things we're defending is the very idea
8:45
Speaker 3: that the DOJ shouldn't be operated on political means. So
8:50
Speaker 3: if we take over and do the same thing to
8:52
Speaker 3: advance more liberal policies... Don't get me wrong. I want
8:55
Speaker 3: us to advance liberal policies, but we also have to
8:57
Speaker 3: get back to the fundamentals of what it means to
9:00
Speaker 3: have a healthy republic. And, you know, you look at
9:04
Speaker 3: you look at things like the gerrymandering situation. Right. Look,
9:07
Speaker 3: if they're going to do it in Texas, it is,
9:10
Speaker 3: I think, totally appropriate for us to respond and fight
9:13
Speaker 3: fire with fire in in other states. But clearly the
9:17
Speaker 3: best answer for the country. And I think in the
9:19
Speaker 3: end for our party and for all parties is to
9:22
Speaker 3: actually fix it and actually have fair districts. So nobody
9:25
Speaker 3: feels tempted to push that button in the first place.
9:26
Speaker 3: And I know that political reform, structural reform is usually
9:30
Speaker 3: not a sexy topic. Although, you know, I'm old enough
9:34
Speaker 3: to remember when John McCain was galvanizing people around campaign
9:39
Speaker 3: finance reform. Like it can be done even though it's hard.
9:43
Speaker 3: And I think we've got to on things like fair districts,
9:46
Speaker 3: things like money in politics, I've long argued for us
9:50
Speaker 3: to reform the Supreme Court to make it less political.
9:54
Speaker 3: We can't just ride the same tiger they're on and
9:55
Speaker 3: expect it to work out well.
9:58
Speaker 1: Trump has now broken. a number of promises he made
10:01
Speaker 1: in the election. Plenty of focus on Epstein over the
10:04
Speaker 1: last month. Not yet as much focus on the promise
10:07
Speaker 1: we learned he broke this week. The White House told
10:10
Speaker 1: the Washington Post they won't be doing anything to cover IVF,
10:13
Speaker 1: even though Trump promised they would multiple times during the campaign.
10:17
Speaker 1: put out an executive order in February requiring various agencies
10:23
Speaker 1: to report back on the best ways to reduce the
10:26
Speaker 1: cost of IVF in 50 days, 60 days, nothing has happened.
10:30
Speaker 1: And then the administration told the Post, yeah, it's not
10:32
Speaker 1: going to happen. How do you tell people who voted
10:35
Speaker 1: for him or believed him that they should still trust
10:39
Speaker 1: other politicians when they promise things like that?
10:42
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think it's look at the results, right?
10:46
Speaker 3: Look at the promises he's broken, but also look at
10:48
Speaker 3: the promises he's kept. And same for us, right? I mean, look,
10:52
Speaker 3: we came in promising to do it. Both Donald Trump
10:54
Speaker 3: and our side promised to do a big infrastructure bill.
10:58
Speaker 3: He broke his promise and didn't do it. We kept
11:00
Speaker 3: our promise and we did do it. I'm not saying
11:02
Speaker 3: that our side, our party has been perfect, but I
11:06
Speaker 3: think we can point to very specific results that are
11:09
Speaker 3: increasingly affecting your actual everyday life. So we're not just
11:12
Speaker 3: talking about theories. Now we're talking about whether you actually
11:15
Speaker 3: can access IVF. We're talking about healthcare. A lot of people,
11:19
Speaker 3: and as somebody who is newly self-employed this year, I
11:23
Speaker 3: happen to be one of them recently, a lot of
11:26
Speaker 3: people have healthcare who would not have been able to
11:28
Speaker 3: get it if it weren't for the ACA and Obamacare.
11:32
Speaker 3: These are real specific things in your life that are
11:35
Speaker 3: different based on who's in charge. And you are running
11:38
Speaker 3: the risk of losing even more a chance at access
11:41
Speaker 3: to IVF or for those who are accounting on Medicaid
11:43
Speaker 3: or a whole bunch of protections that are being dismantled
11:47
Speaker 3: around us. Protections from getting screwed by banks that the
11:51
Speaker 3: CFPB put in that they're getting rid of. We can
11:54
Speaker 3: show that we'll protect you that way because we have.
11:58
Speaker 3: And a whole set of other things. So look, building
12:01
Speaker 3: trust is going to take a generation, I think. That's
12:03
Speaker 3: just the reality of what our politics have come to.
12:06
Speaker 3: But we're not doing this in a vacuum. We can
12:08
Speaker 3: look at what's actually happened. What they've actually done is
12:11
Speaker 3: actually cut taxes for the wealthiest people in this country
12:14
Speaker 3: and actually cut services for other Americans in order to
12:16
Speaker 3: pay for it.
12:18
Speaker 1: Do you think Democrats should run on Trump's promise from
12:22
Speaker 1: the campaign that insurance companies should be required to cover
12:26
Speaker 1: IVF and fertility treatments?
12:28
Speaker 3: I think it's good policy. If we're really serious about
12:31
Speaker 3: being pro-family... then we need to make sure that we
12:35
Speaker 3: support that. And that means making sure whether it's a
12:38
Speaker 3: system of direct government support or whether it's ensuring that
12:42
Speaker 3: that's part of what you can get from private health care.
12:45
Speaker 3: One way or the other, we've got to recognize that
12:48
Speaker 3: in a country, and by the way, I think the
12:51
Speaker 3: right has been weird about it, but I don't think
12:54
Speaker 3: we should scoff at those who are interested in making
12:57
Speaker 3: sure that we encourage more people to be able to
13:00
Speaker 3: start families and have more kids if they want to.
13:02
Speaker 3: especially if the reason they're not doing it is artificial
13:05
Speaker 3: issues around cost or access to care.
13:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
13:10
Speaker 1: So I've been thinking about a lot about this speech
13:13
Speaker 1: that J.D. Vance gave over the 4th of July weekend
13:16
Speaker 1: at the Claremont Institute, which is a very right-wing MAGA
13:19
Speaker 1: think tank for those who don't know. And the reason
13:21
Speaker 1: it's been on my mind is, and I brought it
13:24
Speaker 1: up on the pod last month, is I think it's
13:26
Speaker 1: probably the most honest articulation of their political project that
13:31
Speaker 1: I feel like deserves a thoughtful response from our party.
13:34
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to play the key part for you,
13:37
Speaker 1: and maybe you can respond.
13:39
Speaker 4: If you think about it, identifying America just with agreeing
13:43
Speaker 4: with the principles, let's say, of the Declaration of Independence,
13:46
Speaker 4: that's a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at
13:51
Speaker 4: the same time.
13:52
Speaker 1: What do I mean by that?
13:53
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, it would include hundreds of millions,
13:57
Speaker 4: maybe billions of foreign citizens— who agree with the principles
14:01
Speaker 4: of the Declaration of Independence, must we admit all of
14:04
Speaker 4: them tomorrow? If you follow that logic of America as
14:08
Speaker 4: a purely creedal nation, America purely as an idea, that
14:12
Speaker 4: is where it would lead you. But at the same time,
14:16
Speaker 4: that answer would also reject a lot of people that
14:20
Speaker 4: the ADL would label as domestic extremists. Even those very
14:25
Speaker 4: Americans had their ancestors fight and the Revolutionary War, and
14:30
Speaker 4: the Civil War. And I happen to think that it's absurd,
14:33
Speaker 4: and the modern left seems dedicated to doing this, to
14:36
Speaker 4: saying you don't belong in America unless you agree with
14:40
Speaker 4: progressive liberalism in 2025. I think the people whose ancestors
14:44
Speaker 4: fought in the Civil War have a hell of a
14:46
Speaker 4: lot more claim over America than the people who say
14:49
Speaker 4: they don't belong.
14:53
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
14:55
Speaker 3: So... There's a lot to unpack there. The speech has
14:58
Speaker 3: been on my mind too. Let's start with the straw man, right?
15:02
Speaker 3: Nobody seriously thinks that just because America is a nation
15:06
Speaker 3: committed to ideals, that if you agree with the Declaration
15:10
Speaker 3: of Independence, then you get to move here and become
15:12
Speaker 3: a citizen. Like he's just making that up so that
15:14
Speaker 3: he can knock it right down. But then he goes
15:17
Speaker 3: on to basically say that American ideals have nothing to
15:20
Speaker 3: do with what it means to be an American. What
15:22
Speaker 3: really matters is how long your family has been here,
15:25
Speaker 3: which is this kind of blood and soil nationalism that
15:30
Speaker 3: frankly cuts against exactly what makes America special. One way
15:34
Speaker 3: to think about it is the fact that we have
15:36
Speaker 3: the word un-American, and that gets thrown around sometimes in
15:39
Speaker 3: some really irresponsible and ugly ways. But the fact we
15:42
Speaker 3: even think about that means that we have some sense
15:45
Speaker 3: that being American, being true to what America is all about,
15:51
Speaker 3: is related to your commitment to our freedoms and to
15:55
Speaker 3: the ideals that are laid out in the Declaration and
15:57
Speaker 3: in the Constitution. That that matters in a way that
16:01
Speaker 3: you just, I don't think you could be un-French or
16:04
Speaker 3: un-Japanese for a parallel reason. It's a huge part of
16:08
Speaker 3: what's special about America. It's a huge part of why
16:10
Speaker 3: America won the Cold War is because our ideals, as
16:14
Speaker 3: well as our everyday life, were better. We've got to
16:17
Speaker 3: lay out a way of being American and belonging here
16:20
Speaker 3: that doesn't depend on whether your ancestors fought in the
16:24
Speaker 3: Civil War. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Great. Although, look,
16:29
Speaker 3: some of those ancestors were fighting against America in the
16:31
Speaker 3: Civil War. So instead of making it about that, you know,
16:34
Speaker 3: let's recognize that everyone who is here is part of
16:38
Speaker 3: the same national project. And it's the experiment in self-governance
16:43
Speaker 3: that Lincoln talked about. I don't believe that that My mother,
16:46
Speaker 3: who probably does have ancestors who were in the Revolutionary War,
16:49
Speaker 3: is any more or less American than my father, who
16:52
Speaker 3: emigrated here in the 70s to get an education and
16:55
Speaker 3: chose to become an American citizen. It's about our fidelity
16:59
Speaker 3: to the American project, which is exactly what those in
17:02
Speaker 3: power right now are not showing. Fidelity to the freedoms
17:05
Speaker 3: that make this country what it is.
