Latest / Pod Save America / Trump’s 4th Threesome

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Trump’s 4th Threesome · Pod Save America

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• 1:41
  Speaker 6: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: Happy 4th. We decided to record a little early ahead
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: of the long weekend. Long week for me. I'm heading
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: to Maine for vacation. to see if I can get
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: some of those Harris Collins voters back on side. You know,
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: you pod boys saying nice things about Platner. I'm just
• 2:02
  Speaker 6: going to try to go to Maine and get it
• 2:04
  Speaker 6: done myself.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: You know, if there's any group we have a lot
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: of sway with, it is older women, Susan Collins voters
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: in Maine.
• 2:11
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm telling you, I'm going to where I'm going.
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: That is the place.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: That's right. Emily's been on the ground for weeks.
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: I know. I'm bringing in reinforcements. What are you guys
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: up to for the 4th? Are you sticking around?
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: We're sticking around. We're having a bunch of people over.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: It's a very chill 4th. Very patriotic, but chill 4th.
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: You're not going to check out the California exhibit at
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: the Great State Fair in D.C. and listen to Trump's speech?
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: We are going to listen to Trump's speech. We're going
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: to gather everyone around the TV. We're going to watch
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: it together as a family, as anyone who loves America
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: would do.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: Perfect. Perfect. The kids will always remember how they spent
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: the America's 250 with their half century old dad. I
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: heard that. I heard that's what your kids are calling you.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: That's what Kylie keeps saying to me. She's like, dad,
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  Speaker 4: you're now a half a century old.
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: That is brutal. That hit me hard. Mainly because I'm
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: only a couple of years away.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Trust me, I will make sure that your children call
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: you half century in five years or whatever it is.
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: You could probably get Charlie going on that now. All right,
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: we got some news to cover before we take off
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: for the break. Trump making $ 2 billion since taking office.
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: The right-wing freak out over birthright citizenship. More progressive primary
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: wins in Colorado. And you and I are going to
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: nerd the hell out over some brand new New York
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: Times polls on all the biggest Senate races. Fun. But first,
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: let's talk about how our president is celebrating America's 250th
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: birthday by jumping on his brand new Qatari palace in
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: the sky, formerly known as Air Force One. which touched
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: down in the Dakotas for the opening of Teddy Roosevelt's
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: presidential library and a firework show at Mount Rushmore, even
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: though people there were worried it might start a wildfire.
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: The veepiest thing ever. Trump then jets back to D.C.
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: for what he's calling, quote, the most spectacular Trump rally
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: of them all, which will reportedly include over 800,000 fireworks
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record. Trump
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: seems to be going for another record as well. He said, quote,
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: it's going to be approximately 107 degrees out and I'm
• 4:21
  Speaker 6: going to make a really long speech just to show
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: that I can do anything. Yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: That is the American spirit.
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: That is the American spirit. This is apparently why the
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: fireworks aren't starting until after 11 p.m.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Eastern.
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: Very cool. Very considerate. Trump's really been on one this week.
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: Here he is talking about and to Teddy Roosevelt at
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: the opening of the museum this week.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Theodore Roosevelt, he had great passion. The colonel, they called him,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: was an American man. He was really a great he-man.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: They say it was 40 pounds of muscle. I don't
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: know how the hell that happened. They didn't have modern-day drugs.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Of course, the modern-day drugs don't do that either, do they?
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: In fact, they actually take away the muscle.
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  Speaker 3: That's not good. The son was brave.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: It's genetics.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: You know, it's like the racehorse theory.
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  Speaker 3: They're the only father and son pair to receive our
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  Speaker 3: nation's highest military award for courage above and beyond. Now,
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: as I see my two beautiful sons sitting there, I
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  Speaker 3: think I'm going to give one to myself, one to them,
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  Speaker 3: and we'll have a threesome, okay? I even had a
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: conversation with Theodore Roosevelt, I said, what did you think
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement?
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: How do you feel about the fact that the Democrats
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $ 1?
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  Speaker 4: Keep your nerve and remember, the nation comes first, you
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  Speaker 4: get through.
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  Speaker 3: I know you know that feeling yourself.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate those words.
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  Speaker 3: Those words are fantastic.
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  Speaker 5: And I just want to say it's an honor to
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: be with you today.
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  Speaker 2: And we are making a little.
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  Speaker 4: Bit of a tour.
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  Speaker 6: There he is. There he is. Jacked AI Teddy Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 2: All muscle.
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  Speaker 6: He and his son, big winners. And maybe Trump and
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  Speaker 6: his son can also be winners and have a threesome.
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  Speaker 6: What do you think?
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  Speaker 4: It just doesn't seem to me like Trump fully understands
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  Speaker 4: what's happening in the conversation with the AI Teddy Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 6: No, I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: Does he think he's talking to Teddy Roosevelt? Does he
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  Speaker 4: understand how an AI chatbot hologram works?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm sure he understands.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: Should we be doing more of this? Should Democrats have
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: an AI Ronald Reagan at our convention to talk about
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  Speaker 4: how Trump is not a Republican? I mean, there are
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: all kinds of things you.
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  Speaker 3: Could do here.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, Trump was deep in the weeds on the executive
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: order to lift the export controls on Fable and Mythos,
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: the Claude LLMs. He's deep in the weeds there because
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  Speaker 6: he has a lot of thoughts on those models.
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  Speaker 4: Speaking of AI, did you see this morning that OpenAI
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: offered the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company?
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: Yes. You know, that's also an idea on the left,
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  Speaker 6: by the way, that some have proposed. I believe Ro
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: Khanna has proposed that.
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  Speaker 4: It is.
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  Speaker 6: Now the challenge is, and Bernie has proposed that too.
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  Speaker 6: The idea is the government gets a stake of it.
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  Speaker 6: And then the government distributes, like on the upside of
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  Speaker 6: these AI companies, the government distributes that to people as
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: like an oil royalty for our age. Of course, the
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: challenge is what happens when Donald Trump is in charge
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: or another Donald Trump is in charge, right? Like you'd
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  Speaker 6: want to have that kind of power in the hands
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  Speaker 6: of a president who's into redistribution.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you'd have to write a law.
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: Like the oil royalties in Alaska.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 6: All this neither here nor there. Trump's talking to AI
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  Speaker 6: Teddy Roosevelt, talking about threesomes with his kids. Do you
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  Speaker 6: think he caught that? Do you think afterwards someone was like, hey,
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: people are laughing because the word threesome usually doesn't just
• 8:07
  Speaker 6: mean you and your son's having medals?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I suspect that Trump, as someone who's
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: lived the life he's lived, is very familiar with threesomes.
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  Speaker 6: You think he's that generous? Maybe he is.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: No, I think a threesome with Trump is a sign
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  Speaker 4: of selfishness, is my guess. Also, poor Barron.
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  Speaker 6: I know.
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  Speaker 4: Didn't make the familial threesome.
• 8:38
  Speaker 6: That kid caught a lucky break, I guess. Larger question
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  Speaker 6: for you. How do you think all these Trump-organized America
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  Speaker 6: 250 events are landing with people who aren't MAGA fans
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  Speaker 6: or whiny America-hating libs like us? I think most people
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  Speaker 6: are seeing all this.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: I kind of presume they're not seeing it. It's just
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: it's not really breaking through in any way, shape, or form.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: None of it's exciting. None of it's interesting. People are
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: pretty busy. They have a million options for how to
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: spend their limited attention. To the extent they hear anything,
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: Trump has made it all political. And so there's a
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: whole group of people. People like us will either make
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: fun of it or ignore it. And then the people
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: who don't really care about politics or don't actively avoid
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: politics will immediately turn away from it. Like you could
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: see a world potentially where a different president does something
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: different that is more in the theoretical spirit of America
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: that is more bipartisan. You know, you could see a
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: world where a Democratic president or even a different Republican
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: president who comes from a different Republican party in an
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: alternative universe has on stage the Obamas, the Bidens, the Clintons,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: the Bushes, and we're, you know, basically the Obama library opening, but...
