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Transcript

"We always loved Joe Manchin!" · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I am Adisu Demesi.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, they're on vacation this week.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So I invited two of the smartest people I know
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Join me on this episode. Adisu, you are co-hosting. It
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: is so great to see you. And later, Heather McGee
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: is going to join as our special guest.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: This is an honor. It truly is an honor. You
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: guys have built something special here. I feel like I'm
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: in the presence of greatness.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Filling big shoes, all that stuff. I won't guess you guys,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: or John and Dan, too.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: That is insulting to them. No, I'm just kidding. I'm
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: saying this sincerely, Adisu. I couldn't be more excited. to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: talk with you about Joe Manchin. I can't believe that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: was a sincere statement. So listeners, you know, you guys
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: have heard Adisto on the show before. You know him,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you love him. He ran Cory Booker's 2020 presidential campaign.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: He ran Governor Gavin Newsom's 2018 campaign. We're for Clinton, Obama,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: John Kerry, LeBron James, like all the biggest candidates and organizations.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: He's a great guy and currently the founding principal of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: 50 plus one strategy. So we're going to cover a
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: lot today. We're going to start with the news that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: broke last night that Joe Manchin apparently has agreed to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a deal on legislation that would address climate change, reduce
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the price of prescription drugs, extend Obamacare subsidies and reduce
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the deficit. I'm genuinely still in shock that I said
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that out loud. Um, a DCI, I skipped breakfast this
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: morning cause I'm going to be eating some, some old takes.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Do not, do not find, I hope they're Lordy.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I hope there are no tapes. Uh, cause yeah, it is, uh,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: it is a little bit of whiplash. Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: You know, but you know what, that's, that's Capitol Hill
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: for you. That's the sausage making of, uh, of lawmaking sometimes.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. We're also going to talk about
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the midterms because they're fast approaching, uh, focus on abortion rights,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the controversy over Democrats interfering in these primaries, by the way, listeners,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: if you want to get involved in the midterms, you
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: want to volunteer, you want to donate, go to vote,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: save america.com slash a hundred days, take the pledge. We
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: will make it easy for you to get involved. We're
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: actually seeing, um, really excitingly high levels of signups. We're
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: going to beat our 2018 number, uh, by a lot.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So that's cool. Lastly, Adiso and I are going to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: cover reports that the Justice Department is investigating Trump's actions
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: as part of the January 6th probe and that Pence
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: aides are cooperating in this sort of sense that Trump's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: standing is waning. And then lastly, in the show, you'll
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: hear Heather. She is the host of a fantastic new
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: podcast called The Sum of Us, which you can find
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: on Spotify. It is great. She wrote a book by
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the same name. We're going to talk about the pod,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: political movements, organizing, and what she learned. So Great stuff.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So real quick before we get to the news, if
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you love great coffee and you want to get it
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: at a discount and you want to buy coffee that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: delivers a portion of the proceeds to an amazing organization
• 2:55
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• 2:58
  Speaker 1: go to crooked.com slash coffee. You'll get 25% off a
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: subscription today. Also, we have an amazing new podcast out.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: It's called Another Russia. In 2015, Putin's number one public
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: enemy and relentless critic, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: in front of the Kremlin. In Another Russia, you will
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: hear from his daughter, journalist Zhanna Nemsova, and co-host Ben Rhodes.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I know that guy. You will hear them tell Boris
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Nemsov's story and answer the question or explore the question,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: is Another Russia possible? Would another outcome have been possible?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Listen to new episodes of Another Russia each Monday, wherever
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Okay, Adisu. Again, whoever thought we'd
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: get this fired up about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: There we go. But don't let that name fool you.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It does a lot of good stuff. This is the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: bill that Schumer and Manchin announced on Wednesday night. So
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: here's the gist of it. Huge investment in climate change spending.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: $ 369 billion into energy security, climate provisions. The goal is
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 40% from 2005 levels
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: by 2030. Medicare will be able to negotiate the cost
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of certain prescription drugs, which would save the government like
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: $ 300 billion over a decade. It caps the cost of
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: prescription drugs to $ 2, 000 a year for a lot of seniors,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: extends Obamacare subsidies, and raises a ton of money by
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: imposing a 15% minimum tax on big corporations, closes the
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: carried interest loophole, and gives the IRS more resources so
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: they can do their job. So I'll stop there. I'm shocked.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I'm thrilled. What do you make of this bill? I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: know last night you were texting all your climate expert
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: friends and trying to figure this thing out.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was doing. the deal was announced
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: and suddenly you're like, what's in it? And you get
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: the list and you just read it. It took like
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: a minute, which is pretty impressive. Look, I think, first
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: of all, I spike no footballs until the president signs it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll talk about that, right?