17:08
Speaker 1: I was somewhat surprised to learn that national conservatives and
17:13
Speaker 1: the MAGA right are so open about about their distaste
17:17
Speaker 1: for the Declaration of Independence as like a foundation of
17:21
Speaker 1: what it means to be American. But they are, and
17:23
Speaker 1: now we have the Vice President of the United States,
17:25
Speaker 1: they're very open about that. I also think it presents us,
17:29
Speaker 1: presents Democrats, presents anyone who isn't fond of MAGA or
17:32
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, a real opportunity to step in and say,
17:37
Speaker 1: we're actually the people who believe in the core values
17:41
Speaker 1: that founded this country, even if the people who founded
17:43
Speaker 1: it were far from perfect.
17:46
Speaker 2: Totally.
17:46
Speaker 1: And you know what?
17:47
Speaker 3: Another way of talking about what I think Democrats should
17:49
Speaker 3: do is that we should pay attention to two different things.
17:53
Speaker 3: One is policies you can fight over and be against. So,
17:56
Speaker 3: you know, more taxation of wealthy people or the right
18:01
Speaker 3: to abortion or marriage equality or background checks on guns.
18:04
Speaker 3: Those are things you could be against. As Democrats, we're
18:07
Speaker 3: for them. Most Americans are for them, but it's a
18:09
Speaker 3: legitimate policy fight. There's another set of things that all
18:13
Speaker 3: of us should be able to get behind. And, you know,
18:16
Speaker 3: the whole point of the Declaration and the Constitution was
18:18
Speaker 3: to encode those in a way and then make everybody
18:21
Speaker 3: who takes office, left, right, or center, literally put up
18:25
Speaker 3: right hand and swear, I've done it, that you're going
18:28
Speaker 3: to uphold that Constitution and those universal values. And I
18:31
Speaker 3: don't think there's a better expression of them than the
18:33
Speaker 3: Declaration and the Constitution. I've seen others. I've been part
18:35
Speaker 3: of a project called We Hold These Truths, which consists
18:39
Speaker 3: of people from the left, the right, the center, coming
18:42
Speaker 3: together to put together statements around something that should be universal.
18:48
Speaker 3: And then we can still fight, but the fighting with
18:51
Speaker 3: regard to those principles is about who's doing a better
18:53
Speaker 3: job of living up to them, not whether they're worthwhile.
18:56
Speaker 3: We shouldn't be sitting around having fights over whether freedom
18:59
Speaker 3: of speech is a good thing. We can argue over
19:01
Speaker 3: whether this or that case lives up to our commitments
19:04
Speaker 3: to freedom of the speech, but those things should not
19:07
Speaker 3: be something that you can be against and hold your
19:11
Speaker 3: head up high in American politics.
19:13
Speaker 1: Trump said this week that J.D. Vance is his most
19:16
Speaker 1: likely heir apparent. You played J.D. Vance in debate prep
19:20
Speaker 1: with Tim Walz. What are your impressions of him and
19:25
Speaker 1: his seemingly inevitable candidacy in 2028?
19:28
Speaker 3: Well, I think he's very intelligent. I think he's very smooth.
19:31
Speaker 3: I think he's very capable. That's why we definitely shouldn't.
19:36
Speaker 3: I know there's a temptation to make fun of him,
19:38
Speaker 3: but I can do it with the best of them.
19:40
Speaker 3: Sometimes when you see how he conducts himself out there,
19:42
Speaker 3: but let's be clear, we're talking about a very smart person,
19:45
Speaker 3: not a very principled person. It didn't take him many
19:48
Speaker 3: years to go from comparing Trump to Hitler, which he did,
19:54
Speaker 3: to saying that he ought to be the leader of
19:56
Speaker 3: the free world. This is somebody who made his name
20:01
Speaker 3: talking about being from the industrial Midwest and kind of
20:04
Speaker 3: explaining the industrial Midwest to coastal elites. I know a
20:07
Speaker 3: little bit about what that's like. And then became wealthy,
20:13
Speaker 3: went to Silicon Valley, kind of ran with a lot
20:16
Speaker 3: of people that we would consider to have kind of
20:18
Speaker 3: centrist or even center left values, and then saw the
20:21
Speaker 3: writing on the wall and found this path to power.
20:25
Speaker 3: When you have somebody who's that intelligent and that unprincipled
20:29
Speaker 3: in a role like that, I think it's really dangerous,
20:32
Speaker 3: especially because to the extent that he has found religion,
20:35
Speaker 3: has found principles other than just trying to take power,
20:38
Speaker 3: he seems to be getting more and more attached to
20:40
Speaker 3: this kind of blood and soil nationalism that, you know,
20:43
Speaker 3: if that prevails, would make us just another country out
20:46
Speaker 3: there instead of the country that we all know and love.
20:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, what worries me most about him is that at
20:53
Speaker 1: first I thought, well, he saw a path to this
20:56
Speaker 1: is where the Republican Party was going. This is a
20:58
Speaker 1: path to power for him. But he seems to believe
21:01
Speaker 1: it now. And I think that believing in this sort
21:05
Speaker 1: of blood and soil nationalism is even more alarming than
21:08
Speaker 1: someone who just does it to get ahead. Because it
21:11
Speaker 1: means when the, you know, when push comes to shove,
21:14
Speaker 1: the decisions he would make and is making already in
21:17
Speaker 1: this White House are pretty extreme and pretty far from
21:22
Speaker 1: what the Constitution and Declaration say. I mean, he is,
21:24
Speaker 1: you know, he has, I just heard him say the
21:26
Speaker 1: other week, he's like, me and Stephen Miller are the
21:28
Speaker 1: most far right on immigration in the whole White House.
21:32
Speaker 3: Yep. I could believe that. And yeah, look, at the
21:35
Speaker 3: end of the day, I can't scan his soul to
21:37
Speaker 3: know whether he just shapeshifted his way into this or
21:40
Speaker 3: whether he's believed this all along and it's finally come
21:42
Speaker 3: to light. But either way, you've got somebody who really
21:46
Speaker 3: wants America to become an ethno-national state. And there's a
21:51
Speaker 3: lot of countries like that out there. One of the
21:53
Speaker 3: best things about America is that we're not one of them.
22:04
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23:21
Speaker 1: Code crooked. Let's talk about Democrats. On one hand, Not
23:28
Speaker 1: surprising that voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic
23:31
Speaker 1: Party right now. Party just lost a very big, important election.
23:35
Speaker 1: Democratic voters naturally pissed about that. On the other, the
23:39
Speaker 1: party has the lowest favorability rating in like three or
23:42
Speaker 1: four decades. What do you think that's about?
23:44
Speaker 3: A lot of things. I mean, one, that's how it
23:47
Speaker 3: feels when you're out of power. Two, I think a
23:50
Speaker 3: sense that the party, especially the party with a capital P,
23:53
Speaker 3: just hasn't been responsive to what's most on voters' minds.
23:57
Speaker 3: And I think now a desire to see us aiming
23:59
Speaker 3: a little higher and being more ambitious in our ideas.
24:04
Speaker 3: And look, we always run the risk of fighting the
24:07
Speaker 3: last war, thinking a little too hard about the last
24:09
Speaker 3: election instead of the next one. I actually think we
24:12
Speaker 3: have an enormous opportunity as a party to get ahead
24:17
Speaker 3: of the issues that are coming our way. You think
24:19
Speaker 3: about something like AI. This is one of the most economically,
24:23
Speaker 3: socially challenging politically transformative things to hit this country since
24:29
Speaker 3: the founding. And we can learn a lot, especially a
24:32
Speaker 3: lot from things that didn't go quite right in terms
24:34
Speaker 3: of how we handled the arrival of the internet or
24:37
Speaker 3: the arrival of trade and automation that really created a
24:40
Speaker 3: lot of wreckage where I was growing up in Indiana
24:43
Speaker 3: in the 1990s and early 2000s. We can offer something
24:46
Speaker 3: different and better that's a proactive vision instead of what
24:50
Speaker 3: we're seeing from the administration right now, which is basically
24:54
Speaker 3: checking AI to make sure it isn't too woke, whatever
24:56
Speaker 3: that means.
24:58
Speaker 1: I think about AI a lot, and I've been really
25:00
Speaker 1: getting worried about it. And I saw that you wrote
25:03
Speaker 1: a substack on it, which was great. But I share
25:06
Speaker 1: your concerns, which is, you know, people talk a lot about, oh,
25:09
Speaker 1: are the robots going to kill us all, sort of
25:11
Speaker 1: the more apocalyptic versions of what happens with AI. I
25:14
Speaker 1: worry about the economic dislocation, which it seems like No
25:19
Speaker 1: one is talking about as much or enough. I haven't
25:22
Speaker 1: heard or seen any great policy ideas to deal with
25:25
Speaker 1: it other than like, you know, some people giving a
25:27
Speaker 1: nod to universal basic income, but it doesn't seem like
25:31
Speaker 1: giving people, you know, a thousand dollars a month when
25:33
Speaker 1: they have no job and no prospect for another kind
25:36
Speaker 1: of job is going to really, it's going to really
25:38
Speaker 1: do it. I also worry that our political system did
25:43
Speaker 1: not adequately help cushion the blow of post-industrial transformation. And
25:49
Speaker 1: that was when our political system was less broken than
25:51
Speaker 1: it is now. We can barely handle keeping the government open,
25:55
Speaker 1: let alone trying to figure out policies to deal with AI.
25:59
Speaker 1: And that's on the economic side. And you've written this.
26:04
Speaker 1: It's about changing what it means to be human and
26:08
Speaker 1: what it means to interact with one another. You have kids.
