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“Between Barack and A Hard Place.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America.
0:21
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 1: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor. God, you did it to me. There's
0:25
Speaker 2: always just a little something off there. I'm sorry. I
0:27
Speaker 2: was not trying to laugh.
0:28
Speaker 3: On today's show, President Obama shows Democrats how it's done
0:31
Speaker 3: as candidates hone their closing arguments. Republicans deflect blame following
0:35
Speaker 3: a brutal attack on Speaker Pelosi's husband by a man
0:38
Speaker 3: who was radicalized by right-wing conspiracy theories. Chief Twit Elon
0:42
Speaker 3: Musk is off to a rocky start. And later, I
0:45
Speaker 3: talk to Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes about his race
0:48
Speaker 3: to defeat Senator Ron Johnson.
0:50
Speaker 4: Plus, White Lotus is back, baby. What does it mean
0:52
Speaker 4: for the midterms?
0:57
Speaker 2: I'm so happy it's back. What do you think it
0:58
Speaker 2: means for this episode? First episode is fantastic.
1:00
Speaker 4: Not a lot.
1:01
Speaker 2: I want all White Lotus.
1:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, more White Lotus, please.
1:03
Speaker 3: All right, but first, before you watch White Lotus, go
1:07
Speaker 3: to votesaveamerica.com while you're listening to this pod, or if
1:10
Speaker 3: you're driving shortly after, and sign up to help in
1:13
Speaker 3: these last seven days. This is the most important time
1:15
Speaker 3: to help your friends and neighbors know when and where
1:17
Speaker 3: they can vote and help them make plans to do it.
1:20
Speaker 3: We need to make every day count, and there are
1:22
Speaker 3: opportunities all this week and weekend. can hop on a
1:25
Speaker 3: bus with our friends at Swing Left to head to
1:26
Speaker 3: a swing district near you. You can text voters in
1:29
Speaker 3: key states with NextGen and many more ways to channel
1:33
Speaker 3: that anxiety into action. Just go to votesaveamerica.com.
1:35
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, you can sit on Twitter all
1:37
Speaker 2: day and complain about where the New York Times placed
1:41
Speaker 2: the Paul Pelosi coverage in the hard copy of the
1:43
Speaker 2: paper that no one gets, which I've Done many times.
1:46
Speaker 2: Or you can get out of your house and knock
1:47
Speaker 2: on some doors. You'll feel a lot better if you
1:49
Speaker 2: hit some doors.
1:49
Speaker 1: Or you can do both. Or just get out of Elon.
1:52
Speaker 1: You can knock on doors.
1:53
Speaker 3: And when someone opens up, be like, are you voting
1:56
Speaker 3: for Republican because it wasn't above the fold?
1:58
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that.
1:59
Speaker 4: Maggie didn't call it a lie. Vote Republican.
2:01
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do those messages. On the way to your
2:05
Speaker 2: canvassing shift, you should also listen to World Corrupt, a
2:07
Speaker 2: brand new podcast about the World Cup 2022. Oh, look
2:09
Speaker 2: at that. Look at this. Look at this, huh? That's
2:12
Speaker 2: how it's done.
2:13
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. We are a
2:15
Speaker 1: week out from Election Day.
2:16
Speaker 3: More than 20 million votes have already been cast, and
2:19
Speaker 3: we've reached that stage of the campaign where everyone spends
2:22
Speaker 3: all day arguing with various Nates about polls. Republicans at
2:26
Speaker 3: this moment are still favored to take the House. Democrats
2:29
Speaker 3: are ever so slightly favored to keep the Senate, and
2:32
Speaker 3: plenty of down-ballot races are up for grabs. Both Joe
2:36
Speaker 3: Biden and Donald Trump stayed off the campaign trail over
2:38
Speaker 3: the weekend, but Barack Obama, who is the Democrats' most
2:41
Speaker 3: requested surrogate, carried the party's closing message at huge rallies
2:45
Speaker 3: in Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Here's a quick recap of
2:49
Speaker 3: how that went.
2:50
Speaker 5: The other day a video came out of Governor Whitmer's
2:53
Speaker 5: opponent claiming that Democrats have been working for decades to
2:57
Speaker 5: topple the United States because they're still upset about losing
3:01
Speaker 5: the Civil War.
3:04
Speaker 6: And that COVID restrictions were part of some master.
3:08
Speaker 2: Plan to do this.
3:09
Speaker 7: Now, first of all, what?
3:14
Speaker 5: Let's say you're at the airport and you see Mr.
3:18
Speaker 5: Walker and you say, hey, there's Herschel Walker, Heisman winner.
3:22
Speaker 6: Let's have him fly the plane.
3:26
Speaker 4: You probably wouldn't say that. You'd want to know, does
3:29
Speaker 4: he know how to fly an airplane?
3:31
Speaker 6: They had long hours. and sore backs and bad knees
3:36
Speaker 6: to get that Social Security. And if Ron Johnson does
3:39
Speaker 6: not understand that, if he understands giving tax breaks for
3:44
Speaker 6: private planes more than he understands making sure that seniors
3:48
Speaker 6: who've worked all their lives are able to retire with
3:52
Speaker 6: dignity and respect, he's not the person who's thinking about
3:56
Speaker 6: you and knows you and sees you, and he should
3:59
Speaker 6: not be your senator from Wisconsin.
4:01
Speaker 3: All right, let's start with our completely unbiased take on
4:05
Speaker 3: our old boss. What'd you guys think, Tommy?
4:08
Speaker 2: So obviously we're biased, but look, I have also seen,
4:11
Speaker 2: you guys have seen Obama give brutal, wonky, room-clearing, 45-minute-long speeches.
4:17
Speaker 1: Tommy can say this.
4:18
Speaker 4: Guy crushes on the road and now he does this
4:20
Speaker 4: to come into it.
4:21
Speaker 2: Tommy can say this now that we're past the Obama. Well,
4:24
Speaker 2: of course. But also, even Republicans, I think, were sharing
4:27
Speaker 2: the clips of Obama's speeches for over the weekend saying, like,
4:29
Speaker 2: this guy is a generational talent, which he clearly is.
4:32
Speaker 2: Here's the thing I would just think about. All of us, again,
4:35
Speaker 2: are politically obsessed people. The voters that Democrats need to
4:38
Speaker 2: reach in the final days are not us. It's not
4:40
Speaker 2: the weirdos who pay attention all year long. It's late deciders, undecideds,
4:43
Speaker 2: people who are deciding whether or not to vote at all.
4:46
Speaker 2: And the question you have to ask yourself is, does
4:48
Speaker 2: this speech keep and hold your attention? Does it hold
4:51
Speaker 2: your attention when you could scroll to something else on Instagram?
4:54
Speaker 2: Does it hold your attention on the nightly news when
4:56
Speaker 2: you could flip to a playoff baseball game? Obama in
5:00
Speaker 2: this speech, I think, sucked people in. He got that
5:03
Speaker 2: crowd excited. It looked energized, looked fun. The attacks on
5:06
Speaker 2: Walker and Ron Johnson were brutal, withering, politically damaging, but
5:11
Speaker 2: delivered in a way that was genuinely fun and funny
5:15
Speaker 2: and memorable. And I think sometimes strategists like us spend
5:18
Speaker 2: so much time over exact framing and wording, and you
5:22
Speaker 2: forget the more basic question of, will this message reach
5:25
Speaker 2: the intended audience? And on that metric, he knocked it
5:29
Speaker 2: out of the park.
5:31
Speaker 1: Love it.
5:31
Speaker 3: Why do you think it resonated with so many people?
5:35
Speaker 2: I noticed that it's like, you know, you.
5:36
Speaker 3: Had progressive lefty pundits on Twitter saying it was great.
5:40
Speaker 6: Yeah.
5:41
Speaker 3: You had Never Trumpers saying it was great. That's the
5:43
Speaker 3: whole coalition right there.
5:44
Speaker 4: So I think there's two reasons. For one, it was
5:47
Speaker 4: just a great speech. It was just a well-told story
5:50
Speaker 4: that just made sense to a lot of people. But
5:52
Speaker 4: I think from, like, Never Trumpers to independents to journalists
5:56
Speaker 4: when they're, you know, being honest to Neil Libshills to lefties,
5:59
Speaker 4: we all... we all agree that Republicans are extreme, but
6:04
Speaker 4: how do you talk about that? What's the best way
6:06
Speaker 4: to talk about it without turning people off? And I
6:08
Speaker 4: think sometimes there's a lot of people in those camps
6:11
Speaker 4: that view Democrats as being extreme too, that there's a
6:13
Speaker 4: problem on both sides, in part because you sound a
6:16
Speaker 4: little radical when you say vote for the Democrats or
6:19
Speaker 4: a fascistic menace that doesn't believe in democracy and is
6:22
Speaker 4: spreading lies and misinformation will take the reins of power.
6:25
Speaker 1: But it's true. I don't care if it's true.
6:27
Speaker 2: We know it's true.
6:28
Speaker 4: We know it's true. And so he manages to tell
6:30
Speaker 4: this story.
6:31
Speaker 1: Do you need to be reminded that it's true all
6:33
Speaker 1: the time, even though you know it's true?
