Latest / Pod Save America / Trump’s Get Out Of Jail Free Campaign (w/ Gov. Tim Walz)

Transcript

Trump’s Get Out Of Jail Free Campaign (w/ Gov. Tim Walz) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden goes on offense. Nikki Haley
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: calls Trump unhinged. Mike Johnson has lost control of the House.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And later, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz sits down with Tommy
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to talk about how much you can get done when
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats have full control of your legislature. But first, it
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: has been a big week for Donald Trump's Get Out
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of Jail Free campaign. The Supreme Court is now set
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to make a decision that will determine whether Trump will
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: stand trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election sometime
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: before the 2024 election. We should get that decision sometime
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: within the next week. A judge in Georgia... heard arguments
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: about whether DA Fannie Willis should be removed from that
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: election subversion case because of a romantic relationship with one
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of her co-attorneys. We're about to find out how much
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Trump and his businesses will have to pay for committing
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: fraud in New York. And Trump showed up at another
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Manhattan courtroom on Thursday only to have the judge deny
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: his request to delay the case where he's being charged
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: with violating election law by falsifying business records to cover
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: up hush money payments to the porn star he had
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: an affair with. Jury selection in that case will now
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: begin on March 25th. And Trump, of course, used the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: opportunity to campaign just outside the courtroom.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: This is no crime. But outside, right outside their courthouse,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: this courthouse, people are being murdered. So it's a very
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: unfair situation. They want to keep me nice and busy
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: so I can't campaign so hard. But maybe we won't
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: have to campaign so hard because the other side is incompetent.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: The other side has done a horrible job running this country.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: They've done a horrible job at the border. Add up
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: the countries that make up NATO. It's about the same
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: size as our economy. So we're in for $ 200 billion.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: They're in for $ 25 billion.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: And it's much more.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Important to them because we have an ocean in between.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: It's a much more, much different thing. So the NATO
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: countries have to pay up.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: They're not paying up.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: They're not paying what they should.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: And they laugh at the stupidity of the United States
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: of America.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: They're definitely laughing at some stupidity. I will say that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: There's people being murdered right outside the courtroom. Right outside
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the courtroom. He should watch out. That's where Donald Trump
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: is standing. So, lots to unpack here. He's really doubling
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: down on his war against Europe, huh? He said something
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: about NATO again at a rally on Wednesday night. What
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: do you think is going on here?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I would say first, I don't think, and I'm
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: not sure I need a lot of polls for this,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: so I don't think the public supports presidential candidates inviting
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Russia to invade Finland. I think people are probably generally
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: against that. I do think that his general message that
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the United States is being asked to carry more than
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: its fair share of the burden and that US taxpayers
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: are paying for stuff they shouldn't pay for is probably
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: pretty popular, right? It is one thing that Trump has
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: talked about for a long time. Now, this may come
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: as a shock to you, but Donald Trump does not
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: know how NATO works.
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: No.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: There are no NATO bills. There's no NATO dues. It
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: is just some guidelines that you spend 2% of your
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: GDP on defense. The United States does. We are the
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: biggest country with the biggest military, so we carry.
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: More of it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: But it is an absurd thing. But I think it is...
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He is right to– right is not the word. He's
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: definitely wrong.
• 3:57
  Speaker 7: But he is.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Politically– there is some political savvy in fitting this gaffe
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: of his under his larger narrative of America has been dumb.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: We're paying for things we shouldn't pay for and I'm
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: going to fix all of that. And so that probably
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: works for him. And so he is trying to, I think,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: shift away from the please invade Russia, please invade countries
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: to the part of the message is more politically effective
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: for him.
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you were to poll test, why are
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we spending more to defend Europe than those deadbeats in Luxembourg?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I think it would probably pull pretty high, right? It
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: would test pretty well. People say, yeah, that's bullshit. It is,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of course, untrue. Like you said, there is no like it. NATO,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we talked about this on Tuesday's pod that, like you said,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it's a guideline. Every country should spend two percent of
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: its GDP on its own defense. Many countries do that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: in the NATO alliance. The United States is one. Poland
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is one, right? There's like a lot of countries doing that.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Some countries aren't spending 2% of their GDP on their
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: own defense. The question then for Donald Trump is, are
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you suggesting defense cuts in the United States? Do you
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: want us to spend less on our own national defense?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Because I don't think that's what he's advocating for either,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: though I do think that's probably fairly popular across parties
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to spend less on defense. We do have a bloated
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: defense budget in this country. But like you said, the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: better message here to count about what Donald Trump has
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: said is, why does Donald Trump want Putin to take
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: over Europe? Do we think Putin's going to stop there?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Do we think that the ocean between us and Vladimir
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Putin is going to protect us from a third world war?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Do we think we're going to be able to stay
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: out of World War III if Vladimir Putin sets his
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: sights on Europe? Is that what's going to happen?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, the guy is building space lasers right now,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: as far as we know. So I don't think the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: ocean is going to save us.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You know what, Dan? Tommy Vitor just asked me, are
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you guys going to talk about the space lasers? And
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: are you going to talk about the Russian space nukes?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And I told him that we weren't. But you know what?
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: You being the world, though, that you are, you brought
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it up.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: That's right. I have some world thoughts right now about
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: how so many Democrats have been world-opilled and are fucking
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: up the response of the Trump-NATO thing. If I see
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: one more Senate Democrat be like, Donald Trump does not
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: respect our multilateral institutions, I'm going to lose my mind.
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: I know. I know.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It's the international order. Here's the thing, though. You know
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: if we were in the White House right now with
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama, he'd be talking about the international order.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: You know, I think not, actually. I think not.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: You think you and Axe and everyone would get to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: him and be like, it's about Putin taking over Europe.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I think Barack Obama, one thing he does understand is
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: how to fit these things into larger narratives. And so
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: while he does have a true passion multilateral institutions in
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: the world order. He absolutely does. I think he would
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: get to the argument here is that Donald Trump is
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: an erratic dunderhead, right? Not that he is a principled
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: isolationist at a time of global interaction.
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: No.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the legal stuff. So Jack
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Smith's election subversion case was supposed to go first on
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: March 4th, but now that we're waiting for the Supreme
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Court to decide the immunity question, And now that there
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was the ruling in Manhattan today, it looks like the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: first Trump trial will be the hush money case. Jury
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: selection on March 25th. It's happening. Not ideal that it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the first case, but I don't know. What's your take? Yeah,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I would agree.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Not ideal. CBS did a poll last year at some
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: point where they asked people about the various things that
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Trump had been indicted for, overturning an election, hiding classified documents,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: possibly falsifying business records and violating campaign finance law to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: cover up extramarital affair, which is, that is the subject
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: of the New York trial. That was the least concerning
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: to people. Now, I do think a conviction in any
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: case is bad for Trump. And so we may have
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: given the Supreme Court, given what's going on in Fulton
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: County today, we may not be in a place where
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: we get to pick which conviction would be best for us.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: We have to take whichever conviction is on the menu.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And this may be the only one. But yeah, this
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: is not the one I would have chosen. to be
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the first trial, because I think it's the least politically
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: damaging to Trump.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of this is background noise, even
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: for the small minority of voters who are paying attention.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Like Thursday was wall-to-wall cable coverage of the hearing to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: decide whether Fannie Willis is disqualified from the Georgia case
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: because of a romantic relationship with another attorney. Like how
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: many people do you think turned on their TVs and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: had no idea what the hell was going on? Fannie
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Willis is, she took the stand, she's yelling at At prosecutors,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: they're yelling at her. They're going back and forth over
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: what counts as physical intimacy and who paid for what
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: on a wine trip. I mean, it's like I'm a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: news junkie and it was still tough to follow.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: No one is getting deep into the weeds in any
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: of these things. I think that people are going to
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: be surprised about the content of this trial when it comes,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: which actually I think may have some prejudicial impact on
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: how people view the other trials, which is why I
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: think this one being for us is suboptimal.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I would say too, if you're right, that I think
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: any conviction, probably Trump would rather not have a conviction.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Although this one unlikely comes with prison time, but.
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But I even think that if he is, if the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: jury acquits him in this case, in the first case,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the hush money case, I think there's an argument to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: be made that if you have, because if a jury
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: acquits him in this case, then he'll say, oh, see,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the people have spoken. The The prosecutors, the Democratic prosecutors
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: tried to come get me, but the jury saw it
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: differently and I'm exonerated. And then he gets a conviction
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: from a jury in D.C. It's going to be hard.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: It's going to be harder for him to say, to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: start attacking juries if suddenly he goes on the side
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of the people. The people have exonerated me in the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Manhattan case, but the D.C. people did not. So I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: guess he's just going to have to attack. I'm sure,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, I have no doubt that he will attack
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the jurors in D.C., but.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Well, you raise a good point, John, because Trump is
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: known for his logical consistency and he definitely won't. Well,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: he will be pinned in by his argument on the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: jury in this one if he is convicted by jury
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: in the second one. I think his argument will be, hey,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I'm batting 500 in jury trials, which is better than
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Ted Williams.
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: I'm one and one.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that gets you in the Baseball Hall of Fame
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: pretty fast.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And Jack Smith was rigged. I love Alvin Bragg. I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: always said Alvin Bragg was a great guy. Uh, anyway, so, uh, meanwhile,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley's out there fighting the good fight. Uh, she
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: went on the today show this week to call Trump
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: unhinged and predicted that voters won't elect him. If one
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: or more of these trials ends in a conviction, let's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: hear it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 8: The problem now is he is not the same person
• 10:38
  Speaker 8: he was in 2016.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he, than
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: he was.
