Latest / Pod Save America / Dark Brandon: The Sequel

Transcript

Dark Brandon: The Sequel · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden makes it official. House Republicans
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: pass a debt ceiling bill that eliminates health care for millions.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Disney sues Ron DeSantis. And Democratic pollster Celinda Lake stops
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: by to talk about the president's road to 270 electoral votes.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Then Dan and I sort through the many wild rumors
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and theories about why Fox News fired Tucker Carlson. Fun stuff.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: But first, Cricket's newest pod, Pod Save the UK, is
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: launching May 4th. And if you like to laugh and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: cry about politics, you're going to love this show. Love it.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tommy and I sat down with the hosts, Nish Kumar
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and Coco Khan, for a special podcast. bonus crossover episode.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We tackle some really important issues like what the USA
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and the UK really think about each other's politics, how
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to turn political outrage into action, and of course, what
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: really happened to the Queen's corgis when she died, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you can imagine Lovett brought up. Here is a sneak peek.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: It's a very historic phrase that we use here in Britain,
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: and it is chat shit, get banged.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: That's the phrase.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: And I promise I mean this genuinely. There is a
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: lot of chatting shit in politics, a lot of flagrant lying,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: and not enough getting banged. And I think really the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: general public, and I'm serious, I feel like people need
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: to see some consequences to the constant lies.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I just want you to know, Dan, that we got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a note about the episode from the producers afterwards saying
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that it was great, but that, quote, they did have
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to cut all the bestiality stuff.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Will that be available maybe down the line
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: for others?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: That's for subscribers, yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: You want the good shit.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It was an unhinged episode in a very fun way.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: For more of this crossover episode, watch now on the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Pod Save the World YouTube channel. or listen and subscribe
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to Pod Save the UK wherever you get your podcasts.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. President Joseph Robinette
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Biden Jr. has officially launched his re-election bid with a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: three-minute announcement video that was followed by an ad blitz
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: from the campaign and allied super PACs. Let's listen to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: some of the announcement video.
• 2:41
  Speaker 6: But you know, around the country, MAGA extremists are lining
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: up to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting social security.
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: That you've paid for your entire life while cutting taxes
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: for the very wealthy. Dictating what health care decisions women
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: can make. Banning books and telling people who they can love.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: All while making it more difficult for you to be
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: able to vote. Every generation of Americans has faced a
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: moment when they have to defend democracy. Stand up for
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: and our civil rights. And this is our moment. Let's
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: finish this job. I know we can. Because this is
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: the United States of America. There's nothing, simply nothing we
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: cannot do if we do it together.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I just want you to know that I had that
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: song stuck in my head last night. I think it's catchy.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I like the music. Two questions, Dan. What did you
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: think of the video? And why aren't you wearing the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Dark Brandon t-shirt that the campaign is currently selling on
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: its website?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: To answer your second question first, it's because the mail
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: has not arrived today.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Next Thursday, I want to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: see those two glowing red eyes on your shirt while
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: we record this.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I thought the video was very good. It was upbeat, optimistic.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: As you mentioned, it had very catchy music. It framed
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: the race on very favorable terms to Democrats. It tried
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: to remind people of why they felt so good about
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, both in 2020 and then
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: at various points over the course of the first few
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: years of the presidency. And I think it didn't seem
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: like a typical political ad. So I thought the audience
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: for these things is not the persuadable voter who's not
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: going to tune in for a year and a half now.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: It's for people who are already engaged in politics. And
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: if it wants to get people to– what you want
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: in your announcement video is people to give money and
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: sign up to volunteer. And I think it hit all
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the right notes to achieve that goal.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I sort of dissect these videos like frame by
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: frame because when I was a speech writer, you could
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: write a five, six, seven page speech and just put
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: in everything you wanted. And then a couple of times,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Axelrod asked me to help with like an ad or two. Man,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that's hard because you have, and this is three minutes,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: but usually you have like 30 or 60 seconds and
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you try to write a script and the script is
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: obviously way too long. You really have to choose carefully
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: what you want to include in the video. So I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was interested in what they decided to include. Like they
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: opened with January 6th and Dobbs, images of both and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. They talked about freedom a lot. Also democracy,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: wanted everyone treated equally, protect everyone's rights, give everyone a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: fair shot. And then when he hit MAGA Republicans and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: talked about that movement and talked about them taking away freedom,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: he picked cutting social security, dictating healthcare decisions for women,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: banning books. telling people who you can love and making
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: it more difficult to vote. I thought it was an
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: interesting choice that the, you know, in the lead up
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to 2022, the message from Biden was mostly about abortion
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and about democracy. I think that their paid ads were
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: much more economy. But what do you think about the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: fact that this was heavy on democracy and freedom and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: lighter on economic messaging?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I was surprised by that, and I think somewhat pleasantly surprised,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: because there had been– Ron Brownstein, who writes for The
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Atlantic and CNN, wrote a story or a column a
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: couple months ago about how Biden would handle these quote-unquote
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: culture war issues, which is a term I hate to use,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: but I can't think of a better one right now.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And in that story, he quoted some people in the
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Biden operation saying– that they were going to avoid taking
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: the bait on these things. Their primary and main focus
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: is going to be on the economy, and that that
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: was just sort of noise on the outside. And so
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: to see them lean in here, I thought that was
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: not a viable strategy in this political environment. And so
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I was very glad to see that. And I thought
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: reclaiming the word freedom, I think, is very important. It's
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: something you and I have talked about a lot, I
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: have argued for in the past. I think this is
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the right way to do it, which is to take
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: all of the Republican extremist agenda and frame it under
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: one word. To make them not just be extreme, but
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: sort of these meddling, privacy-invading weirdos who are trying to
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: get involved in all your personal shit. I think that's
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a very good way to set the race, create the choice,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: and help with some of the voters we know Biden's
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: going to need, like young voters who feel the most
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: strongly on these issues.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Like you said about intended audience, I think
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: videos like this are probably for an audience of people
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: who have probably been quite politically engaged since 2016, who've
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: probably not only voted in all these elections, but maybe volunteered,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: who pay close attention to politics, and I think who
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: care about these issues quite a bit. And I think
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that as you tried a message to sort of A
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: lot of more working class voters. There'll probably be more economy, though.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. You know, I talked to Celinda Lake. We'll
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: hear that interview soon. She was talking about how this
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: freedom message landed with a pretty wide swath of voters
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: from different backgrounds, different education levels, et cetera. And so
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I do think that, you know, it gets to something.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: We always talk about how, like, you know, Democrats talk
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: about issues too much and Republicans talk about make it
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: bigger and make it about values. This was an announcement
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: video that was all about values and the value of freedom.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And I think it's so ingrained in the American experience
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that it will resonate with people who also don't pay
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: close attention to politics.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: When I was listening to this video and the ad
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: that we're going to talk about in a second, I
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: hearkened back to the interview you did on Offline with
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Lynn Veverick, who has written the analysis of all the
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: elections and talks about the era of calcification of politics.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: But one thing that I think Embedded in that interview
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that is really worth paying attention to is the idea
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: that in the 2020 election, even though a lot of
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Trump voters agreed with Democrats on a lot of policy issues,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: those issues were secondary to issues related to identity, to
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: sort of the freedom agenda you're talking about here, right? Abortion.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: marriage equality, the LGBTQ plus rights. And on both sides,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: for people who agreed with it, it was more important.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Even if they disagree with Democrats on the economy, they
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: would side with Democrats there. And then the reverse is true.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And so I think that dynamic is playing a role here.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: This does not mean the economy is not going to
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: be a huge part of this election. I don't know
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: if Celinda Lake made this point to you in this interview,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: but she made it when I talked to her a
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: few months ago. No person has ever won the presidency