6:35
Speaker 4: And so he managed to make Republicans seem indefensible, embarrassing, extreme,
6:41
Speaker 4: without himself seeming....
6:44
Speaker 2: Nasty.
6:46
Speaker 4: Without high dudgeon.
6:47
Speaker 1: People don't like that stuff.
6:49
Speaker 4: With a light touch. And it makes him someone you
6:52
Speaker 4: want to be on a team with. It's not pious.
6:55
Speaker 4: There's no grand guignol. It's just... Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
6:58
Speaker 2: What was that word? I'm sorry. Grand guignol? Is that
7:02
Speaker 2: a liqueur?
7:02
Speaker 1: Excuse me, excuse me.
7:03
Speaker 2: You can tell Lovett didn't write that speech for him,
7:05
Speaker 2: you know?
7:07
Speaker 4: You can.
7:08
Speaker 1: Oh, okay. What was that?
7:11
Speaker 8: Sorry.
7:11
Speaker 4: It's a term for a kind of bloody storytelling named after,
7:16
Speaker 4: I believe, a French theater that was famous for that
7:19
Speaker 4: kind of violent rhetoric and imagery.
7:22
Speaker 2: Got it.
7:24
Speaker 4: Said me to Tommy, a person before we started.
7:27
Speaker 2: Recording, told us about his favorite kind of wine region. No,
7:34
Speaker 2: it was a funny one to say. I can't even
7:36
Speaker 2: tell the context. It'll get me in trouble.
7:38
Speaker 9: Move on.
7:38
Speaker 2: Move on, John.
7:39
Speaker 3: Anyway, I do think there's something to be said for,
7:41
Speaker 3: and you both mentioned this, the humor involved. We did
7:47
Speaker 3: this all the time when we were with him in
7:48
Speaker 3: the White House, and he loved to do this kind
7:50
Speaker 3: of stuff, which is like, And I think it's particularly
7:53
Speaker 3: appropriate today. Like he does not want to make people
7:56
Speaker 3: fear demagogues and conspiracy theorists. He wants to make people
8:00
Speaker 3: laugh at them, right? And that's because they want to
8:04
Speaker 3: be feared. They don't want to be laughed at, right?
8:07
Speaker 3: Like this is the whole thing with the strong man, right?
8:09
Speaker 3: Like they want to seem strong by mocking them all
8:11
Speaker 3: the time. You make them seem weak. And like, I
8:15
Speaker 3: get that we are at a very precarious moment. We
8:17
Speaker 3: talk about that all the time and these threats are real.
8:20
Speaker 3: But again, most people aren't paying as close attention to
8:22
Speaker 3: politics as we are. And the way to reach them
8:25
Speaker 3: is to just point out the obvious, which is how
8:27
Speaker 3: fucking absurd so many of these conspiracy theories are.
8:30
Speaker 2: I also, I just, I'm trying to think of the
8:32
Speaker 2: last time I saw a democratic political rally that looked
8:36
Speaker 2: big and energized and exciting and fun. And it's been
8:40
Speaker 2: a long time. And part of that is a pandemic.
8:42
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And then that's not, I'm
8:43
Speaker 2: not saying this to mock Joe Biden in any way.
8:45
Speaker 2: Like he had to campaign from home because there was
8:47
Speaker 2: a global pandemic, but Trump rallies obviously can end up
8:51
Speaker 2: seeming very dark and angry and scary at times, especially
8:54
Speaker 2: when they're doing the QAnon thing with their fingers up, whatever.
8:57
Speaker 2: But most of the time, the people there are there
8:59
Speaker 2: because they feel entertained. They're having a good time for
9:03
Speaker 2: whatever reason. And Donald Trump's an awful person, but he
9:06
Speaker 2: can be funny and he tells stories and he entertains people.
9:08
Speaker 2: And he has created a movement, the one that I
9:12
Speaker 2: don't understand, that people want to be a part of.
9:16
Speaker 2: And I think people witnessed that again from the Democratic
9:18
Speaker 2: side at some of those rallies.
9:20
Speaker 3: I also think he focused a lot this weekend on
9:24
Speaker 3: economic issues because that's what people are most concerned about.
9:27
Speaker 3: But he didn't just list off poll-tested policies. I don't
9:32
Speaker 3: think we heard the whole thing in the clip, but
9:33
Speaker 3: the way he talked about Social Security and Medicare, about
9:35
Speaker 3: how people worked their whole lives for it.
9:38
Speaker 2: He was vivid.
9:38
Speaker 1: He was vivid about it.
9:39
Speaker 2: Calloused hands.
9:40
Speaker 1: Calloused hands.
9:41
Speaker 2: He earned it.
9:42
Speaker 3: Like it was more of a value statement about the
9:44
Speaker 3: economy than it was a list of policy positions. And
9:48
Speaker 3: it wasn't the kind of value statements that you hear
9:50
Speaker 3: in every single fucking speech that have now become cliche.
9:52
Speaker 3: Like working hard and playing by the rules, which was
9:55
Speaker 3: fresh when Bill Clinton said it in 1982. It's not
9:58
Speaker 3: fresh anymore.
9:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:00
Speaker 3: So, you know, I think, and I also think that
10:01
Speaker 3: he tries to meet people where they are by saying,
10:03
Speaker 3: you know, at one point in that speech, he's like,
10:05
Speaker 3: maybe you don't think democracy as is important an issue
10:08
Speaker 3: as gas prices right now.
10:09
Speaker 1: That's okay. I understand.
10:10
Speaker 3: Here's why it's important instead of chiding people for not
10:14
Speaker 3: thinking that it's as important, right?
10:15
Speaker 2: Which I think is- Well, that's more the Twitter vibe.
10:17
Speaker 5: Right.
10:18
Speaker 3: So the White House has said that Biden's decision to
10:20
Speaker 3: avoid a lot of big rallies was intentional. They argued
10:23
Speaker 3: that having Obama and Trump on the trail in 2010
10:26
Speaker 3: and 2018 didn't work out too well for them.
10:30
Speaker 1: What do you guys think about that? Lovett, what do
10:31
Speaker 1: you think about that?
10:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, totally. You know, he's a Democratic president. He
10:39
Speaker 4: was at home this weekend before the midterm elections. Whatever
10:44
Speaker 4: the explanation, it's not good. And I would say Also,
10:49
Speaker 4: Trump in 2018, Obama in 2010, a lot of buckle
10:54
Speaker 4: your seatbelts, post hoc agri-proctor hoc. Because it's like, yeah,
11:01
Speaker 4: Obama went out before an absolutely devastating midterm. Do we
11:04
Speaker 4: know that Obama going out didn't help stem some losses
11:06
Speaker 4: which were going to be devastating no matter what?
11:07
Speaker 2: We don't.
11:08
Speaker 4: Trump going out in 2018, he was a profoundly divisive
11:11
Speaker 4: and unpopular figure even in running up into those midterms.
11:15
Speaker 4: So it's a sort of like, You know, whatever explanation
11:18
Speaker 4: you look for, it's not a good sign that either
11:21
Speaker 4: Joe Biden isn't being sought after in a lot of
11:24
Speaker 4: these campaigns or they've decided he's not valuable.
11:26
Speaker 2: Whatever the reason, it's not good. I mean, a rally
11:28
Speaker 2: is a type of event. You know, the idea that
11:30
Speaker 2: doing a lot of rallies is why we lost in
11:32
Speaker 2: 2010 or any other year. It's nonsense. It's complete nonsense.
11:35
Speaker 2: Obama is now a former president, which means his approval
11:37
Speaker 2: rating has gone way up because he's out of the
11:39
Speaker 2: political fray. That's what happens with every president. So Obama
11:43
Speaker 2: can go anywhere he wants to campaign. Everyone wants him
11:45
Speaker 2: to come because he's popular and that's how it works.
11:48
Speaker 2: Joe Biden has been in the political barrel for nearly
11:50
Speaker 2: two years now. He inherited a pandemic. He had a
11:54
Speaker 2: screwed up economy because of it. He had to deal
11:56
Speaker 2: with the war in Ukraine, spike in gas prices, right?
11:59
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin made us look like idiots for a year.
12:01
Speaker 2: That limits what campaigns want you to come campaign for them.
12:06
Speaker 2: It probably limits Joe Biden's ability to draw a crowd.
12:09
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's always going to be that way.
12:10
Speaker 2: His popularity will go back up, but like, let's not
12:13
Speaker 2: pretend that big rallies are bad politically or the reason
12:16
Speaker 2: you win or lose. I mean, there were previous years
12:19
Speaker 2: when Obama's approval had taken a beating when Joe Biden
12:22
Speaker 2: was sent to the more swingy contested areas because he
12:26
Speaker 2: was more popular. You know, it's like it's just it's
12:28
Speaker 2: silly spin.
12:28
Speaker 9: Sure.
12:28
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's wishing for those days. It's just it's silly.
12:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the broad context of this midterm,
12:35
Speaker 3: it has similarities to the midterm in 2010.
12:37
Speaker 2: Right. Which is there.