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Still has to pass the house, still has to actually
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: pass the Senate. And obviously the president has to sign it,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: but it's historic. It actually is historic. It's something, the
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: prescription drug pieces of this bill alone is something that
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Democrats have been fighting for for decades. Um, the, you know,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: climate provisions have been on again, off again, on again,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: part of the BBB negotiations and what have you, uh,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: you know, it's certainly not everything, uh, that anybody would
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: have wanted, but that's what, that's what compromise is. Like
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: we said before, that's what legislating is. So I'm just, honestly,
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I'm still at all. It's like, I'm a little bit speechless.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I I'm praying that it's going to happen. It's a
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: monumental feat. It's a monumental feat. to do this with
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: a zero seat majority in the Senate and a, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: four seat majority in the house and we get it done.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: But, um, but here we are, you know, it took
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: a long time, but, uh, but here we are.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Here we are. I mean, yeah. And look, we, we will, um,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: offer all the sufficient caveats later in the show. It
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: is a, um, a massive lesson in expectations management because,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you know, this bill was like 3 trillion, 4 trillion
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: at the beginning. And then that got whittled down and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it was, and then we thought it was nothing. And
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: now we're all thrilled again at what seems like we'll
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: get past. But, you know, a lot of people, myself
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: very much included, have been trying to figure out what
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the hell happened, what changed, because the bill, you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it's not as expansive as those early sketches of Build
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Back Better, but it's pretty similar to recent proposals that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Manchin had rejected because he said, oh, this will lead
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to more inflation. So based on some of the reporting
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: we've seen so far, it sounds like this is what changed.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: A bunch of outlets today say that former Treasury Secretary
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Larry Summers called Joe Manchin and convinced him that the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: bill would not lead to inflation. So I guess it's
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: now a liberal hero, liberal icon, Larry Summers, like- Thank you, Larry.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Democrats also have to pass a separate bill
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that's going to ease permitting for pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So that will be, I'm sure, controversial. That will piss
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: off a lot of people. But the energy experts I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: see quoted say that short-term pain will be well worth
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the long-term impact of the climate pieces of the bill.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And then finally, Mitch McConnell had threatened to tank something
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: called the CHIPS Act if Democrats passed anything through reconciliation,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: which is how this Manchin bill would pass. chips act
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: is this massive China competitiveness bill that passed earlier this week.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: That bill passed yesterday. And then Manchin makes this announcement.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So at easy, do we think like, did Schumer and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Manchin do something pretty gangster here and bluff Mitch McConnell
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: into letting this thing pass?
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I am not sitting in, uh, rooms on Capitol Hill,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: so I don't know, but it looks pretty gangster. Um,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: and you know, the timing is if nothing else, uh, somewhat, uh, coincidental,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: let's say that an hour after, uh, chips passes the Senate,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I think maybe even less than that, this bill gets announced, but, um,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: you know, that's, that's Chuck Schumer has taken a lot
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: of shit, I think, uh, for on again, off again,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: a BBB president Biden has taken some of it as well,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: but this is not a linear process, man.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: If there's anything I learned in oh nine.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: And 10, you were there too during the ACA negotiations
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and everything else that happened, uh, in the first two
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: years of the Obama presidency, uh, this is not linear.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: This is not something where it's like you start here
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: and you end at point B. It is two steps forward,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: six steps back, around in a circle, around the corner
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: and back again. And I think, you know, you got
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: to give the leader credit and you got to give
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Manchin credit for even if he had some, you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: issues with the way it happened and he got pissed
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: off at various times. And I'm sure that the White
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: House and all of us got pissed off as well,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: like came back to the table and did it. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: that is just the ugly reality of making laws and
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: especially making laws when you have a zero seat majority
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: in the, in the Senate.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Yeah. A big bill like this is
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: going to die a thousand deaths before it becomes law.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it becomes law. So yeah, look, hand up. I
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: was wrong about Joe Manchin. I thought he never wanted
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: these climate revisions to pass at all.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, to be fair, he kind of said it
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: publicly on many, many occasions, right? He's, he's changed his
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: tune publicly, but some of that is posturing.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: But so you're not sure you have to eat some crow,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: but you know, it was, it was fairly served at
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the time, I guess.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, I will note that this very
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: painful process, this negotiation benefited one Democrat and one Democrat
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: alone politically. And his name is Joe Manchin. But again,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I spent most of Tuesday researching. what would
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: happen to the planet if there's drilling in the Congo,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: what that would do to climate change. So I'm happy.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe Manchin.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You're the best senator ever. I love you. I'm grateful
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Clip and save that one for a future episode. Oh, shit.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So before we get too excited, let's throw some cold
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: water on this whole thing and talk about all the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: ways that it could unravel. So like you just mentioned,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Manchin could change his mind. He's done that before. The
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: parliamentarian is back. The parliamentarian will need to review the bill,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: make sure a vote gets scheduled, make sure that it's
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: kosher through that. through that process. And no Democrats can
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: die between now and then. That's important. Joking, but not joking.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, fair.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. That makes you think, doesn't it? Kyrsten Sinema
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: is not a yes yet. Yes. And she is opposed.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: That is the biggest, I think, question mark still. Not
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: a huge fan of the tax measure. we don't think.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Don't you think, I mean, look, she's opposed to the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: carried interest, closing the carried interest loophole in the past.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: That's a pay for that I think would get the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: government like $ 14 billion over the decade. don't you think
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: she must be just under overwhelming political pressure to support this?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, Arizona is not West Virginia, right?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: And I think the answer is yes. And I think
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: it's one thing when you've got Manchin over here talking
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: about inflation and the spending side, and you have Sinema
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: on the other side talking about the revenue side. But
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: when one of those legs of the stool is cut out,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: suddenly it becomes a little harder to stand on an island.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: So My guess, and again, just a guess, is that
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: there were conversations before the deal was announced with Senator
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Sinema's office.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: But we'll see. You know, I am not I'm counting nothing.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: No chickens.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: And until until it's public and until the vote is taken,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: all bets are off. But but, yeah, I think she
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: is under tremendous pressure. And and, you know, she doesn't
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: want to be the 51st vote against this thing.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: No, no, Senator does. It was one thing to be
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: 52 to be 51.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll never forget my couple of years on
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Capitol Hill. You would see votes held open for hours
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and hours and hours because no one wanted to be
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the final vote passing something controversial or the final vote
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: that killed something controversial. And you're right. Manchin has no
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: longer given her any cover. We also need Democrats in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the House to stick together and pass the CHIPS Act,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the China competition bill, or things to get a little
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: funky because Pelosi initially was planning to pass it with
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Democratic and Republican votes. Some liberals don't love the bill.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They say it's corporate welfare. And I think there's fair
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: arguments there. But now Kevin McCarthy and the Republican leadership,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: they're whipping Republicans to vote against the bill.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: They are throwing a hissy fit is what they're doing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Okay. So Adesu, imagine you're a moderate Republican. You probably
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: said that this bill is important. You've talked about it,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the importance of standing up to China. You're
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: on the record. And then all of a sudden you
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: vote against it. because Democrats were mean and they passed
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a bill that cut prescription drug costs. Like that's the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: fight they want to pick. Yeah.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: It's totally, it's a tantrum. It really is. It's a tantrum.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It's a political tantrum. And like you said, I think this.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Is one of those rare issues where you can have
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: your cake and eat it too politically, meaning you get
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: the policy if, if, if, and when the speaker can
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: hold the, uh, you know, the caucus together. This thing
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: passes and the president signs it. And you get the politics,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: which is every Republican voting against something that is good politics, right?