26:11
Speaker 1: I have kids. I really worry about setting a kid
26:15
Speaker 1: up with a chatbot. And that becomes the important relationship
26:19
Speaker 1: and friendship in their lives. I know you've been looking
26:23
Speaker 1: into this. Have you seen or come across any interesting
26:26
Speaker 1: ideas that you feel like, okay, this might not solve
26:30
Speaker 1: our problems, but this could take us in the right
26:32
Speaker 1: direction on AI?
26:33
Speaker 3: Well, I think there are some important ideas that are
26:36
Speaker 3: being developed around how to make sure that the American
26:38
Speaker 3: people get more of a share of the enormous wealth
26:41
Speaker 3: that's being created with AI. Because in addition to all
26:44
Speaker 3: of the problems that you just listed, which I think
26:46
Speaker 3: are massive, there's also the fact that we already have
26:49
Speaker 3: a level of concentration of power and wealth in this
26:52
Speaker 3: country that as a general rule is hard for a
26:55
Speaker 3: democracy to survive. And it's about to, or at least
26:59
Speaker 3: it could get much, much more concentrated. Because so much
27:03
Speaker 3: wealth and value accumulates to the handful of people who
27:06
Speaker 3: own these AI models and the associated physical plant of
27:10
Speaker 3: the chips and the processing, the data centers. So I
27:14
Speaker 3: think for that reason, as well as the fact that
27:16
Speaker 3: a lot of people are going to experience economic disruption,
27:19
Speaker 3: finding a way to get people dealt in, ideally on
27:25
Speaker 3: some share of the value being created. I think UBI,
27:28
Speaker 3: universal basic income, that was kind of the 1.0 answer
27:31
Speaker 3: to this. It was very fashionable about 10 years ago.
27:33
Speaker 3: I think we've learned a lot about why it wasn't
27:36
Speaker 3: quite delivering the values as advertised. But I do think
27:39
Speaker 3: as we think about the next response to that, the
27:42
Speaker 3: core of it's important, which is we need to make
27:44
Speaker 3: people whole. We need to get them kind of dealt
27:47
Speaker 3: in on the value being created, which is only fair
27:49
Speaker 3: since these things trained on data that all of us
27:52
Speaker 3: put out there and the fact that the American taxpayer
27:55
Speaker 3: system literally funded the invention of the internet. I mean,
27:58
Speaker 3: I think there's a way to do this where business
28:00
Speaker 3: still gets to be business, but Americans get a piece
28:04
Speaker 3: of the pie. And we've got to pay attention to
28:06
Speaker 3: that because I was there as a kid when they
28:09
Speaker 3: came along to my part of the country in what
28:12
Speaker 3: is now the so-called Rust Belt and said, guess what?
28:15
Speaker 3: All this technology is coming. All this trade is coming.
28:17
Speaker 3: Don't worry about your slice because the pie is going
28:19
Speaker 3: to get so much bigger that everyone will be better off.
28:22
Speaker 3: And guess what? The pie got bigger, but not everyone
28:24
Speaker 3: was better off. This is going to be faster and
28:26
Speaker 3: more intense than that. We can get it right this time.
28:29
Speaker 3: But even if we fix the income issues, there's a
28:32
Speaker 3: profound set of issues around belonging that I think we
28:35
Speaker 3: need to pay more attention to. This is where quote
28:37
Speaker 3: unquote retraining, which I think is very popular, definitely in
28:41
Speaker 3: the democratic party around the time I was coming to age,
28:43
Speaker 3: misses something fundamentally important, which is that what you do
28:47
Speaker 3: for a living is not just how you make your money.
28:50
Speaker 3: It's how you fit. It's who you are. It's, it's,
28:52
Speaker 3: You know, now that I have kids, they're three, they're
28:55
Speaker 3: about to be four. I see how they look at
28:57
Speaker 3: the world and they totally understand, you know, somebody's kind
29:01
Speaker 3: of existence as a grownup based on whether they're a
29:03
Speaker 3: teacher or a firefighter or a worker, whatever it is
29:05
Speaker 3: they do. And to that, the fact that as fundamentally
29:09
Speaker 3: important as your job, your trade is for blue collar
29:14
Speaker 3: workers who've been displaced, especially by trade and automation, many
29:17
Speaker 3: of the white collar workers who are about to be
29:20
Speaker 3: displaced are Some of them are even more intensely wrapped
29:25
Speaker 3: up in their job as a sense of who they are.
29:26
Speaker 3: Think about how important it is to doctors that they're doctors, right?
29:31
Speaker 3: And frankly, doctors, architects, engineers, lawyers, programmers are among those
29:37
Speaker 3: whose whole industries maybe disrupted profoundly, not in 30 years,
29:43
Speaker 3: but in like three to five.
29:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's concerning. One of the debates from 2024
29:49
Speaker 1: that I'm still having with myself is we know the
29:53
Speaker 1: top concern of most voters for the last few decades,
29:56
Speaker 1: especially now, has either been jobs or cost of living,
29:59
Speaker 1: economic issues. And that's obviously especially true today. People want
30:04
Speaker 1: to know who's going to fight to make their lives better.
30:07
Speaker 1: So as Democrats, let's talk about that. But also, as
30:11
Speaker 1: we talked about, Donald Trump's secret police force is rounding
30:14
Speaker 1: people up without due process, and he wants to send
30:16
Speaker 1: the military to more cities, and he's extorting any company
30:19
Speaker 1: or institution or ally that disagrees with him. It is
30:22
Speaker 1: tempting to say we should obviously talk about both, but
30:26
Speaker 1: we're also competing for people's attention with all the other dumb,
30:30
Speaker 1: crazy shit in their algorithmic feeds. What is the central
30:34
Speaker 1: argument you think Democrats should be making to people in
30:37
Speaker 1: the next few years, knowing that we have this very
30:40
Speaker 1: difficult information environment with which to get our message through?
30:45
Speaker 3: So to me, the touchstone is everyday life. And the
30:47
Speaker 3: argument is it doesn't have to be this way. Everything
30:51
Speaker 3: in your life, From what it's like to deal with
30:54
Speaker 3: a cable company to whether you can afford to buy
30:57
Speaker 3: a home to the kinds of dumb political arguments you're
31:01
Speaker 3: having with your uncle could all be better if we
31:04
Speaker 3: had different and better leadership. And, you know, with the
31:08
Speaker 3: technologies we were just talking about, the political developments and
31:11
Speaker 3: so many other things changing, we actually have a shot
31:12
Speaker 3: to get it more right than it's been in a
31:15
Speaker 3: very long time, which we better because right now it's
31:17
Speaker 3: more wrong than it's been in a very long time.
31:19
Speaker 3: And if we're talking about everyday life, I do think
31:21
Speaker 3: that starts with the economy. That starts with, do you
31:24
Speaker 3: have a good steady job? Can you afford with the
31:26
Speaker 3: pay that you get from that job to get the
31:28
Speaker 3: things that you want and need in your life from
31:31
Speaker 3: healthcare to childcare to housing? And I think that we
31:36
Speaker 3: would be well-served to be extremely disciplined in talking about that.
31:40
Speaker 3: But we can talk about the other issues, the high-minded
31:45
Speaker 3: academic almost sounding stuff about freedom and democracy. in terms
31:49
Speaker 3: of that everyday life. I mean, part of how I
31:50
Speaker 3: talk about it is the cast of characters who are
31:53
Speaker 3: in charge right now. So if we had a functioning
31:55
Speaker 3: Congress capable of standing up to the president, if he
31:59
Speaker 3: wasn't trying to be a dictator and roll people, then
32:02
Speaker 3: you wouldn't be getting some of the appointees that we
32:04
Speaker 3: now have in charge of our lives. And this is
32:08
Speaker 3: not an academic thing, right? Like your kid and my
32:10
Speaker 3: kid is less safe because we have just learned that
32:14
Speaker 3: RFK is canceling the development of vaccines that could get
32:19
Speaker 3: us ahead of bird flu. Like that's a real thing
32:21
Speaker 3: that will affect our lives. And I don't think it
32:24
Speaker 3: would happen under a left or right administration if we
32:27
Speaker 3: had a healthier democracy. The Secretary of Education, the person
32:31
Speaker 3: in charge of educating our kids, has given speeches talking
32:34
Speaker 3: about A1, which means she doesn't understand that it stands
32:38
Speaker 3: for AI, which means she is unaware of the most
32:41
Speaker 3: important development affecting education since the invention of the pencil.
32:45
Speaker 3: That's definitely gonna affect your school and you're a kid,
32:48
Speaker 3: and it wouldn't happen if we had a functioning democracy,
32:51
Speaker 3: which is part of what we're trying to build here.
32:52
Speaker 3: So I think we can tie all of these things together,
32:55
Speaker 3: but the touchstone always has to be things that we
32:57
Speaker 3: can explain in terms of everyday life, not just for
33:00
Speaker 3: political reasons, but because philosophically, I believe that's the whole
33:03
Speaker 3: point of being in politics in the first place, is
33:05
Speaker 3: that if we get it right, everyday life gets better.
33:08
Speaker 1: So I don't think this is the biggest problem, but
33:12
Speaker 1: in the bucket of trust issues that people have with
33:14
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, one thing I worry about is that
33:19
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party has real work to do, rebuilding trust
33:23
Speaker 1: with voters after an election where most of the Democratic
33:27
Speaker 1: establishment assured them that Joe Biden was still the strongest
33:31
Speaker 1: candidate to run against Trump until it was almost too late.
33:34
Speaker 1: And look, I mean, I voiced concerns about Biden after
33:37
Speaker 1: the debate. I voiced some concerns before the debate. I
33:40
Speaker 1: still wish I had said more earlier, first because I
33:43
Speaker 1: wanted to win the election, but also because I do
33:46
Speaker 1: worry about sort of in a low trust environment, further
33:49
Speaker 1: eroding trust with voters, voters who think, well, politicians are
33:53
Speaker 1: all the same and it's all a system and everyone
33:54
Speaker 1: takes care of each other. Am I wrong to worry
33:56
Speaker 1: about that?
33:57
Speaker 3: No, I think that's on a lot of people's minds.