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: But I went back and looked a lot at what
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: happened in 1976. And so much of it, A, it
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: happened in an election year, which is notable. Um, but
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: also just so much of the attention to it also
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: had a lot to do with the fact that we
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: lived in a world where there were three TV station
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: channels and you had to watch it. And so you couldn't,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: it just, it was like beamed into the brains of
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: American people. People do get kind of involved. Like I
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: saw the whole thing about how people decorated all their painted,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: all the fire hydrants, red, white, and blue. Um, Some
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: of them turned into very funny Abe Lincoln fire hydrants
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: and things like that. But just in this day and age,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: it's hard to get people's attention like that, and Trump
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: is not trying to actually do that. He's trying to
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: make it about himself, and that was doomed to fail.
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the attention of the country is pretty much– World
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: Cup is America's.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like the 250th celebration was last night in
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: the World Cup game where everyone came together and now
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: wants to throw– tea in the pool of the referee
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: who gave us the red card. I guess it'd be
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: the appropriate colonial response.
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: Find a spool, just dump it with dump it, dump
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: some tea in it.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: No, I, I've been really into some of like the,
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: you know, opinion pieces on this. I was like watching that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: The Netflix has a good doc, the American experiment that
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: I was even watching that I was, I was watching
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: that I'm a sucker for like revolutionary war history. Um, And, uh,
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: but then I was, and I was like thinking about
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: it a lot and I thought I was maybe going
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: to write something about it. I'm like, really, this is
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: just a, um, a small circle of people talking to
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: each other who already talked to each other on Substack
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: and other places.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: Hey, don't, do not knock that. Do not knock a
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: small circle of people talking to each other.
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: And like Atlantic readers and New York times readers and podcasts.
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: I'm like, it is, you know, the, the, the people, uh,
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: trying to get most of the country to pay attention
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: to the 250th anniversary of, seems like a tall order
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: when Donald Trump is president and everything else is going on.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: I just want to caution you that if your new
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: logic is it's only going to reach a small group
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: of people talking to each other, you're going to stop
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: doing all things.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: Well, I would talk to people about other issues.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Okay, fair enough.
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: It's like, what am I trying to convince people of
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: that this is what America is really about? Yeah, we're
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: all on board. All right, a few other Trump items
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: to discuss. Lest you think he's trying to make this
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: anniversary all about himself, Trump is reportedly considering an idea
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: described as 250 pardons for 250 years. That's how a
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: person close to the White House described it to The
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: Atlantic in an effort to, quote, reinforce an image he
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: has long sought to cultivate, Trump the merciful. Yeah, he's
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: really been working hard on that. I don't know how
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: much progress he's made. The piece goes on to say, quote,
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: the prospect of a mass pardon has set off an
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: international frenzy of lobbying and dealmaking in which even slight
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: proximity to the president can be monetized. No shit. And
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: speaking of monetizing the presidency, Trump's 2025 financial disclosure just
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: came out and shows that the president of the United
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: States raked in at least $ 2. 2 billion last year while
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: in office with at least $ 1. 4 billion of that coming
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: from his family's cryptocurrency business slash Ponzi scheme. What better
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: way for a president to celebrate America's 250th than by
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: using his office to make $ 2 billion in a FAPANZI scheme,
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: and then also pardon all of his rich criminal friends.
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: I must have missed the announcement from the Republican Congress
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: that they will be launching impeachment hearings over this. Did
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: you catch it?
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: No, I must have missed it too. I was so
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: busy taking in the sights of the Great American State
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: Fair that I might have missed this. The 250 pardons
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: thing is so funny because there's a line in the
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: story which says, I'm going to read it here, One
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: advisor said there had been polling that suggested a mass
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: pardon could benefit the president.
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: I caught that. I caught that. Where do you think?
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: How do you think they asked that?
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: So you know who commissioned that poll? A bunch of
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: criminals or a bunch of people making money off the criminals.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Like that's who commissioned that poll. There is no poll
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: that suggests a mass pardon of frankly anyone. Like pardons
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: can be good, commuting people's sentences who have unfair drug sentences.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: There's good use of the pardon power. Even that is
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: never popular. A mass pardon is not popular. It's an
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: insane thing. It's something that someone told Trump in order
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: to get him to pardon people that has hired this
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: advisor to do.
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: I was honestly trying to think of how the question
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: would be worded to get a good result. And it
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: would be like, do you think the president should reduce
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: the sentences of people who've been unfairly imprisoned by a
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: weaponized justice department?
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: Wrongly convicted, yes. Would you approve or disapprove of the
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: president releasing people Innocent people from prison.
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: That probably showed that it was going to give him
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: a little boost.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: Now, on the corruption thing, the amount of money Trump's
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: made is truly unbelievable. And the thing that makes it
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: so much worse than it could possibly be, and it's
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: hard to imagine it could be worse than that, is
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: it's not like Trump just picked a bunch of smart
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: stocks or even got inside information or inside access to
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: some IPO that took off Or even did some sweetheart
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: real estate deals.
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: Which he was trying to say yesterday when asked about it.
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: He was like, well, everyone's profiting because the S &
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: P is up. It's like, no, that's not what's happening.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: No, that's not exactly what happened there. And most of
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: his money is not. Although he does do a lot
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: of day trading. Most of the money here is from
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: the crypto money. And that is a very specific Ponzi
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: scheme run against his most loyal supporters. He took money.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: He weaponized their adoration. for him and their trust in him,
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: got them to buy bogus crypto coins, essentially pulled the
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: rug out from underneath them, and sold a chunk of
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: the company to an Emirati fund, perhaps in exchange for
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: selling America's most valuable technology to the Emiratis.
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: The story about this in the Times, as you said, yeah,
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: the cryptocurrency coin created by World Liberty Financial has sunk
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: to less than six cents, a more than 80% drop
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: from its peak generating enormous losses for investors who bought
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: it at a higher price.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: And Trump made money on all, it's not just the
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: value of the coin. He also was making money off
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: the sale of all the coins as well.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: Just a total grift. I mean, what do you think
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: about this? Like it's, I mentioned the Republican Congress cause, uh,
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: and you know, we're going to talk about this in
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: a bit with the polls, but it's like, uh, yeah,
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: people think that Trump is corrupt, uh, message delivered. And, uh,
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: but we're not trying to beat Trump in the midterms.
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: We are trying to, uh, beat the Republican Congress. And
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: these people could do something about it. They could be like, hey,
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: the president is profiting off a Ponzi scheme while in office.
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: There's all these kinds of corrupt dealings going on. There's
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: all kinds of foreign entanglements, as you mentioned, and potentially
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: foreign corruption, foreign influence that he's working on. Nothing.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, Tommy and I talked about this a little
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: bit in Only Friends yesterday, but I think the corruption
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: stuff is already in. It's already priced into the baseline here.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: In two ways. One, people always believe Trump was corrupt
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: in some way, shape, or form. And they also think
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: most politicians are corrupt. Trump just dips his beak a
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: little deeper than everyone else. But he is suffering from
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: the full weight of all of these things. I mean,
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: his approval rating is at 37%. How much lower do
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: we expect it to go? And is it just because
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: of the corruption?
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: No.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Is there one more piece of corruption that's going to
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: come out that's going to drive him to 32?
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: But the way I think about all these things is
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: they are all affordability related. This is just all the
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: shit he's doing that's not helping you. And that stuff
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: hit different when prices were low and it's much worse
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: for Trump when prices are high. And so people do care,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: maybe not as much as we want them to care,
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: but it does hurt him politically. It absolutely does. And
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: we're already seeing that in the polls.