12:39
Speaker 3: We were still dealing with the aftermath of a horrible
12:42
Speaker 3: recession in And now we're dealing with inflation. And those
12:45
Speaker 3: will be the driving factors in this midterm more than
12:48
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's talent on the stump or Barack Obama's talent
12:51
Speaker 3: on the stump. And I don't think that Barack Obama
12:53
Speaker 3: being out there this weekend is going to save the
12:55
Speaker 3: Democratic Party.
12:56
Speaker 1: In this midterm.
12:57
Speaker 3: I do think it is something for other Democratic candidates
13:00
Speaker 3: and politicians to learn from in terms of the way
13:03
Speaker 3: he delivers a message and talks about it. And then
13:06
Speaker 3: to the Biden thing, Biden will be out this next
13:08
Speaker 3: weekend with Obama, I think, in Pennsylvania and a couple
13:11
Speaker 3: other places, Maryland.
13:15
Speaker 2: Stuff like that. But, you know, he's going to be
13:16
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, which is the state of Maryland. Well, unfortunately,
13:19
Speaker 2: New York looks like a swing state all of a sudden.
13:21
Speaker 2: And that says more about the state of the country
13:24
Speaker 2: than anything the White House is doing.
13:25
Speaker 3: But I do think being out there to make the
13:27
Speaker 3: case as often as you can, especially in this media environment,
13:30
Speaker 3: is important.
13:30
Speaker 2: For any leader.
13:32
Speaker 9: Right.
13:32
Speaker 2: I mean, look, Joe Biden can go anywhere in the
13:34
Speaker 2: country and it will get covered to some extent. But,
13:37
Speaker 2: you know, what you lose when you don't do the
13:38
Speaker 2: giant rally in, let's say, Atlanta is you lose the
13:43
Speaker 2: local market coverage. You lose the ability to capture data
13:46
Speaker 2: for everyone in that room. You lose the chance to
13:49
Speaker 2: fire up a ton of people and convert them from
13:52
Speaker 2: voters to volunteers. You know, like that's why big rallies
13:54
Speaker 2: are a big deal. When we did a rally with
13:56
Speaker 2: Oprah in Des Moines, it was like, it was a
13:58
Speaker 2: gift from heaven for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary,
14:01
Speaker 2: because a lot of people who didn't care about the
14:04
Speaker 2: campaign necessarily showed up for the first time and became
14:07
Speaker 2: a part of it because they want to see Oprah.
14:09
Speaker 3: Also, audiences are human. The same speech delivered in the
14:13
Speaker 3: Rose garden to like five people delivered in a rally
14:17
Speaker 3: to 5,000 screaming people. Like you're watching it. You're going
14:20
Speaker 3: to feel like more energy. You're gonna feel like, Oh,
14:22
Speaker 3: that's the winning side. You know, like it's just, it's energy.
14:24
Speaker 1: It's important.
14:26
Speaker 4: You know, president Biden going into the dip room with
14:30
Speaker 4: Janet Yellen.
14:31
Speaker 1: And we hated those people. We did the bomb.
14:33
Speaker 2: It had to do those all the time. Cause you
14:34
Speaker 2: were stuck at the white house.
14:35
Speaker 1: It's like brutal.
14:36
Speaker 9: It's hard.
14:36
Speaker 1: No one wants to do that.
14:37
Speaker 3: So that clip of Obama talking about social security and
14:39
Speaker 3: Medicare is has now been viewed nearly 15 million times
14:43
Speaker 3: more than any of his other riffs from the weekend.
14:46
Speaker 2: 14 million of them by his former staff.
14:49
Speaker 1: And him too.
14:51
Speaker 3: And the Washington Post reported over the weekend that Democratic
14:54
Speaker 3: candidates are starting to shift their ads towards a similar message,
14:57
Speaker 3: while the share of ads mentioning abortion has ticked down
15:00
Speaker 3: by 10%.
15:01
Speaker 2: Tommy, good strategy? Too late? What do you think? Ask
15:04
Speaker 2: me in a week, John. I don't know. I think
15:08
Speaker 2: what you're seeing, all the polling, all this sort of
15:11
Speaker 2: anecdotal information you hear, like, look, I was down in
15:13
Speaker 2: Norwich County knocking on doors over the weekend. What people
15:15
Speaker 2: are hearing about on the doors there is about economic issues.
15:18
Speaker 2: They're mad about gas prices specifically. We can't convince those
15:22
Speaker 2: voters not to be mad. We can't convince them that
15:24
Speaker 2: gas prices are lower than they were a few weeks
15:27
Speaker 2: ago or point to an old list of accomplishments. I
15:29
Speaker 2: think we can convince those voters that Republicans will make
15:33
Speaker 2: things worse. They'll voters that Republicans, if they are in charge,
15:38
Speaker 2: will cut social security. And then you can kind of
15:40
Speaker 2: get your foot in the door and talk about what
15:43
Speaker 2: Democrats can do if you send us back. Yeah, I
15:45
Speaker 2: support it. I think it's a good idea.
15:46
Speaker 9: Yeah.
15:47
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I think in part out of genuine
15:50
Speaker 4: outrage and fear and because the entire country was focused
15:54
Speaker 4: on it and in part because we viewed it as
15:56
Speaker 4: politically valuable, Democrats did a very, very good job defining
16:01
Speaker 4: the stakes on abortion. And as much as that is
16:05
Speaker 4: one of several issues a lot of Democrats are talking about,
16:07
Speaker 4: I don't think in the kind of national debate we
16:09
Speaker 4: have as cleanly defined the stakes on Social Security, on Medicare,
16:14
Speaker 4: even on inflation and crime, which again is something President
16:17
Speaker 4: Obama touched on, I think, really well, which is, all right,
16:20
Speaker 4: inflation and crime are really big issues. Who's going to
16:21
Speaker 4: make it better and who's going to make it worse, right?
16:23
Speaker 4: They're just saying crime, crime, crime, crime, crime. But, you know,
16:26
Speaker 4: Republicans are the ones who voted against the funding through
16:28
Speaker 4: the bills we already passed, for example. And I think
16:30
Speaker 4: this is less to me about, I think what Obama
16:33
Speaker 4: did in that speech and what Democrats are now starting
16:35
Speaker 4: to do is try to really drive just a simple
16:38
Speaker 4: contrast on this issue in the way they've successfully done
16:41
Speaker 4: on abortion.
16:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've talked quite a bit about how
16:45
Speaker 3: Joe Biden can't do too much about gas prices, though
16:48
Speaker 3: today he floated a windfall profits tax on oil companies,
16:54
Speaker 3: which I think is great, And part of me was like,
16:57
Speaker 3: I'm just glad he did that and he's going to
16:59
Speaker 3: campaign on that in the final week. I sort of
17:01
Speaker 3: wish all the Democrats sort of coalesced around that as
17:03
Speaker 3: a message a couple months ago.
17:06
Speaker 7: Yeah.
17:06
Speaker 2: I remember it got talked about at the time, but
17:07
Speaker 2: then kind of discarded. I'm not sure why.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure the fucking nerdy economists were like.
17:12
Speaker 2: It's not really going to do anything. Maybe do at
17:14
Speaker 2: the end here when there's maximum attention.
17:16
Speaker 3: But like put the Republicans on record as being opposed
17:18
Speaker 3: to a windfall profits tax. And then you're like, they
17:20
Speaker 3: think that oil companies should profit.
17:22
Speaker 2: We don't.
17:23
Speaker 3: We don't like the higher gas prices. They're complaining about them,
17:25
Speaker 3: but they don't want to do anything about it.
17:27
Speaker 2: I just think, you know, the other part of this
17:28
Speaker 2: is it seems like every single voter in every state
17:32
Speaker 2: is frustrated about the state of the economy and gas prices.
17:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:34
Speaker 2: But where you live, the stakes for you in terms
17:38
Speaker 2: of abortion access are very different. Yeah. So if you're
17:41
Speaker 2: in California, you can vote for Prop 1, which enshrines
17:44
Speaker 2: a constitutional right to an abortion. So therefore, you are
17:48
Speaker 2: probably less concerned about sending Democrats back to Congress and
17:53
Speaker 2: to preserve abortion access because you're thinking this is your
17:56
Speaker 2: sophisticated voter. You're thinking like we've got it covered here. Now,
17:59
Speaker 2: like that's there's some holes in that argument. But I
18:01
Speaker 2: do think that that's why you're seeing different strategies in
18:03
Speaker 2: different places. Yeah.
18:04
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't be surprised if in the states where
18:08
Speaker 3: it matters most what happens in the election on abortion,
18:11
Speaker 3: you actually do see more of that surge in voters
18:14
Speaker 3: that had been expected, like a state like Pennsylvania, where
18:16
Speaker 3: like Josh Shapiro wins, abortion is legal. Doug Mastrano wins,
18:21
Speaker 3: it's illegal.
18:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, states with like really draconian laws that will snap
18:24
Speaker 2: back into place.
18:25
Speaker 8: Right.
18:25
Speaker 3: And you saw that Tudor Dixon was actually trying to
18:27
Speaker 3: make this argument in Michigan and saying like, oh, you
18:30
Speaker 3: could vote for the constitutional amendment and then vote against
18:34
Speaker 3: Gretchen Whitmer to protect, you could vote for the amendment
18:37
Speaker 3: to protect abortion and then vote against Gretchen Whitmer.