33:58
Speaker 3: And I think we've got to take seriously the conversations
34:01
Speaker 3: people are having, the questions they have. Look, to me,
34:04
Speaker 3: it was a matter of, yes, it became clearer and clearer,
34:07
Speaker 3: especially after the debate, that it would be better to
34:11
Speaker 3: have a different nominee. And eventually even Joe Biden himself
34:14
Speaker 3: came to understand and admit that and act accordingly. Another
34:18
Speaker 3: thing was also true, which is that when Joe Biden
34:21
Speaker 3: was the nominee for a lot of us, certainly for me,
34:25
Speaker 3: it was very clear that our country needed the outcome
34:28
Speaker 3: of that election to be Joe Biden and not Donald
34:31
Speaker 3: Trump as our next president, because it's one thing to
34:33
Speaker 3: have somebody who is old, who is also a good man,
34:36
Speaker 3: who has led the way on good policies. And it's
34:39
Speaker 3: another to have somebody who attempted to overthrow the constitutional
34:43
Speaker 3: system of this country. So the choice was clear. But
34:46
Speaker 3: the choice got better when President Biden stepped aside. And
34:50
Speaker 3: there's going to be a lot of coulda, shoulda, woulda
34:52
Speaker 3: about 2024. But you can also tell how different our
34:55
Speaker 3: country and our world is becoming before our eyes. And
34:59
Speaker 3: that much more will be true by 2026, by 2028
35:03
Speaker 3: and beyond.
35:05
Speaker 1: You and I have certainly witnessed quite a few intraparty
35:09
Speaker 1: ideological fights over the years. You experienced them during the
35:13
Speaker 1: 2020 primary. What lessons learned? have you taken from those
35:17
Speaker 1: as we head into a few years of primaries that
35:19
Speaker 1: will almost certainly feature spirited ideological debates within the Democratic Party?
35:25
Speaker 3: The biggest thing for me is the importance of couching
35:29
Speaker 3: whatever you're getting from the internet in actual offline conversations
35:34
Speaker 3: with people about where they want the country to go.
35:36
Speaker 3: I think our whole party, myself included, got very absorbed
35:40
Speaker 3: in largely online fights I think now, don't get me wrong,
35:44
Speaker 3: I mean, look, digital media are probably more important than
35:47
Speaker 3: a lot of traditional media now in terms of how
35:48
Speaker 3: people get their information. But the structure of them, the
35:52
Speaker 3: way the algorithm works, makes it way too easy to
35:56
Speaker 3: confuse the loudest voices with most voices. And I think
36:00
Speaker 3: we learned a lot of things the hard way in
36:03
Speaker 3: that cycle and in some of the things that have
36:06
Speaker 3: happened since. I'm a big believer, for a lot of reasons,
36:08
Speaker 3: but this is one of them. in spending more time offline,
36:12
Speaker 3: in old-fashioned interaction with people where you watch the faces
36:15
Speaker 3: rise and fall, you talk to them. I learned so
36:18
Speaker 3: much doing five town halls a day in Iowa that
36:22
Speaker 3: you just can't learn from reading reports or polls or
36:27
Speaker 3: that torrent of feedback that comes that just gets mainlined
36:31
Speaker 3: into us through these algorithms. And I think we need
36:34
Speaker 3: to look When we have a strong position that is
36:38
Speaker 3: morally important, we're going to take it and we're going
36:40
Speaker 3: to defend it. We're also going to try to do
36:42
Speaker 3: it in a way that meets people where they are
36:44
Speaker 3: instead of sticking a finger in their eye. And right now,
36:49
Speaker 3: the logic of the feed is that it serves up
36:53
Speaker 3: one of two things. Here's this person I already agree
36:56
Speaker 3: with looking good. Here's this person I already don't like
36:59
Speaker 3: doing something that reminds me why I don't like them.
37:02
Speaker 3: And that's it. Those are not the center of gravity
37:05
Speaker 3: of what a healthy politics is about. Yeah.
37:08
Speaker 1: How much attention have you paid to the abundance discourse?
37:11
Speaker 2: A lot.
37:12
Speaker 3: And look, I think that a lot of what they
37:14
Speaker 3: identified really reminds me of some of the biggest frustrations
37:19
Speaker 3: and challenges that we had when I was trying to
37:22
Speaker 3: build things across the country. I'm proud of what we
37:24
Speaker 3: got done. We got more than 20,000 transportation projects done
37:27
Speaker 3: across the country, but we could have done more quicker.
37:31
Speaker 3: And it's really important, especially if we want to meet
37:35
Speaker 3: the challenges of the green energy economy, the need to
37:38
Speaker 3: have more distribution of power, the need to deal with housing,
37:43
Speaker 3: that we not allow a kind of proceduralism to get
37:48
Speaker 3: in our way. Now, look, we're going to do the
37:51
Speaker 3: right thing. I think we always need to be committed
37:53
Speaker 3: to inclusive and thorough processes. But another example of something
37:58
Speaker 3: that we can do differently than just warming up the
38:01
Speaker 3: things we inherited is to think anew in a way
38:04
Speaker 3: that we haven't maybe since the 30s, 40s, and 50s
38:07
Speaker 3: about what it means to have enough process that there's
38:10
Speaker 3: not terrible unintended consequences when we go to build something
38:15
Speaker 3: or do something. And at the same time, have it
38:17
Speaker 3: be nimble enough that things actually get done.
38:21
Speaker 1: One issue that's increasingly dividing both parties is the war
38:25
Speaker 1: in Gaza. More than half of Senate Democrats just voted
38:28
Speaker 1: to oppose the sale of over half a billion dollars
38:32
Speaker 1: worth of U.S. bombs and guns to Israel. A lot
38:34
Speaker 1: of them are longtime supporters of Israel. Would you have
38:37
Speaker 1: voted to oppose sending those weapons?
38:40
Speaker 3: I think we need to insist that if American taxpayer
38:43
Speaker 3: funding is going to weaponry that is going to Israel,
38:46
Speaker 3: that that is not going to things that shock the conscience.
38:50
Speaker 3: And look, we see images every day that shock the conscience.
38:56
Speaker 3: So much of this is complicated, but what's not complicated
38:59
Speaker 3: is that if a child is starving because of a
39:03
Speaker 3: choice made by a government, that is unconscionable. And we,
39:10
Speaker 3: I think, especially including voices who care about Israel, who
39:14
Speaker 3: believe in Israel's right to exist, who have stood with
39:17
Speaker 3: Israel in response to the unbelievable cruelty and terrorism of
39:21
Speaker 3: October 7th, I think there's a reason why so many
39:24
Speaker 3: of those voices are speaking up now too, because this
39:28
Speaker 3: is not just something that is on its face and
39:31
Speaker 3: in itself a moral catastrophe. It is also a catastrophe
39:36
Speaker 3: for Israel for the long run.
39:39
Speaker 1: How do you think the next administration should handle our
39:42
Speaker 1: relationship with Israel? Do you think it should change based
39:44
Speaker 1: on what Netanyahu has done the last several years?
39:48
Speaker 3: Well, certainly Netanyahu can't be the only voice or kind
39:54
Speaker 3: of the only compass for what should happen in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
39:58
Speaker 3: And no matter how strongly or especially because of how
40:03
Speaker 3: strongly you might believe in Israel's right to exist and
40:07
Speaker 3: defend itself, you don't have to make excuses for the
40:11
Speaker 3: choices that Netanyahu is making, especially because they are often
40:15
Speaker 3: made not only in the name of of the Israeli people,
40:18
Speaker 3: but in the name of a U.S.
40:20
Speaker 2: Alliance.
40:21
Speaker 3: I think that we, as Israel's strongest ally and friend,
40:25
Speaker 3: you put your arm around your friend when there's something
40:28
Speaker 3: like this going on and talk about what we're prepared
40:31
Speaker 3: to do together. And it certainly cannot be what we
40:36
Speaker 3: see right now from this administration and this president talking
40:39
Speaker 3: about beachfront property in Gaza before he's prepared to talk
40:42
Speaker 3: about human suffering in Gaza.
40:45
Speaker 1: Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state.
40:48
Speaker 3: I think that that's a profound question that arouses a
40:53
Speaker 3: lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's
40:59
Speaker 3: right to survival in the diplomatic scene. And many of
41:03
Speaker 3: the people who have taken that step historically have done
41:06
Speaker 3: so for different reasons than what we see happening with
41:09
Speaker 3: European countries. I think we need to step back and
41:12
Speaker 3: we need to do whatever it takes to to ensure
41:16
Speaker 3: that there is a real two-state solution and that no one,
41:19
Speaker 3: not even the likes of Netanyahu can veto the international
41:22
Speaker 3: community's commitment to a two-state solution where you have Palestinians
41:27
Speaker 3: and Israelis living with safety, with security, with rights. I
41:32
Speaker 3: believe that can happen, but we have to actually show
41:34
Speaker 3: some commitment to it.
41:35
Speaker 1: We were talking earlier about our kids. On one hand,
41:38
Speaker 1: I feel like having kids has made me more committed
41:42
Speaker 1: to politics because of the very cliched, but true reason
41:45
Speaker 1: that I want to leave them a better country than this.
41:48
Speaker 1: On the other, it's also made me wonder about the
41:51
Speaker 1: time and emotional energy I'm spending on politics in the
41:54
Speaker 1: Trump era that perhaps I could be spending on them.
41:58
Speaker 1: Is that something you think about? How has being a
42:00
Speaker 1: father sort of changed your, in this time period, changed
42:04
Speaker 1: your view about politics or has it?
42:06
Speaker 3: I think it's really good for you to spend, especially
42:08
Speaker 3: if you're as involved in politics as you and I are,
42:10
Speaker 3: I think it's really good for you to spend time
42:12
Speaker 3: with somebody who doesn't think or care about it. And,
42:16
Speaker 3: you know, there's no more kind of beautiful, innocent version
42:21
Speaker 3: of that than a three or four year old. But
42:23
Speaker 3: then it also makes me think more about politics in
42:25
Speaker 3: some ways, because I know that, you know, there are
42:27
Speaker 3: these people now who are the most important people in
42:28
Speaker 3: my life who are going to witness the 22nd century
42:32
Speaker 3: and everything about what that moment will be like, or
42:36
Speaker 3: for that matter, a moment much sooner in the middle
42:38
Speaker 3: of this century when I still hope I'm around, but
42:39
Speaker 3: when they're making their way in life as adults. It's
42:42
Speaker 3: really going to depend on a set of questions and
42:45
Speaker 3: decisions we as a country make here in the 2020s.