• 10:44
  Speaker 8: He's just trying to control as much as he can control.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: But we don't want a king in America. That's the problem.
• 10:50
  Speaker 8: There is no way that the American people are going
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: to vote for a convicted criminal.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: They're not.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But you said you would.
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: They're not.
• 10:59
  Speaker 7: But you said you would.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: No, that is not the question.
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, how ridiculous is it that you're literally saying
• 11:06
  Speaker 8: that I'm hurting him by staying in?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Diverting resources.
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: No, when.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:13
  Speaker 8: Resources from a man who spent $ 50 million of his
• 11:18
  Speaker 8: own campaign contributions on his personal court cases, where the
• 11:22
  Speaker 8: RNC is broke. I'm the one hurting in resources? I
• 11:26
  Speaker 8: don't think so.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: I'm the one that saves the Republican Party.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: She had some good points. She had some not so
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: good points, I think, on that one. I don't know
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: if she's going to be the one who saves the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Republican Party. A lot of her comments about Donald Trump
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: were correct. I don't know what she was trying to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: say there when he was like, yeah, you said you'd
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: vote for him because she did raise her hand on
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: stage at that debate. Maybe that was, will you support,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: because I guess she signed the pledge to support the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee no matter what, even if it was Trump.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So maybe that's what she means and she's not really
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: going to vote for him. I don't know what the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: hell she's saying there, but.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I think she just didn't want to answer the question.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, she was trying to make an electability point
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: and Craig Melvin, I think it was Craig Melvin, in
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a very good follow-up question said, well, you said you
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: were going to vote for him. But her voting for
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: him isn't going to deliver him to the White House,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I guess. Who knows? She's in a pickle here because
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: she said she would support him. She said she would
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: vote for him even if he was convicted. She said
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: all these trials were shams. And then she decided to
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: start running against him. And her past positions are a
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: little bit of a prison here.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe she's like, well, I might vote for him,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: but most people aren't going to vote for him.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: That's right. It's not great.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Just because I want to vote for a convicted felon
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean most Americans are. She's also got a new
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: ad in South Carolina up. It's a $ 6 million ad buy.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: It hits Trump on his plans for a 10% across
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the board tax increase. And of course, you know, asking
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: for a Russian victory that will bring more war. But
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the latest polling average in South Carolina is Trump 66,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Haley 30. If anything, his lead has grown slightly larger
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: over the last few weeks. So it seems like this
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: is the wrong message for the Republican electorate, to say
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the least. But do you think that Haley's message could
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: could move some Trump-curious voters into general?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I think this is not the message. It's the messenger
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: in the Republican primary. This is a MAGA party, and
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: she's insufficiently MAGA. And she was insufficiently MAGA before she
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: decided to actually start attacking Trump. And so this is
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: where we were always going to end up. There is
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: no phrase she can come up with. There's no slogan.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: There's no argument against Trump that she could do now
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: that would change the dynamic. However, I do imagine that
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: somewhere in the bowels of the DNC or the Biden
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. They are taking every one
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: of these clips and they are saving them. They're going
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to use them to target Haley voters across the country
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: because everyone who is identified, I hope folks are polling
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: these states where the primaries are never going to happen,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: to ID Haley voters, particularly registered independent Haley voters, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: targeting them with these ads. And this is a universe
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: of voters who are very ripe for Biden to get,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: and we have to work very hard to keep them
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: from moving back to Trump. And so I think all
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: of these clips, as are any clip from a Republican
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: criticizing Trump, can be very, very powerful in this media environment.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in whether they polled on the 10% across
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the board tax increase. What she's talking about there is,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of course, Trump and his advisors have talked about their
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: plans to slap tariffs on all imported goods. 10% across
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the board and think about how many goods that would mean,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: how many things you buy are either made in other
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: countries or have parts in them that are made in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: other countries. I mean, it would just, that level of tariff,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: like talk about inflation, that would just send inflation skyrocketing.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Imagine everything that you buy that has even a small
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: little part that's not made in America costing 10% more.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I think that is very ripe for attacks. Forget about
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the primary and the general election.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think absolutely for general election. I think it
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: is incumbent upon Democrats to lay out very specifically why
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Trump will be bad for the economy. And this is
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: one of those things. And we should spend more time
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: arguing about what Trump will do going forward than trying
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: to argue that what he did in the past was
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: not as good as people remember it. I don't think
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: that's an argument we can win. In the primary, I'm
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: sure a 10% tax increase is very unpopular among Republican
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: primary voters. I also think if you ask them a
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: follow-up question is, do you believe that Donald Trump would
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: implement a 10% tax increase? They would say no.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: But in the general election, I think it would be favorable.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: You got to really pick a fight with them on it.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And you got to make it an issue. So Politico
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: ran a piece this week arguing that Haley is doing
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: something similar to what Bernie did in 2016, basically arguing
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that if Trump ends up losing, she'll have made the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: case that there was a better path and be able
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to influence a post-Trump Republican party going forward. I don't
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: know why I'm asking what you think about that because
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I know what you think about that.
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: Awesome.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, how many people are going to write stories
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: comparing Nikki Haley to Bernie Sanders?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It's a take. It's a take.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Look, it is hard to get your takes off in
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: these days to get them so unique they can be
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: talked about on this popular podcast. I'm going to do
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: something that's very in vogue at Pod Save America these days,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: which is I'm going to agree with Chris Christie. I
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: don't think this is about influencing the party. This is
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: about setting herself up for 2028. If Trump loses, if
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Trump wins, she cannot run for Republican dog catcher anywhere
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: in America. But if he loses, I still do not
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: necessarily think that she would be a favorite. It's still
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: a MAGA party, but she, but she.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Would, there are parties do.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: There are often have reckonings when they lose elections, they
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: should win. And could that happen? The Republican party, Who knows?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: But I think there would be a lot of people
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: who would get behind her campaign, just money people, elected officials, stakeholders, operatives,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: because she made an argument. She said he couldn't win,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: and then he did win. Now, what happens when the
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: voters get involved? Maybe a lot like what's happening right now,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: but if she's trying to– there is an element of
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: delusion in every presidential campaign, and so I imagine she
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: has eyes on 2028, and that's why she's still doing
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: and making this case. She's decided if he wins, she's toast.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: If she loses– if Trump loses– She may be in
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the game for a political future in the party, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: that's why she's doing it. I think it's less like
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: she's going to get to pick the RNC chair next
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: or help edit the policy platform. I think it's about
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: running for office again.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: But I could name 20 Republican politicians and media stars
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: who would have a better chance to win the nomination
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in 2028 than Nikki Haley or Chris Christie or Mitt Romney.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: It is not the party, not just the base of
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the party, like 65% of the voters in the party,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: if not more.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: They want.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Trump-like candidates. They want xenophobic, isolationist, faux populist candidates. That's
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: what they want.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it all depends on who
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: runs and how the vote splits, right? If you are
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: getting 30% of that, there is a 30 to 40%
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: of people who, depending on the state, who say they
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: don't identify as part of the MAGA movement. If she
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: were to get those people and the other people split
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the MAGA vote, then she could win. Trump won in
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: part because the MAGA part was a minority back then.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: and everyone else split everyone else. And so, who knows?
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: The point is, who cares why she's doing it? Keep
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: doing it, Nikki. That's my point. Keep doing it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Keep going.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Don't drop out after South Carolina either. Keep going.
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: Go to the convention.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Go to the convention. Take your delegates that you've won.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Just go to the floor. All 12 of them or
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. Yeah, whatever you get. After South Carolina.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, take all your delegates. Put them in one minivan
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: where they would all fit and go right to the convention.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: After South Carolina, Trump and his new, you know, RNC chair,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: his daughter-in-law, I'm sure they'll just change the rules and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: be like, the rest of the primaries, the only way
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you can win a delegate is if your last name
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: begins with T. That's just the rule. Sorry. We are
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: moving forward. All right, let's talk about Joe Biden, who's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: out there trying to show that he is a well-meaning,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: elderly man who can still kick Donald Trump's ass in November.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: He's hitting the road with the rest of his cabinet
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to whack Republicans for voting against all the new jobs
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that his climate and infrastructure bills are creating. He's now
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: on TikTok with the rest of the cool kids. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: he took a shot at Trump over his NATO comments.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: No other president in our history has ever bowed down
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly
• 19:53
  Speaker 9: as I can. I never will. For God's sake, it's dumb.
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: It's shameful.
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: It's dangerous.
• 20:00
  Speaker 9: It's un-American.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, nothing's going to be more viral than
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a debate about NATO on TikTok.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I think Biden did that right there, though.
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: He did.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: We talked about this on Tuesday, and we were hoping
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that he went out there and whacked him on the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: NATO stuff, and he did it well, and he didn't
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: do too much multilateral institution stuff. He did the message
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: we were just saying.
• 20:24
  Speaker 7: It was good.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And he sounded energetic and sharp there.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And I actually think he probably could have gone out.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I think Trump made these comments on Friday night, maybe?