18:39
Speaker 9: Okay, Tudor.
18:40
Speaker 2: Which I don't think, that's a little too cute by half.
18:42
Speaker 4: But only something you say if you're seeing internal polls
18:44
Speaker 4: that are like.
18:45
Speaker 8: Oh, fuck.
18:45
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely.
18:56
Speaker 3: The other big issue hanging over the campaign in the
18:58
Speaker 3: final days is the threat to democracy posed by extremists.
19:02
Speaker 3: We all get a horrifying reminder of how real that
19:04
Speaker 3: is after Paul Pelosi was brutally assaulted with a hammer
19:07
Speaker 3: in his own San Francisco home by a man carrying
19:10
Speaker 3: zip ties and duct tape who was shouting, where is Nancy?
19:13
Speaker 3: The attacker had posted all kinds of crazy right-wing theories
19:16
Speaker 3: on Facebook, as one does. Here's a Fox News report
19:20
Speaker 3: on the attack that has been brilliantly annotated with Tucker
19:23
Speaker 3: Carlson segments by Kat Abu from Media Matters.
19:26
Speaker 7: Social media posts included transphobic images.
19:29
Speaker 8: All these nations preparing for World War Trans.
19:31
Speaker 7: Linked to websites claiming COVID vaccines were deadly.
19:34
Speaker 8: Is it possible that the vaccine actually can hurt you?
19:38
Speaker 8: Especially if you keep getting boosted? Can it weaken your
19:41
Speaker 8: immune system?
19:42
Speaker 7: The death rates being promoted are whatever they want to
19:45
Speaker 7: be promoted, is the death rate one post said.
19:47
Speaker 8: So is it possible that the CDC has been classifying
19:50
Speaker 8: those deaths, deaths from old age or other factors, as
19:53
Speaker 8: coronavirus deaths?
19:54
Speaker 7: Also posted links to YouTube videos with titles like Democrat
19:58
Speaker 7: Farce Commission to Investigate January 6th. It's a farce.
20:01
Speaker 8: It's a complete farce.
20:03
Speaker 7: Global elites plan to take control of your money.
20:05
Speaker 8: They're hiring another 87,000 armed IRS agents just to make
20:09
Speaker 8: sure that you obey.
20:10
Speaker 1: Got it? Got it?
20:12
Speaker 2: Is it clear?
20:13
Speaker 7: So it looks like we've potentially have somebody here who
20:19
Speaker 7: embraces conspiracy theories.
20:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, potentially.
20:22
Speaker 3: So, Lovett, most Republican leaders, with the notable exception of
20:25
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, condemned the attack, but just about all of
20:28
Speaker 3: them said, It had nothing to do with politics, everything
20:31
Speaker 3: to do with rising crime rates. How, if at all,
20:34
Speaker 3: do you think Democratic candidates, officials should be talking about this,
20:39
Speaker 3: should respond to this?
20:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:40
Speaker 4: So first of all, they all rushed to get those
20:42
Speaker 4: kinds of statements out there because now today we get
20:46
Speaker 4: the kind of information from the police where he says
20:49
Speaker 4: he was looking for Nancy Pelosi.
20:50
Speaker 9: Yeah.
20:50
Speaker 2: The FBI report.
20:51
Speaker 4: Yeah. Walking through basically, you know, that this is tracks
20:55
Speaker 4: with the conspiracy theories he posted online. It was a
20:57
Speaker 4: targeted attack against Nancy Pelosi to send a message to
21:00
Speaker 4: other members of Congress. That's very clear. Obviously, you know,
21:04
Speaker 4: flows from right wing misinformation and conspiracy theories that this
21:08
Speaker 4: person had been following. So that is now clear. So
21:11
Speaker 4: a lot of them obviously will apologize and express their
21:14
Speaker 4: profound regret for having said these things. So that'll be that.
21:17
Speaker 2: They'll all take down the tweets.
21:18
Speaker 1: They'll all take down the tweets.
21:19
Speaker 4: I think the like Republicans are extreme conservatives. They are
21:24
Speaker 4: embracing extreme and fringe politics and rhetoric. They are embracing
21:27
Speaker 4: extreme and fringe policies. And this is all of a piece.
21:31
Speaker 4: They are trying to scare people. They are trying to
21:33
Speaker 4: incite people. They're doing it for votes. They're doing it
21:36
Speaker 4: for power. And they don't care who's hurt. They don't
21:39
Speaker 4: care about your access to abortion. They don't care about
21:42
Speaker 4: what happens to trans people or gay teachers or any
21:44
Speaker 4: of the rest. They will stir the most virulent and
21:47
Speaker 4: vile and terrible conspiracies and hates and bigotries in our society.
21:51
Speaker 4: to accrue power no matter what happens. They will do
21:53
Speaker 4: that as candidates. They will do that as elected leaders.
21:56
Speaker 4: I think that is, to me, that is what I
21:59
Speaker 4: take away from this.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. Tommy? Yeah, I mean, the radicalization is coming from
22:03
Speaker 2: inside the House, Fox News, you know, the look within. Also,
22:06
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson really sounds very shrill, you know? He does
22:09
Speaker 2: sound shrill. You might want to think about, you know,
22:11
Speaker 2: modulating his voice because he's really a shrill person. I saw, obviously, yes,
22:15
Speaker 2: the response, it was a weird response. couple days of
22:18
Speaker 2: people just spreading disinformation all over the internet, especially Republicans,
22:22
Speaker 2: including like Ted Cruz and other elected officials. The response,
22:27
Speaker 2: the facts were clarified today. The response got a little
22:30
Speaker 2: easier when the lunatic attacker confessed to everything. There's an
22:33
Speaker 2: eyewitness account, right? So none of this is a question anymore.
22:36
Speaker 2: It's useful to call people out for being cynical. Carrie
22:40
Speaker 2: Lake decided to make life-threatening violence against Paul Pelosi a
22:45
Speaker 2: laugh line at an event today. when he is still
22:48
Speaker 2: in the ICU. I think that will probably offend voters.
22:51
Speaker 2: That said, I saw a bunch of Twitter Karl Rove's
22:56
Speaker 2: furious at Democrats, absolutely outraged that the Democratic Party wasn't
23:01
Speaker 2: shifting all of its messaging in the last weeks to
23:04
Speaker 2: be about political violence. And I just would encourage people
23:09
Speaker 2: to talk to any campaign in a competitive district and
23:13
Speaker 2: see if they think that a closing argument like that
23:17
Speaker 2: is helpful. They will tell you that it is probably
23:20
Speaker 2: more likely to kick up a debate about crime and
23:24
Speaker 2: how crime has gotten so bad in San Francisco that
23:26
Speaker 2: the Speaker of the House isn't safe in her own
23:28
Speaker 2: home more than it will be a fight about political violence.
23:32
Speaker 2: Because I think a lot of people will end up thinking, sure,
23:35
Speaker 2: that's radicalizing language from Fox News or whomever, but crazy
23:41
Speaker 2: people do crazy things. And so, look, I don't have
23:44
Speaker 2: a crystal ball. I'm not a pollster. I could be wrong. But,
23:47
Speaker 2: you know, we had January 6th happen. Everyone saw it.
23:52
Speaker 2: And I think voters are still today seemingly a lot
23:55
Speaker 2: more angry about economic conditions. So I wouldn't change the
23:59
Speaker 2: entire focus of my message, even if the Twitter brain
24:03
Speaker 2: trust is telling you otherwise.
24:05
Speaker 3: I think it's a very difficult challenge, right? We have
24:08
Speaker 3: one party that is celebrating and or encouraging political violence
24:13
Speaker 3: with a lot of the things they say and do.
24:16
Speaker 3: And the question is, how do you communicate that to
24:20
Speaker 3: the American people so that they don't let those people
24:22
Speaker 3: hold power anymore? And that is difficult to do in
24:26
Speaker 3: this media environment when a lot of people aren't paying
24:28
Speaker 3: attention all the time to the news or politics and
24:31
Speaker 3: are mostly interested in what's happening in their lives and
24:34
Speaker 3: how things affect their lives. And so I do think
24:36
Speaker 3: if you want to talk about the sort of climate
24:39
Speaker 3: of political violence that is leading to what happened to
24:41
Speaker 3: Paul Pelosi, you have to sort of draw the connection
24:45
Speaker 3: between to how that climate affects people's lives. And, you know,
24:48
Speaker 3: you heard Obama talk about this over the weekend and
24:51
Speaker 3: he talked about like intimidation at the polls, right? What
24:54
Speaker 3: we've seen in Arizona where like guys with guns are
24:56
Speaker 3: standing outside drop boxes or, you know, people who get
24:59
Speaker 3: death threats because they voiced a political opinion online or,
25:03
Speaker 3: you know, violence at town halls and school committee meetings
25:05
Speaker 3: that we've seen over the last couple of years. Like,
25:07
Speaker 3: you know, you can talk about that because people can say,
25:10
Speaker 3: oh yeah, that's, I can feel that in my own
25:12
Speaker 3: life that I can't even talk about politics with people,
25:14
Speaker 3: that people are getting angry. But like you're right, like
25:17
Speaker 3: as a, you know, in the final weeks of the campaign,
25:19
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a big.