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: The China competitiveness pieces of it are great politics looking.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Ahead to the midterm.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: So it is, I don't know if this hissy fit
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: is going to sustain through the vote. Maybe it is,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: but maybe it's posturing. But yeah, bring it on is
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: what I say. If this is what they want to do,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: if they want to vote against a China competitiveness bill
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: three months before an election because they're mad, about Chuck
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Schumer outmaneuvering them, be my guest.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Look, I will say something stupid is in the water
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: over there on the Republican side because a bunch of-
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It's Donald Trump. That is very true. But a bunch
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of Republicans just voted against a bill that would help
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: in Iraq and Afghanistan. They just switched their votes. This
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: thing passed 84-14 in June, and then 25 Republicans switched
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: their votes to vote against it. It's nuts. So, Adisu,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: well before this Manchin News, you and I were talking
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: about how There have been some more hopeful signs out
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: there for Democrats and how we might fare in the midterms.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: A bunch of polls have found Democrats doing well in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the generic congressional ballot. There was a poll this morning,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: USA Today Suffolk, that has Democrats leading 44-40 on the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: generic ballot. Democrats are understandably furious and fired up about
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Vice President Kamala
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Harris is out on the road meeting with governors, state legislators, candidates,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and pressing the case about Republican extremism. So, you know,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: look again, we don't do predictions on the show cause
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: we suck at it, but, and we don't want to
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: sound too hopeful, right? Cause there's still inflation and, you know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: GDP came in this morning and shrank in the second quarter.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: We might be in a recession, but what, what do
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: you think, what do you think is happening here? Like,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: why are these generic numbers going up in your mind?
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Um, I think, yeah, Democrats are in array for, you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the first time in a little bit of a little
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: bit of time.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: It does feel good.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Um, And like you said, whether it's enough to withstand
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the headwinds that are first presidential midterms is an open question.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: But I think it's a couple of things. I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: some of it is just about candidates.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: We have really good candidates and we are nominating really
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: good candidates across the board. We have strong incumbents in
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the Senate, governor's races, secretary of state's races, Whitmer, Warnock.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, you name it.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Good fits for their state. It fits for their districts,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you name it. And on the flip side, Republicans are
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: not everywhere, but generally speaking, nominating their least electable. I
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: think we're going to talk more about this coming up,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: but their least electable candidates because they're nominating far right
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: crazy people. And so that is affecting, I think, this
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: generic ballot in the national conversation because it's reasonable Democrat
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: or good Democrat up against lunatic fringe Republican.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And then I think you hit the nail on the head.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: The other thing is galvanizing events. You know, it is.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Dobbs and the fall of Roe is at the top
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: of that list, but you've got Uvalde and Buffalo, the
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: you know, the KBJ confirmation. It's actually, with the glaring
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: exception of the pandemic war and inflation, it has actually been,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you know, Democrats are doing pretty, have done some good
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: things over the last couple of months. And the things
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: that have happened to us have been, we have taken
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: advantage of, politically speaking, in showing people exactly what the
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: stakes are in the election. So you put those things together,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: good Democratic candidates, bad Republican candidates or unelectable ones or
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: crazy ones with sort of just a change in circumstance.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: And you've got a pretty, you know, a decent chance
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: to have a better midterm than we would have thought
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: even two or three months ago.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I agree. I mean, money can't buy you
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: a win necessarily. But I mean, I do think it's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: an indication of enthusiasm. And ActBlue said small dollar donors
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: gave $ 20. 6 million on the day Roe was overturned. The
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: DLCC said their two best online fundraising days We're in
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the 48 hours after the decision. We at Vote Safe
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: America saw a big spike in signups. So it really
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: does matter. I mean, you kind of hit on a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: big strategic question that is out there. It's a constant
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: debate for Democrats of like, should we focus on kitchen
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: table issues, jobs, healthcare, all the things that we're hoping
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: will pass into law through this mansion compromise? Or should
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: we be talking more about January 6th, the ongoing threat
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: to democracy and these extreme candidates you mentioned? Do you
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: have a take on that?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I definitely do.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Because I think I think it's a bit of a
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: false choice. I think it's about the framing on the whole,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I think. And so if I had to pick one,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I think it's the latter because I think what we
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: have to do is define the threat. This election, midterm
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: elections are generally a referendum on the state of the
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: country and the party in power. And the more we
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: can do to turn this into a choice election, the better.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And the reality is I want to run on kitchen
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: table issues and jobs and all of those things. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I think the Biden administration and Democrats have a good
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: case to make. I just talked about the things that
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: we've done just in the last couple of months, not
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: to mention ARP and infrastructure and what.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Happened last year.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: But let's be real about the state of the country.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Gas is $ 4. 50 a gallon. Milk is $ 3 a gallon.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: People are getting COVID again. There's a hot land war
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: in Europe. Voters are just not going to believe that
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: things are good because they're not, even though we're making
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: them better.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Long track's pretty high at the moment.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just is, right? And so live in the
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: world as it is.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: And so you have to meet the voters where they are,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: and that means you got to define the threat, define