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: in the modern era while losing it on the economy.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: And Biden has a lot of work to do there.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And they clearly are going to spend a lot of
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: time trying to rebuild his numbers on the economy heading
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: into the election. Just can't do that right this second.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: So this is where they put the focus.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the ad to Biden campaign and DNC released
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: their first one, a 90 second spot. called Flag. Relatively
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: small ad by seven figures. It will run nationally on
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: MSNBC and locally on TV in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Here's a clip.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: As the sun rises, we raise the flag, a symbol
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: of all that we hold most dear as Americans. Courage, opportunity, democracy, freedom.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: They're the values and beliefs that built this country and
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: still beat in our hearts. But they're under attack by
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: an extreme movement that seeks to overturn elections, ban books,
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: and eliminate a woman's right to choose. Joe Biden has
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: made defending our basic freedoms the cause of his presidency.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Since you host a hit show on our YouTube channel
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: about ads called Political Experts React... Why don't you go
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: ahead and react?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: As a faux political expert, I shall react. So it's
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: interesting to sort of think of all the various pieces
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: of Biden content as sort of like these nesting dolls.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: So you had the State of the Union, which had everything.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And then you have a three-minute video. And now we're
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: down to a 90-second video. And in each stage, as
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: you get smaller, more stuff drops out. And it is
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: very notable what stayed in this 90-second version is the
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: huge focus on a Republican extremist attack on freedom. And
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a good ad.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Now, like... Why do you think 90 and not 60
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: or 30? 90 felt long to me. That's because you're.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: You've spent too much time on Twitter, like myself, and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: so 90 seems like an impossible amount of time. You're like,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: that's like 19 TikToks. Like, I can't do it.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I know, but I don't think we're alone.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: No. I think the way to think about this ad is,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: once again, this is not– they are not trying to
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: persuade the up-for-grabs voters who are going to decide the election.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Those people are not watching– they're not engaged with politics
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: right now. Most of them probably have no idea that
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden just announced a reelection. They may not know
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: he's planning for reelection. Even if they did, historically, they
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: are not going to decide until– Weeks before the election.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: We are 18 months out from the election. So what
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: this ad is doing, I think it's a very smart
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: way to think about modern communications, is it is spending
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: some money to improve the information environment in which your
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: announcement is happening. Because Biden knows his video is going
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to go out there. That'll get some circulation. There will
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: be a lot of right-wing media reaction to it, which
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: is dominant. And then you're going to have mainstream media reaction,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: which is going to be infected with, but Joe Biden announces,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: despite low polls or concerns about age. So you put
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: out a piece of content on your terms. that's seen
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: by your people, which is why it's on MSNBC and
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: why it's happening in the battleground states. And for that environment,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: 90 seconds is a totally, I think, useful length. If
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: we were trying to, you know, 15 seconds is better
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: than 30 seconds if you're trying to get the less
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: engaged swing voters at the end of an election.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that he's taking back the flag and patriotism.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I thought that was great.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: The democracy and freedom message worked here. It's interesting, like,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I also like that he is framing it as an
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: extreme movement. Like he did two things. First, he said
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: democracy should not be a partisan issue, which is the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: clip from the State of the Union. And he also
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: said there's an extreme movement that's trying to overturn elections,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: ban books and eliminate a woman's right to choose. And
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I do think that he's trying to square the circle
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: here on these two things. But like, I do think
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it's important to give people the permission structure to say,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you know, this isn't the Republican Party. I remember this
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: is an extreme movement. And it's not about it's not
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: for partisan reasons that I want to vote against them,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: but it's because they are attacking democracy itself. I think
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that's like an important he's he's been doing that in
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the midterms. And I think he did that again here.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I also, you know, when the video came out, when
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the ads came out, I like watch them quickly. Didn't
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: really think about it as I was watching them again
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: closely last night. The other thing that struck me is
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it really makes the campaign a cause for Joe Biden
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: because And, you know, everyone's like, this guy's running, he's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: 80 years old, why is he doing this again? And
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: it's like, you can tell from what he says in
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: these videos and the thematics here, like, the guy is
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: genuinely worried about democracy. He genuinely thinks he can beat
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, maybe the only one who can beat Donald Trump,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and he might be wrong. But at the very least, like,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you can tell he genuinely believes that, like, this is
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a real cause for him. And I do think that's
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: important to start out a campaign like that.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Is it particularly important for Joe Biden, given what the
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: polls show about the number of Americans and Democrats who
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: think he should run again? Because there is this common
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: sense question. We all have parents or grandparents who are
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Biden's age and are like, do you want your dad
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: to be president of the United States? Absolutely not. And
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: so it's like, why is he doing it? This is
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: why he's doing it. Every campaign needs a rationale for
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: why you and why now. And these ads begin to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: make the case, I think, in a pretty compelling way
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: that is authentic, to Biden and his original decision to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: run for president in the first place, which people asked
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: even then, given everything that had happened with Beau and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in his family and his age, everything he had accomplished, like,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: why are you doing this? This is why. Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Moments after Biden's launch, the Republican National Committee responded with
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a video that they openly bragged contains 100% artificial intelligence
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: generated images. Let's listen.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: This just in, we can now call the 2024 presidential
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: race for Joe Biden.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: What federal emergency?
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: This morning, an emboldened China invades Taiwan.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Financial markets are in free fall as 500 regional banks
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: have shuttered their doors.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Border agents were overrun by a surge of 80,000 illegals
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: yesterday evening.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: Officials closed the city of San Francisco this morning, citing
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: the escalating crime and fentanyl crisis.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Who's in charge here?
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: It feels like the train is coming off the tracks.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, first question, what's with the AI angle? Uh, like
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: has the Republican party not had enough problems with reality?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Was this, was this just a, just reminding people that
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was this just like a stunt to get attention? Yes.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: It was a stunt to get attention. That's absolutely was.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And guess what? It worked.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So I'd say we're talking about it. We're talking about it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I think there are a few things about the AI
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: angle of this one. It is a piece of shit ad.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So I think humans should feel pretty good about our
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: coming battle with the robots for our jobs. Like it's
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: not there yet.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Second, the fact that AI is used here is irrelevant.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: They could have used stock images for all of that.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: This is a simply faster but probably less effective thing
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: than what you would normally do, which is you would
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: use stock images, B-roll, you'd use Photoshop. It's not that hard.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And so the AI thing is something. There are very
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: real implications for how AI could change politics in really
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: dangerous ways with deep fakes and really interesting ways in
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: terms of how it could affect how we make content,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: how we analyze the effectiveness of content, all of that.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: And there were, you know, we're going to eat guardrails
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and their concerns. None of that is pleasant. These people
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: who were like freaking out about the fact that this
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: is AI generated, it doesn't matter. They could have done
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: the exact same thing from stock photos and Photoshop. The
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: AI part is just a trick. It worked.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I was going to say that was, I didn't see
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: anyone freaking out, but my first thought was like, this
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: was designed to trigger liberals into screaming about the dangers
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of AI and disinformation, even though, like you said, It's
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: not like they used AI in this scenario to spread
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: any disinformation other than the disinformation they would have spread
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: had they not used AI.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like they created– the way people describe this
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: is they used AI to create an entirely fake future.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It's like, to be completely honest, Barack Obama ran this
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: exact same ad at the end of the 2012 campaign
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: that was, what if Rodney won? It's a newscast. We
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: just use actors instead of fake images. That part is
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: not that big a deal.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Well, the reason we're talking about it is not necessarily
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the AI, but it's the first sort of salvo from
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party on how they're going to attack Joe
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Biden in this campaign. So what did you think about
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the ad's message? Was it effective? Do you think it's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: indicative of how they're going to run against Biden?