25:21
Speaker 2: What will happen is Republicans will say, well, what about
25:22
Speaker 2: Maxine Waters telling supporters to get in the face of
25:26
Speaker 2: Trump people? What about the violence against Supreme Court justices
25:29
Speaker 2: or threats outside of their homes? And it is obviously
25:33
Speaker 2: like a cynical deflection. But again, it will just, I think,
25:37
Speaker 2: kick up a conversation about crime, which is not the
25:40
Speaker 2: footing we really need to be on right now.
25:42
Speaker 4: I do think one thing you see in poll after poll,
25:45
Speaker 4: like there's no message that tends to draw more approval
25:49
Speaker 4: than one that says we need to bring down the temperature.
25:51
Speaker 4: We need to deal with the divisive rhetoric. And I
25:53
Speaker 4: think you see a lot of, you know, if you
25:55
Speaker 4: go back and look at the statements after, uh, uh,
25:58
Speaker 4: Steve Scalise was shot, or you go back and look
26:00
Speaker 4: at other democratic statements in the event of threats that
26:04
Speaker 4: have come towards Republicans, they're unequivocal, unlike the Republican politicians
26:08
Speaker 4: who all say, but, but what happened here and old
26:10
Speaker 4: crime and all the rest, like Democrats, uh, you know,
26:14
Speaker 4: always doing the right thing, come hell or high water,
26:16
Speaker 4: I suppose, say we have to all do better, we
26:19
Speaker 4: have to turn down the rhetoric and make things, and
26:21
Speaker 4: I think that that is probably another piece of this
26:23
Speaker 4: that's a valuable thing to say in the closing days
26:25
Speaker 4: of the campaign.
26:26
Speaker 2: People want to hear that. It annoys people on Twitter.
26:28
Speaker 2: They say, you know, point out who it is, name names,
26:31
Speaker 2: but I think most voters just want to hear that
26:35
Speaker 2: kind of message, which is everyone needs to tone it down.
26:37
Speaker 4: One other note about this, you know, Tommy pointed to
26:41
Speaker 4: the moment where Carrie Lake made a joke about it.
26:44
Speaker 4: We should just play the clip. Let's play the clip now.
26:46
Speaker 2: It is not impossible to protect our kids at school.
26:49
Speaker 4: They act like it is.
26:50
Speaker 3: Nancy Pelosi, well, she's got protection when she's in DC.
26:53
Speaker 4: Apparently her house doesn't have a lot of protection. So
26:57
Speaker 4: to me, the thing that's most, that's important about that
26:59
Speaker 4: is not just that she made that heinous joke. It
27:01
Speaker 4: was the way the crowd didn't just laugh, but wanted
27:04
Speaker 4: to laugh. They wanted to be part of this laugh.
27:06
Speaker 4: And you know, We are watching this experiment unfold in
27:10
Speaker 4: real time over the last several years. There is a
27:13
Speaker 4: kind of vicious circle that runs from media figures like
27:16
Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson and political figures like Carrie Lake to the
27:19
Speaker 4: base and from the base back up to see how
27:22
Speaker 4: far they can go, how low they can go, like
27:23
Speaker 4: how little compassion and humanity they need to show to
27:26
Speaker 4: one another. And if you want to understand, I think,
27:28
Speaker 4: in a deeper way, the cultural rot that has led
27:31
Speaker 4: to this sort of fascistic tone long before We had
27:35
Speaker 4: people with guns outside of drop boxes long before we
27:39
Speaker 4: felt as though so many Republican politicians had turned against democracy.
27:42
Speaker 4: It is that tenor and that belief that any kind
27:45
Speaker 4: of compassion or humanity is a sign of weakness. That,
27:49
Speaker 4: to me, is the threat. That is what right-wing radio
27:52
Speaker 4: did under the radar for decades. That is what Fox
27:54
Speaker 4: News does every single day. That is what the messages
27:57
Speaker 4: on Facebook are pumping out every single day. And if
27:59
Speaker 4: we don't look to that cause, that undergirding sort of
28:02
Speaker 4: inhumanity that's being pumped out every single day, this will
28:05
Speaker 4: just keep getting worse.
28:06
Speaker 3: But to Tommy's point about most people wanting to tone
28:09
Speaker 3: things down, I think the only way to defeat that
28:13
Speaker 3: is not by being that.
28:15
Speaker 8: No.
28:16
Speaker 3: And this is where I think there becomes like a
28:18
Speaker 3: fight within our own party because like, well, we should
28:21
Speaker 3: be like that at rallies and mocking them.
28:23
Speaker 1: No, we shouldn't actually.
28:25
Speaker 3: Not because that's the moral high ground, but because like
28:28
Speaker 3: if you are just from a pure political perspective, If
28:31
Speaker 3: you want to sort of bring people into this movement,
28:34
Speaker 3: then like you can't do it with stirring up fear
28:37
Speaker 3: and anger and bullshit.
28:38
Speaker 1: That works on them. That doesn't work on our side.
28:40
Speaker 4: And ironically, I think sometimes people view what you just
28:43
Speaker 4: said as a kind of weakness or capitulation.
28:45
Speaker 3: It's like the oh, Michelle Obama thing. When they go low,
28:47
Speaker 3: we go high. But it's like it's not that.
28:48
Speaker 4: But it's actually, I think, a recognition of what we're
28:52
Speaker 4: actually seeing on their side because– They won't be chastened.
28:55
Speaker 4: They won't be convinced. They won't be made to feel
28:58
Speaker 4: shamed into not being this way. They have to be defeated.
29:01
Speaker 4: And the way you defeat them is not by saying
29:03
Speaker 4: the things that always feel the best in the moment
29:06
Speaker 4: to the people paying attention all the time. It is
29:07
Speaker 4: finding the best argument to reach the most people to
29:09
Speaker 4: build the broadest coalition wherever we have to, to beat them.
29:13
Speaker 4: That may not happen in these midterms, but that's what
29:15
Speaker 4: we have to do every single day.
29:17
Speaker 3: So one of the people that was spreading a complete,
29:22
Speaker 3: lunatic conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi was a new Twitter owner,
29:27
Speaker 3: Elon Musk, shared it on his platform and then later
29:30
Speaker 3: deleted the tweet, but not before it was seen and
29:33
Speaker 3: shared hundreds of thousands of times. Doesn't bode well for
29:36
Speaker 3: the future of Twitter, does it? How bad do you
29:39
Speaker 3: guys think Twitter will get under Elon's reign?
29:42
Speaker 2: I mean, the guy, he's just a troll. You know,
29:45
Speaker 2: I don't subscribe to the belief like, oh, he's so stupid.
29:48
Speaker 2: He's actually a moron. He's bad at business. No, he's
29:50
Speaker 2: like a brilliant engineer and SpaceX, Tesla are incredible companies.
29:53
Speaker 2: But the problem with Twitter has to do with human nature.
29:58
Speaker 2: It's politics. And like, Elon doesn't have the highest EQ,
30:02
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem. And he's surrounded by this coterie of
30:06
Speaker 2: little suck-ups who kiss his ass and think they are
30:09
Speaker 2: victims and that cancel culture is the worst thing in
30:12
Speaker 2: the world because those are the things you cry about
30:14
Speaker 2: when you're only a hundred millionaire and not a billionaire, right?
30:16
Speaker 2: Like that's who these people are. And so like Elon
30:20
Speaker 2: is the guy, he's showing up, a decade late to
30:24
Speaker 2: an impossibly difficult technology and like social engineering experiment that
30:28
Speaker 2: we call social media. And he is offering ideas that
30:32
Speaker 2: are the equivalent of, have you tried turning it on
30:34
Speaker 2: and turning it back on? You know, and it's like,
30:36
Speaker 2: he is just, he's a, he's a, in this, like
30:39
Speaker 2: he's in trouble. This is a huge risk. He's massively
30:41
Speaker 2: overpaid for this company. He paid 44 billion. He probably
30:43
Speaker 2: could have got it for half that. They took on
30:46
Speaker 2: $ 13 billion worth of debt. The yearly interest payment will
30:50
Speaker 2: be about a billion dollars to service that debt And
30:53
Speaker 2: last year, the company's operations generated $ 630 million in cash flow.
30:57
Speaker 2: So I'm no math major, but that doesn't check out.
31:00
Speaker 4: When the service on the debt is more than your revenue.
31:02
Speaker 2: It's going to be tough. So they're going to have
31:04
Speaker 2: to make a lot of cuts or make a lot
31:05
Speaker 2: more money. That's why we're hearing about cutting half the workforce.
31:08
Speaker 2: There's no chance that makes moderation better or a more
31:11
Speaker 2: fun place to be. But at the end of the day,
31:13
Speaker 2: Twitter's value is the people that use it. It's not
31:15
Speaker 2: some groundbreaking technology. It's like micro blogging. And he could
31:20
Speaker 2: easily destroy this very, very lame chat room that he
31:23
Speaker 2: now owns. Fingers crossed.
31:26
Speaker 6: Yeah.