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: No, my point is that we got to get some
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: of that stink on the Republican Congress.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, they're, yes, yes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: And you see that in- Because you're right. No, I
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: completely agree with everything you said. Like we can't, like,
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: We did it. People know that he's a bad president.
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: You look poll after poll after poll after poll, like
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: he is losing that argument, but he is also a
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: lame duck president who is not on the ballot this November.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: And there's a question about whether that is putting the stink,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: we'll talk about this in the next section, whether that's
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: putting the stink on the Republicans or taking the stink
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: off the Democrats is the best route to doing that.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Or a more likely combination of the two.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: Plenty of stink to go around. I should say that
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: hiring also slowed to 57,000 jobs added Last month, the
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: jobs numbers came out way below expectations. And the last
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: two months that they were celebrating, of course, have been
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: revised down. So not a great economy unless you're Donald
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: Trump and you have a crypto scheme that you're profiting
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: off of. Even the Wall Street Journal, by the way.
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: You see, there's a Wall Street Journal editorial.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: How did I miss this?
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: About Donald Trump's corruption, which is notable because I know
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: you and Tommy talked about the New York Post did
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: an editorial just recently. criticizing Trump's corruption and now Wall
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: Street Journal. So all the Murdoch properties, except for Fox,
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: they even said yowzers, yowzers, the Wall Street Journal said.
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: The main difference between Hunter Biden's foreign dealings and the
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: Trump projects is that the Trumps are brazenly open about theirs,
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: but there will be political costs for Republicans. If Democrats
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: take back the House or Senate, they will have a
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: field day probing the Trump family deals. Charges of GOP
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: corruption will resound through 2028. This will feed the left's
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: class warfare. and narrative that billionaire oligarchs are getting rich
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: off government. Will it feed that narrative? I wonder why.
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: Probably because it's a true narrative. That's right.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Would it tell people what's happening? Yes, that's what would happen.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: Anyway, that's from your liberal friends at the Wall Street Journal.
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• 22:07
  Speaker 6: We should also discuss the absolute freak out in MAGA
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: world over the Supreme Court's decision to affirm the right
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: to citizenship that comes with being born in the United
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: States as granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: after slavery was abolished more than 150 years ago. The
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: court struck down Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship via
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: executive order. But the president's reaction to this was pretty
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: mild compared to Trump allies like The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh,
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: who said that America's committing suicide and the fact that
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: his children are having their birthright destroyed, quote, fills me
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: with rage so deep I can't describe it. of all
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: foreign visitors prior to entry. And you know who says
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: he's looking into these ideas? Stephen Miller, who has been
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: absolutely hysterical about this. He's talking about national suicide, national self-obliteration,
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: and quote, a deep knife wound in the heart of
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: the American Republic. All right, what do you make of
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: the reaction? And specifically, what do you make of Stephen
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: Miller and other White House officials considering this crackdown on
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: pregnant women entering the country. Can't believe I had to
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: say those words.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: And these people are just disgusting, opportunistic, delusional ghouls. Like
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: it is, it's so, it is, it's just so stupid.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: And it is so like, just think of the thing
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: about this, right? In 2018, Republican, like there is some
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: political in there. I try to like, sometimes try to
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: put myself in their heads, pretend that they are quasi
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: rational political actors. Like I think Stephen Miller is doing
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: this from a just, purely sincere, deeply held racial, racial animus.
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: A hundred percent.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I think other people in the MAGA world are looking
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: at this while they certainly share some of that racial animus.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: They are also looking at this politically and in their mind.
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: I think, I think Sean Davis and Matt Walsh are
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: absolutely genuine.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. But I, you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: I think they look at this and say, we're getting
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: killed on all the, on affordability, all these other issues.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: What is the one issue where Trump is not 20,000
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: leagues underwater? And that is border security. And so can
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: we move the conversation back to border security? Now, the
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: flaw in this plan is that in 2018, when Republicans
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: were getting ready to lose the midterms, they concocted a
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: fake story about a caravan of MS-13 members marching to America.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: And the 2026 version of that is a bunch of
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: pregnant with tourists.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: It's just so fucking, it's the grossest thing.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's just so stupid. It's just so, it's also
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: so stupid. Like, dude, you really, I mean, it's just
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: so painfully dumb and gross. It's all dumb and gross,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: which I guess is kind of the theme of the
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: entire area in which we're.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Living, but.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: The Center for Immigration Studies, which is the far right
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: immigration organization, they, because their whole argument here, Trump's argument,
• 25:16
  Speaker 6: Mueller's argument, is this like birth tourism, right? That people
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: are coming here illegally, and then they're having kids so
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: they can be American citizens. And then, you know, I
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: guess then the whole country falls apart. But even they
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: say that this is, they put birth tourism at roughly 20,000
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: cases a year. There were about 3.61 million births in
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: the United States every year. So that is well under 1%.
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: And that number, the 20,000, is contested by just about
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: everyone because this is a right-wing organization. Some people think
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: it's far, far less, like a couple thousand. But even
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: if you go by their arguments, it is just, again,
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: much like their voter fraud shit, a completely made-up argument.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: It seems absurd to us. The danger of it is
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: you take the most egregious, outlandish, rarest, if possibly non-existent example,
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: and you use it to take down an entire system.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: Like this is Ronald Reagan and the welfare Queens all
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: over again, where this is a way to try to
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: undo birthright citizenship, which as you and I talked about
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: on YouTube after the hearing, you know, you have a
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: potential Supreme court majority or, or near majority at this
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: point who would suggest that that can be done statutorily.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: And so you kind of understand, like I understand the
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: short term political argument there. The longer term thing is
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: to try to make people think this is something that's
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: really happening. when it's not actually happening.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: And then the flip side of that from picking the
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: most egregious example is basically what John Roberts argued about
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: the dissent in this case, which was the dissent was like, well,
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: the word domicile should mean where the parents have allegiance to.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: And if the parents were born in some other country
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: and have allegiance to that country and owe something to
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: that country, then, you know, then we shouldn't, then the
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: child shouldn't be a US citizen. And Roberts was like, okay, well,
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: what about foreign nationals who are legal permanent residents in
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: this country? And if you're a foreign national, if you
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: have dual citizenship, or even if you just have a,
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: you know, you're a legal permanent resident in this country
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: and you're still a citizen of another country, you do
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: have some allegiance to that other country and you are
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: still to pay some taxes to that other country. And
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: so now we're saying that all foreign born people in
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: this country who have children here those children aren't American citizens.
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: And then at that point, who gets to decide who's
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: a citizen? Trump. Trump and Stephen Miller get to decide
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: who's a citizen. They get that power. The government gets
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: to decide.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: That's their argument.
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: And I think that is the argument that most people
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: in this country would not get behind, that your citizenship
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: is determined not by your birth, not by where your
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: parents are from, but by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: All right. Let's talk about what's happening with the people
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: who are trying to bounce these jokers out of office.
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: On Tuesday, Colorado held its primaries, and once again, progressive
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: candidates won the day. In the first district, which is
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: basically the heart of Metro Denver, 29-year-old immigrant-turned-lawyer-turned-insurgent DSA candidate
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: Milat Kiros beat Diana DeGette, a 15-term incumbent, by about
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: 10 points. Kiros is a PhD student who lost her
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: job at a prominent law firm in 2023 after refusing
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: to take down an open letter she wrote about what
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: she saw as a crackdown on criticism of Israel. How
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: did she manage to beat an entrenched incumbent like Diana DeGette?
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: In part because of exchanges like this from a debate
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: in early June.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: And when we have that opportunity again, we have to
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: pass Medicare for All, cancel all medical debt, and break
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: up big medicine to drive back competition in the healthcare industry.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: If we do that, then whatever sycophant fills the shoes
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: of Donald Trump in the 2032 presidential election, who tries
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: to lay blame on our most vulnerable communities for a
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: rigged system, it will bring hollow to the voters. Because
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: as a party, we can point to what we accomplished
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: in achieving health care for all and say this is
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: what Democrats achieved for working people. This is how we delivered.