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: the enemy. And so whether that's about January 6th or about,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: you know, you've seen the work that's being done out
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: there to frame MAGA Republicans.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I think it's very good.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit more
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: as the enemy, but whether it's about.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Healthcare or.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Protecting their wealthy friends or taking away choice or overturning
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: the will of the people in January 6th, you got
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: defining the enemy and lifting them up and turning this
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: into a choice election instead of a referendum election, I
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: think is job number one. That's what allows you to
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: talk about kitchen table issues. Otherwise, folks aren't going.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: To listen to us.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll tune you out. So Dan isn't here today,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: which is tough for me because I like to take
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: things he says on the Thursday pod and then steal
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: them and pass them off as my own ideas. But
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that you're a reader of Dan's Substack message box.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And in that Substack, Dan pitched the idea of Democrats
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: running on the American freedom agenda, which is basically like, okay,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: let's say you take a bunch of economic proposals that
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: give you financial freedom, like a $ 15 minimum wage, the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: child tax credit, et cetera. You have a bunch of
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: personal freedoms like abortion rights, marriage equality, on safety laws
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and then democratic freedoms like voting rights, ending dark money
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in politics, ethics reform. You like that pitch? You like
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that framing? You're a subscriber?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I am. You should read Messagebox. It's very good.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Maybe that'll get me invited back when Dan gets on vacation.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: But no, I love it. I love it for a
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: lot of reasons. And I'm glad Dan and I know
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: there are folks like Way2Win and Anat Shankarasario on Twitter
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: and others who've done a lot of work pushing this
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: freedom frame, which I think I think it works for
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: a lot of reasons. So first off, I know it
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: works with voters. I've seen polling and data that suggests
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: that this is actually something that moves voters.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: In sort of a mobisuasion way, right? Both mobilization and persuasion.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Mobisuasion, I like that term. Mobisuasion, you like that?
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: That is good. That is pretty good. Shout out to Anat.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: That's hers, not mine.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Second, I think it co-opts a GOP frame, which I
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: always love doing. Freedom is generally seen as a Republican issue,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: but it shouldn't be, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: It's invading Iraq.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: And I think we can actually co-opt it maybe if
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I have a little tweak to Dan's message. It's about freedoms, right?
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Our freedoms are under attack, the freedom to and the
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: freedom from, but I like the idea of co-opting a
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: GOP message and not just have it be about liberty,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: being able to do whatever the hell you want, whenever
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: the hell you want with your AK-47.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: The third.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I think is actually really important is in this window
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: that we're in right now, post Dobbs and post Roe, it's,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: it feels salient, right? Like we're in a persuasion window
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: about freedom, right? Freedoms are under attack. And we have
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: a very specific example of that, that is mobilizing, as
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you said before, our base and also persuadable voters to
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: be like, wait a second, what, what's on the ballot
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: this fall. But maybe most importantly, the freedom agenda or
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: however freedoms agenda, however we want to talk about it, it,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: it can fit into anything, right? You can talk about
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: freedom from, you can talk about freedom to, you can
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: talk about the economy to your earlier question. You can
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: talk about freedom from gun violence, freedom to vote, freedom
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to choose, freedom to marry it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: It's universal.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: It can be used by progressives and moderates alike. It can,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: you know, it can push us to talk about what
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: we're for and what we're against. And that, that's what
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: a message is. Like you want the flexibility to have
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: everybody in your big tent, use it, use it for
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: their purposes, but something that appeals broadly.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: So I'm in. If it's not clear, I think there's
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: something to be done there.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I like it. We're all in on Dan. We're all
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: in on message box.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Put Dan in charge of Democratic messaging.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Honestly, look, don't tell him I said this, but we
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: got to fire him from this podcast so he goes
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and works on campaigns. He's the smartest person I know
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: on this stuff. So last midterm issue, we talked on
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this pod a couple of times about the consternation over
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party boosting the more extreme candidates in Republican
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: primaries in the hopes of running against them. I would
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: say the controversy, the anger was measured until this week
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: when it was reported that the DCCC spent a bunch
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of money boosting a far right Trump loving candidate named
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: John Gibbs, who's running against a Republican incumbent in Michigan,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Michigan's third congressional district named Peter Meyer. Meyer voted to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: impeach Trump after January 6th. He's called out other Republicans
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: who pushed the election lie. And people are saying, you know, hey, DCCC,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: You are saying there's this massive threat to democracy, that
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: there's this crisis, and that you're boosting this Looney Tunes
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: guy who might get elected, who was tweeting John Podesta
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: had taken part in a satanic ritual previously. What do
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: you think here about this controversy and this strategy?
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I'm curious what you think, because look, I'm a practitioner
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: of politics, so I get the strategy. I'm sure everybody
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: here does too, right? You're making it more likely for
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: you to win in the general. And I think the
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: folks at the D trip or the DGA or wherever
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: the campaign campaigns themselves who are looking at data, I
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: am certain they have data that shows that John Gibbs
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: is a weaker opponent than Peter Meyer in November, but
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: weaker doesn't mean can't win.
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And that is the, that's where the consternation is. And so,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm not clutching my pearls about it personally. Frankly,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I ran this strategy in.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: 2018 for Newsom, right?