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I think it's indicative of the fact that they don't
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: really know how to run against Biden yet. If you
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: just look at polls and you're like, what is the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: most obvious attack on Biden? It's that he's too old
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: for the job. But they can't say that because the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: front runner for the Republican nomination is basically Biden's age.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And then the second problem with the... And they try
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: to use weak as a proxy for it, but it's
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: not the same thing.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I don't... It worries me. The weak thing worries me
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: because I think that... And I don't think Biden's weak,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: but I do think that there's a lot of focus
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: on the age, and then a lot of Democrats say, oh, well,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Trump is 76, he's old too, so the age thing
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is whatever. But in this ad, it's very clear they're
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: trying to do the, like, the world is out of control,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the country's out of control, you feel like things are bad,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and this guy is too old and weak to really
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: handle it. You know, Trump's an asshole, we all know that, but, like,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Trump doesn't seem weak, Trump seems strong, right? Now, like, again,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not, like, too terrified of that, but it does
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: seem like a coherent message.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It can be a coherent message. There is old plus weak,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: and there's weak. And if Ron DeSantis or someone else
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: who is not in their late 70s is the Republican nominee,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: you can do both. And that is probably a stronger
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: message on that dimension. As we said before, Joe Biden
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: is going to determine how much voters care about age,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: depending on how he performs in the White House and
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: on the trail. And if he's performed like he has
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: for the last few years, I think that that issue
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: can be taken off the table. The problem with the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: way they're articulating that message is they are trying to
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: create a reality that does not compute for the vast
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: majority of Americans who do not live in the Fox
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: News bubble.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Are you saying that San Francisco isn't about to be
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: closed down?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I got a flight out of there in an hour,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: so I better hurry. San Francisco is going to be
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: closed down. It literally says the border is gone. This
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: is one of the things I saw all through 2020
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: and through 2022. One of the problems for Republicans is
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: that people who make their ads have had their brains
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: pickled by the right-wing media, and so they constantly make
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: ads that are relevant to a world created by the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: right-wing media and not the world experienced by the voters
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: they need. This video, like the original Biden video, is
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: for a certain audience. It's for RNC donors. I'll be
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: interested to see if this problem will continue, but it
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: continued all through the ads in 2022.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I have a little PTSD from 2016
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: when I felt like the whole election I was saying like,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: you know, these wrong track numbers, they don't really capture
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: how people are going to vote and people tend to
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: be grumpy and the Republicans talking about and Trump talking
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: about how dark everything is and how awful everything is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and how the country's falling apart. Like, that's not really
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: going to work. That's not optimistic. And then we know
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: what happened. So I guess, yeah, it's clear that it's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: an ad that tries to, like you do if you're
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: running against an incumbent, try to make the election a referendum, right?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Like things are shitty. Joe Biden's the president. Give us
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a chance. And I imagine that's going to be harder
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to do when Donald Trump is your nominee, if Donald
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Trump is your nominee.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Biden's path to 270. Nate Cohn has
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: a pretty good piece in The New York Times about
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the president's reelection prospects at this point. a year and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a half before election day, though I might quibble with
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the lead, which says, quote, some might feel that President
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Biden's re-election is all but a done deal. If those
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: people are out there, I would love to get my
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: hands on whatever drugs they're taking.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: You know, Democrats, famously confident and cocky about elections.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: It's like Elijah Preston. Thankfully, I put that in Slack
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and was freaking out about it. And I was like, yeah,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Nate goes on to write,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: on average, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by 1.4% so
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: far this year. Mr. DeSantis even leads Mr. Biden by
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: less than a point. Let the freak out begin. Why
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: is this race, and especially if it's a Biden-Trump rematch,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: so close?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Because the last Biden-Trump rematch was decided by like 40,000 voters.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Also close. This is the nature of American politics. It
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: is happening on the margins in a small handful of states.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I said this last week. I'll say it again. We
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: have to remember, the last two presidential elections were decided
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: by a total number of voters that was about the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: size of the number of people who sit in a
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: college football stadium on a Saturday. It is like 120,000 voters.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: That's what we were talking about here. It is going
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: to be close. We should assume it's close. We should
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: act like it's close. That is the reality of politics. Now,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: if we had a popular vote election, it would not
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: be close. The margins would be getting larger for Democrats
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: over the years. But within the context of Electoral College,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: which trends Republican, we should expect a very close race.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's, you know, regardless of which candidates are
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: running or what we've learned over the last several years,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: regardless if there's a pandemic, a recession, indictments, an insurrection, like,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you know, very few things are shifting in a significant
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: way where the electorate is, at least in the Trump era.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that can't change, right? Like we thought
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: things were going one way and then 2016 sort of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: upended everything partly because of Trump. But as for now, 18, 20,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: 22 have all been, pretty much, you know, the electorate
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: has been pretty much the same. We talked a little
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: bit about Biden's low 40s approval rating on Tuesday, but
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I know you wrote a message box about it this week.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: What's going on there? Can he win with those numbers?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Can he improve them?
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Biden absolutely can win with a number in the low 40s.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: He should try to get his number up. He's going
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: to try to get his number up.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Good advice. Good advice.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: When Barack Obama won re-election in 2012, the last president
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: to win re-election, he did so with an approval rating
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: at about 50%. There is almost no universe where Joe
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Biden's approval rating is going to be 50%. Because America's
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: become more polarized, you have fewer members of the other
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: party who are willing to approve of the president, that
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: lowers your ceiling pretty dramatically. But we live in a
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: world of negative partisanship where most people vote not for
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: their party, but against the other party, which is why
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Biden was able to have a historic performance in the
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: 2022 election. midterms despite having a low approval rating. We
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: cannot analyze presidential approval ratings in a vacuum. Running for
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: president is a lot like avoiding getting eaten by a bear.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be faster than the bear. You
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: have to be faster than the other guy. Joe Biden
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be popular. He has to be more
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: popular than Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. And that seems
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: very doable. That doesn't mean he doesn't have work to do.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: He needs to improve his leadership quality, how the public
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: sees his leadership qualities and numbers on the economy. He's
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: got real work to do with young voters. But We
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: should not look at his approval rating and compare it
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: to previous presidents and how they did because the world
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: has changed a lot.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I even saw, I think at the NBC Wall
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Street Journal poll, they tested Joe Biden versus generic Republican nominee.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And it was like Joe Biden got 41%, the generic
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Republican got 47%. I'm like, that is the most useless
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: question to ask because there will not be a generic
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee. There will be either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And so when that's when that's what you get, you've
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: got to you've got to measure it against the actual
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: person you're running against. If you did Donald Trump versus
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a generic Democratic nominee, I bet you'd get the same
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: numbers or a bigger margin for the Democrat. Can you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: talk about how you see the map at this point?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I was listening to The Daily the other day and
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Weissman said it will come down to Georgia, Arizona
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and Wisconsin, which seemed a bit narrow to me.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: What's The Daily? Where do you find that? It's a newspaper.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: The Daily Newspaper.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Is that someone who copies One A Day? That was
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: like a One A Day.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: The last election came down to six states. Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: My expectation is it'll come down to those states again.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: The only question on that list in my mind is
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: how competitive Michigan will be. It was the least competitive
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: of those six. Democrats had a tremendous performance in 2022 there.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But when I say how competitive it is, I'm saying,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: is Biden going to win it by two points instead
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: of one point? I mean, that's how narrow these states are.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Most of them are happening within less than one half
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: of 1%. And so we should expect those to be
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: where the race is contested again.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I agree. I'm definitely more bullish on Michigan
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: than I was at the beginning of 2020, and probably
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania too, but I still think they are going to
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: be fiercely contested.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump running in Pennsylvania is very different than Dr.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Oz running in Pennsylvania.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, right. All right, let's talk about the big
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: news this week on the debt ceiling drama. Kevin McCarthy
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: finally got a bill passed through the House with no
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: votes to spare. It was 217 to 215, with four
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Republicans voting no. In order to win over the most
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: hardcore MAGA extremists, McCarthy changed the bill in the middle
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of the night so that it would take away health
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: care and food from even more seniors, veterans, and low-income families. Dan,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: are you ready to say that you were wrong about
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy and admit that he is in fact wrong?