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: It's been four. It had been like four days. But
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I think Biden was in a position where he felt
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: like he had to wait until the Senate voted on
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the foreign aid bill before he could give Republicans anything.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I do. I think that is the actual reality. No,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: but I know what the ledge affairs people always say.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you do this, we could lose
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Tom Tillis's vote. It's really up.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: In the air. And then either way they lose Tom
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Tillis's vote.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I think he, did he vote the right way?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I just picked Tom Tillis as a funny, as a
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: generic replacement level Republican Senator, but yeah, that's about right.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: So we are a week out from, uh, Biden's Justice
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Department reminding the world that he's old, which special counsel
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Robert Herr will likely do again now that Republicans are
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: going to have him testify before Congress on March 12th.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Mark your calendars. It's going to be a great day.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's going to be really fun. How do you think
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Biden and his team are handling this so far? And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: do you have any more advice from the cheap seats?
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: I think there are two.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Related issues here. One is how are you doing with
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the Her report? And I think they're doing that very aggressively.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: They are going out. They're pointing out where he was
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: overly partisan. They've gone after him. Her has helped them
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: by hiring Steve Bannon's lawyer, hiring Jeff Sessions' spokesperson to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: help advise them on this, pointing out the partisan nature
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of this. What you want to do with that alone
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: is impugn the messenger and give your supporters a permission
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: structure to ignore this. And I think they're doing that well.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Who knows what happens when Herr testifies and how that
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: goes in Democrats. That's really going to depend on the
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats and on the Judiciary Committee to help carry that case.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Then there's the broader question of how do you deal
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: with the issues that existed before the Herr report were
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: exacerbated by the Herr report and exists afterwards, which is
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: voters' concerns about Joe Biden's age and ability to do
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the job. And that is something that is not a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: problem that you have to solve right now, but it
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: is The way it is going to be solved is
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: by Joe Biden being out there a lot, demonstrating, as
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he did in that clip we just played, that he
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: has the ability and the energy to do the job.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: And not just the job of president, but the job
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: of running for president, which is different and easier in
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: some ways, but harder physically in terms of physical stamina
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: than just being president, I think, because of the travel
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: and the rallies and speaking in public all the time.
• 22:55
  Speaker 7: And that.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a ramp up of that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: There's a tour you mentioned, there's a State of the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Union coming. And I think the one thing that the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Biden folks have, and I think this is largely about
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the president and less about his staff, have struggled to
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: do in recent years is find moments, high leverage moments
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to grab the nation's attention, right? Where people will actually
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: break through. And that's going to be picking some fights.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: That's just why the NATO thing was smart. It's going
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to be how he does the state of the union.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: If he delivers just a normal state of the union
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: with no conflict with the people sitting there who are
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: torpedoing his agenda and impeaching his son and doing all
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: these other things and holding hearings on his son, impeaching him,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: that would be a mistake. And so it is going
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: to have to be performing, but performing in moments that
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: will actually, in finding moments where it will actually break through.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And I think that is still an open question. And I, like,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: there's no doubt that the very, very smart people who
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: are working for President Biden on these very things, like
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Ben LeBolt and Anita Dunn and the people on the
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: campaign are thinking about that, but that just being good
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: at midday Roosevelt room events is not going to solve
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: this problem. It's going to have to be in the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: big moments. They're going to have to create some of
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: those moments because there aren't enough of them already penciled
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: in on the calendar between now and election day.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And again, I keep coming back to Biden has a
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: ton of smart people around him. And I think that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the campaign and the White House are doing a great job,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: but this is about Joe Biden figuring this out. It's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: about his performance. And I'm sure the people around him
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: know what he needs to do, but he actually needs
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to do it. I think you can put him, I
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: think more informal settings are good. I think he needs
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: to show passion, but passion for people, not passion about
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: defending himself, not sounding defensive, not getting snippy with the press.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I know that's like fun for libs on Twitter to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: see Joe Biden, like, you know, tussle with the press,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: but like, that's, I don't think that's helping him. I
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: think He can be self-deprecating about the age thing, which
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: he's already doing. I think he could do that, continue that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I think he can be mocking of Trump and the Republicans,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: use mockery with them. Like there's only so many times
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you can get up there and say that Donald Trump
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: is like a threat to democracy. He is, and Biden
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: said it, and he's done really well saying that, but
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: there's plenty to mock with Donald Trump. And he started
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to do that a little bit with the Nikki Haley,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi mix-up. So probably should do more of that.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the new TikTok account?
• 25:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know why that's so funny. It just is.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Obviously, you know, Jon Stewart's back on The Daily Show.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It was great. He made fun of the campaign's first
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: or the first TikTok with Biden in it because he
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was mumbling about cookies.
• 25:35
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you brought up Jon Stewart, that traitor
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to the resistance on this podcast.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Some people are very mad at Jon Stewart for also
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: criticizing Joe Biden and Jess.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know you know.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: This is for the listeners. I know exactly how you
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: feel about it. Don't get me wrong. The TikTok was fine.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know that I'm the right person to judge TikToks.
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: Great.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Good job. And you're going to have to do a
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: lot of them. And I think it's good the campaign's
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: on there. Ultimately, when I talked to Rob Flaherty on
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: this podcast a couple weeks ago, he's the deputy campaign
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: manager who oversees all the digital and a bunch of
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: other stuff on the campaign. He made the point although
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: he could have broken the news of the TikTok account
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: in the interview with me, he chose not to, which-
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Come on, Rob. Seems like maybe you're not that digital, Rob.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: But he- You know who likes to break news in
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: this podcast? Chris Christie, Liz Cheney.
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: Oh, man.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: But he made the point, which I think is true,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: that it's less about what Joe Biden himself and the
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: campaign does on TikTok than what All of the people
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: who have platforms on TikTok still have been building a
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: network of influencers on TikTok who are going to carry
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the message. And I think that has value. I know
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: that's something they're working on. So one in three adults
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: under 30 get news from TikTok. And that number has
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: nearly quadrupled since 2020. So it's going to keep going up.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And so you have to be there. It is where
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: probably the most important political conversations are going to happen
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: that aren't happening in people's group chats. And so having
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: a presence there and a strategy for it is absolutely essential.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing that the reason they had Biden in one
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of the early ones is because, you know, that gets
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: more attention. They can announce that they're there. I think
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that the best utility of that campaign TikTok account will
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: be TikToks of why Donald Trump is awful, because I
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: don't think you're going to, at 81 years old right now,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: make Joe Biden cool or have him, you know, record
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a ton of videos that are going to go viral
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in a positive way on TikTok. You know, already all
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the comments are Most of the comments under most of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: their TikToks are about Gaza. But I do think that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: it is useful to get out sort of the negative
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: information and the contrast with Trump. But then, like you
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: said and like Rob said to you, the most important
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: thing is going to be allies and Biden supporters who
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: are on TikTok who have bigger platforms to start spreading
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the message that way. Do you have other thoughts on
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: reaching voters who aren't political junkies? We spent a lot
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: of time talking about the the infrequent voter that Biden
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: has been, at least according to the polls, not doing
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: as well with? How do you reach those voters?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Do I have thoughts on that question? How long have
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: we known each other, Sean?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: That's right. Again, I don't ask questions I don't know
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the answer to.
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: That's right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, as you know, and I think people
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: who listen to this podcast probably know, this is something
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I think about to an unhealthy level. And I think
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: more and more in this campaign, the we're just in
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: this world where they, as you talked about Peter Hamby
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: on offline a couple weeks ago, the media ecosystem is
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: collapsing around us, right? Local news, local newspapers, essentially gone
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: for all intents and purposes. Local TV still has some value,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: but mostly watched by older people. The number of people
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: who have access to cable news cut dramatically in an
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: incredible rate, particularly among young people. Facebook is downplaying political content.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Instagram and threads are not going to re, are not
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: going to recommend political content to people. Twitter's a total
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: husk of itself. And so the political conversations that happen
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: in the mainstream media powered by the big social platforms,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that day is over in politics. And now they have moved,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the most consequential political conversations are now going to happen
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: with the exception of TikTok, which I think has tremendous
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: import to one segment of voters. The most important political
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: conversations are now happening on what's called the private internet,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: on Facebook, text chains, group chats, WhatsApp groups among family
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: and friends. And what Democrats are going to have to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: do is empower the millions and millions of people who
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: fund our campaigns $ 5 at a time, who are text
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: banking at home or knocking on doors, who are doing
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: phone banks all the time during the campaign, empower them
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: to be our messengers, right? We have to give them
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the content and the ideas to insert themselves in those
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: conversations that they are already having about politics with the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: people in their lives because they're the most trusted messenger. No,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: people don't trust politicians and they don't trust the media.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: So the only thing they trust is people they know.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And so we have to leverage that power. And that
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: is ultimately something that I have really hoped was going
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: to end up being sort of how Democrats think about
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: communication for a while. And I think now necessity has
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: come and we have to do it. It is the
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: ultimately why I started MessageBox a few years ago, which
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: was my idea that we have to give the same
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: messaging advice and strategic guidance that we give to candidates
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to average everyday people, right? Help them understand what the
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: polls say, help them understand the political environment so they
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: can be grounded in those conversations. And so I think
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: that is what this is going to be. It's going
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to be less about who has a smarter strategy to
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: get on 60 Minutes or who has the most viral tweets.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: It's going to be whose supporters are carrying the weight
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: in the most persuasive ways with the most people in
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: their lives. And that is ultimately how we're going to
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: reach with people because they are not going to tune
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: into the news You can do 7,000 fucking MSNBC town
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: halls or CNN town halls. You're not going to reach
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: any of those people. They're not going to know those
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: things happened, right? We can scream about the New York
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Times for hours. Let me step back and allow you
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: to answer this.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: No, I will not go on another rant about this.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But the reason, this is not a defense of the
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: New York Times or the political press. My views on
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: All of that is well known, has been for many years.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: It's just that it doesn't matter as much anymore because
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: it's not reaching as many people. It's certainly not reaching
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: many people at all who are persuadable. Again, 90% of
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the New York Times 10 million subscribers are Democrats. Democrats.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: These are the people that are showing up to the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: special elections in the midterms and voting for Joe Biden
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and Democrats and who are still supporting Joe Biden and
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Democrats and who are going to go to the polls
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and probably vote anyway, right? So, like, and the reach of...