42:48
Speaker 3: I can see them asking me what it was like
42:51
Speaker 3: in the 2020s, the same way I asked my parents
42:53
Speaker 3: what it was like in the 60s. And I want
42:55
Speaker 3: to make sure I have good answers by the time
42:57
Speaker 3: that happens and by the time that moment comes. But also,
43:01
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful thing just to be able to spend
43:05
Speaker 3: time with them and talk about anything but politics. I mean,
43:07
Speaker 3: the latest has been Uh, our son asked about the, uh,
43:11
Speaker 3: origin story of Spider-Man. And then I, uh, I told
43:16
Speaker 3: him the origin story is best. I remember it from
43:18
Speaker 3: the movie. And then very predictably the next 10 minutes
43:21
Speaker 3: were spent answering variations of the question. Where are there
43:25
Speaker 3: active radio spiders? Where can I find an active radio spider?
43:28
Speaker 3: He clearly intends to find a radioactive spider or an
43:30
Speaker 3: active radio spider as he calls it and get bit
43:33
Speaker 3: by one. And, um, just like talking him through, like
43:36
Speaker 3: trying to redirect that agenda. very healthy change of scene
43:39
Speaker 3: from the stuff I think about most of the time
43:41
Speaker 3: when I'm doing my, my bread and butter politics.
43:44
Speaker 1: I was going to say, it has made me real,
43:46
Speaker 1: like think like our job is communicating clearly to people,
43:50
Speaker 1: persuading people. And you just realize when you have little
43:54
Speaker 1: kids that just trying to explain abstract concepts, but you're
43:58
Speaker 1: not allowed to explain the abstract concept with another abstract
44:01
Speaker 1: concept or abstract where it does help you sort of
44:04
Speaker 1: break things down to the basics and to try to, uh,
44:07
Speaker 1: to try to communicate with them. And, and, uh, and
44:09
Speaker 1: it makes you think about sort of how we talk
44:11
Speaker 1: in politics, which is often so removed from how most
44:15
Speaker 1: people talk about their lives.
44:16
Speaker 3: Totally. I mean, uh, making it make sense to a
44:18
Speaker 3: kid is one of the best ways to make sure
44:20
Speaker 3: something makes sense in the first place. And a lot
44:23
Speaker 3: of the things we have that don't make sense, like
44:26
Speaker 3: how can you get more votes and not be the winner? Um,
44:30
Speaker 3: they don't make sense to a kid because they're indefensible
44:32
Speaker 3: and we need to pay more attention to those, those lessons.
44:36
Speaker 1: Which one of you, you or Chasten, is the parent
44:38
Speaker 1: who buys the kids too many toys or gives them
44:42
Speaker 1: too many treats or lets them stay up too late?
44:45
Speaker 3: I'm going to stand with Chasten and blame the grandparents
44:48
Speaker 3: for the toys and the treats.
44:51
Speaker 1: That's always a safe choice.
44:53
Speaker 3: They definitely have a little more free reign there. We're
44:56
Speaker 3: trying to hold the line on the toys, the stuffies
44:58
Speaker 3: that are proliferating in the bedroom. But Chasten will say
45:02
Speaker 3: I'm more the softie. I'd like to think I hold
45:04
Speaker 3: the line pretty well, but All that goes out the
45:06
Speaker 3: window when the grandparents come into play.
45:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is certainly true in our house as well.
45:10
Speaker 1: Pete Buttigieg, thanks as always for joining Pod Save America.
45:14
Speaker 1: This was great. And come back again soon.
45:16
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Good talking.
45:21
Speaker 2: To you.
45:26
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46:42
Speaker 1: John Lovett.
46:43
Speaker 2: Hi, John.
46:44
Speaker 1: Hi. Thanks for joining.
46:45
Speaker 2: Thanks for being... Thank you. I don't know.
46:49
Speaker 1: Thanks for having you. Yeah, it was you or Dan.
46:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was me. Thanks for not having Dan.
46:55
Speaker 1: All right, we... So that was Pete. You don't even
47:00
Speaker 1: know what Pete said yet. You haven't heard it yet. No.
47:03
Speaker 1: I've heard tell.
47:04
Speaker 2: I've heard tell.
47:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:04
Speaker 1: I've been trying to summarize. But we do have some,
47:07
Speaker 1: we thought we'd take some listener questions from the Discord.
47:09
Speaker 3: Great.
47:09
Speaker 1: So that you and I can answer a few. We
47:11
Speaker 1: have a set of questions to start all on the
47:13
Speaker 1: redistricting fight. FPO World asks, Would y'all like to see
47:17
Speaker 1: the gerrymandering redistricting fight expand to all blue states? Hefa
47:21
Speaker 1: Lumpish asks, If every state that can do it actually
47:25
Speaker 1: goes ahead and gerrymanders the shit out of their maps,
47:27
Speaker 1: red or blue, who will come out ahead? There are
47:29
Speaker 1: a lot more totally red state houses than blue. If
47:31
Speaker 1: we do get in this race to the bottom, do
47:33
Speaker 1: the Democrats still lose? And then Pancake Paladin, who had
47:38
Speaker 1: quite a few questions.
47:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of questions for the Pancake.
47:41
Speaker 1: And seems very.
47:42
Speaker 2: Not a short stack, if you will.
47:43
Speaker 1: Very agitated. But thank you for the questions. She says,
47:47
Speaker 1: don't mean to be a downer, but is this an
47:49
Speaker 1: inflection point Does the Democratic Party have a future? If
47:52
Speaker 1: it can't agree, this could be existential, meaning the redistricting fight.
47:57
Speaker 1: Cards on the table. I think when we're in an
47:59
Speaker 1: ad hoc gerrymandering race to the bottom outside of usual
48:02
Speaker 1: census calibrations, leadership should be breaking glass in case of emergency.
48:06
Speaker 1: Where do you want to begin?
48:08
Speaker 2: So let's I want to start with the middle question,
48:12
Speaker 2: which is what would happen if all the Democrats did
48:16
Speaker 2: this everywhere? All the Republicans did this anywhere. Who comes
48:19
Speaker 2: out ahead? Republicans come out ahead.
48:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:21
Speaker 2: That's for two reasons. One, they just control more legislatures
48:26
Speaker 2: and they have more governorships. We are behind. Even if
48:29
Speaker 2: we did this in every blue state, they could do
48:31
Speaker 2: this in more places. They're already planning to do it
48:33
Speaker 2: in a lot of states. There are plans now in Missouri, Ohio,
48:36
Speaker 2: other states. There's another reason, and it has actually nothing
48:40
Speaker 2: to do with who's in power or not. It's a
48:42
Speaker 2: little bit easier for Republicans to gerrymander than Democrats because
48:46
Speaker 2: Democrats are more concentrated. They're just more parts of the
48:49
Speaker 2: country have districts that are very Republican, but not as Democrat,
48:54
Speaker 2: as the Democratic districts are Democrat. The centers of cities
48:58
Speaker 2: and places like that were just really concentrated. So it
49:01
Speaker 2: just makes the job of Democrats to do the kind
49:04
Speaker 2: of gerrymandering Republicans do a little bit more difficult, if
49:07
Speaker 2: not impossible, in certain places. So the question is just,
49:11
Speaker 2: are we going to fight as hard as we can
49:13
Speaker 2: to have as small a disadvantage as we can or not? Yeah.
49:17
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere, a couple of people were doing different
49:19
Speaker 1: Cal on this that I think if everyone who could
49:23
Speaker 1: decided to gerrymander to the extreme, it would end up
49:26
Speaker 1: being like net four to five seats for Republicans. And
49:30
Speaker 1: that's if, you know, Democrats and other states that haven't
49:34
Speaker 1: even spoken about yet and Republicans, too, did this. But
49:37
Speaker 1: you're right. It's like it's just it's going to end up.
49:39
Speaker 1: We would probably be down a few seats at the
49:42
Speaker 1: end of this. Yeah.
49:42
Speaker 2: And now the good news there is down a surmountable
49:45
Speaker 2: number of seats.
49:46
Speaker 1: Right.
49:46
Speaker 2: Like they can gain four more seats. They already have
49:49
Speaker 2: a very slim majority. We can overcome it in two ways.
49:53
Speaker 2: One way is just by winning in more places. The
49:56
Speaker 2: other is because there there is. I think sometimes in
50:00
Speaker 2: these fights, we lose sight of some of the kind
50:03
Speaker 2: of natural breaks that exist, even if Republicans are the
50:08
Speaker 2: worst people on planet Earth. And one of the natural
50:10
Speaker 2: breaks is in order to gerrymander really hard, you have
50:13
Speaker 2: to take Republican votes away from Republican members of Congress.
50:17
Speaker 2: That is part of what happens. In order to turn
50:20
Speaker 2: a bunch of Democratic districts into Republican districts, you have
50:22
Speaker 2: to put Republicans in those places. Where do they come from?
50:25
Speaker 2: The Republican districts that already exist. And so you'll start
50:27
Speaker 2: to see It may not be public, it may not
50:29
Speaker 2: be as loud, but you will see kind of pressure
50:32
Speaker 2: that comes in closed doors with just Republicans that puts
50:36
Speaker 2: a little bit of a break on just how far
50:40
Speaker 2: they can go.
50:41
Speaker 1: And I saw some other questions floating around in Discord about,
50:47
Speaker 1: you know, like, why is Gavin Newsom in California only
50:50
Speaker 1: thinking about netting five to neutralize Texas? Why not more?