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a shrewd political tactician.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Congratulations on barely achieving the most basic task aside to you.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: We are in participation trophy culture for Kevin McCarthy. That
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: is for sure.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Most of the playbook this morning was just a lot
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of people showering Kevin McCarthy with compliments. Oh, we had
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: it all wrong. He really figured this out. I was like, okay.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: He passed a bill with... all people who voted for
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: him as speaker. Congratulations for not falling on your face
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: while walking seven feet consecutively.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I also think that he, he has a bit of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: an easier job in the sense that like, you know,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the freedom caucus basically made a bunch of demands. He
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: gave in, he doesn't really have to worry about moderates
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: getting pissed off because all the moderates are gone. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the people who are now the most moderate in there are,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: they never really had a lot of juice anyway. Their
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: numbers are small. And they all folded. Like Nancy Mace
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, I won't. I won't vote for
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a bill that has stricter work requirements on Medicaid. That's bad.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I don't want that. And then she voted for it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: in the end.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And what is she going to do? Not vote against it,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: cause Kevin McCarthy to lose his speakership and end up
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: with Marjorie Taylor Greene as her boss? Like, I mean,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: this was always going to happen. And it's Kevin McCarthy's
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: advantage in life is he has no principles. And so
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: there's nothing he won't do to achieve a short-term, even
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: if it has long-term or even medium-term consequences for his
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: party and certainly for the country.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I think that's an important point, too, is that he's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: like it's it's very Trumpian and that like you just
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: get through the news cycle.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: You just get you get to the next day. And
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of Freedom Caucus people who are like, oh,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: we told them we'll vote for this. But if you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: don't include everything that was in this bill in the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: in the final debt ceiling bill, we're not we're not voting.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, guess what? It's that you're not going
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to get everything that was in this bill in the
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: final bill. even if you were just negotiating with Senate Republicans,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: let alone Democrats.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: That is a really important point. The fact that he
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: told all these members that this was a floor, not
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: a ceiling, means he already knows how this is going
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: to end, which is some bill passing with a majority
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: of Democrats plus a small handful. of Republicans to lift
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the debt ceiling. Whether that happens before or after the
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: economy crashes, that's the real question. But that's where it's going.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And Kevin McCarthy knows it.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. All right. Here's McCarthy's post-vote statement to President Biden.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: The Republicans have raised the debt limit. You have not.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Neither has Schumer. So this was all reportedly a play
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to get Biden and the Democrats to the negotiating table.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Should they bite? Do they have to? Are they coming
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to the negotiating table now?
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: They do not have to bite. I don't think they're
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: going to bite because Joe Biden can't enter a negotiation
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: with Kevin McCarthy where Joe Biden's starting point is keeping
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the economy from blowing up and Kevin McCarthy's is stopping
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the economy from blowing up and cutting the every federal
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: program by 22% doing a whole bunch of other bad shit.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: That's not a good faith negotiation. It cannot happen. It
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: will not happen. If this is going to get resolved,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to happen with Kevin McCarthy
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden in a room together.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: So what happens next then?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: That's a great fucking question, John.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: We're barreling towards a deadline. Although I think that Treasury
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: got some more money in, more than they were expecting.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And now they think it's late July, mid to late
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: July is the drop dead date.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I think Treasury is still claiming, still says they were
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: planning for June. Goldman Sachs, which last week said it
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: was June, now says it's July. And the CBO says,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I think, sometime between July and September, which is a
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: really precise measurement for something of these stakes. So we
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: don't really know. There's some time. It's not going to
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: happen next week or even next month. But at some
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: point this summer, this is all going to come to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: a head.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I just wonder, I feel like the ball's in Biden's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: court now, at least in the minds of the media.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And the Republicans will certainly help deliver that message as well.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And so let's say the White House says no, no negotiations.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And then what happens? I mean, I guess I guess
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you could say that the Senate then maybe Schumer takes
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: something up and says that they'll start working on something
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, because I guess McCarthy did also say that, like, hey, well,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to negotiate with Biden. But if
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the Senate passes something, then we can get in the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: room together and negotiate a compromise with the Senate.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: I think what would come next, and this is not easy,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: in a normal world with a normal Democratic majority, that
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: include Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, and had Dianne Feinstein present,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: what you would do is Schumer would bring up a
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: clean debt limit bill, get 50 Democrats for it, force
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the Republicans to filibuster it, and claim Republicans are blocking,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: avoiding default. But I'm not sure you're going to get
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: 50 votes for that because of a Democratic absence and
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: two troublemakers in our party. But that would be the
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: next step in the old way of doing business.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So Biden did come out swinging against this bill. Let's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: listen to a clip.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: They haven't figured out the debt limit yet.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Will you meet with McCarthy?
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: When can America meet with McCarthy?
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: But not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended.
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: That's not negotiable. I noticed they quote Reagan and they
• 32:37
  Speaker 7: quote Reagan all the time and they quote Trump. Both
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: of which is just paraphrasing. It would be an absolute
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: crime to not extend the deadline.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: So that was from Biden. The White House has also
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: been tweeting about how this bill would cut veterans health care,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: meals on wheels for seniors, health care coverage for millions,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: would send clean energy manufacturing jobs overseas. What do you
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: think of all this messaging from the White House? And
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: are there any other arguments you'd make about this bill?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: The White House has been making this argument. Other Democrats
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: have been making it. The most effective argument, according to
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: a poll out this morning from Navigator Research, is by
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: pointing out that the Republican House bill would cut programs
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: like Veterans Affairs, cancer research, child care by 22%. When
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: you put that 22% number in and you list some
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: of the programs that would be cut, it takes the
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: bill from 3% support to opposition by 22 points. It
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: swings it 25 points. Wow. And that swing is most.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Manifest with independence. And so focusing on the specifics of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: the cuts is how they should do this. The white
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: house has been doing that. They've been setting the stage
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: for it. I think all you need to know about
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: the politics of this bill is that Donald Trump has
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: not been willing to touch it with a 10 foot pole.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Haven't heard him talk about it much.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: You mentioned, uh, the troublemakers. Uh, one of them is
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin. Obviously Democrats need to be united to win
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: this fight. Uh, I thought we were personally, I thought
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: we were done talking about Joe Manchin, but, um, He's
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: out there threatening to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: basically he wrote, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do think he's clearly trying to improve
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: his very bad poll numbers in West Virginia. They are
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: bad because he did vote for the Inflation Reduction Act,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and people in West Virginia are quite conservative and probably
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: didn't like him doing that. But I don't know that
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: going to voters in your state and saying, hey, remember
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: that bill that I wrote? well, I wrote it one
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: way and it passed, but Joe Biden didn't implement it right,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: so now I'm threatening to repeal it. I don't know
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that that works, but maybe I'm wrong.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: John, you have a toddler that lives in your house, correct?