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: Pretty good.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: Very good.
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: It's not just policy where Kiros has managed to draw
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: a sharp distinction. Here's a question she got in a
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: local news interview a week ago about an ad she
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: reposted from a super PAC Supporting.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: Her I believe that the ad also suggested that centrist
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Democrats suck shit.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Is that really? as well?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: Just hearing him, just hearing the interviewer say that was enjoyable.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: Because of the makeup of the district, Kiros is almost
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: certainly to win the general election. And she has said
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: she won't vote for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker if he
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: takes corporate PAC money. Uh, in the primary for the
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: state's eighth district, Northeast of Denver, uh, progressive state representative
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: Manny Rutinel defeated a more moderate Democrat by 28 points. Uh,
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: he will take on vulnerable Republican Gabe Evans, one of
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, a big frontline race. Uh,
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: and in the governor's race, the progressive, but not DSA
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: state attorney general, Phil Weiser beat out Senator Michael Bennett
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: by about 12 points. Um, I know you and Tommy
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: talked about this on Pod Save America Only Friends, but
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: what were your thoughts on Colorado and where it fits
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: in with the New York results and what's to come?
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: So I think the Kiros race against the get fits
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: very squarely in the narrative coming out of New York.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: We have a progressive insurgent candidate running against a long
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: entrenched Democratic establishment figure. And like in New York, the
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Democrat is not a moderate per se. but is, I mean,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: DeGette's a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Now, more
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: moderate than Kiros, and maybe more moderate than some of
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: the voters of this district that Kamala Harris won by
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: 56 points. And so this district, I know it's in Colorado,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: and so we think of it differently. It is just
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: about as Democratic as the three in New York.
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a very important point.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Harris won by more than 50 points in all of them.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: And it speaks to the very real anger that exists
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: within the party towards the democratic establishment, the status quo,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: and the system. And we talked about what we talked,
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: you and I, in the New York, we talked about
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: the New York races just last week, I think, talked
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: about the ways in which those anger manifests itself. And
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Kira was in a great race. She won by double digits.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: And so that fits in that narrative. The other two
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: races don't fit exactly in that narrative. What is true
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: of the Weiser-Bennett race, like, I guess it is fair
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: to say that Weiser is a progressive, but he's not
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: that much more notably progressive than Bennett. And he is
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: not an insurgent. He is the two-term Attorney General of
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: the state who worked for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: What he did do was he did weaponize that anger
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: against the establishment in one of the elements of it,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: which is Bennett's been in Washington for a couple decades now,
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: or almost two decades. He was appointed in 2009, I believe,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: to replace Ken Salazar. But he attacked him for not
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: fighting hard enough against Trump, being part of an establishment
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: that let Trump win, and then ran on all the
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: things that Weiser had done as a very good attorney general,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: fighting back against Trump with lawsuits and other sorts of things.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: But he's not a member of the DSA. It's different.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: He also was someone with.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: As good of name ID and probably more like recent
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: depth of knowledge relationship with the voters than Bennett. Cause
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: he's the attorney. He's a high profile attorney general in
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: the state. And Bennett's been in Washington. Um, and then
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: the root now Shannon bird race is interesting and kind
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: of speaks to how progressive candidates I think will win
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: in these frontline districts. If the running is root now
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: did not run to the left.
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: No, ran to the, ran, ran to the center.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: He ran to the center. He even, he even denounced
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: his own former veganism. Um, But he did attack Bird.
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: Unlike Tallarico, he really was a vegan.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Yes, he actually was a vegan. He was a PETA
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: activist in one of the top farm districts in the
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: country and has walked away from that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: He sort of walked away from Medicare for All also.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, and being a DSA member. But where he went after,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: which is I think also interesting to note, was where
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: he went after Bird was on ICE. Because Byrd had
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: had a vote or two in the state legislature that
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: was suggested.
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: I think it was like state cooperation.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Wise cooperations, yes. It wasn't like she was endorsing ICE
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: or wearing ICE t-shirts. But that was a major issue
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: in the race. And so these are all different. They
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: do speak to the fact that you really don't want
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: to be, particularly in the Weiser and Kuros race, you
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: really don't want to be a longtime Democratic establishment figure
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: like that. You're a vulnerable in a way, but you've
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: never been before.
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: And that the voter anger at the establishment and specifically
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: the fact that the establishment has not done enough to
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: improve the lives of working people in this country or
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: enough to beat back Donald Trump and Republicans is probably,
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: at least what the primaries are telling us, probably even
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: more powerful than anger at Democrats for being too centrist
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: or too moderate.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes. I think the issue that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: And it's race dependent, of course, but clearly in the
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: Bennett race, in the Routinel race, in some of the
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: other ones we're seeing, that is a factor that is
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: uniting all of this anti-establishment fervor.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: The ideological thing is hard to parse because it's talked
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: about one way by the pundits analyzing the race, and
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: I think it's viewed by voters in a different way.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: And I think a big issue in a lot of
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: these races is obviously Israel and Gaza.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: And it's played itself in different ways. It was obviously
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: a central part of Kiros' race and her political identity
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: and her entry into politics was because of her views
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: on Israel and Gaza. And it does represent the issue
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: where there's the greatest distance between the party establishment and
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: the voter, and particularly the Democratic primary voter and the
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: most active Democratic primary voters. And I think that issue,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: it's ideological, but it's also a litmus test of sorts
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: in the sense that it says if you are unwilling to,
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: in the minds of voters, call what everyone is seeing
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: with their eyes genocide or to react to it in
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: the right way, it says something about who you are
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: and who you stand for. And so like is it–
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's too easy to say that it's like
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: just– people want to say it's all about being more
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: progressive than being not progressive and it's more complicated than that.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: It's also, I think, more complicated than being just like,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: who's a fighter? Like, you definitely wouldn't want to be
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: a fighter. Like, not being a fighter is bad. Like,
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: there aren't a lot of people waving the white flag
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: who are winning these primaries or in elections in general.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: But it just– I always find myself struggling with this
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: because it's– the conversation is more complicated and dynamic than
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: the terms in which we generally try to have the–
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: talk about it and sort of have.
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: Because when people say– moderate, liberal, progressive, there's like an
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: umbrella over all the issues. And in reality, it's issue
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: by issue for different voters and in different parts of
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: the country and in different races, right?
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: And these aren't moderates who are losing. With the exception
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: of Goldman against Lander and Goldman, particularly the issue where
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Goldman was most moderate was Israel. But Esfiat, not a moderate.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Not a moderate. To get, not a moderate.
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: No, but been there a while.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: There's a generational element to this too.
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: Coming attractions, you see AOC endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: So there's the Michigan primary where obviously the Senate race
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: is the marquee race. I believe there's also like a
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: House race there as well. Sri Thanadar is a Democratic
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: congressman there who's facing a primary challenge. There's a few more.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: Do you have any, do you know who the other?
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: Against Elijah Manley and apparently Luther Campbell, formerly of Two
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: Live Crew, which I did not realize until I read
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: the New York Times.
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: Story of it.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Yes. She is not, she is running in a district
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: that's not hers because it was redrawn. So it's a
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: little bit more like the Al Green and Julie Johnson
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: losses earlier this cycle.
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts.
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: Been there forever.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: Ed Markey in Massachusetts. John Larson in Connecticut.
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Wesley Bell, who beat Cori Bush two years ago. This
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: is not a generational one. This is more of a
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: modern progressive one. But Cori Bush is now, and he
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: won in large part because of APEC spending in that race.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: He was their candidate. And so Cori Bush is now
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: running for her seat again. That's one in Missouri, which
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: comes up in August, I believe. Yeah. So there is
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: plenty of time for panic and overly hot takes and
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: un-nuanced takes about all of these things going forward.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: Can't wait.