50:55
Speaker 1: The challenge becomes, and Republicans face this challenge, too. which
50:58
Speaker 1: is drawing the actual maps so that you can have
51:01
Speaker 1: districts where somehow you get all Republican districts or all
51:05
Speaker 1: Democratic districts and zero of the other side. And that's
51:08
Speaker 1: just especially with the bigger the state, that's really hard
51:10
Speaker 1: to do. It is it is probably impossible to draw
51:13
Speaker 1: the maps in California so that you California, which has,
51:17
Speaker 1: you know, five million Republicans that voted in the last election.
51:22
Speaker 1: It's hard to draw them all into one or no district.
51:25
Speaker 1: It's just like a hard thing to do.
51:26
Speaker 2: It's hard. Like it involves computers doing their best to
51:30
Speaker 2: pump out insane looking shapes that are still continuous.
51:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. But rest assured that people have thought about this.
51:36
Speaker 2: Of course, of course. And but but again, this is
51:38
Speaker 2: the other side of it. You be take to in
51:40
Speaker 2: order to really do it. You're going to take some
51:43
Speaker 2: districts that are currently held by a Democrat and you're
51:45
Speaker 2: going to make them a little harder to keep in
51:48
Speaker 2: a year where the election doesn't go their way. That's why,
51:50
Speaker 2: by the way, part of all of this, which is
51:53
Speaker 2: If Republicans gerrymander too hard, they can accidentally talk themselves
51:57
Speaker 2: out of some seats. And just one other point about this, too,
52:00
Speaker 2: like it is true that what Republicans are doing are
52:02
Speaker 2: taking this very far. But like Republicans have done midyear
52:08
Speaker 2: redistricting in the past. North Carolina's done it. Texas has
52:11
Speaker 2: done it. There's been a fight like this before. I
52:13
Speaker 2: do think this is a more brazen version of it.
52:15
Speaker 2: But like we've we've fought back and won against these
52:19
Speaker 2: kinds of tactics, too.
52:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, to Pancake Paladin's question, does the Democratic Party have
52:24
Speaker 1: a future? If it can't agree, this could be existential.
52:27
Speaker 1: I just, I want to take that question for a
52:30
Speaker 1: few reasons. The Democratic Party, of course, has a future.
52:34
Speaker 1: It's basically the only vessel we have right now in
52:39
Speaker 1: this country to defeat rising authoritarianism. This is not a
52:43
Speaker 1: third party country, and so you can hate the Democratic Party,
52:46
Speaker 1: and we've got some problems with it, but The only
52:48
Speaker 1: solution is to change the Democratic Party for the better.
52:51
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit of a straw man because
52:53
Speaker 1: I don't know who who's not worried about this in
52:55
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Like I said, I think the first
52:58
Speaker 1: time we talked about this, there was like a few
52:59
Speaker 1: progressives in the California State Assembly who were like, no,
53:02
Speaker 1: this is bad. We can't be like them. And we
53:05
Speaker 1: believe in independent redistricting and all that stuff. But I
53:07
Speaker 1: would I would say just about every 2028 candidate, most
53:10
Speaker 1: of the House leadership all seems like they are all
53:13
Speaker 1: in for this fight. And then lastly, on the existential thing,
53:16
Speaker 1: I don't think it's quite as existential as we might
53:20
Speaker 1: suspect because, again, if we go the same route they do,
53:24
Speaker 1: which is what's going to happen, it is a race
53:26
Speaker 1: to the bottom where we probably are down a couple seats.
53:29
Speaker 1: But I think the challenge is you go down this
53:31
Speaker 1: road and suddenly you just stop having competitive House elections, really.
53:36
Speaker 1: House general elections. And then what happens is the only
53:39
Speaker 1: game in town is the primaries for House seats. And
53:42
Speaker 1: primaries favor... just more extreme candidates on both sides. And
53:46
Speaker 1: so I think you just get in... I think if
53:49
Speaker 1: the whole House map is suddenly gerrymandered and we're not
53:51
Speaker 1: having competitive House elections anymore, first of all, you're not
53:54
Speaker 1: going to get new politicians. You're not going to get
53:56
Speaker 1: new young leaders who are exciting. You're going to get
53:59
Speaker 1: the same people who are just stuck in their seats
54:00
Speaker 1: and it's not competitive. And that is just bad for politics.
54:03
Speaker 1: It's probably bad for us too, for Democrats, but it's
54:05
Speaker 1: just bad. Yeah.
54:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And it just... Another reason it's bad
54:11
Speaker 2: is Redistricting fights are messy and divisive and time-occupying. Every
54:18
Speaker 2: legislature in the country that's debating a map is not
54:21
Speaker 2: figuring out how they're going to fund the schools or
54:23
Speaker 2: the roads or solving any problem that anyone is dealing
54:26
Speaker 2: with anywhere. And what they're introducing is the possibilities that
54:29
Speaker 2: redistricting is going to happen all the time. No, it's
54:32
Speaker 2: not illegal, but it just is another way in which
54:35
Speaker 2: they're striking at the forbearance that has helped our system work.
54:40
Speaker 2: And to take the Pancakes... question. Generously, you're right. Democratic
54:46
Speaker 2: states like Colorado and California have independent redistricting while Republicans
54:50
Speaker 2: have become more brazen. We've paid a price for that.
54:52
Speaker 2: But Newsom creating a plan, moving it fast, potentially getting
54:57
Speaker 2: on the ballot this November. Hochul saying the right thing.
54:59
Speaker 2: It's very difficult in New York because it has to
55:01
Speaker 2: be a constitutional amendment, but she's saying the right things.
55:04
Speaker 2: Like a lot of these organizations that were in favor
55:06
Speaker 2: of independent redistricting suddenly deciding that at least while they
55:09
Speaker 2: may believe that in the long term for now we
55:10
Speaker 2: have to fight, like that tells you that people are moving.
55:13
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party is a collection of people. They're all,
55:14
Speaker 2: they are tending to say the right thing.
55:17
Speaker 1: Stephen R. Martin asks, should Stephen Colbert challenge Senator Lindsey
55:22
Speaker 1: Graham for the Senate seat? Sure. I, I think no,
55:30
Speaker 1: because South Carolina, I think is too difficult.
55:32
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
55:32
Speaker 1: But I loved, I want, I would like Stephen Colbert
55:35
Speaker 1: to maybe run for president. I don't think it's crazy.
55:38
Speaker 1: I don't think it's crazy. I mean, we're always looking
55:40
Speaker 1: for like someone who's got name id and everyone knows
55:45
Speaker 1: and they're also sort of outside the world of politics
55:47
Speaker 1: but also no politics and is also one of the
55:49
Speaker 1: better humans in public life stephen colbert is so i
55:52
Speaker 1: don't know he's run for something south carolina is just
55:55
Speaker 1: a tough state yeah south carolina if it was north
55:57
Speaker 1: carolina go for it a second i just would like
55:59
Speaker 1: to see that race i think it'd be fun to
56:01
Speaker 1: watch it would be very fun uh yeah like i
56:03
Speaker 1: i'm i want to i'm excited to see what colbert
56:06
Speaker 1: does next he'd Testified before Congress a bunch of years ago.
56:12
Speaker 1: And he talked, I believe it might've been about immigration.
56:18
Speaker 1: I honestly, now I'm not remembering the topic, but what
56:20
Speaker 1: I remember from it is he had a very poignant
56:22
Speaker 1: moment about his faith and his values. And whenever he
56:27
Speaker 1: leaves behind that kind of artifice of the show and
56:29
Speaker 1: just talks about like what drives him, he's a beautiful
56:33
Speaker 1: speaker and thinker. And so I am just excited to
56:36
Speaker 1: see what he does after this. Me too, me too. Jacob,
56:40
Speaker 1: I had to really do some digging for this question
56:42
Speaker 1: because it comes in halfway through the sentence. It just says,
56:46
Speaker 1: Obama's dig on ketchup being only for kids under the
56:49
Speaker 1: age of eight. And I was like, what the fuck
56:51
Speaker 1: is that? And I had no idea. And then you
56:55
Speaker 1: came in this morning and I saw it was from
56:57
Speaker 1: Michelle's podcast. And Obama went on Michelle's podcast and he
57:01
Speaker 1: made a crack about how at a certain age, you
57:04
Speaker 1: should not be having ketchup anymore.
57:06
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what a sicko I am is I
57:08
Speaker 2: hadn't seen the clip. That's just a view I knew
57:10
Speaker 2: Obama had from previous interviews where he's made, honestly, less
57:15
Speaker 2: extreme versions of this point. His politics against ketchup have radicalized,
57:19
Speaker 2: but he's talked about ketchup in the past.
57:21
Speaker 1: In a very negative way. Also, Jacob asks, was that
57:25
Speaker 1: an attempt at a sneak attack on the ketchup-er-in-chief Trump? No,
57:31
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm fairly certain that it was not.
57:33
Speaker 2: Hey, listen, man, Jacob, that red string, there's a lot
57:37
Speaker 2: of places to put it these days, places it belongs.
57:39
Speaker 2: Justice Department to the White House, White House to a
57:42
Speaker 2: cushy club-fed prison in Texas, that prison down to Florida,
57:46
Speaker 2: all of it totally valid. I do not think Barack
57:48
Speaker 2: Obama is doing 3D chess on ketchup politics. I think
57:51
Speaker 2: he just has an opinion about the sauce.
57:53
Speaker 1: Follow-up from Jacob, what is the appropriate age to stop
57:56
Speaker 1: using ketchup? I disagree with our old boss on this one.
57:59
Speaker 1: I think ketchup is fine to use your whole life
58:01
Speaker 1: if you like ketchup.
58:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing wrong with ketchup. I don't think you
58:05
Speaker 2: need to yuck other people's yum.
58:06
Speaker 1: I'm not like a huge fan of ketchup. I'll dip
58:08
Speaker 1: a couple fries in it every now and then and
58:10
Speaker 1: I'll put it on a burger.
58:11
Speaker 2: I actually don't like ketchup that much, to be honest.
58:13
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with other people having it.
58:16
Speaker 2: I sometimes think this is because ketchup is all the flavors.