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: How does your toddler react if he feels like you're
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: not giving him sufficient attention in any one moment?
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: Ah, yes, yes.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: That's what's happening here.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: He now says, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: because we told him that, um, You need to say
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: excuse me and not just yell. And so now he
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: yells excuse me. Yes.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So you know what that is? That's a smart kid
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: right there. Joe Manchin needs attention at all times. I
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: think he may misunderstand some of his own political successes.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: If you remember when he was running for election in 2010,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: he had a campaign ad where he shot the cap
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: and trade bill that was supported by President Obama and
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: passed by the House Democrats. But shooting someone else's bill
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: and shooting your own bill– Is a bit different.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: He's shooting his own bill. I am a little like
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what's he up to? He Governor Jim Justice
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: of West Virginia is entering the race against Joe Manchin.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Jim Justice is like former Democrat turned Republican, very popular
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: governor of West Virginia. It seems very like the toughest
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: possible opponent for Joe Manchin if he makes it through
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the primary, if the if justice makes it through the primary.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Manchin released a statement saying, I'm not going to, he
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: keeps saying, I'm not going to make any decisions until
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: December about my future. But then he also said, I
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: will win any race I enter. He keeps leaving open
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the possibility that there may be other races that he's
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: going to run in. He's already ruled out governor though.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So like, are we going to get a fucking Joe Manchin,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: no labels ticket? Is that what we're dealing with? And
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: we haven't talked about no labels much here, but like
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: they are going around getting no labels, no label spot
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: on ballots in 2020. key swing states. I think they've
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: already got one in Arizona.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: And Oregon as well, I believe. I do not believe
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: that Joe Manchin can beat Jim Justice in a Senate
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: race in West Virginia in a presidential year. Joe Manchin
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: barely won in 2018 against a massively flawed opponent. He
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: was running against a unpopular attorney general who who was
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: all mobbed up with the opioid industry in West Virginia.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: That is not a good candidate. And so if he's
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: running against Jim Justice, who's going to get Trump's endorsement,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: he is a former Democrat with Trump credentials, he's not
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: going to win that race. And so there is a
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: very real possibility. As we say, we worry about everything,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: panic about nothing. But we should be worried about Joe
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Manchin running for president on some independent ticket. And when
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: we talked all about your fears about 2016, The reason
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: 2016 happened one way and 2020 happened a different way
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: is that in 2016, Donald Trump only needed 47% of
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the vote to win. In 2020, he needed 50, so
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: he lost. If we get to a point where there's
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: a third-party candidate who can take a significant chunk of votes,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: and by significant, I mean three points in a battleground state,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump can easily win any of these states. He's
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: got 47% on lock in these states.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Less than 3%. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's like, And also,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be in every state, right? Like,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: say it was just Arizona. It could come down to Arizona,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: and Joe Manchin could pull 1% in Arizona and still
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: fuck us.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Just remember, Jill Stein received more votes in several of
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: the states that decided the election in 2016 than the
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: margin of difference between Trump and Clinton.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's end on a high note. All right,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: one last piece of fun news before Celinda joins. Disney
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: is suing Ron DeSantis for what they're alleging is a, quote,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: targeted campaign of government retaliation. The lawsuit came just minutes
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: after DeSantis' goons voted to nullify two agreements that gave
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Disney control over their resort complex. From the Disney statement, quote,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Disney finds itself in this regrettable position because it expressed
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: a viewpoint the governor and his allies did not like.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: In America, the government cannot punish you for speaking your mind.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: NBC has also reported that Tiny D is planning to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: launch his exploratory committee for president in mid-May. You think
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: being hit with a lawsuit from the most beloved company
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: in America is a win for little Ronnie Puddingfingers?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Kind of. I kind of do.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me why you think that is.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I think he's probably going to lose this suit, and
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: that will be bad for him. And the reason Disney
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: is doing this, based on a lot of what I've read,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: is it's not just DeSantis. Obviously, they have some real
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: stakes here, but you can see every Republican governor doing this.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: And so- Any place where they have business interests, they
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: need to win a case here that sets a standard
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: that protects companies from, I don't know, just expressing their
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: opinion publicly without facing repercussions, something that might be included
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: in the Constitution. But Republican politics, you're defined by your enemies.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: And corporations whether they're Disney or even Fox, are incredibly
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: unpopular among the Republican base. You talked to Celinda today
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: when she did that project on factory towns. The most
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: interesting to me part of that project was if you
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: call Fox News corporate news, Republicans run away from it.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It's the best way to combat Fox News disinformation. And
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: so a corporation suing Ron DeSantis can be a win
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: for him, whether he's got the dexterity to make it
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: at least a short-term win for him to be as
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: a proof of his conservative bona fides that he's such
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: a fighter against wokeism or whatever fucking word he wants
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: to use. Like it has something to do. I don't
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: think it's bad for him right now.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I think in a vacuum where there is no Donald Trump,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And everyone is like, oh, Ron DeSantis, he's, you know,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: he's the front runner in the Republican primary. I think
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that everything you said would be correct. I think the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: existence of Donald Trump now shitting on every single thing
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: that Ron DeSantis does makes this much trickier for him
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: because now it fits in a bucket of, oh, look
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: at this guy. He's flailing. He's sort of He doesn't
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: know what he's doing. Trump already hit him once for
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the Disney thing, and I don't know that it's as
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: clean as it would have been had there been no
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Because now Trump will message to voters, this
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: isn't DeSantis taking on a big, woke corporation. This is
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: DeSantis doing some kind of stunt, and he fucked it up,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and he couldn't do it right, and now Disney's going
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to get him.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I think that is definitely true that if DeSantis was
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: in this race alone or he was just running against
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley or whoever else, it would be a much cleaner,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: bigger deal for him. Everything is more challenging for DeSantis
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: because Trump is in the race shitting on him. Eating
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: breakfast is a pain in his ass, right? Like everything
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: is hard. But this is at least a chance for
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: DeSantis to have a news cycle that is about him
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: and him alone. Now, the one thing we should remember, though,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: is that we have seen no evidence in any of
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: the polling that any of these voters are hearing Trump's
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: attacks on DeSantis.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Because they're just truth doubt and truth social.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: You and I are missing like 80% of Trump truths
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: because they don't break through anywhere.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Well, apparently he had this great statement about DeSantis' trip
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: to Japan, which also I didn't really, I would have
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: never known DeSantis went to Japan, except that he gave
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: that press conference where he fucking sounded like a bobblehead doll.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: And then Tommy brought it to our attention because I
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: guess he read it on Pod Save the World. And
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: it's like Trump saying that DeSantis is flying home from Japan.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And he's like, why did I do this? Why? Why
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: am I running for president? It was very funny. It's great.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: His statement on the Disney thing today is actually pretty
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: smart for general election about how this is going to
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: cost Florida all these jobs.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Was that what Trump did? I was waiting for it.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find it.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Like I said, no one hears them. You and I
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: don't hear them, right? I had to go to the
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: exact URL of the Trump truths to find it this
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: morning in preparation for this pod.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: As it should be. Okay. When we come back, I
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: will talk to Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake. Joining us now
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to talk about Joe Biden's path to reelection, one of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: his top pollsters, veteran Democratic strategist Celinda Lake. Celinda, welcome back.