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: The Times, cable news, all the people that we're yelling
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: at about their chyrons and their headlines, it's just not
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the same as it was even in 2020, let alone 2016.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And so it's just, it's a lot of, it can
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: be understandable outrage, but it's a lot of wasted energy
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: is my point. But no, I totally agree. And the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: other thing is, you know, in 2022, in the midterms
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and a lot of these specials, sort of the difference
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you saw, especially in the midterms, between how Republicans did
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: in places where there weren't competitive campaigns versus the states
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: where there were heavily competitive and contested campaigns, and you
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: saw Democrats do better, it's because they did exactly what
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you said. It wasn't just television ads that were run
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in those districts and states. It was a real campaign happened.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And the supporters and the staff of the campaign and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the volunteers and the field staff, all those people, they
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: carried the message. They had those conversations you were talking
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: about with neighbors, with friends, with social networks. And it's
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that Democrats overperformed how the polls suggested,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: how the pundits suggested, and even how they did in
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: states where there weren't competitive elections.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And the challenge just goes way up in the general
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: election because the percentage of people who are going to
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: vote in November who don't consume political news is dramatically
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: higher than it is among the people who vote in
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: midterm elections and especially special elections. So it's those... We
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: need to reach more people, much more than we did
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: in 2022, to succeed in 2024 because more people are
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: not going to consume the news in the way the
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: midterm voters did.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that work has to happen in those swing states.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: So we mentioned this, Biden's going to have the chance
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to reach maybe the biggest audience he'll get all year
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: during the State of the Union. It's a few weeks.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: And he'll go to Congress for that. And boy, have
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: they become a useful foil, especially House Republicans. Punchbowl on
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Thursday called them, quote, the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: majority we've seen in decades covering Congress. Unless you think,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: why are you quoting Punchbowl? Chip Roy, Republican Chip Roy
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on the floor of the House today was like, you know,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Jake Sherman and Punchbowl was right about us.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Big day for Jake Sherman and democracy.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And Chip Roy, right. So Trump and Mike Johnson killed
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the bipartisan border deal. They won't hold a vote on
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the bipartisan national security bill. They can't pass the bipartisan
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: tax deal. Republicans are turning on Mike Johnson now. We
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: are just a few weeks away from another potential government shutdown.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And they're leaving town for a two-week President's Day recess.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: When they come back from President's Day recess, they get
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: 13 days, apparently. There's only going to be three days
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: left until the government shuts down. Unbelievable. So you and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I haven't talked about the special election to fill George
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Santos's seat, but the winning candidate, Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of the campaign hammering House Republicans for
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: killing the border deal. Do you think Biden and Democrats
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: should try to replicate that strategy nationally?
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are elements of what Tom Swasey
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: did that are pretty instructive. And I think it's important
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: to focus on what we can learn from it instead
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: of arguing online about whether it tells us that Joe
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Biden's definitely going to win. Because that debate on.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Twitter is- But that is fun. But that is fun.
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Do special elections predict general elections fight on Twitter is
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: mind-numbingly stupid.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Something to behold. And if you're wondering what we're talking about,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: just move on. Yeah, just, you know what, if you-
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Thank your lucky stars. If you don't get this reference,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: pat yourself on the back.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: So- There are a couple of things I thought from
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Tom Suozzi's strategy that Democrats should emulate. One is he
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: was on offense the whole time. He did not wait
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: to be defined on the other side's issues. He took
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: them on himself. He was aggressive. Two, he was able
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: to make abortion a much more salient issue in 2024
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: in his district than it was in 2022 by specifically
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and aggressively not running just on the Dobbs decision, but
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: on the idea that a Republican Congress would pass a
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: national abortion ban. Because New York, well, one of the
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: things we learned from underperformance in California in New York
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: in 2022 is those voters, because they live in Democratic
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: states with Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures, were not afraid
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: of an abortion ban passing in their state the same
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: way voters in Georgia, in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, and Michigan were.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: And so it did not maybe have the same political
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: impact that it did in those big states. But he
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: aggressively went after his opponent for her... Her backers who
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: supported a national abortion ban put his opponent on the
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: defensive on abortion because she, just like every other Republican
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: since 2022, can't figure out how to appease the far-right
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: extremist GOP base and not anchor the larger electorate, which
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: hates these extreme Republican abortion bans. And then he was–
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Swazi was particularly vulnerable on border issues because he's in
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: New York where the Republicans busing migrants to New York
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: has made it a very big issue. um, a completely
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: gross and cruel and cynical stunt, but one that has
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: been very politically damaging to Democrats. And when he was,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: as Lovett and Adisu talked about when, uh, Swazi was
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the Nassau County executive, he kicked, uh, ice out of the,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: out of Nassau County at the request of his police commissioner,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: because they were hindering the police commissioner thought that ice
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: was hindering their crime prevention efforts. But there's this video
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: of him and his gubernatorial primary say bragging about kicking
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: ice out of, um, out of Nassau County, which was
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: in basically a gazillion ads. But he had this vulnerability,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: but he took it on aggressively. And one thing he
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: did that every Democrat can do is he attacked his
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: opponent for rejoining with Trump to oppose the bipartisan border
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: security deal. And I think that is a very effective strategy. Now,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: the hard part on the border stuff, every other Democrat
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: can run on this, which is he was pretty critical
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: of Biden. He separated himself from Biden on border stuff
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: repeatedly throughout the campaign. And obviously, Joe Biden can't do that, credibly,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I think. But there is a downside of every Democrat
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: adopts that strategy, which is in swing states, Biden will
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: have negative ads on the border from Republicans and negative
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: ads on the border from Democrats. And that would be unhelpful.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: But the idea that you'd be aggressive on border and
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: try to put Republicans on the defensive and use the
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: bipartisan border security deal, I think, is something that every
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Democrat can do.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: You hear some Democrats say, okay, well, Republicans are now
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: we're playing on their turf. They want to make it
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: about immigration, so we shouldn't make it about immigration. They
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: want to make it about crime, we shouldn't make it
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: about crime. The way I think about it is it's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: not about what issues Republicans want to make the election
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: about necessarily. It's about what voters are concerned about. And
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: thinking that voters are concerned about an issue only because
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Republicans try to make it an issue or only because
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Fox News demagogues it, I think is sort of missing
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: how actual people lived their lives, especially people who don't
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: tune into the news. And it is fairly clear from
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: all the data everywhere, it's not a close call, that
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: a vast majority of Americans are concerned, somewhere up around 70,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: 80 percent, about what's going on at the border. And
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: they think it's chaotic. And I don't think that means
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: you have to then take those concerns and adopt Republican policies.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: But it means that you have to acknowledge that the
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: concerns are real. And look, it's happening on the Republican
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: side with abortion, right? It's not just, oh, well, now
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Democrats want to fight the election about abortion, so we
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: shouldn't talk about abortion. It's that people, including Republican voters,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: are very, very scared of the fact that we could
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: have a national abortion ban. And they've been saying that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: in elections over and over again. And Republicans have decided
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they refuse to listen to those concerns and they refuse
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge them. And I think on the Democratic side,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: If people are concerned about the border, then we have
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge it and we have to put forward our
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: own proposals and our own language that is true to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: our values, but still take on the issue. And I
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: think the bipartisan border deal, which is tougher than a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: lot of Democrats would have designed themselves, is the perfect
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: opportunity to say we compromised. We didn't like all of it.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: We wanted to work with Republicans and we want to
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: do something about the border. And they killed it because
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Trump wanted it dead. Because he thought it would help
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: him win in November. And that's the kind of people
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: they are. And by the way, it's not just happening
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: on immigration. It's happening on everything. They don't want us
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: to support Ukraine because Donald Trump's out there saying Russia
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: can attack whatever ally they want if NATO doesn't pay up.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: So again, Trump's making us, you know, Trump's helping Putin, right?