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  Speaker 6: Did you see Steve Bannon's comments in Playbook this morning?
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: AI Steve Bannon would have said that. I could have
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: told you exactly what that was going to be.
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: He's basically... said that Republicans ignore or mock the election
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: of DSA candidates and progressive candidates at their peril. He said, quote,
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: they campaign as anti-establishment very smartly. They're not really even
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: campaigning on Trump. He gets a mention, but they're very
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: much like the Tea Party, like old Breitbart. They're going
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: against the Democratic establishment. The reason we have a problem
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: is not Trump. It's the people that should be stopping
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: Trump are actually co-opted by him. It's very sophisticated and
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: it clearly resonates. What do you think about that?
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: I think– I mean it's like an overly facile, self-serving–
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: I mean basically what he's saying is, look how smart
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: these people are. They're doing exactly what I did 10
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: years ago, 15 years ago.
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: And he's like a populist. Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: I mean sort of, yeah.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Well, no.
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: I think with Bannon, he's a populist in all the
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: wrong ways, in all the xenophobic, terrible ways. But he's
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: also a genuine populist on economic stuff that his– he
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: has like always pushed Trump to actually– do populist economic shit,
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: and then Trump has never done it in two terms.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: I think he genuinely believes that populism is the best
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: politics for the Republican Party. That I agree with, which
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: is why he has been so skeptical of big tech.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, he takes a lot of money from billionaires
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: for populists, but his argument was for a populist, for
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: MAGA to be a populist working class movement. And he
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: sees Democrats trying to do something similar and being willing
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: to take on their own in order to do it.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: So it's notable.
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: On the subject of DSA momentum, I don't know if
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: you saw Axios had a report on Wednesday that Kamala
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: Harris has quietly been reaching out to Zoran Mamdani, AOC,
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: and the leaders of the Uncommitted Movement, indicating that she's
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: making plans potentially for a 2028 run and perhaps another
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: ideological reinvention. What did you think about that?
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: So we are getting more and more evidence that Kamala
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Harris is seriously thinking about running. If you'd asked me
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: six months ago, I would have bet a fair amount
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: of money that she was not going to run. But
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: she keeps doing things that suggest she's at least seriously
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: thinking about it. You and I have heard lots of
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: rumors of her talking to all kinds of different people
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: in the party. I think if she is running and
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: is being smart about it, there is no path for
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: her to the nomination that does not involve a massive
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: pivot away from Biden's Israel and Gaza policy. And so
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: having some conversations about how you would do that And
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: how that would be received by people in the community,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: particularly when she clearly did not engage with that community
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: enough to fully understand the power of the issue in
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: 2024 is what you would be doing. Will that work?
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Will she be able to pull it off?
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: That was going to be my next question. How much
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: credibility do you think she gets?
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: I think it would depend on how she delivers it
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: and how– if she were to do it, she cannot
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: be– she cannot– hedge her words. You cannot worry about
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden's reaction to her words. You cannot worry about
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: whether she's going to anger people in the national security
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: world or the Biden national security team. She has to
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: do what, you know, what people around her were saying
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: during the campaign was like this legitimate, very real empathy
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: for the Palestinians and anger at the Israelis that she
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: was never willing to say out loud on the campaign
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: and made a bunch of, I think, really tactical mistakes.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Like in the end, the idea that you couldn't give
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: one slot at the convention to a speaker who would
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: talk about, yeah, about what was going on in Gaza
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: is a, just seems so crazy now in hindsight. So
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: it would have to be to, for her to pull
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: it off, it would have to be just as, I mean,
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: it'd have to be with a level of authenticity and
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: visceral emotion and legitimate anger at what happened before. And that,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: You could not miss it, but you can't focus group it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: You can't hem your words. You can't worry about Joe Biden.
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: I also think two other things. You have to own
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: some responsibility around that.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: Like, it has to be, like, and not, well, I
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: was vice president enough, so I wasn't supposed to say anything. Like,
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: a genuine, like, I was wrong or I made a
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: mistake or I came to this too late.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: And I think that, like, she has to demonstrate that
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: she– actually cares about this and it's actually angered her
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: and she's actually regretful for how it was handled and
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: not that she's doing all the things she needs to
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: do to check the boxes to become the democratic nominee
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: that the democratic electorate wants right now which is like
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: always my concern about her you know it's like i
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: want to i want to know if kamala harris wants
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: to run again why she wants to run again and
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: why she wants to be president and you can already
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: tell like since she since she lost, since the campaign,
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: she's like trying out a little like, well, I'm sort
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: of an outsider. I've always been an outsider. And it's like, yeah,
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: there's anti-establishment fervor right now. I'm going to jump on
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: that train. That looks good. And I'm not saying that
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: this is exactly what she believes, because I don't know,
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: but it could very easily come across like that. And
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: my advice to her would be, what do you actually
• 47:15
  Speaker 6: want to run for president? What do you really believe?
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: What's really angering you about the last four years talk
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: about that. And if people, um, you know, if people
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: believe that and people find that, uh, persuasive, then you'll
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: be the nominee. And if not, they won't, but like,
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: you just don't, don't look at the, the democratic electorate
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: as a, um, I got to get all the pieces
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: together and this is what I have to say and do.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: And if I press all the right buttons, then suddenly
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: I'll get the nomination. You know, I just, that's, and I,
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: that's goes for any candidate for sure. But I think
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: she has a particular challenge there.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: Can I tell you something that I think you're going
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: to find perhaps very disturbing and potentially exciting? If we
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: follow by the calendars of the previous cycles, one year
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: from right about now will be the first Democratic primary debate.
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: Just getting nauseous.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: It usually happens in the summer of the year prior
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: to the election.
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: It's going to be so bad. I'm just telling you.
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: I feel like The opening skirmishes.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: We'll be with that attitude.
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: The opening skirmishes of the great democratic war of 2028
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: have already begun. And so far they haven't been going well.
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: I'm still like, we have, we have just this, this
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: is like the fucking tip of the iceberg. It is
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: going to get so, it's going to make 2020 look
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: like a fucking field day.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: I don't, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying it's going to be great. I'm not
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: saying it's gonna be great. I think the, there obviously
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: there have to be points of difference in discussion and debate.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: And those will be painful because a lot of times
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: people agree on so much that you really are, um,
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: slicing the salami so thin to get to that difference.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, as it was with the Obama, other than
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: the Iraq war on all the issues with Obama and Clinton,
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: like we agreed on a lot of stuff. And so
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: like policy stuff, like approach to politics was very different,
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: but on policy stuff, you know, you're fighting over the
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: individual mandate was the main point of dispute. Um, point
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: to Hillary on that one. Um, yes. And, uh, so, uh,
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: We'll see. We won't have to talk about this now.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: You have a plane to catch. I have a lot
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: to say about the poll, so we'll keep going.
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: We'll keep going. Speaking of the fall elections, we are
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: now just four months out from these midterm elections. Forget
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: about the primary debates. And our America 250 gift, Dan,
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: was a full round of Times-Siena Senate polls that were
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: released Wednesday morning, which showed Democrats effectively tied, but definitely
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: not ahead, in the effort to flip Republican-held Senate seats
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: in Alaska. They have Mary Peltola just two points behind
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: Dan Sullivan. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is down three to
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: John Husted. In Iowa, Josh Turek is two behind Ashley Hinson.
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: In their polls of Maine and Texas released over the
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: last few days, they have Graham Platner up two points
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: on Susan Collins and James Tallarico and Ken Paxton tied.
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: The only clear leader is Democrat Roy Cooper in North Carolina.
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: They have him up seven on Michael Whatley. There were
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: also new Fox News polls out this week that have
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: Plattner down three to Susan Collins and Turek up four
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: on Hinson and Iowa. Any big picture thoughts before we
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: get into some of the specific races?