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: Thank you. Great to be here.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Big week for the president. What was the thinking behind
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the messages in the announcement video in the first ad,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: which were heavy on freedom, democracy, protecting rights, little lighter
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: on the economy?
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: Right. So I'm not speaking on behalf of the campaign here.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: I'm just speaking as a Democratic pollster. But one of
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: the things that we've been finding in all of the
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: work that we've been doing is the power of the
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: freedom narrative. It's huge out there. And the central narrative
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: of taking away our freedoms. And it's something that was also,
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: you know, is a real through thread for the president.
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: He started with Charlottesville and the soul of the nation
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: and the soul of the nation is the as much
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: in jeopardy today or more so because it's been revealed
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: how far the other side will go. So it's a very,
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: very heartfelt thematic. It's test unbelievably strongly. It's a value.
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: Freedom is interesting because it's the number one value out there.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: And it's the number one word that the right uses
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: more than the left, which is quite ironic right now.
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: So we are taking it back. And I think the
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: president's speech was a strong part of that. The president,
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: I think there are two pillars to the campaign, the
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: record on the economy and taking away our freedoms and
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: fighting for our freedoms, whether it's voting, whether it's abortion,
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: whether it's LGBTQ rights. But the other pillar is the economy.
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: Simultaneously to the announcement, of course, the president and the
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: whole cabinet is engaged in a 31-city tour on the
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: economy and on investments from the IRAs. So It's not
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: like it was ignored. It was like these are the
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: two pillars and they are being spoken to simultaneously, in
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: my opinion.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Can you take us behind the scenes in the in
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the world of Democratic pollsters and strategists on how the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: freedom narrative sort of came to be? Because I remember
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: like democracy and abortion rights. President talked a lot about
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: both of those in the lead up to the midterms.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: So did other Democrats. And there was some you heard
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: some candidates talk about freedom in the lead up to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the midterms. But I feel like it really took hold
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: maybe in the last year or so since the election.
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: I think it actually really took hold after January 6th.
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: And there had been some freedom messaging around abortion before that.
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: And Anat Shankar Osorio, who I know you know well
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: and adore as much as I do, was really one
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: of the people who developed freedom as such a strong,
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: broad thematic. And freedom relates to the economy, too. the
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: freedom to thrive in the economy was a point that
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: she made and has been making for some time. Then
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: of course, with January 6th, with the voting rights restrictions,
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: with the abortion restrictions, the Dobbs decision, medication abortion, taking
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: away our freedoms became a very, very prominent theme. The
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: freedom to be represented by who we want to be
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: represented by and not have them silenced on the floor
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: of the house. There are just so many things happening
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: that people thought were completely unlikely to happen. And many
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: of them, people think, is this even legal? Like, don't
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: I get to vote for who I want? And you
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: can't tell them they can't speak on the floor. So
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: that has been the push in this last year. There
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: were quite a few candidates who actually ran on freedom
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: in 2022. And it's been a very strong thematic since
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: then because the Republicans keep making it stronger and stronger
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: for us.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: You were one of the president's top pollsters in 2020.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: You've known him for years. In your view, what do
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: his current low 40s approval ratings and, you know, lack
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: of enthusiasm among some Democratic voters not capture about his
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: strength as a candidate in this race?
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: I think there are three things. I love your question.
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: Thank you. I was expecting another one, but thank you. Um,
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: I think number one, that we beat Trump already. Seven
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: million more votes. I mean, this wasn't a, you know,
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: a hundred vote march at seven million more votes. And
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: that was before January 6th. That was before Dobbs. It
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: was before Trump was indicted for everything under the sun. So,
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: and has completely alienated women. And actually of all the
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: indictments in our research, we're finding that the rape trial
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: is the most salient to women. It's not even the
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: papers or the finances. It's the rape trial, which is very,
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: very vivid to them.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Has that broken through to folks?
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: Totally. Particularly college educated women, suburban women, attentive women, independent women,
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: democratic women. Yes, it's volunteered much more than I would
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: have thought. Secondly, the fact that he has such an
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: amazing record. Honestly, it would have been easier for him
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: if he had gotten a lot less done because then
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: you would know exactly what to talk about. We got
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: to talk about these four things because they're the only
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: things we got done rather than these 40 things. And
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: then I think people are underestimating what a sharp contrast
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: was laid out. And it was laid out by the
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: president's announcement veto and the RNC's response video. This is
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: a very stark contrast in the future of America. What
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: is the soul of the nation? Is it an optimistic
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: vision or a pessimistic vision? And he is a resilient person.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: He is optimistic. He is energetic. And that's all being underestimated,
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: How much do you think the president and the White
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: House and the campaign can really do to get his
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: accomplishments to actually break through to voters. And I'm sure
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the voters we're talking about are not the super engaged
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: people who consume a lot of news like us. But,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of folks, working class, middle class,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: don't pay close attention to politics. They don't really hear
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: about the accomplishments because the media doesn't really cover them.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Like how how useful are campaign ads, president speeches in
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: really making that stick with voters in your experience?
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I would say to the ever-loving
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: frustration of all of us, it is just amazing how
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: difficult it is to penetrate. right now. I would have
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: thought this stuff would have penetrated a lot more. It
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: did in 2008. And I think this administration has tried
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: every kind of communication vehicle known to womankind and mankind.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: But I think the more of this that shows up
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: at people's kitchen tables, the more that it shows up
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: in people's neighborhoods, The more that it shows up in
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: the friends and family networks of people, that grandma says,
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: thank God the insulin is only priced at this. That
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: your Latino neighbor says, I have a job on that
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: construction crew for that bridge. That the small business owner
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: reminds them, you know, PPP loan actually kept me afloat
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: during COVID. We came out of COVID. We're still here
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: because of those loans and that help. the more that
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: those networks express what is actually showing up. And then
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: I think there are two things that are blocking the communication.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: One is for a while, I think Democrats didn't seem
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: in touch. We were taking victory tours and we were
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: saying everything was good. And it's like, what planet are
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: you on? And we had people in focus groups asking
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: what neighborhoods do economists live in? Because they sure don't
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: live in my neighborhood. So I think now that there's
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: a much greater understanding, which Bill Clinton had, in his administration,
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: that we've made this progress, but it's not good enough.
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: It's not good enough till we're here, here, and here.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: And then the cynicism that voters have for every institution
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: right now is at record high. I mean, people say
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: the president's numbers are bad, OK, well, the president's numbers
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: are weak. Want to be the Supreme Court right now?
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: Want to be Congress right now? Want to be Donald
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: Trump right now? I mean, his numbers are better than
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: all of them. So it's just we're just in an
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: era of great dissatisfaction, instability. And I think we have
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: to factor that in.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: How big of a factor is the president's age in
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the focus groups and polling you've done?