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Because he loves dictators. Trump's killing the border deal because
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: he thinks it's going to help him politically. They can't
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: pass a tax deal that both parties agreed to that
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: would help lift children out of poverty. And I also
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: think it helps Joe Biden. The challenge that he has
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: now is Trump is the challenger where he is most
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: comfortable and Biden is the incumbent. And the danger here
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is that Biden will have to defend the status quo
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: at a time where people are not happy with the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: status quo. And what Congress is doing right now, what
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: House Republicans are doing is giving Biden an opportunity to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: say things could be better. if you give me a
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: bigger democratic majority, I've made, I've made certain progress and
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: here's the progress I've made, but I could make a
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: lot more if you send me a bigger democratic majority.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And if you just stop the madness that's happening right now,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: because Donald Trump and his handpicked speaker, Mike Johnson are just,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you know, paralyzing the government because they think it's going
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: to help him politically. And we've just got to end this.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: We got to end the chaos. And if you give
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: me more Democrats and get out the, and, and, vote
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: down the MAGA Republicans like you did the last several
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: elections and vote down Donald Trump again, then we can
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: actually get moving as a country and we can fix
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of things. I think it's a powerful message. Yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: And I think this is where the State of the
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Union comes in, which is Republicans have the... Biden is
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: in this place. I've thought about this. Every time I
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: see a piece of bad news anywhere in the country,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: I worry this is bad for Joe Biden because he
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: is the incumbent. And he has become a vessel for
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: everyone's anger about what's happening. Things he has nothing to
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: do with, right? Or get blamed on Joe Biden. Because
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: why aren't things better? Well, he's the president. Why didn't
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: he fix it? And he's in a position right now
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: where this incompetent, extreme clown car of a Republican House
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: majority is blocking anything from getting done. The border security deal,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: aid to our allies, all of natural disaster aid, that's
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: all being blocked by this group of chaotic MAGA knuckleheads.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And Biden has got to make them own. And Trump's
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: pulling the strings.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: That's the best part, right? For the political argument is
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: that it's not just, like, we did this in, you know, like,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: it's not like there's the Republican Congress and then there's
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidate. The Republican candidate for president that he's
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: running against is controlling the Republican Congress. He's the one
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that's making it happen or not happen.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: He's got to make, and every Democrat has to help him.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: We have to help him. Senate Democrats have to help him.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: House Democrats have to help him. Everyone else out there
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: with internet access has to help him. make what is
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: happening in this House under Mike Johnson's leadership a preview
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: of how government will function if the Republicans get their
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: reins of power again. And that has not happened yet.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: And that is why I hope the State of the
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Union is used to tell that story, because you're going
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: to have your audience to do it. And I hope
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: they boo the shit out of them, because that'll prove
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: the point right there.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And the other important part of this is you need
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a forward-looking agenda that everyone remembers and is on board with, because...
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: it's not just enough to say, oh, look at the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: stuff they blocked over the last couple of years. Look
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: what they're blocking now. It's here's what I want to
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: do for the country. Voters are concerned about X, Y,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and Z. Here's how I want to solve those problems.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: The only way I'm going to solve those problems is
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: if you get rid of these guys and you get
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: rid of Donald Trump. That's it. That's the way I'm
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: going to solve these problems. And so you need that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: forward-looking agenda, which I expect that he'll at least start
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: laying out in the State of the Union.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Two quick things before we go to break. Got some
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: new merch in the old Crooked store for your kids.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: You can pick up your own. I can't vote, but
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: you can onesies and toddler tees for all the kids
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: in your life. Shop all Crooked kids merch, including read
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: me a band book onesies by heading to Crooked dot
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: com slash store to shop. Also, check out our subscribers
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: only pod terminally online where we answer the question, how
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: unhinged can the Crooked staff get? We dive into the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: most random, very online stories of the week that show
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: just how badly we need to go touch grass. It's
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's one of the best hours
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: of my week is when I do Terminally Online. We
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: laugh a lot. It's fun. New episodes of Terminally Online
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: drop every Saturday for Friends of the Pod subscribers. Head
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: to cricket.com slash friends to join up now. When we
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: come back, Tommy talks to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: I'm so excited to welcome into the studio the governor
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: of Minnesota, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, Tim Walz.
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: Welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me. Pretty
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: exciting to be here. It's great to have you. Now,
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: I wanted to tell you this on air. My first
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: job in politics was for a Minnesotan. I don't think
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: I've ever talked about this on the pod. So you
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: remember this backstory. Listeners might not. There was an heroic,
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: amazing U.S. senator named Paul Wellstone, tragically died in 2002.
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: Governor Jesse Ventura died. Jesse, the body Ventura, Jesse, the
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: governor Ventura named his replacement. It was this guy named
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: Dean Barkley who has his campaign chairman, I think, or something.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: And I think what happened was fascinating. I'm glad you're
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: telling me. Oh yeah. This is Minnesota in history.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: So Barkley, I think he either decided to caucus with
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: the Democrats or not caucus with the Republicans. He did
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: the Democrats a favor. So Daschle's office helped him staff up.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: I was an intern for Ted Kennedy at the time.
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: So they, got me in there and I answered phones
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: for two months for Dean Barkley as an interim center.
• 45:56
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: That is a good story.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: That's my guy.
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: That is a good story.
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: And then it was all the Obama staff in Iowa
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: was like all Minnesota people. Like Paul too. This was
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: our state director. Like everyone from those center races came down.
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I, I don't know if you, for your listeners,
• 46:11
  Speaker 7: not from Minnesota, I can't stress enough the impact of
• 46:14
  Speaker 7: Paul Wellstone, uh, politically one thing, but culturally on the
• 46:18
  Speaker 7: psyche of what it means to be progressive Minnesotans, to
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: lean into issues that improve people's lives. And I think
• 46:24
  Speaker 7: there was this sense of, you know, be courageous for
• 46:27
  Speaker 7: people who don't have a voice. And that just resonates.
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: A lot of people who were surrounding me early when
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: I ran for Congress were former Wellstone folks. And I
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: was a graduate of Camp Wellstone, which was a training program. Uh,
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: I think it was Dave Loebsack from Iowa and Iowa,
• 46:41
  Speaker 7: the first two elected to federal office through that program.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: I did not know Dave Loebsack did that too.
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: Like just the most inspiring guy. Uh, everyone should read
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: his book, Conscience of a Liberal.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Great book.
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: Inspiring person.
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: No, there's a lot of, there's a story out there. Um,
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: I I'm surprised there hasn't been more written on it
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: because it's still very powerful, still very, uh, hard for
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: Minnesotans felt like it was a loss. I think many
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: of us thought that they probably had a president there. Yeah.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: Amazing guy. Well, um, You folks in Minnesota have managed
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: to inspire a lot of people in present day with
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: how much you've gotten done over the last couple of years.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: So full disclosure, I stole this.
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: Summary from an EJD-owned column who stole it from some
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: Minnesota-based reporters. So, you know, don't get me fired, Bill Ackerman,
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: for plagiarism. But you guys codified abortion rights, passed paid
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: family and medical leave and sick leave, banned conversion therapy
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: and put in place protections for trans people, voting rights,
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: voter access bills. tax credits for low-income parents, free breakfast
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: and lunch for K-12 students, gun control, legalized recreational weed.
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: I could go on a lot longer. 2040 carbon decarbonization,
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: one of the most aggressive moves.
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: We could go on forever on this. You did it
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: with a one-vote advantage in the state Senate. Two votes,
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: I think, in the House, right? So I know you folks,
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: like the DFL folks, are progressive, but you're not California.
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: I mean, how did you pull off... this incredible list
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: of Republicans.
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: The Republicans always say, you don't learn anything from us, Tim.
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: And I said, yes, I do. I learned what a
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: one vote majority is. It's a majority. And you move.
• 48:11
  Speaker 7: I think the biggest thing about this was, is there
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: was just such a pent up desire for a progressive
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: state like Minnesota that led on so many things from
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: education to access to healthcare. I think the resistance from
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: Republicans of stalling on a lot of those built some
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: of that up. But I think there was a fierce
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: sense of urgency of now. There's a whole generation of folks,
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: me being one of them, that we believe the politics
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: of bad happens really fast. And then we just got
• 48:36
  Speaker 7: to be patient on these things. Look, 20 years, we
• 48:38
  Speaker 7: were trying to get driver's licenses for folks after, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 7: we took driver's license away from undocumented folks after 9-11,
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: had nothing to do with terrorism. Took us 20 years
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: to get that back. And I think, which we did
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: that to this last year, but that idea that there's
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: a fierce sense of urgency of improving lives now. And
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: if you do those things, the policies are good, the
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: good politics will follow. And you saw just this fallout
• 49:00
  Speaker 7: of excitement. It was really kind of funny to me.
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: We had a few young interns working in our office
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: and we got all these things passed within about a
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: three-month period. And they had worked on the campaign before
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: their first campaigns. We got reelected in 22, elected the
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: House and Senate. And they're like, well, this isn't that
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: hard to get that done. These are things like paid family.
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: We've worked decades on. I mean, my entire life I've
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: been working on some of these things. So I think
• 49:23
  Speaker 7: it was more about appealing to what really improved people's lives.
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: It was such a contrast to see the reduction of rights.
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: You know, don't underestimate what Dobbs did of people like
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: feeling a sense of urgency.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: I love that you're in terms of being like, this
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: is easy.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: Politics is easy.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: What are you guys complaining about? We worked real hard.
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: We won an election. We came in. We got all
• 49:42
  Speaker 7: this stuff done. Now what do we do?
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: What's next?
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: I read this great quote from you, which I totally
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: agree with. You said you don't win elections to bank
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: political capital. You win elections to burn the capital to
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: improve lives. I wish more people governed like that. I
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: will say there's one other path available to you. Wisconsin
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: Republicans did it back in 2010, which is where you
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: gerrymandered the hell out of the state and lock in
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: power for a decade. Did you consider that?
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Well, and I go way back on this one
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: as a member of Congress. And I talk about people
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: would always ask me, you know, this was the time when,
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: what was it? Game of Cards was the big thing.