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Like Trump, Trump, uh, Trump endorsed one of our Republican opponents.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: California has a top two primary where you could have
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: two Democrats move or whoever, top two, whatever the party.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: And when Trump endorsed one of our opponents, we started
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: attacking that opponent for having Trump's endorsement, which happened to
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: elevate him into second. we beat his ass in November. So,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: but California is not Western Michigan.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And so I don't know, I'm curious what you think,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: because I'm, I'm, I don't clutch my pearls about it
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: because ultimately if we, if it works, it is maybe
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: in some of these districts, the only way we're going
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: to win these districts in this kind of environment, but
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: it's a high risk, high reward thing. And people willing
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: to risk having John Gibbs in Congress. I get why
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: you might not want to do that.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I get why you might not want to do that too.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of with you in that, like to me,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: it's case by case. I was not too worried about,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: you know, Larry Hogan's handpicked successor in Maryland losing that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: primary to a kookier opponent that the Democrats think we
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: can beat. Because as Larry Hogan himself said, the Republican
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: governor of Maryland was like, well, this campaign is now over,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, it's nice to hear for us.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I do worry a little bit in a more swingy
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: district like Michigan's third. I also do worry about the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: broader message and the hypocrisy. Yeah. that you could take
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: away from boosting someone like John Gibbs, as we are,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I think, sincerely talking about this massive threat to democracy.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And Peter Meyer has tried to do the right thing.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And that is hard for me emotionally, intellectually, to kind
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of wrap my head around.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I actually agree with that last part, that Peter Meyer,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: who I don't think should be a congressman, I want
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: his Democratic opponent to beat him, whoever, if he wins
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: the primary next week. But as Republicans go, there are
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: other Republicans who are... way worse on issues of democracy
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: and these issues, right? And so, you know, maybe in
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: open seats or in places where you have a less
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: palatable Republican, it feels like a more palatable strategy, but
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: that's not politics, man.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Politics ain't beanbag.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: And if, you know, if we want a Democrat to
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: win that seat, you play to win the game, as
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Herm Edwards once said.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk more about the kooky Republicans that are
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: out there because there's been a lot of news on
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the MAGA side. So on Tuesday, the Washington Post broke
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the news that the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: actions as part of its criminal probe into efforts to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: overturn the 2020 election results. Witnesses before the grand jury, including, deliciously,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence's aides, have been asked about their conversations with Trump,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: his lawyers, their inner circle, and the degree to which
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Trump himself was involved in the fake elector scheme. DOJ
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: is also looking at phone records of top Trump officials.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: This is another hands-up moment for me, Adisu. I vented
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of frustration about the speed or lack
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: thereof of DOJ's investigation and Merrick Garland's work here. So
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: it's good to see they're on it. But what do
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you make of the timing of these reports coming out,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: right as Pence and Trump seem to kind of go
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: head-to-head on some events?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, you're the press guy. Who is leaking this?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Where is it?
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Which side has the, has the incentive to, to put
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: this out there or get this out there because.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: It does seem Pensey.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Uh, but I can't give a profile and courage award to.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: These people for doing this.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Right. And even, even if the outcome is, uh, you know,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: something that we both want, um, they spent five years
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: ass kissing an authoritarian to get close to power.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: So like, great. Now that you want to be president or, uh, you're,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: you're doing the right thing. Great.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: I guess the enemy, you know, the enemy is your
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: friend or whatever. So I got to tip my hat
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: and then, you know, hold my.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Hold, hold my nose.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: You don't get a cookie for telling the truth.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Great.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And I think DOJ, I will say DOJ, I think
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: I similarly as a partisan Democrat, like have those same frustrations,
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: but I do think deliberateness will win out here.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: I really believe that. I think you got to have
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: it airtight. And, you know, this is part, it's a process.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Like you don't come out until, until you, you have
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: it lock, stock and barrel. So that's, well, this is part.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Of that process.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's good legal advice. I did love the New
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: York times also had another great story. Maggie Haberman had
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Trump campaign emails, including messages from a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: different lawyer in Arizona who was helping the campaign with their,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: you know, effort to send a fake slate of electors
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to Washington for their little coup attempt. And in one
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of the emails, this lawyer in Arizona literally wrote, quote,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: we would just be sending fake, put that in quotes too,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: electoral votes to Penn so that someone, again, in quotes,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: in Congress can make an objection when they're counting votes
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and start arguing that the fake votes be counted.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Wait, a lawyer sent that?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jack Willenschick.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: This was this guy.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Don't hire Jack Willenschick.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, it gets better at DCO. In a follow-up, he wrote,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: alternative votes is probably a better term than fake votes
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and included a smiley face. So I think that absolves
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: him of your previous legal criticism.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. He tempered it. Oh my God. I
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: missed that. That is insane.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: The E in email stands for evidence. Willie Brown said
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: that once. Like, what are you doing, man? These folks
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: are the Keystone cops if there ever was one.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Truly, truly. Boris Epstein, the guy who got the email
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: is Steve Bannon's Marble Mouth podcast co-host, so he's quite
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: a goober. But so, you know, back to this Pence-Trump thing, like,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I have been surprised at how fast the rhetoric has
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: dialed up. Here's a clip for everybody to hear. This
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: is former Pence chief of staff, Mark Short. He's on CNN.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: He gets played a clip from Trump superfan creep Matt Gaetz,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and then Short is asked to respond to it. Let's listen.
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't know if Mike Pence will run for
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: president in 2024, but I don't think Matt Gaetz will
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: have an impact on that. In fact, I'd be surprised
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: if he was still voting. It's more likely he'll be
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: in prison for child sex trafficking by 2024. And I'm
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: actually surprised that Florida law enforcement still allows him to
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: speak to teenage conferences like that. So I'm not too
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: worried about Matt Gaetz.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks. Okay.