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: People mention it a lot. I think sometimes people mention
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: it protectively. Some seniors will say, well, I can't handle it.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure if he can. But on the other hand,
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: if age is the worst thing they can say about him,
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: oh my gosh, are we in great shape? No scandal,
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: no corruption, no failed programs. Keep on it. The second
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: thing I think is the best anecdote to age is
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: just for him to be out there showing his energy,
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: showing what he can do. And that will come across,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: I think, as he's out in the hinterlands. And I
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: think we're finally resigning. You mentioned it, John. We can't
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: get any national press on the accomplishments. So they're going
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: market by market. It's a slow grind, local news by
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: local news. But people are also relying on local news
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: and podcasts more than they were in the past.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I noticed in the announcement video that he narrated
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. And I wondered if that was partly
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: to show people like, here he is, he's got energy,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: he's talking, he's out there. Do you think the campaign
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: will be trying to put him in situations where he
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: can show energy, that he's interacting with people, all that
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff?
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: I think so. I mean, I'm not privy to those plans,
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: but I think it's obvious. And I think the great
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: thing was people know Joe Biden and they know that
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: he's not Barack Obama in terms of being an orator.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: But he laid out a clear vision. He emotionally spoke
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: to what was in his heart. And he laid out
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: the contrast. Frankly, he did that in 2022 very effectively
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: in a series of speeches. So I think showing him
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: out there energetically, locally deliver for markets in paid ads
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: and in speeches is a formula that worked in 2020.
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: It's a formula that will work in 2022. And it
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: contrasts vividly with the erraticism and chaos of the Trump team.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: How are you expecting the, uh, 24 electorate to be
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: different than the 2020 electorate? Um, you know, we were just,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned that, uh, he won by 7 million votes,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: obviously in the swing States, it was like 40,000 votes, right?
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: If they'd gone the other way, Trump would have won
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: because the electoral college, like, you know, a lot has
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: happened in four years, but also since Trump won in 16,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the electorate hasn't changed that much, I would say. And
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: there's just been sort of swings and differential turnout here
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and there. What do you expect? What are you seeing
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: as we head into 24?
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of the more they change, the
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: more they stay the same. But there is going to
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: be a younger electorate, particularly if they turn out to vote.
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: And for the first time, we're going to have younger
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: voters outnumber potentially baby boomers. That's good for Democrats.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What does the map look like? Narrower? Larger? Same
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: swing states?
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: Pretty similar, I think. The battleground states are still battlegrounds.
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: Florida was already tough. If DeSantis is the nominee, it'll
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: be even tougher. Michigan's a little better for us, but
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: it's the same playground, I think.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Which groups of voters worry you the most, keep you
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: up at night the most, if you look at Biden's
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: 2020 coalition?
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: Blue-collar, the same people that worried us in 2020. Blue-collar
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: women and blue-collar men.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: Particularly blue collar women, because they're pretty upset at instability.
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: They are the most cynical about accomplishments and they are
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: being pressured by their husbands to vote for Donald Trump.
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: So we got to make sure that a lot of
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: women vote differently than their husbands, particularly blue collar women.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: What about working class voters who are Latino, even some
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: black men? We've seen some attrition there in the last
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: couple of elections. What do you think about that?
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: I think that's a problem. And I think it's a
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: problem that derives from the central problem for all Democrats,
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: which is we have to more firmly establish an economic message.
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: We have to lay out an economic contrast. And the
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: Biden team is well aware of it. As we've talked
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: about before, John, Hillary Clinton, and I love Hillary Clinton,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: ran one ad totally devoted to the economy. 60% of
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: the Biden media was devoted totally to the economy. We
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: have to establish an economic plan. We have to give
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: an economic vision. We have to get the economy in
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: better shape. And the administration is working 24-7 to do that.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: The RNC's response to Biden's announcement video was basically, you know,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: country's out of control. This guy is too old and weak,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: you know, to fix it. Wheels are coming off the bus.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: He's over his head. Does that message worry you? Does
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: it land with voters? And how does that message seem if,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the GDP numbers came out today? I think
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: growth slowed a bit. Like if we tip into even
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: a mild recession, I mean, obviously Biden can't do much
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: to control that. But does the messaging become sharper on
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: the economic contrast or how do voters deal with that,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: I think that one of the things that we have
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: to worry about as Democrats is that Republicans are still
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: slightly ahead on the economy. And that's generic Republicans. And
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: Trump economics is still perceived to be better than Obama
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: economics or Biden economics. So that's why we've got to
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: stay on this message. And, you know, it's back to
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: the future. As James Carville said, it's the economy, stupid.
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: We got to stay on that message. We got to
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: establish balance. how this economy is delivering for everyone, not
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: just people on the coast, not just people with a
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: college education. And that includes young black men, and that
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: includes Latinos, particularly Latino men who are very economically focused. Now,
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: for case in point, Latino men love the infrastructure bill
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: because they firmly believe we will be the ones who
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: build those roads and bridges. So we've got to stay
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: on that and really make sure that we communicate to
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: all of those channels.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: You made a bold, very early prediction on this show
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: that Democrats would keep the Senate in 2022. Before it
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: was ever cool to think that. Care to do the
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: same with 2024?
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think we're guaranteed to take back the House,
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: that we're going to have to work hard for it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: Our margin is very narrow and we got 17 seats
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: that were won by Biden. And I think the choice
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: issue is going to matter a lot in the House seats.
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: And then I think we're going to hold the Senate.
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: We've got really good candidates running. They're still having candidate problems.
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: And I think these are tough, tough races. But the
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: John Tester, Sherrod Browns, Ruben Gallegos of the world are
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: the kinds of seasoned candidates we need to win these seats.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: And a Biden win on the presidential level?
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: Biden win on the presidential for sure.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Okay. OK, well, now we we're out of the prediction
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: business here, but it's always good to have you on.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: You have you have actual data to back it up
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: and talk to voters. So we love that. So, Linda,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining Positive America and and
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: come back soon. We'll we'll keep in touch during the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: course of this campaign.
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me so much. And thanks for
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: your good analysis.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: All right. Before we go, Dan, we've got to talk
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: about Tucker. You haven't really had a chance to talk
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: about Tucker yet. In the days since Rupert Murdoch knifed
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: his golden child, there's been a flurry of theories explaining why.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to do, I thought we'd go through
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: each of these theories one by one, and you're going
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: to tell me if each theory is either possibly true
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: or resistance fanfic.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Theory number one, he violated too many
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: HR policies. So the Dominion, and that's to That's an understatement.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: The Dominion lawsuit exposed Tucker's text messages where he disparaged
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Fox executives, calling one senior executive the C word. We
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: knew that he called Sidney Powell the C word, but
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: it's also apparently a Fox News executive. Fox was also
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: worried about a lawsuit filed by a former producer, which
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: apparently details a highly sexist, misogynistic workplace situation. In the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Tucker show, again, shocker, shocker.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Who would have guessed?