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: Game of Thrones.
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: No, no.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: House of Cards.
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: House of Cards.
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: What's wrong with both of them?
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: And they would ask me, is DC like that? And
• 50:21
  Speaker 7: I'm like, no, it's like Forrest Gump. You know, these
• 50:24
  Speaker 7: are outdated things. I said, stuff just happens for a reason.
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: And the one thing I said that was so frustrating
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: to me in Congress was, is that gerrymandered districts.
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: And money in politics. Look, if we fix those things,
• 50:37
  Speaker 7: that would fix it. But I also came to the
• 50:39
  Speaker 7: conclusion on this, and Eric Holder worked on this, a
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: fairy district and all that. I did get to the
• 50:43
  Speaker 7: point where saying, look, they do it. It distorts the
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: entire electoral map in the electoral college by what they do.
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: Isn't there a responsibility of us to do something at
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: least to shore it up? But no, we didn't think
• 50:54
  Speaker 7: about it. Coming to this, I think we have to
• 50:58
  Speaker 7: figure out how to get back to at least where
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: there is Fairness in that system. And that's what I
• 51:03
  Speaker 7: think they're trying to get to. That's what Tony's trying
• 51:05
  Speaker 7: to do in Wisconsin. But it is hugely distorting because
• 51:08
  Speaker 7: we're almost mirrors. Wisconsin and Minnesota, a very long progressive
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: history there. We shared a lot of things back and
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: forth and electorally pretty close. We're still purple state. But
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: I think doing it that way, just how horrific that
• 51:22
  Speaker 7: undermine things. But it doesn't mean that, you know, I'm
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: not appointing judges who believe in rule of law, personal freedoms,
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: things like that.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: Right, right.
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: You served in the House of Representatives for over a decade.
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: It is obviously an incredibly important job. I mean, your
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: job description is Article 1 of the Constitution. You know,
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: that's pretty cool. But the job itself, I mean, you
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: sort of alluded to it. It seems like it can
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: be pretty brutal at times, right? There's the chaos of
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: Speaker Johnson's, you know, what looks like it might be
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: brief era, the constant fundraising, the lack of ability to
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: do things in the minority.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Am I wrong?
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: And are there things... you think we could do to
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: make the job feel more fulfilling or more rewarding so
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: that good people stick around and like the Matt Gaetz's
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: of the world maybe resign?
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and I represented a, I think I was the
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: second Democrat since 1892 that represented that. And the good
• 52:14
  Speaker 7: news was I was a school teacher and running, I
• 52:16
  Speaker 7: had no clue. Like, oh, you didn't know. And then
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: once you're in, you're like, yeah, tell me that the
• 52:20
  Speaker 7: incumbents continue to win, continue to win. It was a
• 52:23
  Speaker 7: challenging district. But here's the thing. I think there is
• 52:26
  Speaker 7: still something about who are we sending to Congress and
• 52:28
  Speaker 7: what can they do? I focused heavily on like veterans issues.
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: I'm a veteran myself, spent years in that. So I
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: focused on improvement of veterans, quality of life, those types
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: of things of really seeing this as positive governance. And
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: it was incredibly rewarding. It was, you know, now I
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: think back on it, you know, if you deal with COVID,
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: we deal with civil unrest after George Floyd's murder, I
• 52:46
  Speaker 7: would obsess about a vote I'd have to take, you know,
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: this was really stressful stuff, one vote type of thing.
• 52:51
  Speaker 7: But there was work that you could get done, that
• 52:54
  Speaker 7: you could build around things that you could actually deliver on.
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: And I think if you got the right people there,
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: I proudly said I served with that. Speaking of Matt Gates,
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: that was Jeff Miller's district at one point in time,
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: Jeff Miller was the rank, was the chairman of the
• 53:06
  Speaker 7: VA committee when I was ranking member.
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 53:09
  Speaker 7: And I considered him a friend. We did good work together.
• 53:12
  Speaker 7: We delivered on things together. And it was all about
• 53:15
  Speaker 7: that personality. That district hasn't, you know, geographically changed that much,
• 53:20
  Speaker 7: but philosophically. And I think this goes back to, I mean,
• 53:23
  Speaker 7: in the age of Trump, I don't know if any
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: of these questions are relevant. Um, because it's so distorted
• 53:29
  Speaker 7: on what they think.
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: Well, I mean, and also I think people who knew
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: Matt Gaetz back in the day will tell you, like,
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: he was just like a normal country club Republican. He
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: sort of saw the way the winds were blowing. He
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: adopted the kind of Trumpian demeanor and tactics and trolling
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: and nonsense.
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's performance art. I agree. I see these guys
• 53:44
  Speaker 7: every day in the gym when I was in Congress
• 53:46
  Speaker 7: and it was just stunning to me, you know, the changes.
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: Right. But you're, you know, you're a governor, like you,
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: people vote you in or out, uh, based on whether
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: you accomplish things. That's your mindset. But then you have
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: someone like a James Langford, Republican senator from Oklahoma, who
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: was getting threatened by the Republican Party in his state
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: just for working with Democrats on a bill.
• 54:07
  Speaker 7: Nobody questioned his conservatives. I served with him in the House.
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: Very conservative, Christian conservative, but honest in that. And yeah,
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: that's the problem now. And you know, when you have
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: these wave elections, it's not the extremists that get wiped out.
• 54:20
  Speaker 7: It's the folks that are in the purple districts. You know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: I went through that. I hate, I think, thousands of
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: people voted for president Trump and me in 2016, where
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: they were still litigant voting. I lose sleep over that
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: of why they did that, but I won. Um, but
• 54:34
  Speaker 7: they would still be willing to do that. I don't
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: think that's true today.
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's tough. Um, so you are the chair of
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: the democratic governance association. Uh, we've got 11 races. That's right.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: 2024.
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: I would love to hear your thoughts on, uh, some
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: of our best opportunities for pickups where we need to
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: play some defense. I know our team here at vote,
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: save America is particularly focused on New Hampshire, and North Carolina.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: And my mom spends part of their time in Vermont,
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: so I want to know why the hell we can't
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: win a governor's seat in Vermont.
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, and again, DGA is a great organization. We
• 55:06
  Speaker 7: represent the majority of Americans right now. And if you
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: don't know the difference, I said my state's one of those.
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: You look, having a Democratic governor in Minnesota versus a
• 55:15
  Speaker 7: Republican governor in the Dakotas, women's lives are put at risk.
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: You'll just bad decisions, books being banned rather than hunger
• 55:23
  Speaker 7: being banned. So we talk about why it's so important.
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: And those states you mentioned, North Carolina being one where
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: Roy Cooper is, his term limit, an incredible governor, expanded Medicaid,
• 55:33
  Speaker 7: you know, doing the things that we know improve lives.
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: That one's going to be a priority. Washington State, Jay Inslee,
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: we all tried hard. Jay is the godfather of moving climate.
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: You know, he finally calls me and says, it's good
• 55:44
  Speaker 7: to see Minnesota catching up finally on these things. Delaware
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: with John Carney. But I agree with you. New Hampshire
• 55:50
  Speaker 7: is a golden opportunity. We'll get we've got a good
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: couple of candidates up there, a mayor and a council member.
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: They're going to have Kelly Ayotte, you know, extremist on
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: these issues that we care about. And Vermont. I mean,
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: the thing is, is that and I say this, I
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: think it's Democrats do this. We see it in Massachusetts.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: We see it in places like New Hampshire and we
• 56:09
  Speaker 7: see it in Vermont that Governor Scott is pretty moderate
• 56:13
  Speaker 7: by Republican standards trying to get, but he's still Republican
• 56:16
  Speaker 7: on this. Democrats, when they're asked how the Republican governor
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: is doing, are kind of generous about this. Like we
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: used to say, Charlie Baker would be the top rank,
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: Larry Hogan.
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: We liked Mitt Romney for a while in that season.
• 56:27
  Speaker 7: Exactly. And we do this. There's not a Republican say
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: we're doing a good job no matter what. It doesn't
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: matter that, oh, Mayo Clinic's investing $ 5 billion, you know,
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: good for the governor. No, no, it's why aren't they
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: investing $ 10 billion, that type of thing. So I think
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: the biggest thing is governors still matter the quality of
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: the candidate. I think in this mood that we're in,
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: having the backing of the DGA, having some oomph behind it.
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: You saw us pick up that seat again and hold
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: the seat in Kentucky with Andy Beshear leaning in. So
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: I think this idea that, well, we can't play in
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: some of these places, I'm with you. I think we
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: just need to go out and get a good candidate
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: on this. Find them, make sure we're there to support them.
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: And we have to play everywhere. I got a daughter
• 57:08
  Speaker 7: living out in Montana. We'll reelect John Tester, but my God,
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: we have Steve Bullock. We went from Steve Bullock to
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: what we have right now. Yeah, Jim Forte, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 57:19
  Speaker 7: I think last time I saw him, he was beating
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: reporters in Congress.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he body slammed a reporter.
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: Body slammed a reporter in Congress.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Nice guy.
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: So now you've got property taxes skyrocketing there because, you know,
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: trying to shift the property burden back onto regular Montanans.
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: So look, DGA will play where we've got an opportunity.