58:19
Speaker 2: It's salty. It's sweet. It's sour. It's umami. And it's
58:26
Speaker 2: a little bitter, honestly. Uh, but I think the sweetness
58:29
Speaker 2: is why people like think it's a kid's thing because
58:31
Speaker 2: like mustard is such an adult set of flavors, you know,
58:34
Speaker 2: and ketchup is very sweet. And so it's a kind
58:36
Speaker 2: of way of making your hot dog a little bit
58:37
Speaker 2: like dessert. So I understand where he's coming from. I
58:39
Speaker 2: don't like it that much. Um, I always just paired
58:42
Speaker 2: it with mustard growing up. It was always mustard and
58:44
Speaker 2: ketchup and mustard on my burger, ketchup and mustard on
58:46
Speaker 2: my hot dog. I'll tell you what I do. That's,
58:47
Speaker 2: I think, uh, I've, I don't think other people do,
58:51
Speaker 2: which is when I go through McDonald's drive-thru for my
58:53
Speaker 2: secret burgers, uh, Your secret burgers? Yeah, they're just between me, McDonald's,
59:01
Speaker 2: and God. Nobody knows about those burgers. They're secret burgers. Okay.
59:03
Speaker 2: When I have a secret burger, I usually get either
59:07
Speaker 2: a double cheeseburger or a McDouble, no ketchup.
59:10
Speaker 1: No mustard.
59:11
Speaker 2: Dry. Just pickles and onions. Dry. Yeah. That's right. That's right.
59:17
Speaker 2: That's right. It lets the meat speak.
59:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if the meat needs to speak. Does
59:22
Speaker 1: anyone need to hear the meat?
59:24
Speaker 2: The meat is drowning in a cacophony of ketchup and mustard.
59:28
Speaker 2: It speaks softly, but it should be heard. I let
59:31
Speaker 2: the meat speak.
59:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm more likely to let the meat speak when
59:34
Speaker 1: it's like a burger that you cook on a grill
59:38
Speaker 1: at home. McDonald's, I feel like it needs the accoutrements.
59:40
Speaker 2: Okay. And that's what makes this country great.
59:43
Speaker 3: It does.
59:43
Speaker 1: It does. If Barack Obama can hate ketchup, we can
59:45
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Speaker 1: by using code crookedfree or going to cookunity.com slash crookedfree.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: Terms and conditions apply. Go to cookunity.com for details. Jams asks,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: can the Democratic Party continue to push working class policies,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: minimum wage increases, free school lunches, defending Medicaid, as its
1:02:17
Speaker 1: base becomes wealthier? And if not, which one wins out,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: the platform or the voters?
1:02:24
Speaker 2: There's an old joke about how when Bill Gates walks
1:02:28
Speaker 2: into a bar, the average income becomes billions. The problem
1:02:33
Speaker 2: isn't that the Democratic base got wealthier. The problem is
1:02:36
Speaker 2: that the Democratic base got smaller and left behind a
1:02:38
Speaker 2: bunch of wealthy people. It's not the people we have.
1:02:41
Speaker 2: It's the people we lost.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: The trade has not been even.
1:02:43
Speaker 2: Right. And it's not.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: Just wealthier. It's really, the line is college education. Now, obviously,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: people with a college degree tend to be wealthier, but
1:02:52
Speaker 1: that's not true in all cases by any means. But yeah, no,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: if we don't have a party, if the base of
1:02:58
Speaker 1: our party is college educated, we lose. We lose all
1:03:00
Speaker 1: the time, all different elections, presidential, Senate, House, we're fucked.
1:03:05
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: And so the idea that we can go on our
1:03:08
Speaker 1: merry way just losing non-college educated voters, whether they, I mean,
1:03:13
Speaker 1: first we lost A lot of white non-college educated voters,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: then now Latinos, also some black men. So we just
1:03:21
Speaker 1: can't lose non-college voters. And so the platform has to
1:03:25
Speaker 1: win out here. And we have to figure out a
1:03:28
Speaker 1: way to bring back people who don't have a college
1:03:30
Speaker 1: degree and who aren't as wealthy 100%. There's just no option.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: There's no winning unless we don't want to win. And
1:03:38
Speaker 1: I think some people don't, actually.
1:03:40
Speaker 2: It's secondary to some other concerns that they have, which
1:03:43
Speaker 2: I understand.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's what Jams was saying at all.
1:03:46
Speaker 2: No, and Jams, we're not saying that about you. This
1:03:48
Speaker 2: is not you, Jams.
1:03:50
Speaker 1: For all we know, Jams wants the platform to win,
1:03:52
Speaker 1: not the voters.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: In fact, maybe I would guess that.
1:03:56
Speaker 2: That's where I took Jams' point from.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: Me too, me too. Let's see. Supers Kink? Supers Kink.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: Supers Kink asks, how can we convince Dems to actually
1:04:06
Speaker 1: go all out to fix the country? Like I want
1:04:08
Speaker 1: project 2025 on steroids, Dem addition and Heffalumpish coming in
1:04:13
Speaker 1: twice here. Is anyone working on project 2029 for the Democrats?
1:04:16
Speaker 1: If so, who are they? Who's choosing them? How can
1:04:19
Speaker 1: ordinary Democrats have input? And if that's not happening, do
1:04:21
Speaker 1: you have a good location for a void I can
1:04:23
Speaker 1: scream into?
1:04:24
Speaker 2: Oh, there's great voids all over the place to scream. Uh,
1:04:27
Speaker 2: you can find a great place to scream all over
1:04:29
Speaker 2: this country. It's a big, a lot of it's empty, honestly. Uh,
1:04:33
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of different people thinking about
1:04:35
Speaker 2: what a democratic project 2029 would look like. I feel
1:04:39
Speaker 2: like there's going to be versions that are like more
1:04:43
Speaker 2: in the Bernie wing. And then there's going to be
1:04:45
Speaker 2: the kind of antitrust wing. There's the abundance wing. There's
1:04:49
Speaker 2: the neoliberal wing. I mean, that's what a primary is for.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: It's a big fractious debate that helps the party come
1:04:55
Speaker 2: together around a set of policy goals, right?
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. I sort of took that question to mean not
1:05:01
Speaker 1: just the policies, but, um, I feel like what Project
1:05:04
Speaker 1: 2025 did well is there was a bunch of policies
1:05:08
Speaker 1: that they had wanted to implement for a while. And
1:05:10
Speaker 1: Project 2025 was focused on how do we actually get
1:05:13
Speaker 1: this stuff done? It's like all the norms, everything that's
1:05:16
Speaker 1: not bolted down, which is by law, and some stuff
1:05:19
Speaker 1: that is bolted up by law, we're going to take, right?
1:05:21
Speaker 1: We're going to get rid of it. All the norms
1:05:23
Speaker 1: are gone. All the rules are gone. Anything that was
1:05:25
Speaker 1: tradition that people didn't do, like, you know, the Justice
1:05:28
Speaker 1: Department used to put it at arm's length and it
1:05:30
Speaker 1: was independent.
1:05:30
Speaker 4: And now.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: you know, fuck it. We could do a lot more
1:05:33
Speaker 1: if the justice department just wasn't independent. I almost feel
1:05:35
Speaker 1: like it's that, like that's what I've been thinking is
1:05:38
Speaker 1: what are the places where we can amass power and
1:05:42
Speaker 1: what places should we amass power and what places should
1:05:44
Speaker 1: we go back to sort of the independence of the
1:05:48
Speaker 1: FCC or the justice department, et cetera. I actually asked
1:05:51
Speaker 1: Pete this question because Pete was like, we have to,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: you know, figure out how to actually deliver for people.
1:05:55
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, do you think we should
1:05:56
Speaker 1: go back to, you know, independent justice department? And he said,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: oh yes, of course. But I do think that's going
1:06:02
Speaker 1: to be I think all of those questions are pretty
1:06:04
Speaker 1: challenging for Democrats to answer ahead of 2028. And next
1:06:08
Speaker 1: time we take power, if that should happen. Yeah.
1:06:12
Speaker 2: If we take it and then someone takes it back
1:06:13
Speaker 2: before we have a chance to use it. Like Trump
1:06:16
Speaker 2: created like a unique opportunity for the right wing think
1:06:21
Speaker 2: tank types, because what they realized is they had basically
1:06:24
Speaker 2: an empty vessel.
1:06:25
Speaker 4: Right.
1:06:25
Speaker 2: And they knew that if they that all they'd have
1:06:28
Speaker 2: to do is do the work because Trump would never
1:06:30
Speaker 2: do the work. And if they did the work and
1:06:33
Speaker 2: they had the people, they could be put in place
1:06:35
Speaker 2: by Trump, who really just wants some headlines. There's a
1:06:37
Speaker 2: few core issues that he'd be driving and that Stephen
1:06:40
Speaker 2: Miller would be driving. But otherwise, they could kind of
1:06:42
Speaker 2: have the run of the place, which is what's happened.
1:06:44
Speaker 2: And Project 2025, yeah, they won, I don't think because
1:06:47
Speaker 2: of Project 2025. They won despite Project 2025 because they
1:06:51
Speaker 2: put together a set of extreme and deeply unpopular policies.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's a good point because their problem is,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: is that too many people found out about Project 2225.
1:07:02
Speaker 1: And what they were lucky about is that not enough
1:07:04
Speaker 1: in time.
1:07:06
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: Because it was extremely unpopular.
1:07:08
Speaker 2: Or didn't believe it, right?
1:07:10
Speaker 1: But most people, yeah, people either didn't believe it or
1:07:11
Speaker 1: didn't hear about it.
1:07:12
Speaker 2: Right. Or Trump denied it, right? Pretended it wasn't true.
1:07:15
Speaker 2: So the challenge for Democrats is whoever we nominate is
1:07:21
Speaker 2: going to have a bunch of ideological commitments, right? That
1:07:23
Speaker 2: not everybody's going to agree with, right? And there's going
1:07:25
Speaker 2: to be debates about what we should pursue and what
1:07:28
Speaker 2: we shouldn't, what policies are right but unpopular, what policies
1:07:32
Speaker 2: are popular but that don't go far enough. There's a
1:07:34
Speaker 2: whole range of big questions we're going to have to answer.