31:27
Speaker 4: If you think building a rocket that can take people
31:29
Speaker 4: to Mars is hard, try content moderation across the people
31:32
Speaker 4: who like to post in all of humanity because Earth
31:36
Speaker 4: is not sending their best.
31:37
Speaker 3: Well, and part of the problem is, though, he's not
31:39
Speaker 3: some outside objective observer trying to fix it. Like a
31:43
Speaker 3: lot of brains have been broken by Twitter, including his,
31:46
Speaker 3: especially his. He's a troll. He likes the clout. He
31:50
Speaker 3: tweets something and he sees a bunch of bots and
31:52
Speaker 3: he thinks there's a bots problem, right? Like the guy
31:54
Speaker 3: is not.
31:54
Speaker 2: He's responding to a guy named Cat Turd.
31:56
Speaker 1: He's responding to a guy named Cat Turd.
31:57
Speaker 2: He's searching his own name in the Twitter Slack.
32:00
Speaker 1: He's posting memes.
32:01
Speaker 3: He's thinking something from the fucking Santa Monica Observer is
32:03
Speaker 3: a real story.
32:04
Speaker 1: Like he's not.
32:06
Speaker 4: It's also the.
32:07
Speaker 1: Stick to cars and spaceships, man.
32:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
32:09
Speaker 2: Stick to cars and spaceships. No, it's honestly like he
32:13
Speaker 2: bought this thing to have a platform to make increasingly
32:15
Speaker 2: lame jokes. $ 44 billion... To do prop comedy like Carrot
32:20
Speaker 2: Top and bring in a sync so you can tweet
32:22
Speaker 2: let that sync in, that's tough. That's sad.
32:25
Speaker 3: It's that or like, you know, on the off chance
32:27
Speaker 3: that he actually believes his bullshit about like how he
32:30
Speaker 3: is going to save Twitter because he thinks it's the
32:33
Speaker 3: most important town square ever. It's like the typical fucking
32:36
Speaker 3: tech billionaire. I can save the world. Government is a failure.
32:42
Speaker 3: Politics is a failure. Only through technology can we truly
32:46
Speaker 3: save humanity.
32:47
Speaker 2: That's what he fucking does.
32:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this is somebody who was told Tesla
32:51
Speaker 4: wouldn't work and he proved them wrong. He was told
32:53
Speaker 4: SpaceX wouldn't work and he proved them wrong.
32:54
Speaker 1: Because they're engineering issues.
32:56
Speaker 2: They're not human engineering issues.
32:57
Speaker 4: And also, like, building an electric car is a project
33:01
Speaker 4: that requires, like, great commitment and fortitude. And you kind
33:04
Speaker 4: of buckle down and do it over many years and
33:05
Speaker 4: then prove all the haters wrong. Like, Twitter exists.
33:08
Speaker 9: Yes.
33:08
Speaker 4: It is in the world. It's there every single day.
33:10
Speaker 4: You're managing it every single day. The rocket's already in
33:13
Speaker 4: the air. There's no moment when everyone's going to be like, ah,
33:14
Speaker 4: it's fixed. What a peaceful existence on Twitter.
33:17
Speaker 8: Right.
33:17
Speaker 4: You're not building the rocket. We're on the rocket. We're
33:20
Speaker 4: all on the rocket, Elon.
33:21
Speaker 3: And it's not working. It's not been a great ride.
33:23
Speaker 3: And it's bumpy, man. Well, now we're going to have
33:26
Speaker 3: to start paying for the ride.
33:27
Speaker 1: Oh, please.
33:28
Speaker 3: So The Verge reported that Elon's planning to start charging
33:31
Speaker 3: $ 20 a month for a blue checkmark. You guys thinking
33:34
Speaker 3: about buying some for Christmas presents this year?
33:36
Speaker 4: I want every listener of this podcast to hear me.
33:39
Speaker 4: If you find out that I'm paying $ 20 a month
33:41
Speaker 4: to post to this hell site, you find me and
33:44
Speaker 4: you throw soup at me like I'm a Van Gogh
33:46
Speaker 4: that causes climate change. You cover me in bisque. I
33:52
Speaker 4: shouldn't deserve to walk bisque free after that. No fucking way.
33:56
Speaker 2: The question I have is... paying for what do you
34:01
Speaker 2: get for this do you literally just get a little
34:03
Speaker 2: blue check no but like.
34:05
Speaker 3: I know i should have i should have looked at
34:06
Speaker 3: this beforehand but twitter you're signing up for twitter blue
34:09
Speaker 3: which is a current service now what is that It's
34:11
Speaker 3: a special VIP service.
34:13
Speaker 1: I think you can edit tweets with it now.
34:15
Speaker 9: Really?
34:15
Speaker 2: That's the value prop?
34:17
Speaker 4: Anyway, I think there's a champagne room.
34:21
Speaker 2: I think in the early days of verification, you could
34:26
Speaker 2: sort by only verified responses, or you had a little
34:29
Speaker 2: more filtering of garbage responses. If that doesn't go away,
34:33
Speaker 2: like I'm not paying 20 bucks a month for a
34:35
Speaker 2: little blue check.
34:36
Speaker 1: Who cares?
34:37
Speaker 3: The original point of verification is to verify people so
34:40
Speaker 3: that you could know who you were really talking to
34:43
Speaker 3: and that the account really belongs to that person. Where
34:45
Speaker 3: Twitter fucked up is everyone should have had the opportunity
34:48
Speaker 3: to be verified because that would have helped make sure
34:50
Speaker 3: that everyone on the platform is real. It should never
34:53
Speaker 3: have turned into some stupid fucking status symbol. And it
34:57
Speaker 3: certainly shouldn't be only available to people who can pay
35:00
Speaker 3: $ 240 a.
35:00
Speaker 1: Year for it.
35:01
Speaker 2: It's fucking nuts.
35:03
Speaker 4: All of this is like, it's all confusing a couple
35:06
Speaker 4: different things. One is, how do you build a platform
35:09
Speaker 4: like this that people actually want to participate in and
35:12
Speaker 4: that makes money and that has a business model, whatever.
35:14
Speaker 4: And that's Elon's problem to fix, I suppose. But it
35:17
Speaker 4: actually reminds me, the other problem is this sort of,
35:20
Speaker 4: is that he sort of combined buying Twitter because he
35:24
Speaker 4: thinks it can be a valuable platform. And he's made
35:26
Speaker 4: it all about these free speech issues. But like the,
35:30
Speaker 4: it actually reminds me a little bit of the kind
35:32
Speaker 4: of the fear about deep fakes in that everyone's like
35:35
Speaker 4: deep fakes, deep fakes, deep fakes are coming. They're going
35:37
Speaker 4: to make everybody make their, everyone's gonna get so confused.
35:39
Speaker 4: And it's like, we don't need deep fakes. We confuse
35:41
Speaker 4: ourselves with absolute fucking horse shit every goddamn day. It
35:44
Speaker 4: doesn't require, it was, it actually, people will just, make
35:47
Speaker 4: up something and share it and people will believe it.
35:49
Speaker 3: The guy who claimed that Hillary Clinton died sometime in
35:52
Speaker 3: 2016 and her body double debated Trump, he got Elon
35:56
Speaker 3: on the Paul Pelosi conspiracy.
35:58
Speaker 4: But in the same way, it's like, what would make
36:02
Speaker 4: Twitter a nice place to be again? It's not just
36:05
Speaker 4: removing the most obvious and heinous misinformation and falsehood. It's
36:09
Speaker 4: also that it's a fucking fetid swamp, even if every
36:12
Speaker 4: single thing on the platform passes some kind of a
36:14
Speaker 4: truce to us. It's a mean spirit and vicious and
36:17
Speaker 4: negative and scolding and harsh place. And, you know, content
36:20
Speaker 4: moderation can change that. a deeper problem at the way
36:24
Speaker 4: we communicate one another that Elon Musk is not going
36:26
Speaker 4: to crack.
36:27
Speaker 2: Also, I mean, look, if we're being honest, the original verification, like, sure,
36:31
Speaker 2: it was to say, like, that person's really that person,
36:33
Speaker 2: but really it was a status thing. It just seemed cool.
36:35
Speaker 1: That's what it became.
36:36
Speaker 2: And if now you're paying $ 20 for it, you just
36:38
Speaker 2: kind of look like a thirsty tool.
36:40
Speaker 1: No, it shouldn't have been a status thing.
36:41
Speaker 2: I'm prepared to eat those words.
36:42
Speaker 1: It should have been.
36:43
Speaker 3: Look, every company has to make money. If Twitter wanted
36:45
Speaker 3: to say, okay, everyone gets verified on the platform and
36:49
Speaker 3: you all have to pay, you know... To use it,
36:51
Speaker 3: to just use Twitter, you have to pay a dollar
36:53
Speaker 3: a year. There's a subscription or you get some ad
36:55
Speaker 3: supported version. If you don't want to do the subscription,
36:57
Speaker 3: that's all fine.
36:58
Speaker 9: Right.
36:58
Speaker 3: But to just be the, like, you get the blue
37:00
Speaker 3: check mark for this much money and you don't, it's
37:02
Speaker 3: just ridiculous.