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: Thanks.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Did he drop a thanks at the end?
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Or did he say thanks?
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Whatever that was, that was a quality outro.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: That was a broadside. That was a broad... I mean,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that's fun to hear. I don't think for a second
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that Pence is going to be president or that Pence
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: could beat Trump in a head-to-head contest. But the fact
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that Pence thinks there's an opening due after Trump does
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: suggest they think he's weakened maybe by time, maybe by
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: January 6th. Who knows? There's also the fact that Rupert
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Murdoch's media empire has turned on Trump. You got the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal attacking him in editorials. The New York
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Post editorial page wrote, as a matter of principle, as
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: be this country's chief executive again. I mean, do you
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: buy this growing sort of consensus that he's been weakened?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: I think the January 6th hearings have done work on him,
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: not with the voters necessarily, but with political elites in
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I think January 6th itself did at the time.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did too.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: Not.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy or people who are sycophants who just want
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: to be close to power and have no moral compass whatsoever.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Not that Rupert Murdoch does either, but, but yeah, I think,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: I think things have changed. And I think, but I
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: think there is a divide between the voters and the, the,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the elites, as I said, the folks who
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: are the donors, the, the chattering class, et cetera. The
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: voters I think are still with him, the base of
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the Republican party.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: But, the donors and the, and, uh, and the elites
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: realize that he is weak with basically everybody else, not
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: basically everybody else. He is weak with everybody else. He
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: is weak with, you know, he, he motivates Democrats to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: turn out independent, still hate him. And even though things
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: are tough in this country right now with pandemic and
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: inflation and war, um, they don't want him back.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Uh, they may want to change, but they don't want
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: him back.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: So it's an interesting dichotomy that we keep seeing in
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: these primaries where like the mega candidates are winning primaries
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: and mega Republicans still running the party from the grassroots,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: but the elites are like trying to push back. And
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: I think that's only going to get nastier as we
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: get closer to 2024 and God, the 2024 Republican presidential primaries,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I do think there will be a competitive primary.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And I think it's going to be just a bloodbath.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, If the 2022 cable hits are Mark Short
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: saying what he just said, yeah, it's going to be
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: a bloodbath. I mean, I agree with you that like,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, that is
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the donor class talking to the donor class and saying, yo,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis does not bring all this baggage. The other story, though,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that I think will hit like the MAGA base that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I've been tracking kind of closely is the families of
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the victims of the 9-11 attacks are furious at Trump
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: because his Bedminster course is hosting the Saudi-owned Live Golf
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Tour this weekend. Oh, yeah. And they, like, he's getting
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: a huge bag for this thing. Like, probably, you know,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Trump's
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: pocket from the Saudis. But, you know, these 9-11 families,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they're furious. They released a TV ad attacking Trump and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the players. And I think, like, I just think this
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: is a tough one for Trump because this is his city.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: You know, New Yorkers, this is his hometown. And the
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: people this will piss off are, like, NYPD. Yeah. You know,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: New York firefighters.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Staten Island, you know, Democrats.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Staten Island people. Absolutely. So.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: I think the, the, one of the biggest myths of
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: politics of the last five years is that Trump is Teflon.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: He's not Teflon.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: He's Teflon with base mega Republican voters, which is not
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: even close to a majority of voters in this country. Um,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: and probably a majority of Republicans, but not, not even
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: an overwhelming majority of Republicans.
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: So there is, he is, uh, it's not that the
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: emperor has no clothes, but, uh, He has a lot
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: fewer clothes than people make it out to be. And
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: one of his biggest strengths, honestly, is they can get
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: people like us and Maggie and everybody else to keep
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: talking about him, even as his power wanes, which I
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: think it is.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: For sure. One other weird story. The emperor might be
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: kind of a wimp. So Trump's son-in-law slash former top advisor,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner, has a book coming out. It's leaking. The
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Washington Post got a copy. And Jared in this book
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: goes hard at the former White House chief of staff,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: John Kelly, and and even says that after a contentious
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Oval Office meeting, Kelly storms out of the Oval and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: has walked down the hallway, and Ivanka Trump says hi
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to him, and he shoves her out of the way,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: like hip checks her. I don't know. I imagine her
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: bouncing off the wall. According to this book, Trump does
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: nothing about this. Your chief of staff shoves your daughter
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: in the office, and you do nothing. You confirm it
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: in a book three years later, like that's your tough
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: guy president?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean– they're serial liars, first of all.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: So like, yeah, I don't think it happened.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: That's not a defense of John Kelly or anything.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: It's just that it's like, I would call it a
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Bravo reality show, but that's like a insult to Bravo.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Sorry, Bravo.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Don't sue me for defamation. But what the Trump orbit
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Jared Kushner included is good at is manufacturing drama for
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: clicks and sales and.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Not even good at sales.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Cause like these books aren't selling very well, but, but
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: this is, This is straight out of the Trump playbook,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: which is say something inflammatory to get attention. And I
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: just don't buy it, if I'm being honest. Let's just
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: say I'm taking it with a shaker of salt that
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: it happened.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, the leakiest White House in history, the sort
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: of juiciest story you could imagine, and this just comes
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: out now, that does seem sort of hard to believe.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Last thing along these lines. So Politico reported out that
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: there's a big fight between these former Trump aides. who
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: landed at competing think tanks that are supposed to be
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like the government and waiting for the MAGA types. One
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: is called the America First Policy Institute or AFPI. It's
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: like Rick Perry, former Homeland Security Secretary. who Ben Rhodes
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: likes to call frat paddle Chad, which I love. Lou Holtz,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz is part of it
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: for some reason.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Is part of a policy effort?