1:07:36
Speaker 2: We're going to do that in front of people, unlike
1:07:38
Speaker 2: what they did at first with Project 2025. So I
1:07:41
Speaker 2: don't know if we need to answer Project 2025 with
1:07:45
Speaker 2: Project 2029 exactly. But what I do think is what
1:07:49
Speaker 2: Trump should teach us is that Democrats for a long
1:07:52
Speaker 2: time were a little bit.
1:07:56
Speaker 2: We lack the imagination for just how quickly politics could change.
1:08:00
Speaker 2: And I do think the spirit of that, what I
1:08:02
Speaker 2: take from the spirit of that question is, are we
1:08:04
Speaker 2: going to be willing to really push the bounds of
1:08:08
Speaker 2: democratic politics for what we're willing to propose to people?
1:08:11
Speaker 2: And I think we should, and I think we need
1:08:13
Speaker 2: to be open to big and different ideas. And that
1:08:17
Speaker 2: to me makes me actually excited about what a primary
1:08:19
Speaker 2: could look like.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: And I think that the ideological spectrum is not the
1:08:23
Speaker 1: only place to have debates about these policies. I think
1:08:26
Speaker 1: sort of that's what happened in 2020. It was, well,
1:08:30
Speaker 1: we lost in 2016 and Democrats were too incremental on
1:08:33
Speaker 1: their policies. And so now we need to be big
1:08:35
Speaker 1: and bold and ambitious, which ended up being like spend
1:08:38
Speaker 1: more money, larger government, whatever it may have been. And
1:08:43
Speaker 1: I think that we need to think creatively about power,
1:08:48
Speaker 1: you know, and how to make sure that when we
1:08:50
Speaker 1: propose something, be it very progressive center left, somewhere in
1:08:54
Speaker 1: the middle, We get it done because I think there
1:08:58
Speaker 1: is a danger in overpromising. and telling people that we
1:09:01
Speaker 1: can do something that we cannot do. And then there
1:09:03
Speaker 1: is a danger in going too small, right? But we've
1:09:06
Speaker 1: got to figure out new ways to sort of use
1:09:09
Speaker 1: the power that we're given now. to actually improve people's
1:09:12
Speaker 1: lives in a way that they remember when they go
1:09:14
Speaker 1: to the ballot box?
1:09:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's why this question, I think it's hard for
1:09:17
Speaker 2: candidates to answer in the abstract right now, even for
1:09:19
Speaker 2: someone like Pete, because I think part of why it's like, well,
1:09:23
Speaker 2: obviously the Department of Justice should be independent, but how
1:09:27
Speaker 2: much control should we have over the FCC? What kind
1:09:29
Speaker 2: of executive orders are legal or not? It actually, like
1:09:33
Speaker 2: the Republicans over decades developed a pretty clear theory, which
1:09:36
Speaker 2: is we can do whatever the fuck we want, as
1:09:39
Speaker 2: long as the Supreme Court says it's okay, all power
1:09:41
Speaker 2: flows from the president. Everything else is either up for
1:09:44
Speaker 2: debate or unconstitutional. And we have a limited time to act.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: And we have to push back this sort of liberal
1:09:50
Speaker 2: kind of bureaucracy that is sort of swallowing the economy
1:09:53
Speaker 2: and has so much power that it never really was given,
1:09:55
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. Like, I don't know what Democrats
1:09:57
Speaker 2: think about power. I really don't. Like, how we're meant
1:09:59
Speaker 2: to use it, what rules we believe in. I don't
1:10:01
Speaker 2: really totally understand what our judicial philosophy is, right? Like,
1:10:05
Speaker 2: I know we think that abortion should be legal. I
1:10:06
Speaker 2: know what the ends should be, but I have no
1:10:08
Speaker 2: idea what the, like our version of originalism is right.
1:10:11
Speaker 2: Our version of, of unitary executive theory is like, I just,
1:10:14
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah.
1:10:15
Speaker 1: Well, and to answer the question, I don't, there's a
1:10:18
Speaker 1: bunch of different people working on it, different, different parts,
1:10:21
Speaker 1: but there's no like one effort anywhere. And I believe
1:10:24
Speaker 1: that ordinary Democrats will be able to have input as
1:10:27
Speaker 1: candidates announced for 2028. And there are debates and they
1:10:31
Speaker 1: lay out policy platforms and that's probably going to be
1:10:33
Speaker 1: the place to, have the input. Yeah. Last question comes
1:10:36
Speaker 1: from Will O. According to the Project 2025 tracker, the
1:10:40
Speaker 1: administration has nearly implemented 50% of the plan in just
1:10:42
Speaker 1: over six months. And while their approval ratings are at
1:10:44
Speaker 1: all-time lows, it just doesn't seem like anything is sticking
1:10:47
Speaker 1: to get people motivated to stay on top of holding
1:10:50
Speaker 1: the administration accountable. What's it going to take to get,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: and most importantly, keep people motivated, involved for the long haul?
1:10:58
Speaker 1: Pick this question because, you know, Dan and I talked
1:11:01
Speaker 1: about it on Friday's podcast. I have been struggling with it,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: wondering about it. I don't know what you think. It's
1:11:07
Speaker 1: a really tough question.
1:11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I also, by the way, I think sometimes
1:11:12
Speaker 2: this question really means I'm really nervous and things are
1:11:16
Speaker 2: so bad and yet it doesn't feel like the polls,
1:11:21
Speaker 2: the way politics feels doesn't reflect how bad things actually are. Well,
1:11:25
Speaker 2: that's been true ever since Donald Trump came down the escalator, right?
1:11:28
Speaker 2: Just is the nature of our politics right now because
1:11:31
Speaker 2: of the fractured nature of the media because of the
1:11:35
Speaker 2: country's distaste for Democrats and the kind of tarnishing the
1:11:38
Speaker 2: Democratic brand, which we're crawling back from. And I don't
1:11:41
Speaker 2: think anybody has a great answer. But that being said, like,
1:11:46
Speaker 2: what should we be doing right now to make sure
1:11:48
Speaker 2: we're in a position to win the midterms? Or maybe
1:11:50
Speaker 2: a better way of saying it, is there anything we
1:11:51
Speaker 2: should be doing right now that we're not doing to
1:11:53
Speaker 2: put ourselves in a position to win the midterms? I
1:11:56
Speaker 2: don't know. But I think we're doing a lot. I
1:11:58
Speaker 2: think we're making really good arguments. Donald Trump is losing
1:12:01
Speaker 2: in popularity. Mike Flood is getting the shit kicked out
1:12:04
Speaker 2: of him at a town hall. Republicans are struggling and
1:12:08
Speaker 2: divided over Epstein, of all things. Like, they're on their heels.
1:12:12
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is going to the roof of the White House.
1:12:14
Speaker 2: He's talking about ballrooms, putting nuclear fucking reactors on the moon. Like,
1:12:18
Speaker 2: he's making fun of Sidney Sweeney. Or, no, he's loving
1:12:21
Speaker 2: Sidney Sweeney, but he's making fun of Taylor Swift. Like,
1:12:24
Speaker 2: he's trying everything. Like, Reality is catching up with them
1:12:27
Speaker 2: a little bit. And the question is, how do we
1:12:29
Speaker 2: make the most of it?
1:12:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, and I said this Friday, but there
1:12:34
Speaker 1: has been some just incredible work being done by organizers
1:12:38
Speaker 1: and activists on the ground. And we've seen a lot
1:12:41
Speaker 1: of the No Kings marches and we've seen a lot
1:12:43
Speaker 1: of this, you know, the resistance is, it's back. It
1:12:47
Speaker 1: might not be getting as much coverage because the media
1:12:49
Speaker 1: is broken, but it's back. And I think we need
1:12:52
Speaker 1: to just grow the movement, right? I think that there
1:12:54
Speaker 1: is like those of us who have been, who've been
1:12:57
Speaker 1: in the salt mines, the content mines since, since Trump won.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's all, it's a, it's one
1:13:04
Speaker 1: big group of a lot of committed people. Like next
1:13:06
Speaker 1: time you go to an organizing event or a rally,
1:13:08
Speaker 1: bring someone who has never been before. Yeah. You know,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: I did like a friend who's maybe talking about politics
1:13:13
Speaker 1: once in a while, maybe turned away. Cause they were like, ah,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: I can't, just can't look at the news anymore. It's,
1:13:17
Speaker 1: it's Donald Trump being crazy every day. It's awful. It's awful.
1:13:20
Speaker 1: you know, convince like one person to come with you
1:13:22
Speaker 1: to a rally or to a town hall or to
1:13:24
Speaker 1: an organizing event. You know, I think that's, I think
1:13:26
Speaker 1: growing the movement ahead of the midterms and ultimately 2028
1:13:29
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the most important thing we
1:13:31
Speaker 1: can do.
1:13:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
1:13:33
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you all for your questions. Discord folks,
1:13:37
Speaker 1: our subscribers, who we love.
1:13:39
Speaker 2: Love every single one of you.
1:13:40
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1:13:49
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1:13:56
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1:14:00
Speaker 1: We're trying to get a million by the end of
1:14:01
Speaker 1: August or else.
1:14:02
Speaker 2: Elijah, he's out. He's out.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: So do it for Elijah. And thanks again to Pete
1:14:07
Speaker 1: Buttigieg for joining Pod Save America. And we always love
1:14:10
Speaker 1: talking to you. Can't believe you said that about Sydney Sweeney.
1:14:12
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: It's wild.
1:14:14
Speaker 2: Actually, like a unique take.
1:14:16
Speaker 1: A unique take. Yeah, didn't expect that coming from him.
1:14:19
Speaker 2: Strange.
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Epstein theory he has.
1:14:21
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: That's weird.
1:14:22
Speaker 2: That's so weird.
1:14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very weird.
1:14:23
Speaker 2: That's so weird. And what he showed you on his
1:14:24
Speaker 2: phone about it.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's... Held it up. Weird stuff.
1:14:29
Speaker 4: Wow.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: Come back, Pete, please.
1:14:32
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
1:14:35
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