37:03
Speaker 2: It's, I mean, it's just, it's someone who doesn't understand
37:06
Speaker 2: the site sort of going for the first monetization idea
37:09
Speaker 2: that one of his lame little. coterie of right-wing buddies
37:13
Speaker 2: told him to go for.
37:14
Speaker 4: Although, I heard this rumor he might bring Vine back,
37:15
Speaker 4: and you know what?
37:16
Speaker 1: Vine, yes!
37:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did a Twitter poll on that. Why would
37:20
Speaker 2: you put Vine's a decade old now, six years old?
37:23
Speaker 2: It's been dead?
37:23
Speaker 4: They're finding the old Vine code. Deep within the bowels
37:27
Speaker 4: of the Twitter building.
37:28
Speaker 2: Anyway, we've exhausted this topic.
37:29
Speaker 4: It's all just so fucking stupid. Just one last point
37:32
Speaker 4: about this. Hey, no, I'm going to make one last point.
37:35
Speaker 2: You want to come on offline this week?
37:36
Speaker 4: None of us gives a fuck. Do you understand how
37:40
Speaker 4: quickly everybody could just delete the fucking thing and be gone?
37:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you could have said that for the last decade,
37:44
Speaker 2: but you're an addict still too.
37:45
Speaker 4: No, I deleted it from my phone, Tommy.
37:47
Speaker 2: I deleted it.
37:47
Speaker 4: I deleted it.
37:49
Speaker 2: Log in on a web browser.
37:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'll hear his takes change after Twitter goes away.
37:55
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
37:58
Speaker 3: When we come back, I will talk to Lieutenant Governor
38:01
Speaker 3: Mandela Barnes, who's running for Senate, against America's dumbest senator,
38:05
Speaker 3: Ron Johnson.
38:17
Speaker 2: With just a.
38:18
Speaker 3: Week until the midterms, Wisconsin is once again one of
38:21
Speaker 3: the most important battleground states and one of the best
38:23
Speaker 3: chances for Democrats to pick up a Senate seat. Here
38:25
Speaker 3: to talk about his campaign to defeat Ron Johnson, Lieutenant
38:29
Speaker 3: Governor Mandela Barnes.
38:30
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the pod.
38:31
Speaker 10: Oh man, always happy to be back. Thanks for having
38:33
Speaker 10: me here in the homestretch when it matters the most.
38:36
Speaker 9: We appreciate you.
38:38
Speaker 1: Seven more days, seven more days. I bet it feels like, what,
38:42
Speaker 1: three years, four years?
38:43
Speaker 9: I mean, it feels like it's been three years, seriously.
38:45
Speaker 10: I mean, it's seven days until election day, eight days
38:48
Speaker 10: until it's all said and done.
38:49
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, that's right.
38:51
Speaker 3: So we were just talking about our old boss stumping
38:54
Speaker 3: for you over the weekend. He said a lot of
38:56
Speaker 3: good stuff in that speech, but I'm curious which part
38:58
Speaker 3: you found to be most helpful in terms of making
39:02
Speaker 3: a closing argument to Wisconsin voters? Like, what's the 30
39:05
Speaker 3: second ad you guys would cut from that Obama speech?
39:09
Speaker 10: Well, it'll be a couple parts spliced, right? You have
39:11
Speaker 10: the vote for people who are going to fight for you.
39:13
Speaker 10: And then the case that he made on Social Security,
39:17
Speaker 10: you know, that was very strong. It's why it went
39:20
Speaker 10: wildly viral online, because this is where Ron Johnson is
39:24
Speaker 10: deeply out of touch with the majority of people in
39:26
Speaker 10: Wisconsin is a working class state. A lot of folks
39:28
Speaker 10: in the audience and a lot of people outside of
39:31
Speaker 10: those rooms, regardless of their political affiliation, rely on Social
39:35
Speaker 10: Security benefits, the benefits they worked their entire lives for,
39:37
Speaker 10: the system that they paid into. And they deserve to
39:40
Speaker 10: see some benefit from it. And Ron Johnson has no
39:43
Speaker 10: right to take that away from people. And I mean,
39:45
Speaker 10: that was that one really, really hit the mark, especially
39:49
Speaker 10: with the economic argument that we always try to make.
39:51
Speaker 2: And, you know, sometimes.
39:52
Speaker 10: Democrats is not as effective as it could be. But
39:56
Speaker 10: nobody does it like Barack Obama. He did it in
39:59
Speaker 10: a way that, you know, I couldn't have even sat
40:01
Speaker 10: in a room for five hours myself and crafted it
40:04
Speaker 10: better than that.
40:04
Speaker 9: So really excited about that.
40:07
Speaker 2: It was a it was a good riff.
40:09
Speaker 3: So one other thing Obama did was to sort of
40:11
Speaker 3: implicitly connect your story with his story. And then make
40:15
Speaker 3: the case that there's nothing more American, nothing more Wisconsin
40:18
Speaker 3: than your story, which to me also felt like an
40:21
Speaker 3: attempt to push back on sort of the Republican attempt
40:25
Speaker 3: to convince Wisconsin voters that you're somehow different or not
40:29
Speaker 3: one of them. What have you made of those attacks
40:31
Speaker 3: over the campaign?
40:32
Speaker 10: Well, when we closed out our very first debate, the
40:35
Speaker 10: question was, if you could talk about one thing, if
40:39
Speaker 10: you can clarify one thing in one of the negative
40:41
Speaker 10: attack ads, what would it be?
40:43
Speaker 9: And I leaned into that one. I said, well, I
40:45
Speaker 9: would actually embrace something.
40:47
Speaker 10: And that's the different label, because one of the commercials
40:50
Speaker 10: does end by saying Mandela Barnes, different.
40:53
Speaker 9: And I said, I lean into that.
40:54
Speaker 10: I embrace it because there aren't enough working class voices
40:57
Speaker 10: in the United States Senate. So many perspectives are missing
41:00
Speaker 10: from the United States Senate and so many people get
41:02
Speaker 10: left behind because of it. And the fact that, you know,
41:06
Speaker 10: President Obama, you know, he made that connection between my
41:10
Speaker 10: story and his. And look, that's the reason I got
41:12
Speaker 10: involved in the first place. Hearing that DNC speech in 2004,
41:15
Speaker 10: you know, I was back home from college, had to
41:19
Speaker 10: be like 18 years old at that point.
41:21
Speaker 9: I was inspired, man. I was encouraged. I felt like
41:24
Speaker 9: things around me could change. I actually might have been 17.
41:26
Speaker 9: I don't remember.
41:27
Speaker 10: But I felt like the things around me could change.
41:30
Speaker 10: And it was because of that speech that I ended
41:32
Speaker 10: up on this path. 2008, I rushed to become an
41:35
Speaker 10: organizer right after college was over, was done. I was
41:39
Speaker 10: a field organizer on.
41:39
Speaker 9: A house race.
41:41
Speaker 10: And I just wanted a taste for it. And to
41:44
Speaker 10: be in this moment now, or this past weekend, having
41:47
Speaker 10: a chance to share the stage with a person who
41:49
Speaker 10: was quite literally the inspiration.
41:52
Speaker 9: For me to get involved.
41:53
Speaker 10: I can't even tell you how that felt. And for
41:55
Speaker 10: him to you know, expand on the fact that, you know,
41:59
Speaker 10: my story is a Wisconsin story.
42:00
Speaker 9: My story is a very uniquely American story.
42:03
Speaker 10: Then he went into the whole funny name part, which
42:07
Speaker 10: I cannot tell you how much I appreciated that moment,
42:10
Speaker 10: but it set the stage.
42:12
Speaker 9: And I hope that it.
42:13
Speaker 10: Inspired people across the state to realize that better is possible.
42:17
Speaker 10: We can do so much better than we've done before.
42:21
Speaker 10: But it's about us coming together. We have so much
42:23
Speaker 10: more in common with each other than we'll ever have
42:24
Speaker 10: with self-serving politicians like Ron Johnson.
42:28
Speaker 3: Ron Johnson's obviously given you a lot to work with
42:30
Speaker 3: in this campaign. When you're talking to voters, you mentioned
42:34
Speaker 3: Social Security. Is there another piece of information or a
42:37
Speaker 3: couple pieces of information that's like most likely to cause
42:40
Speaker 3: someone who's undecided to say, you know what? Good point
42:43
Speaker 3: that that Ron Johnson guy, not for me anymore.
42:47
Speaker 10: Well, as you said, there is so much. We, you know,
42:52
Speaker 10: he talked about law enforcement during debates and. You know,
42:55
Speaker 10: you left 140 officers hanging when they were facing the
42:59
Speaker 10: most difficult moments of most of their careers, when they
43:02
Speaker 10: were getting hit in the head with fire extinguishers, crushed
43:04
Speaker 10: and revolving doors, stabbed with metal stakes. You know, Ron
43:07
Speaker 10: Johnson was not there for the police officers. He was
43:11
Speaker 10: he wasn't there for law enforcement. He was there saying
43:14
Speaker 10: that like his words were, you know, they taught us
43:16
Speaker 10: how to use black poles as weapons.
43:18
Speaker 8: Right.
43:18
Speaker 9: So callous, so careless.