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: It's always the ones you least expect.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: So what do you think about that theory?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: That sounds possibly true. And there is even in one
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: of the many stories about this, there is a details
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: of meeting with the Fox attorneys and Tucker, where they
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: came to him and said, good news. We were able
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: to get redactions of a bunch of your messages so
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: the public won't see all the things you said, including
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: calling the Fox News executive the C-word. And he was
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: not happy. He wanted his views out there. It doesn't
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: seem like the sort of team player you want to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: go to war with.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people are understandably saying, well, what
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: about the timing? He's been doing this shit forever. And
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: the New York Times last night, Wednesday night, broke a
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: story and they had some new reporting in this, which
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: is there was basically the night before they were supposed
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: to go to trial, even though the Fox lawyers had
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: all the unredacted text messages from Tucker, the board and
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: senior executives hadn't seen all of them, and so they
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: saw all of those messages the night before, and Dominion
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: basically said, yeah, we're going to call Tucker to the stand,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and we're going to try to make sure he has
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: to answer for all of the text messages, even the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: redacted ones, and that finally was apparently the the straw
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: that broke the camel's back, and why they all flipped out.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Which seems, again, I would agree. Possibly true. Theory two.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: He dazzled Rupert's girlfriend with Bible talk. Rupert Murdoch did
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: not like that Tucker laced religion into his show. Then
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: in March, Murdoch invited Tucker over for dinner, and Tucker
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: bonded with Rupert's then-fiancé and Leslie Smith over the Bible.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Rupert has since broken up with that fiancé over email.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: Ha!
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: It's just very Logan Roy. She later told Murdoch that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Tucker was a messenger from God, to which Rupert reportedly responded, nope. Which, honestly,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: best response. And, of course, they broke off their engagement
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: shortly after that. What do you think about this theory?
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: I am first most surprised that Rupert Murdoch used his email.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. I didn't think about that.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was a man basically born in the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: telegraph era. And he's just out here firing off emails
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: to break up with women. I mean, I find that surprising.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: This feels very fan-ficky to me, this discarded succession plot line,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: which is a joke a thousand people have made. But
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: it just seems hard to imagine this all. Ruben Murdoch,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: who is a ruthless business person, got upset because Tucker
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: bonded with his wife over religion or his fiancée over religion.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Seems an unlikely reason to make a multimillion-dollar decision for
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: his company.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree. I can believe that Rupert got
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: pretty tired of Tucker and maybe wanted to fire him
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: for a while or was thinking about it. And this
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: could be one of the reasons, one of the many.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: But like you said, you don't pull the trigger on
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: that multi-million dollar decision just because of personal peak.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Rupert Murdoch does not like Donald Trump. He
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: has never liked Donald Trump, but he's certainly willing to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: help get him elected and help fuel the path to
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: his insurrection because it's good for the business.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Theory three. This is the succession theory. The Murdoch kids
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: are thinking long-term. Lachlan Murdoch is preparing to leave the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: company when Rupert passes. His siblings, James and Elizabeth, have
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: been pressuring him to do something about Tucker. Lachlan knows
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: he'll need their support to run Fox because of how
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: the family trust is structured. The Murdoch children and top
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: execs at Fox feel that no one personality is bigger
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: than the Fox News platform.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Is there something between Possibly True and Resistance Fanfic?
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, this, this just, you know, it's our show. We
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: can do whatever we want.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: This feels like succession galaxy brain. Like we're just like, it's.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: A succession fanfic.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're overly complicating this and trying to fit it
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: into how we all understand media now, which is through
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: an HBO drama. I do think succession has probably done
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: for the way we think about media. Probably what West
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: wing did for politics, which is creating a, a, a very, uh,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: different version of how things actually work.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Theory four is internal warfare. Radio talk show host
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Michael Savage suggested on Newsmax that Sean Hannity stabbed Tucker
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: in the back and convinced Fox to get rid of
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: him because he's long held a grudge against Tucker, who
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: displaced him as the most powerful Fox personality. He is
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: a very jealous, talentless thug. He hated Tucker's wild success
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. Hannity may have had something to do
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: with it. This isn't resistance fanfic. This is MAGA fanfic.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, who wouldn't believe Michael Savage, who
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: I'm sure has won multiple Pulitzers for all of his reporting.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: And also, is there anything about Sean Hannity that suggests
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: he could concoct and execute some sort of complex plan?
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Very good point. Very good point. Theory five, ratings don't
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: equal money. The Wall Street Journal reports that despite being
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: the highest rated show on the network, Tucker's show didn't
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: make big bucks. That's because Tucker's content was so unhinged
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that the big blue chip advertisers wouldn't buy ad time
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: on his show. So Fox couldn't sell commercials at a
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: premium rate.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: No, that's not fanfic. That is a misunderstanding of cable
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: news economics. Yes, his ads were not.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: And how carriage fees work, right?
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. The Fox News gets a lot of money,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: not by the ads they show, but just by being
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: on everyone's cable box. So all you people who have
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: not yet cut the cord are still paying for Fox
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: and whether they run ads from Fortune 500 companies or
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: weird ferility supplements or gold buying or Trump commemorative coins
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: is only sort of marginal to the bottom line.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There was also a report too, I'll just throw
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: in another theory that like Rupert Murdoch was angry about
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Tucker's Ukraine war stance.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Just like, you know, Rupert's principled stance on the Ukrainian
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: war and he just, he can't, He can't stomach Tucker
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: out there being so pro-Putin.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's obviously an outlier on this network that
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: never is supportive of Putin or Russia. How could that
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: possibly happen? The reality here is very simple. Fox just
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: lost three quarters of a fucking billion dollars in a
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: lawsuit because a bunch of people on the network said
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: dumb shit. And Tucker Carlson clearly is someone who does
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: whatever he wants and can't be stopped, which is why
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: he ran that insane false flag campaign. January 6th documentary,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: which everyone tried to stop. He said, do it anyway.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: And then got acts of those tapes and then did
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: more of that dangerous shit. And so they're staring, they
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: made a, they're going to take a small term hit
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: now to avoid getting sued for a trillion dollars in 2024.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: It's that simple.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems right. Highly plausible. I would say.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Um, how fun is this? That, uh, Oliver Darcy reported
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: that the ratings for Fox last night were like some
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: of the lowest ratings in the post 9-11 period. And
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: that not just low ratings for Fox because you could say, okay, well, they,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Tucker was their highest rated host. They're now doing some
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: sort of filling rotational, you know, rotation of hosts while
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: they try to find a new one. So of course
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: their ratings are good. But Newsmax's ratings have started going up.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: We saw the same thing after January, after the Arizona call.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: in 2020, and it reverted to the mean. It will
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: likely revert to the mean. Now, the next person in
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: that slot may not get Tucker's numbers, but it will
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: probably continue to be the most watched cable news program
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: at that time forever. We had the same thought. You
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: guys made this point on Tuesday. Everyone thought it was
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: all going to fall apart when Glenn Beck left, and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: then when Bill O'Reilly left, and when Roger Ailes left,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: and it returns to where it was, and whether it's
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: Jesse Waters or Greg Gutfeld or I don't know what
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: other Yahoo they're going to put in there. They'll continue
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: to do fine and continue to make a shitload of
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: money dividing America on racial lines.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: One material effect of that on politics, I think, is
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: in order to revert to the mean and not lose
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: audience to Newsmax, I think all these stories about how
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the Murdochs are done with Trump and they want DeSantis
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: now and all this kind of stuff, I think that's
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: all gone. I think they're going to go so everyone
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: at the network all in for Trump because they don't
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: want to lose. They just can Tucker and they don't
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: want to lose his audience to Newsmax. So they're going
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: to be right up Trump's ass now.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's how, that's what
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: happened last time.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you to Celinda Lake for joining us and, uh,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: have a great weekend, everyone. We'll talk to you next week.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Our episodes are uploaded as
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.