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he's cranking out white papers. I'm like the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: nickel package or something. But there's also like the Conservative
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation. They all think they're the
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: MAGA movement. And so Trump spoke at AFPI on Tuesday
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: about But it was only, it only came after Peter Navarro,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: that former trade advisor, batshit crazy guy, begged him not
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: to and accused the think tank of plotting to a coup,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Trumpism without Trump coup. So it's impossible to like follow
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: these ins and outs. But again, it's just like chaos
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: has followed this guy everywhere he's gone politically since the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: very beginning. But it's just not a great setup to
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: have your staff like crucifying each other.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, first of all, Give me a fucking
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: break that Trump has a policy agenda.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I know. Come on.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: And what these folks are really jockeying for is proximity
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to somebody who is probably at this moment the most
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: likely Republican to be president if a Democrat doesn't win
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: next time. So it's all about jockeying for proximity to power,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: not about policy, period. And so what they're jockeying over
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: is what is, in my mind, Trump's core governing philosophy,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: which is the last person who got to talk to
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: him wins, uh, you know, wins is by wins the opinion. And, um,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: and it's a mess just like everything else, just like
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: his white house was a mess, just like his campaign
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: was a mess, uh, uh, just like his administration was
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: a mess. And so it's one of the reasons he
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: should never be allowed anywhere close to anything resembling power, uh,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: over policy in this country is because, I mean, look,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: he's a wannabe authoritarian lunatic, but he also can't run
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: like a dishwasher, let alone, uh, a country. And this
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: is yet another proof point of that.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So his aides tried to call it the State of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the Union 5.0. I don't know why they did the. 0.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: It's sort of a weird techie thing, but to suggest
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: that this is the speech he would have delivered. Here's
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a quick supercut of some of the Trump message from
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: this hefty policy speech like the State of the Union.
• 38:05
  Speaker 7: Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding across our wide open borders.
• 38:10
  Speaker 7: Our streets are riddled with needles. And soaked with the
• 38:13
  Speaker 7: blood of innocent victims. Stabbings, rapes, murders. Bloody turf wars,
• 38:18
  Speaker 7: rage without mercy. Sadists who prey on children.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: Drugged out lunatics.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Roving mobs of thieves.
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: And the dangerously deranged Romar streets with impunity. Blood, death,
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: and suffering. Beat him like you've never seen anyone beaten before.
• 38:35
  Speaker 7: Laughing as they bludgeoned a life dead. Stabbed her repeatedly
• 38:39
  Speaker 7: as she screamed for help.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: And left her bleeding to death.
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: And he was bludgeoned, absolutely bludgeoned and shot, burglarized, raped, murdered,
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: and set on fire, viciously stabbed to death.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: That's enough.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: We actually, we had to call it before the clip
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: was over. That's a, look, that's a hopeful, optimistic vision
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: for a second term, right?
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Sounds like, sounds like the first inaugural, honestly. And hopefully
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the last inaugural.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, It's the only playbook they got, man. It's
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the only playbook they got. Scare, scare, scare, fear, fear, fear.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Everything is terrible. Everything is awful. It will appeal to
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: some people, right?
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: It will.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: But is that, first of all, it's not a policy agenda.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: And second of all, it is certainly not a hopeful
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: message that I think inspires the people who already hate it.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: him to suddenly want him.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Back in the White House. No.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: And Andy, our excellent producer here pointed out that interesting
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that he keeps talking about stabbings because you can't talk
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: about guns or gun control or mass shootings that are
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: happening all over the country. Yeah, it is. You know, look,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I think that Pence is a, look, Mark Short obviously
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: brought his baseball bat to a TV interview and that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: was interesting, but Mike Pence's critique of Trump is like,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: we're going to look toward the future, not the past.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And that's his way of saying, shut up about 2020. And, uh,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know that it's pointed enough
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to really work. I'm hoping some folks will lean a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: little harder into this and be like, you lost, you're
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: a loser. You say that Joe Biden has dementia, you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: lost to him, you know, like that would, to me
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: is what we need to hear.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: We have to be less outraged at some level and more, um, mocking, uh,
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: in a humor is and, and derision I think is a,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: underused tactic when it comes to Trump. It's not like we,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: we don't have to get in the locker room with him, but, um,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: but yeah, he's a loser and he lost. And, you know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: I do think the president, you know, whenever he refers
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to him now, he refers to him as the defeated
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: former president, which I know has got to get under
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: his skin at Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And I love it.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I love it too. Yeah. We, we definitely need like the, um,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman tone against Dr.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. It's a, I think it's a brilliant strategy.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I think, we were, we have been outraged rightly. So
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: for seven years, longer than that, but certainly for seven
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: years since Donald Trump came on the scene, but you
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: know what, as a political strategy, it may be worn
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: out right now, especially with the, you know, persuadable voters.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: And we may need to need to switch tactics.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Especially when it's so clear that these guys just trot
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: out to whatever event they're going to say something they
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: know will outrage us like Matt Gates, you know, suggesting that,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: you know, unattractive women don't need like, it just, Not
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: even worth repeating, but it's like he wanted liberal clicks
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and rage clickbait, and we do have to discipline ourselves.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: We can't fall for it.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we can't fall for it every single time.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: It is warranted sometimes.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: It certainly was warranted a lot more when Trump was
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: in office and had power over the administration, but now
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: it is a political strategy that they're running. They don't
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: have any power within the government, but they're trying to
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: provoke us, and we have to be.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Better than that.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they got money in the media and our attention
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: and we got to steal it back. Adisu, it was
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: absolutely fantastic having you on for the news today. I
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it. You are, you know, you've won some
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: big races, which is not something I've done in like
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a decade. So it's really good to hear your experience.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It's so much fun to be here. Thanks for inviting me, man.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: We are going to take a quick break and we
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: come back. You will hear my interview with Heather McGee
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: about her fantastic new podcast, The Sum of Us. So
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: stick around. Heather McGee is a policy expert and the
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: host of the fantastic new podcast, The Sum of Us,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: which is available on Spotify. You can also buy her
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: book by the same name, The Sum of Us, anywhere
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: books are sold. Heather, it's great to see you again.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: Great to see you too, Tommy.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: So we've known each other for years, for decades, really.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: You did all this amazing policy development work in D.C.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: You wrote this amazing book. You come on the show.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: You geeked out about it. You decided to get into
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: the podcast game. And you were like, higher ground? Yeah.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I assume Obama and Springsteen are on episode three, which
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: is not out yet. Is that what's going on here?