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: We're going to be out there across the country trying
• 57:38
  Speaker 7: to make a difference. And the message here is we're
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: going to reelect the president. We're going to do the
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: best we can to take the House, hold the Senate,
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: But the things that impact your life immediately, like protections
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: of reproductive care, you know, banning hunger in our schools
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: rather than books, those types of things are on governors.
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: So we're going to go, I would encourage folks to
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: think heavily about their governor's races.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Tell me more about that.
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: So help us understand what does the DGA do? And
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: if someone's listening, they're like, yeah, I really care about governors. Like,
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: how can they plug in and help out?
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm going to do my shameless plug for DGA, Tim, T-I-M,
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: to text me at 30201. You'll get information. You'll get
• 58:15
  Speaker 7: on there. You'll get on every email you want to have.
• 58:18
  Speaker 7: We know how this all works. But it does matter.
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: DGA is out there, and it's become one of the
• 58:23
  Speaker 7: most effective and efficient of taking resources and putting them
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: into the races where we need to be. We can
• 58:28
  Speaker 7: work as, you know, our independent expenditures helping these candidates.
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: We also provide resources on training, on media, on some
• 58:35
  Speaker 7: of the things that help a candidate get there. Look,
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: saying about the Wellstone thing, it's not as if everybody
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: comes up, but we got folks that are coming out
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: of classrooms. We've got math teachers say, I want to run.
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: And I'm going to make the case that fourth grade
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: teachers can be good governors. They can get this stuff done.
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: They're out there doing it. We've got veterans wanting to run.
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: So the DGA is there to provide the resources to
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: lift these folks up, to help organize and to bring
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: national attention to these races. And I like the idea
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: that we're smart about where we invest, but I think
• 59:02
  Speaker 7: folks who are running realize we'll be in every state.
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: We feel like we can play. Governors can win. I mean,
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: Andy Beshear is the walking embodiment of that.
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: And that's an amazing race. He's done an incredible job.
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: Amazing. And the difference it makes is he's protecting reproductive rights.
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: He's making sure that affordability of college for working folks
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: in Kentucky. He's thinking about climate change, promoting bourbon, doing
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: the things he's supposed to be doing.
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: So Do you have like a little rivalry with the
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: RGA folks? It's Governor Bill Lee and Brian Kemp's the deputy,
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: am I right?
• 59:33
  Speaker 7: Yeah, just I guess the rivalry is that I don't
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: know what they're running on other than chaos and just craziness.
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: Their candidates come out, we're going to see it in
• 59:43
  Speaker 7: North Carolina. You've just got weird folks running. And we've
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: got folks who want to improve lives. So yeah, the
• 59:49
  Speaker 7: rivalry is in this is that we're going to go
• 59:50
  Speaker 7: out and raise the resources. We're going to make the case.
• 59:52
  Speaker 7: And Again, governors are the firewall and you see the difference.
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: And I talk to good friends with all the Midwestern governors,
• 59:58
  Speaker 7: but Tony Evers, I mean, my God, thank God Mark
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: Dayton won in 2010 or Minnesota would have been Wisconsin.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: When Scott Walker won, like you said, from the redistricting
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: to the judges to everything else, they're still clawing back
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 7: and we're getting close. But so I'd make the case,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 7: go on, get information about this. If you're in a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: state like Missouri or Indiana where we got good candidates,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 7: but it might be a little tough for road. It's
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 7: only been, you know, in some cases, less than 10
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 7: years that we've had great democratic governors like Montana. I mean,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: we had 16 years straight between Schweitzer and Bullock. We
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: can do that again.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we can win. There are some headwinds. President Biden's
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: numbers are not great nationally at the moment. I know
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: Biden won Minnesota with 52.6% of the vote in 2020.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: I saw a survey from late January that has him
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 6: at 42% and Trump at 39%. So that suggests even
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 6: in Minnesota, he's struggling. What do you think the president
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: needs to get those voters back? And how do you
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: guys decide where and when to ask Joe Biden to
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: come in to stump for you?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, and those are on the individual states. And
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: I always say this to House candidates in Minnesota. Look,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 7: if you need me to be there, I'll be there.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 7: If you need to pretend you don't know me, do that.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: I just want you to win. That's what it takes.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 7: And I think the president's the same way. The numbers
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 7: aren't that surprising at this point in time. Those are
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: not all that much worse than President Obama was when
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: everybody was fretting in 2012. Look, there's challenges. There's headwinds.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 7: We've not been in a climate like this with the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: threat to democracy that's coming from former President Trump. I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: think for us, it's telling our candidates, and they know this,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: focus on the things that are improving lives. And Joe
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: Biden's delivered on that. He comes to Minnesota. We're replacing
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: that bridge up in Duluth Superior, $ 2 billion bridge. He's
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: delivering on that. Medicaid expansion in these states where we
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 7: have governors running that said, look, if you elect me
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 7: as governor, we're going to have another 100,000 people get
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 7: health insurance in Missouri, those types of things. So I
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: think it's watching that. And then for all of us,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 7: it's do the work that's in front of us. Do
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 7: the work that's in front of us. These campaigns are
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 7: about grinding it out. It's about, you know, don't doom
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: scroll through the polls. Just get out there, get on
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: the doors, know that this, because the choice is not
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: age in this one. If it is, it's age versus insanity,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: you know, bat shit, crazy ideas, NATO, you name it,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: a cruelness. You know, I think we kind of make letters,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: but the cruelest, look, we got to deal with immigration.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: We're all going to talk about it. We need to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: secure our borders, but at the same time show humanity.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: We're not going to go down the road that, you know, of,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: of just the strange ideas that, that president Trump tells us,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: even though he had four years to do something about
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: it and didn't do a damn thing.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: You know, he talks about ripping NATO apart, basically people
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: like Marco Rubio on TV saying, Oh, he's just a novice.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: You know, he talks like a normal person. Like, well,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: he was the president for four years. I feel like
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: you should know better, but I had.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: German parliamentary members in this week, and they are deeply concerned. And,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: you know, they come with the council general. The council
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: general is a little more diplomatic, staying neutral on this,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: not the members of parliament. Like, look, and I'm reassuring them,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: we're allies with you. We have close ties as Minnesotans
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 7: with Finland and Norway, done trade missions there and things
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: like that. They need to know that we're not going
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: to turn our back. And this is, you know, one
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 7: of our great accomplishments in securing peace around the world
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: was our alliances, especially the NATO alliances, done amazing things.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 7: And I don't know, you guys hit on it too,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: this idea of paying your bills and the simplicity of this,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 7: of a Russia expansion. It just makes no sense. So
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: I think governors, well, governors will focus on kitchen table issues.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: Governors will focus on delivering good jobs, security and that.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: I think for all of us to think about is
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: they're not going to be able to do any of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: that if we're not able to secure the presidency too.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. I just want to ask you a couple
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: of questions about you. I saw that you taught in
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: a Chinese high school from 1989 to 1990.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: I did.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: Were you there during the protests?
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: I was in Hong Kong.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I was in Hong Kong. So we were the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 7: first group of American high school teachers to teach in
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: Chinese high schools. There'd been folks there earlier than us,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 7: but they mostly taught in universities.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: Got it.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 7: This was a group that was through the Philip Brooks
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: House at Harvard. They picked 25. I didn't know this
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: at the time. When we got there, there were 25
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: of us. We were going to be spread throughout China.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: 12 were from the East Coast, 12 from the West Coast.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: My roommates were Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. And I was
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: from Shadron State. And that's when I realized, I'm the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: geographic affirmative action guy out of middle America. But yeah,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: when we got placed in the Chinese high schools, so
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: they teach us Mandarin. And then they dropped me in
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 7: Foshan and Guangdong, where it's Cantonese. And I would tell, oh,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: you're going to teach in Mandarin. It'll be fine. And, um,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 7: I go in the classroom and everyone's speaking Guangdong, they're
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 7: speaking Cantonese. So I would go to the headmaster. He said, no, no,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 7: they're speaking. Cause the government says you teach in China
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 7: in Mandarin. Well, they weren't doing it. So it was
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 7: an interesting, uh, interesting.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, so they were like saying, no, no, no, no.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: Don't listen to your lying years.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 7: But so it's been a couple of years, but I
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: was in Hong Kong when it happened. I was in
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: Hong Kong on, on June 4th when Tiananmen happened.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 7: Um, several of our, quite a few of our folks
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: decided not to go in. I would, you know, you would,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: you trained in Hong Kong and then went to Guangzhou
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: and then you spread out across the country. I was
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: in Southern China in Guangdong and, but crossing over in
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: Hong Kong, it was, there was a lot of European
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 7: in Hong Kong, you know, don't do this, don't go,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 7: don't support them in this. And my thinking at the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: time was, is, is what a golden opportunity to go tell,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 7: you know, how it was. And I did have a
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: lot of freedom to do that, taught American history and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: could tell the story.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: I mean, the idea that going to teach in a
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: high school is somehow supporting the government crackdown doesn't make any.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 7: Sense to me. There was a lot of that coming out,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: but I just thought it was just too good of opportunity.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's an incredible opportunity. Also, I feel like that
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: kind of person-to-person exchange is increasingly rare.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 7: It's huge. It's huge. And then you think about in
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: the early, some of your listeners, if they can imagine
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 7: being there at this time, this is eight years after
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: Deng Xiaoping opening back up. Like in Foshan, I was
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 7: the first foreigner since liberation, as they would say, meaning 1949.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: So what I immediately did when I came back was
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: organized and set up a little nonprofit and started taking
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: American high school students because they would see older tourists
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 7: there or teachers. And so my wife and I took
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 7: about 500 kids back to ride the trains and go.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 7: And it was that person to person. At that time,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: I was pretty bullish that we were going to see
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 7: maybe a, you know, because the older Chinese knew that
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: America was their greatest ally during World War II. Like
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 7: we were allies until, the situation, uh, uh, with Taiwan.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: And so, um, but that gives us the opportunity to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: try and build some of those relationships, see if we could, uh,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: strengthen that.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: I think that's honestly, I think that's missing. I think
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: it's getting worse and worse. And this is like leading
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: to this cold war.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 7: It is, it is, you know, the, the, the Panda hugging,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 7: dragger slaying, isn't it, you know, it's more about, we're
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: going to have to work with this or we're going to,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 7: we have to tackle climate change. The Chinese know it's real. They're,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: they're moving towards, you know, electrification. They're going to own
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 7: the market on electric vehicles. There is a partnership here.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: And I mean, we can't just get into this Cold
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: War situation over, you know, South China Sea again or something.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 6: Or spy balloons or something stupid. You were also a
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: social studies teacher?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: I was, geography teacher.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: Mankato West High School?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: That's correct.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: Is that right?