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: These polls are a somewhat painful reality check of just
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: how tough the Senate map is. When you dig into these,
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: as everyone knows, we've got to win Maine, we have
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: to win North Carolina, we have to win two of Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: These are... very Republican states. Trump won those four by
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: at least double digits. When you look on the insides
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: of the polls, majorities in all those states think the
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Democratic party is too far to the left. This is
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: a group of people. We think about how much- 53%.
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: 53% too far to the left, 8% too far to
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: the right, 35% neither. Yeah, not great.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: We talk about how angry people are at Trump. His
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: approval rating in these states is all pretty good, like
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: low 40s in most cases. In The, they, Republicans lead
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: the generic ballot in all these states by at least
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: six points. They want Republican control of Senate by at
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: least six points.
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: Except in Maine.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: Except in Maine. Let's put Maine aside, in North Carolina.
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, let's put, yeah, that's right. Which is, we should
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: talk about that because Roy Cooper's doing well, but the
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: generic ballot in North Carolina is also D plus six,
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: I believe, which is crazy.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: North Carolina is performing like a pretty democratic state in
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: this environment. It's D plus six. They want Democrats to
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: control the Senate. It is, I mean, we're, uh, People
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: are talking a lot about how great Roy Cooper is doing.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: He's doing great. He's a great candidate. But he's actually
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: only overperforming the generic ballot by one point.
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: And a lot of these candidates in the more Republican
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: states are overperforming the generic ballot by three to eight
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: points in some cases. And so the point is, we
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: have a shot in all of these races. And that
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: is something that you could not have said six to
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: eight months ago. But it is very hard. And it's
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: also other than in Texas, Republicans have actually nominated fine candidates.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: Ashley Hinson, John Huston are generic Republicans and Dan Sullivan's
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: like a, maybe a little bit worse than generic Republican,
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: but basically a generic Republican. We have great candidates, but
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: is it going to be enough?
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: So this is what I was getting at a little
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: earlier is my take, my overall take on these, these polls.
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: And again, New York times polls aren't perfect, but they
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: are as close to perfect as we have. You know,
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: they were off again in 2024, but like, Again, the
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: purpose of a poll is not to nail the exact result.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: I know that might sound shocking, but it's true. It
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: gets you within the ballpark. And in terms of within
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: the ballpark, no one does it better than The New
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: York Times, which is why we take these seriously and
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: dig in on them. So my take overall, if you
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: set all the candidates aside, we have done a great
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: job persuading people, even people in red states, that Donald
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: Trump is doing a terrible job as president. I know
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: you said like 43. It's 43 percent. That's not a
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: great approval rating. in, in red States. Like I would have,
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: you know, that's, that's pretty bad. And I know now
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: we're getting used to, because some of these national polls
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: have them in like the high thirties, we're getting used
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: to that. But like for any 43 is bad. Um,
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: it's enough to lose, right. If he was running in
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: those States, um, we have not done a good job
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: persuading people that the Republicans in Congress are the primary
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: reason that Trump has been able to make their lives worse. That's,
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: that's my, my larger takeaway, because you would think that
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: the Republican, I mean, And the generic ballot, right? Like
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: if you take the candidates out of it, because people
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: want to talk about like, this candidate's stronger, this one's weaker.
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: And if you take all the candidates out of it,
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: you just look at, you know, who do you want
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: to control Congress? You ask that question to the voters,
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: which they did. The generic ballot is just very positive
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: for Republicans in most of these red states, even as
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump's approval rating in those same states is well
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: under 50%. And that's why, why do you think that is?
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Because people don't like Democrats. All these candidates are doing great.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: They are outperforming.
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: Except Plattner.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: All the candidates in the four red states. I'm going
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: to put Roy Cooper, Plattner aside.
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: Okay, great. We're only talking about these for now.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: I'd actually put Texas aside in a little bit here,
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: but in Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio.
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: That's a good model. That's a good group for.
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: Talking about this. These are very Republican states. In Iowa
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: and Ohio, the hardest part here is where Trump has
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: lost ground is mostly with younger voters and Latino voters.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: And these are very white, very old states. They are
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: whiter than the national average. They are older than the
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: national average. And so there's just less– the voters who
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: are leaving Trump and coming to our side, there's just
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: fewer of them. And it's a more static electorate. Alaska
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: is more confusing. Alaska is not actually a white state,
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: but it obviously has a very– low Latino and black
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: population as a native population, which just is a little
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: bit different. Texas is interesting because Texas is a majority
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: minority state and has a huge Latino vote, which is
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: why Tallarico is tied in that race.
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: Though I was surprised in Texas that the generic ballot
• 55:10
  Speaker 6: is still Republican plus six, if most of the gains
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: are younger voters and Latino voters, because Texas has plenty
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: of both of those.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, it's six in a state that Trump
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: won by 13.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: Oh, okay. Okay. I forgot that he won by that much.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. In every one of these states, Trump won by
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: at least 11 points.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: Right.
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• 57:00
  Speaker 6: Let's stay on those three, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio. One thing
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: on Alaska we should note is that Nate Cohn wrote
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: like a separate thing on why the methodology and the
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: Alaska sample might be a little weird and different. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: we're not going to nerd out on that. But the
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: upside is the Alaska result could be actually better than
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: it appears here. Iowa and Ohio, I think, more fit
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: the issue with it's just white voters everywhere. But I
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: do think what's notable is we have all of our
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: candidates in those states, like you said, are outrunning the
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: generic ballot. So the Democrats are viewed, the Democratic candidates
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: are viewed as less extreme than the national party, and
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: they're more liked than average. And the Republican candidates in
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: those states, though, are also have a higher favorability rating
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: than average. So I do think in those three states, especially,
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: so it's Dan Sullivan, John Husted, and Ashley Hinson, who's
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: also in Congress. She's not a senator, but she's a rep.
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: I think there's a lot of work to be done
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: on pinning the last couple of years of Donald Trump
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: on those three incumbents who are in Washington. We are
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: in an anti-establishment, anti-incumbent mood. Those people have been voting
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: for Trump and voting for and helping Trump 100%, not
• 58:16
  Speaker 6: stopping him. So it feels like there's just a lot
• 58:18
  Speaker 6: of work to be done there. Is that, would you agree?
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that. It's tricky because what are
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: you moving, like in doing that, are you, like the
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: question is interesting.
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: You're trying to find, in those states, and according to
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: this polls, there are a bunch of Trump disapprovers, don't
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: like Donald Trump, who are nonetheless inclined to vote for
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: a Republican candidate for Senate. And I think those are
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: the people that you want to get.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with that. The generic ballot is interesting
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: in these races. The question that's more interesting, which kind
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: of lines up the generic ballot, but is who do
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: you want to control the Senate? And Republicans have a
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: big advantage on that. It's basically akin to the generic ballot.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: It's 11 in Alaska. They didn't ask the generic ballot
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: question in Alaska because there's only one member of Congress.