43:20
Speaker 10: And even with his extreme out of touch position on abortion,
43:24
Speaker 10: it's what he said that went along with it is
43:27
Speaker 10: the fact that he said women who don't like the
43:29
Speaker 10: laws of their state, like our 1849 criminal abortion ban
43:32
Speaker 10: can just move. or the fact that when Oshkosh Defense
43:37
Speaker 10: got the contract and built the next generation postal vehicles,
43:39
Speaker 10: they decided they're going to move those jobs to South Carolina.
43:43
Speaker 10: Nothing against South Carolina, just everything for Wisconsin. Ron Johnson
43:47
Speaker 10: defended that move when he could have said nothing. He
43:50
Speaker 10: defended that move and said that we have enough jobs
43:54
Speaker 10: in Wisconsin. It is just Out of touch is a
43:57
Speaker 10: person who truly just has no clue what's going on
44:00
Speaker 10: in this state, what people are looking for. And it
44:03
Speaker 10: feels as if he has no desire to. He feels
44:06
Speaker 10: like he's giving up on us. And so it's not
44:08
Speaker 10: always the position that he takes. It's his response that
44:11
Speaker 10: makes things even worse. That shows how little he truly cares.
44:15
Speaker 10: It shows his contempt for working people.
44:18
Speaker 3: So much of this campaign has been about you defending
44:21
Speaker 3: your record or talking about Johnson's record or Johnson's plan.
44:25
Speaker 3: So I'm sure there's a lot of voters out there
44:27
Speaker 3: who haven't heard enough about what you want to do
44:30
Speaker 3: if you're elected. What's the first policy or bill you
44:34
Speaker 3: would introduce a senator?
44:36
Speaker 10: I'll tell you, it's about rebuilding the middle class. Wisconsin's
44:38
Speaker 10: a working class state. The industrial Midwest has lost so
44:42
Speaker 10: much over the generations. Now, my granddad moved to Milwaukee
44:46
Speaker 10: after serving in World War II. He got a job
44:48
Speaker 10: as a union steel worker in a factory that he
44:52
Speaker 10: walked in one day and walked out 35 years later.
44:55
Speaker 10: And it is a shame to think that It was
44:59
Speaker 10: easier for my grandfather after World War II to get
45:02
Speaker 10: into the middle class than it is for people in
45:04
Speaker 10: my generation as a millennial, or the first generation that's
45:07
Speaker 10: slated to be worse off than our parents' generation. That
45:10
Speaker 10: has never happened before. And it will only get worse
45:13
Speaker 10: as long as we have people in office who say
45:16
Speaker 10: things like, we have enough jobs in a state, or
45:19
Speaker 10: even go so far as to say, why build things
45:22
Speaker 10: here in America when we can build them in China
45:24
Speaker 10: for dirt cheap? Another Ron Johnson classic quote. we are
45:28
Speaker 10: a generation of people who have been left behind, will
45:31
Speaker 10: continue to be left behind until that perspective is at
45:35
Speaker 10: the table in Washington, D.C. There's one millennial in the U.S.
45:38
Speaker 10: Senate right now. We have an opportunity to double our ranks, right,
45:42
Speaker 10: with this race. But it's more than just being a
45:45
Speaker 10: part of this generation. It's about having experienced some of
45:49
Speaker 10: the best of what this generation has offered. Technology, the
45:53
Speaker 10: good parts of social media and some of the worst.
45:55
Speaker 5: Right.
45:55
Speaker 10: Like I got out of college in 2008, one of
45:58
Speaker 10: the worst possible times for a person to come out
46:00
Speaker 10: of college. I haven't dealt with the pandemic in the
46:05
Speaker 10: current role that I'm in as lieutenant governor yet. And
46:08
Speaker 10: having to come up with a response, we had people
46:10
Speaker 10: like Ron Johnson who worked against us every step of
46:13
Speaker 10: the way. We need people who actually get our experiences,
46:16
Speaker 10: who know what we've been going through, who share our
46:18
Speaker 10: fears and struggles, but also our hopes and dreams, because
46:21
Speaker 10: we are an optimistic generation. And so rebuilding the middle
46:25
Speaker 10: class and in those bad trade deals that send our
46:27
Speaker 10: jobs overseas, then protecting our democracy, because none of this
46:30
Speaker 10: happens unless we protect our democracy. And Wisconsin is subject
46:34
Speaker 10: or home to some of the worst gerrymandering in the entire.
46:37
Speaker 9: Country, we've got to pass H.R. 1.
46:39
Speaker 10: We've got to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,
46:41
Speaker 10: For the People Act, because they're coming after voting rights
46:44
Speaker 10: left and right, and we will be left with nothing if.
46:47
Speaker 9: They have their way.
46:48
Speaker 10: If we continue down this path of partisan gerrymandering and
46:51
Speaker 10: the impact that it's having on Wisconsin, the will of
46:53
Speaker 10: the people will never be respected.
46:56
Speaker 3: So the FBI interview with Paul Pelosi's assailant was released today,
47:00
Speaker 3: and the suspect confessed... that he intended to kneecap Nancy
47:05
Speaker 3: Pelosi because she's a Democratic official. You've unfortunately seen politically
47:09
Speaker 3: fueled threats and violence in Wisconsin over the last few years,
47:13
Speaker 3: certainly all over the country. Do you think Republican politicians
47:16
Speaker 3: bear any responsibility for this violence? And just a broader question,
47:21
Speaker 3: what do we do about it as a country?
47:23
Speaker 10: Well, if you look at a lot of the ads
47:25
Speaker 10: they run, or if you listen to their rhetoric, rarely
47:29
Speaker 10: do they take on people's positions on an issue. Or
47:32
Speaker 10: if they do, they'll do it in a way that
47:36
Speaker 10: they seem to be just out to make people hate
47:40
Speaker 10: other folks or hate each other or hate their opponents, right?
47:44
Speaker 10: And you got to condemn political violence every step of
47:48
Speaker 10: the way. And it's not like, you know, it's not,
47:52
Speaker 10: when we talk about political violence and what leads up
47:55
Speaker 10: to it, It is tough for somebody to act surprised
47:59
Speaker 10: that these things are happening based on what they're saying.
48:02
Speaker 10: You know, it is always an us versus them thing.
48:05
Speaker 10: And it shouldn't be that way, you know, especially here
48:07
Speaker 10: in a state like Wisconsin. But the folks who tried
48:11
Speaker 10: to kidnap Governor Whitmer in Michigan, where they tried to
48:13
Speaker 10: take her was about 30 minutes outside of Madison.
48:16
Speaker 8: Right.
48:16
Speaker 9: This stuff is right here at our doorsteps.
48:19
Speaker 10: And we have to condemn political violence and we have
48:23
Speaker 10: to tear down the rhetoric and every step of the way.
48:26
Speaker 10: And it calling out the violence is a step too late.
48:29
Speaker 10: Cause if the violence has happened, that means the rhetoric
48:32
Speaker 10: has won the day. You know, we got to call
48:34
Speaker 10: out the rhetoric, you know, as soon as it comes
48:37
Speaker 10: out of these folks' mouths, like they use it to
48:40
Speaker 10: get votes and it is damaging.
48:43
Speaker 9: And is destabilizing to our institutions. Right.
48:46
Speaker 10: And, you know, whether I can just sit here and say, yeah, Republicans,
48:50
Speaker 10: it is their fault for this or this Republican candidate
48:52
Speaker 10: is his fault for this. The reality is there are
48:55
Speaker 10: just some people who are just completely out of control
48:59
Speaker 10: with the things that they are saying. And the only
49:03
Speaker 10: way they're successful politically is by driving division further and
49:07
Speaker 10: further into the discourse.
49:10
Speaker 3: Mandela Barnes, thank you so much, as always, for joining
49:13
Speaker 3: Pod Save America and good luck in this final week.
49:17
Speaker 9: Hey, I appreciate you. Thank you.
49:18
Speaker 10: And for those listening, please go to MandelaBarnes.com so I
49:21
Speaker 10: don't have to send any more desperate text messages to you.
49:24
Speaker 10: I don't like doing as much as you don't like
49:25
Speaker 10: receiving them. I listen to the shows. I listen to
49:29
Speaker 10: the episodes, man. I hear what you're saying about me.
49:31
Speaker 9: I hear it.
49:32
Speaker 6: I hear it.
49:34
Speaker 9: So you can stop it.
49:37
Speaker 3: I walked out of the A block before I came
49:40
Speaker 3: here to 10 text messages from campaigns.
49:43
Speaker 2: I was like, man, I'm trying to donate as much
49:46
Speaker 2: as I can. All right.
49:49
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Good luck out there. And go
49:52
Speaker 3: beat Ron Johnson.
49:53
Speaker 9: Hey, I appreciate you.
49:53
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
50:00
Speaker 3: Thanks to Mandela Barnes for joining us today. And we'll
50:03
Speaker 3: talk to you on Thursday. Pod Save America is a
50:10
Speaker 3: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
50:13
Speaker 3: senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Haley
50:17
Speaker 3: Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
50:21
Speaker 3: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks
50:24
Speaker 3: to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and
50:26
Speaker 3: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
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Speaker 3: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our
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Speaker 3: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.