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 7: You were also? Yeah, I was just going to add,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: I hope you're going to add that in. The football coach.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's what I want to ask about.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: Well, thank you.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Were you a position coach, offensive guy?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: I was a defensive coordinator. Okay.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: What'd you run?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we ran a 4-4 where we read guards at
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 7: the time. I had really good athletes and good linebackers.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: How are your corners?
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: They were good. That was an age when I was
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: coaching that, you know, it was unusual to see a 2,500
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 7: to 3,000 yard passer on the other side, but it
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: was starting to come along.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: So they were running the ball a lot.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah. I appreciate you bringing this up.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: These guys were crowding the box, making sure they didn't contain.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 7: That's exactly it. And our guards, you know, because in
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: high school, if you pull a guard, it's pretty much
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: know where the ball's going. And if you can teach
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 7: kids to do that.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: Like student body rights, student body left, that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: Everyone is tuned out.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: Thank you for not allowing the yearbook to close on
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 7: this chapter of my life.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 6: I do think it's important.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: It is important. And I have to tell people this.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: So look, I did 24 years in the military. I
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: was teaching and I started running for Congress. I'm absolutely convinced.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: And people have told me this nuts because you won
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: that state championship.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: Really?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: Well, we were 0-27. When I took the job, they said, well,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: we're kind of struggling. We were 0-27. But I had
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 7: some other coaches I worked with who were great guys.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 7: And we said, this is nonsense. Let's just turn this
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: thing around. Three years later, state champion. Now they're the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: state powerhouse.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 6: You guys went from 0-27 to state champs in three years?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: Who was your steroid guy?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: No, we got him in the way. No, no.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: That's all.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: That's really impressive.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's impressive. You get good athletes.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: That's real football too. Do you guys send anybody to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: any big D1 schools?
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 7: Uh, university. Our, our linebacker, uh, ended up playing fullback
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 7: at the University of Minnesota.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: Cool.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 7: And, uh, a lot of them played, you know, uh,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: division two, like North Dakota State.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 7: Uh, Mankato, big powerhouse in that division two.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: So.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: A lot of fun.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: Very fun.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I think your term is up in 2026.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: Is that right?
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 7: That's right.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: So we, we did some pitching to see if you
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 6: run again for something, we're not saying what it is.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 6: If you want to announce anything today, that's great.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: We're not term limited in Minnesota.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: So you could run again.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: You could run again.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 6: You could run for, you know, president, something like that too.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: We wanted to pitch you some bumper sticker ideas for
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: your next campaign.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: I hope that's okay. Um, walls out for the middle class.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Um, walls to the wall for democracy.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: I'm liking this.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Tim is him.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at your staff.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: They're all giving me the ax to the window, to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 6: the walls. Mr. Gorbachev, you can't tear down this walls. Um,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: came in like a, like a, came in like a
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: wrecking walls.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: That could be more of a post-governor thing.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: What if your last year is, um, the last walls?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: Oh yeah. There you go.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: Like the film.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 6: For the kids listening. Um, if these walls.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: They're going to go Google that now, cause they've not
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 7: seen that.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: You're my wonder walls. I didn't put my best stuff
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 6: at the end. Well, that's not bad.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Okay. You like that one?
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: You know, some of them are a little more risque,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: you know, things that rhyme with walls.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: I'm sure you got some of those.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: Well, there's not a lot of, that one happened a lot.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: It's easy.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 7: It's lazy on that one.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: That was lazy.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: I blame myself.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 7: You know, my campaign, my unofficial campaign theme when I
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 7: was running 2018 was it's walls or Wisconsin. I like that.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 7: So we were going to turn into Wisconsin if we
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 7: didn't win. That's very good. I had that, so I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: would make my team say it because I thought it
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 7: was clever.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Governor Walz.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 6: Coach of the state champion football team.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Makota?
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 7: Makedo? Makedo.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 6: Makedo football team. Great to meet you. Thank you so
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: much for coming in.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Governor Tim Walz for joining us today. And
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: before we go, we have John Lovett here because we
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: have to settle a bet.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: So the Super Bowl happened.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: It did.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: Usher took his shirt off. And then whatever.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 8: Whatever.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: So the Chiefs won. Now, you two, we did the
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: prop bets, but because the red Gatorade wasn't thrown.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: Or orange.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Or orange.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: It was purple. This whole thing came down to someone
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: named Mahomes and someone named Purdy. That's really what it
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: all boils down to in the end.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: And who threw more completions.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: And you bet on Mahomes. John did. And Dan bet
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: on Purdy. Mahomes beat Purdy. So John beat Dan. It
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: was as simple as that. There was no proposal on
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: the field, but did you see that there was a
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: microphone pickup of the dialogue between Travis and Taylor? And
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: it was beautiful because you could just see their connection
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: because Taylor says, oh my God, that was amazing. And
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: Travis said, there's going to be a big party. So
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: I love that for them.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: And there was. And there was. And you know who
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: she was next to? Her mom. That wasn't one of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: the prophets.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, right, right, right.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: And Ice Spice, also not one of the prophets.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: And Blake Lively. Was Blake Lively?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: And Blake Lively.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: Did you see the photo of Taylor's box where everyone
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: is having a blast paying attention and super into it?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: And then the Kardashian box where they look like they're
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: bored of their fucking minds and just being kind of
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: jetted around the world to various events of which they
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: have no interest.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: And then Elon Musk next to his son who he
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: just was not looking at.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: I didn't see that.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: I didn't see that.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: Anyway.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: So, Dan, you've lost.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 7: I did lose.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: And that means you have to post a tweet.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: That's what they're called.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: And we have the text here that was drafted yesterday.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: by the Intrepid Pod Save America team. It reads as follows. Taylor,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: look what you made me do. We have no choice
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: left but to beg you for a Biden endorsement. We
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: remember Trump's presidency all too well and think we should never,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: ever get back together with that man. Please, please, please
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: give us 2024 Biden's version. You're just going to put
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: that online. And I want to be clear about something.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: It's not one of those situations where you can say,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: you can't ask the genie for more wishes and you
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: can't say, I have to post this. You just simply
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: must put it out into the world.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I had this one wrinkle here. It's an important wrinkle,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: which is minutes before this podcast, I deleted Twitter. That's
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: not actually. No, I'm just kidding.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: I'm just kidding.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I feel like I just saw you tweet. I believed it.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: Well, you know what's sad about that? Daniel, like minutes ago,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: I did something you could be proud of me for. No,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: you didn't do it. You didn't do it.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: You're still in the muck. That was like a little
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: bit of the end of Goodwill hunting there. Like someday,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: someday I'm going to come. Someday I'm going to go
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: to your Twitter feed. I want to see about a girl.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: I want to go see about grass.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: Well, Dan, the text is coming your way. On X
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: it will go. And you'll just face the consequences of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: putting that into the world.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: That's so great. Maybe it'll work. I hope we screenshot it.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: I hope we put it on Instagram. We should put
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: it everywhere.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: Look what we made Dan do.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Look what we made Dan do.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely do that.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: A few scheduling things here. We will have a special
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Sunday episode that is my interview with Elizabeth Warren. That's
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: going to go out Sunday. And then on Monday, it's
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: President's Day. So, of course, we're all celebrating. And then
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, you're going to get a special feed drop.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: It's going to be Oprah. It's Oprah. It's not us
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: talking to Oprah. It's Oprah talking to more important people.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Believe it or not, Oprah came to us to
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: do some promo.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: And we're like, no, no, no, no, no. We got
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: Why can't Oprah? Why can't we go to Oprah? Why
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: isn't Oprah promoting our stuff? That's the platform we need.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: Oprah needs us. We need Oprah.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: She asked for Friday, and we said, nope, we got Tim.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: Walz.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: Ask not what Oprah can do for you. Ask what
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: you can do for Oprah.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: For Oprah. So you'll hear Sunday episode of Pods of America.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: That's me talking to Elizabeth Warren, and then we'll be
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: back on Wednesday. So we'll see you then. Have a
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: great President's Day weekend.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kiril Pellaviv, and Molly Lobel.