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: So they just asked about that race. And that's not,
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: I think, immediately transferable to the political environment because it's
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: a known quantity in Nick Begich there. But that is hard.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: They're going to make the race be about... A vote
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: for Mary Patel is a vote to make Chuck Schumer
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: and a bunch of DSA people or whatever in charge
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: of the Senate. And so you need 11% of them
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: to say.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: No, we'll take Mary Patel anyway. That's hard. I think
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Ohio is indicative of the larger challenge here, which is
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: Sherrod Brown has a plus eight favorable rating in a
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: state that Trump won by 11. A majority of Ohioans
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: do not think that Sherrod Brown is too far to
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: the left. Although a majority of Ohioans think the Democratic
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Party is too far to the left. If the goal
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: is to not be a typical Democrat, Sherrod Brown has
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: fucking nailed it.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: He is like, He has a relationship with the voters.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: They like him. They think he's different than the Democrats
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: they hate.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: And he hasn't moderated his views on anything, by the way.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 6: Like he was just at our house doing a fundraiser
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: a couple of weeks ago, and he sounds exactly the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: same as he has for the last several decades.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: Well, now he's down four.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: Great.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: Thanks for telling everyone that. But what's interesting is if
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: you compare the results of this poll to the exit
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: poll of the Ohio Senate race in 2024... he is
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: doing exactly the same as he was in that race. Exactly.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: His percentage of the white non-college vote, which is a
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: majority of the, basically half the vote in Ohio, is
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: exactly the same. And he's doing no better than Kamala
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: Harris did essentially nationally with that vote. He's gained 36%.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: What do we do about that?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is why Ohio is such a hard
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: fucking state. Now, can he convince some, like there are
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: places where he can make gains. He can make gains with,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: Black voters, unless you can jack up black turnout, he
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: can do better with younger voters. There are places to
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: get there, but this is why he's down three and
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: this is why these states are so hard. Because even
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: though he is well-liked, he is not extreme, he is
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: not getting more votes than he did four years ago,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: two years ago. That's the hard part about running Sherrod
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: Brown two years later. You're going to need some people
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: who voted for Husted to either stay home or voted
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: for Bernie Moreno over Sherrod Brown to either change their
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: vote or stay home. And that's not super easy.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: He was, the difference is, and this is one of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: the reasons these polls sort of brought me back down
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: to earth in a serious way is, um, two years
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: ago he was running in a presidential electorate where, which
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: is obviously going to be harder for a Democrat in
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: a state like Ohio. I guess I assumed that a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: midterm electorate would, um, be better for Democrats, um, than
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: it is in these polls. And I always thought that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: Sherrod's chance, and I still do, the shared chance to
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: win this time versus last time is the fact that, um,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: He's just going to be running in a different electorate
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 6: where there's fewer non-college educated white voters who turn out
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: to vote in the midterm than there are in a presidential.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: Well, the problem is Ohio is an older white non-college
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: turnout state, and those people vote at a higher rate.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: And as Nate Cohn pointed out in his analysis of
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: the polls, a lot of the voters who have left
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: Trump don't vote in midterms.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: And that is going to be more true in a
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: state like Ohio, which is just a.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: That's interesting.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: Ohio is just this state that because... This seems crazy
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: to people who've only been watching politics for the last
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: couple of presidential elections. But prior to that, it was
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: the election, the state that decided the presidency in basically
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: every election. And it has been registered and organized within
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: an inch of its life. And one reason why it
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: was felt hard for Obama was we always felt like
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: we could do best in states that have large, unregistered
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: populations of potential Democrats. North Carolina, Florida.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: Texas.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: That was the dream about Texas over the years. And
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: Ohio just had– there were no new votes to get.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: Young people were leaving. And so it's a hard state.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: Can he still win it? Absolutely, he can. But I
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: think it just speaks to how– like why this is hard.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: It's doable. It's doable in all these states. But these
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: are hard states.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: And by the way, it's why North Carolina and Texas
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: are states that not just this cycle but many cycles
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: into the future, Democrats just have to win. At some point.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: Because you don't run into the same older white voters
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: and no new voters issue in those states because so
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: many people have been moving to them over the last decade.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: They're becoming more diverse. They're becoming younger. And so on paper,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 6: they should be states that Democrats have a better chance
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: in than places like Ohio and Iowa long term. Long term.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: I am interested in why the generic ballot in North
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: Carolina is so good.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: Well, think about it this way. It's a state that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Trump won by... two points, I think, I think two points.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: It was very close.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: Um, he barely, he only won it by less than
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: a point in, uh, 2020. And so if you think
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: that the generic ballot is plus seven or eight nationally,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: then it kind of gets you to a plus six.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah. And so there's, and that's Roy Cooper. There is just,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 6: you know, he's just trucking through and not really getting
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: any national attention and the race is kind of quiet
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: and it's benefiting them. That's, it's probably a state where, um,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: getting attention is a bad thing.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: Well, he doesn't need attention because he has high name
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: ID and voters like him.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: Right, right.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: So he does not need to be doing TikTok dances.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: And then before we get to Maine, because Texas is
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: sort of the opposite issue, which is, I do think
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: in Texas, obviously James Tallarico is a strong candidate. We've
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: talked about that a lot. And there's been a shift
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: in the ballot, the generic ballot in Texas. But I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 6: think it's fair to say that Ken Paxton as the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: candidate and his problems and issues are hurting him in
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: these polls.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Yes, people.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: It's a little bit like Maine.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 6: That's right. Yeah, that's right. It's the opposite.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely hurting. What is interesting is I find this
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: impossible to believe, and it may be the factory that
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: ends linear political television advertising forever, which is the Texas
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: primary was the most expensive primary in history. Ungodly amounts
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: of money were spent by John Cornyn and Cornyn super PACs.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: Most of that money was spent by the Cornyn side,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: telling people about what a corrupt dickhead Ken Paxton is
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: an only 38% of voters.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: Dude, that was wild.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: Hearing a lot about it.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: And yet when you go to Maine, most voters have
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: heard about Graham Platner stuff.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: Nearly nine in 10 voters have heard about Graham Platner stuff.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: Now, part of this is Maine is a smaller state,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: a much smaller state. And I think it's, word travels
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: fast there and people know. And I think that, you know,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: there's opportunities there as well for Platner, but I think
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: it does say something about the sort of the gap
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: between When there's a right-wing boogeyman and a left-wing boogeyman.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but the thing is that the entire Republican Party
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: infrastructure was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tell
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: people this about Ken Paxton and people still haven't heard it.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: So maybe they were doing it in the wrong way.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: I think you're right. I think it's TV stuff. And online,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: we weren't talking about all of Ken Paxton's problems until
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: it was time to vote. It didn't break through in
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: the last year the way that Graham Plattner stuff broke through.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about Maine. So Democratic Party machinery is getting
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: behind Platner, grudgingly or otherwise. The Senate focused PAC majority forward.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: Is that what they're first attack at on Susan Collins?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 6: Let's take a look and then we'll talk about the
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: polling there.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 7: 30 years living the Washington, D.C. lifestyle changes people. Getting
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: rich from insider trading.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: Should be illegal.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: But Susan Collins doesn't think so. Susan Collins is trying
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: to keep it so senators can get rich playing the
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 7: stock market. They're making millions of dollars while we can't
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 7: even afford groceries and gas. We need to tell Susan
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 7: Collins to stop the congressional stock trading.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: What do you think of that ad? What do you
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: think of that message? And then your take on the
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 6: polling in Maine?
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: I want you to do an Oscar-style music, play me
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: off the stage if you have to go catch a flight,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: because I honestly could talk about all these polls for
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: five straight hours. I could do a podcast on every
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: one of the polls.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: I think I'm good. It is about an hour to LAX.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: I should make it.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: Okay, all right. Just don't let me miss your flight,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: because I will never hear the end of it from
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: your wife.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: She will know now.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, she will know. I don't think she listens
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: to this podcast.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: That's true. What am I talking about?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: My wife might tell her.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: That's the problem.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: That is true.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: So the logic of that ad, because it's always like
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: you look at this ad and you're like, this ad
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: sucks or the message strategy of this ad is bad.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: Then you remember they're very smart people with a ton
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: of data that you and I don't have who make
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: these decisions. So I imagine the strategy of this ad
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: is to say, you have a lot of people who
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: voted for Susan Collins in 2020 and in previous elections.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Like Susan Collins overperformed. She won by nine when Biden
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: was winning Maine by almost nine. So like a 17,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: 18 point overperformance. This is a stunning stat. In 2008,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: she won by... 23 points when Obama was winning Maine
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: by 17.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: She's overperformed by 40 points.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 6: Oh, my God.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: So you've got a lot of people who voted for
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: Susan Collins. So one way to do that is that
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: you want to create a permission structure to them to say,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: I did this thing before. She's changed. So that's the argument.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: But if you look at the New York Times poll,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: and it's one poll, and it's a public poll, that
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: seems like a bad strategy. Because in this poll, two-thirds
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: of voters think that Susan Collins has good character and morals.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: So it seems hard. You're going to convince even a
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: lot of people are voting for Graham Platner thinks Susan
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Collins is a good person. And so it seems hard
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: that you're going to convince them all of a sudden
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: that she is corrupt. And it seems to me your
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: better argument is you look at the fact that by
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: a margin of, I think 12 points, I'm just left
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: on my head. Democrats, people vote, people in Maine want
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: the Democrats to control the Senate. And so there should
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: never be an ad run that is not Susan Collins
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: standing in the Oval Office holding that MAGA hat.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's, That's probably the more potent argument, right? Yeah. Also,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: I think that's why... and you see Plattner was doing
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 6: this in his primary night speech and elsewhere. The Brett
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: Kavanaugh vote feels like a potent attack on her because
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: it is a place where she was basically, you know,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 6: I'm doing what Trump wants me to do and it's
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: going to be fine and then it's not fine. And
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: that's probably an easier argument than, oh, this person that
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: you think has brought home federal money to the state
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: and has good character is actually a crook.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: In the poll, 57% of independents and a majority of
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: all Mainers, which I believe is the appropriate term, think
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: that Susan Collins would be too supportive of Donald Trump.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: There is a world for the Plattner campaign that existed before.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: a year ago with none of these revelations, I think
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: it's happened where it's like, we are running a campaign
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: to change American politics and reshape the coalitions. This poll
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: suggested those days are over. Although there are some places
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: where Planner is doing better than Sarah Gideon did, which
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: is why he's winning and she lost by nine points.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: And also why comparing this poll to the 2020 polls of,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: where Sarah Gideon was at this point is not a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: great idea since those polls were all wrong.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: That, that drives me insane that you cannot, even Nate
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: Cohn would say that poll was very, very, of course the,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: which you can, the best thing you compare it to
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: is the 2020 exit polls. Cause they actually exit pulled
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: this race in 2020 and Graham Platt. If you look
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: at that, Graham Plattner is doing exactly the one point
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: better than, than Sarah Gideon did with, White working class voters,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: which in Maine, where 98% of the voters are white,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: I believe, is just working class voters. And basically the
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: same number that Kamala Harris did in 2024 with working
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: class white voters, according to Catalyst data. Where he is
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 4: doing better, which is why he is winning, and Sarah
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: Gideon was losing by a lot, is he's doing much
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: better with young voters, and he's doing better with men.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: The reason why he's not up by more is pretty simple.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: Susan Collins is getting 10% of Kamala Harris voters. Although Plattner,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: to his credit, is getting 4%.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 6: Older white women, which is exactly what Ron Brownstein has
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 6: been saying and said on this pod that his biggest
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: concern is.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: I know we all want it. I will stipulate that
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: Graham Plattner is being weighed down in some way, shape,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: or form by the things that have come out. That
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: is definitely true. He is underperforming. All these other Democrats
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: are overperforming the generic ballot. He's underperforming it by eight.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: Points, I think. Yeah, because it's 11, right? It's 11, so.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: It's nine points. He's underperforming by nine points. That is significant.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: Now- The idea that we were going to be Susan
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: Collins by 10 points or even five points, I think
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: probably was fanciful because there was definitely some grand plan underperformance.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: There is no question. I am not disputing it. There's
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: definitely Susan Collins overperformance too. Well, yeah.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 6: And also because you would like his, his approval is
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 6: 45 50, which isn't great, but is not, it's not horrible, right?
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: You can win at 45% approval, which is just look
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: at Donald Trump. Um, And hers is 48-51. Hers was
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: much better. I was less surprised. Actually, I was surprised
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: by both of them. I thought that his favorability might
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: be worse after everything. And then I thought hers would,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 6: but I thought hers would be worse. 48-51, this seems
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 6: quite good if you're an incumbent in an anti-incumbent wave
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: and you've been there forever and you're as old as
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: Susan Collins is. That surprised me.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: There is this misreading of the polls where they ask
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: people not to compare Plattner and Collins on characters and morals.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: They just ask them if having good characters or good
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: morals describe them. So Susan Collins has these incredible numbers
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: in the 60s on character and morals, and Plattner seems
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: like his numbers are much lower, but they're still in
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: the mid-40s. So he's getting 48% of the vote. So
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: there's like 4% of people who don't think Plattner necessarily
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: has great character or morals and are voting for him anyway.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: There are 18% of people in some cases who think
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: that Susan Collins is a good person and are voting
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: against her anyway.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I will also say that both Susan Collins and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 6: Graham Plattner are more popular in this poll than Janet Mills.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah. This is the other takeaway. Is it possible that
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: like a... John Baldacci or a Hannah Pingree, if they
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: had run as a generic Democrat, would be doing better
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: than Graham Platner?
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: Probably. Maybe.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: Maybe even probably. Maybe even probably.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: They chose not to.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: They chose not to. In some cases, some of these
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: candidates were encouraged not to by Chuck Schumer, according to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: some reports. But this poll has a fair amount of
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: evidence that Janet Mills would be doing worse than Graham Platner.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: Certainly not better than Grant Plattner. And the bigger thing
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: is not just her favorability rating, because that's somewhat dragged
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: down by Plattner people who don't like her. The bigger
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: issue is that eight, more than eight and 10 main
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: voters think the main economy is bad.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: I know those numbers.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: And when the economy is the number one issue in
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: the election, she like, she actually would be someone who
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: was being like, it would be as much a referendum
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: on her as opposed to referendum on the Trump economy.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: And so that would be a very, very tough order.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I think, look, um, Clearly, all of the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 6: revelations about Plattner have hurt him, and he has a
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 6: lot of work to do. I don't think anything in
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: this poll shows that what's happened is fatal. No. I'm
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: very concerned if other revelations come out.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: For sure. I do think if these, because then some
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: people will argue, well, the Republicans haven't even spent all
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 6: their money yet making sure that everyone knows about everything
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: that's come out already. On that, I would say most
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 6: of the voters in this poll, what, 80% have heard
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: about his problems and his issues. So like, I don't
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: know that there's much more education to do, um, on
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: that front. I think what, what their hope has to
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: be is that there's more stuff coming out on the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: Republican side that they can, that they can use.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: The thing that I worry more than the character and, um,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: and stuff and the moral stuff is that Platner is
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: seen as more extreme than Susan Collins.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: And, and that's where I think that's the answer. They
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: are more, would be more concerning. Susan Collins, very much
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: people do not think she's extreme.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 6: And it's going to be, that's not pushing out an
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: open door on that. It is, it's much easier to
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: say like, oh, well, she's just, just look at the record.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: She goes along with Trump and you don't like Trump.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: There you go.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: Just a vote for Susan Collins is a vote for
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump Senate. A vote for Susan Collins is a
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: vote to confirm another Trump Supreme Court justice. A vote
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: for Susan Collins is Trump, Trump. Just it's like, it's
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: not that complicated. It should just be everything. Like do
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: not overthink this people.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: Like you need a bunch of people who want the
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: Democrats control the Senate to vote for Graham Platner. If
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: you do that, you will win.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: All right. That's our show for today. Uh, everyone have
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: a happy fourth and a great holiday weekend. Tommy and
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 6: love it. We'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Uh,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 6: and I'll be back a week from Tuesday. Bye everyone.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: Bye everyone. Have a great fourth.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 6: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 6: Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 6: Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: Kiril Pellevive, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 6: Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 6: America East.