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. I should have known.
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: I should have been prepared for the dig at not
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: going with Crooked.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: For this podcast.
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: Listen, Tommy, this podcast, The Sum of Us, is about
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: the possibility of hope and people coming together across race
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: to build solidarity and win change.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: It is a hope and change podcast.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. I hope Obama gave you good notes and that
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: it was worth it. I'm totally kidding. I'm totally kidding.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: You also got to work with a woman we love
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: at Crooked Media, Mukta Mohan, who got poached by higher ground.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I'll move on. So I love the podcast.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: The first two episodes are out now on Spotify. I
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: love talking with you generally because you are a hopeful person.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like hope has kind of fallen out of
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: fashion these days.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Lots to be cynical about in the world, but sometimes
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the internet treats the most cynical takes as kind of gospel. Yeah.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I think we end up demoralizing ourselves, suppressing our own votes.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: So starting with a little hope here. What did you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: make of this big announcement today that Manchin and Schumer
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: have come together on a compromise bill that does a
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: lot on climate change, prescription drug costs, et cetera, et cetera?
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: What do you make of this thing?
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: Taxes, yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: I mean, listen, the conventional wisdom had been that this
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: was dead, that the democracy of one of a senator
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: in West Virginia had basically killed our hope at saving
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: life as we know it on the planet. And, you know,
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: although it's easy to feel like in a really distorted democracy,
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: something like that can happen. There was always a part
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: of me that said, like, no, that is not the
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: way this story is going to end. And the people
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: of West Virginia, activists that I have been speaking to
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: throughout the past two years, never gave up. They never
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: let down on the pressure on Joe Manchin. His colleagues
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: in the Senate never let down on the pressure. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: I think that the reality of our climate situation with
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: record temperatures across the globe with wildfires and storms, made
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: it clear that he was not going to be the
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: one to stand alone against the future of life as
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: we know it on the planet. And so this is
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: the largest investment in climate action that the U.S.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Government has ever taken.
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: It looks like it's going to hit about four-fifths of
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: the target of the original Build Back Better proposal.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: And, you know, it's a huge first start.
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: And if we can get it signed into law, obviously, right?
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: That's until we're sitting in the Rose Garden celebrating. I
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: don't want to, you know, I don't want to count
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: our chickens. But I think it is, for me, a
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: reminder that change is harder than we often like to imagine.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: And therefore, we need to have a lot more persistence.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Speaking of persistence, I listened to episode two of
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: the podcast this morning. And it is this fascinating story
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: about environmental justice in Memphis, Tennessee. Can you give us
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: just the backstory and kind of the lesson from your
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: time there? You hit the road and you were going
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: to states, meeting with real people, and it sounded pretty inspiring.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: So the whole idea of the Some of Us, the
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: podcast is to kind of pick up where the book
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: left off. The book left off with this idea that
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: because racism in our politics and our policymaking has a
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: cost for everyone, that people coming together across race to
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: actually put aside our divisions and gain from the collective
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: power that comes with collective action is going to be
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: the ticket to us winning big things. And in fact,
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: it's the only way we can push back against the
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: powerful forces that want to keep us divided. And so
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: I wanted to go around the country, particularly in this moment,
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: when frankly, all of us feel somewhere between frustration and
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: despair about the fact that getting a trifecta wasn't the
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: end of, wasn't the last.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: Fight we would have to fight, right?
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: And I just found all of these stories of ordinary people.
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, really like the protagonist in the story in
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: Memphis is an executive assistant at a nonprofit, a retired
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: social worker, You know, like it's just ordinary people who
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: see an injustice and take a small risk and then
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: take a bigger risk and then encourage other people to
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: take risks and they do it together. So in Memphis,
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: still one of the most segregated cities in the country,
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: there was a case of real environmental injustice. The Black neighborhoods,
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: namely this neighborhood called Boxtown, was, you know, polluted around
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: all sides. And there was a new pipeline that came
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: to town. The pipeline company said, we're going to build
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: a pipeline and we're going to cite it through what
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: one of the contract agents accidentally let slip. He said,
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: we're going to cite it through this neighborhood because it's the.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: Path of least resistance.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Yikes.
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: So that's, it's true, right? Historically, right?
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: It has been the easiest way to get a toxin
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: placed somewhere is to do it in a neighborhood with
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: low political capital. And those neighborhoods exist because of long
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: histories of segregation. But this community decided to fight back.
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: And then on the white part of town, which frankly
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: was not going to have a pipeline running through their backyards,
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: there were people who woke up to the fact that
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: it could threaten the water system of the city. There's
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: this huge natural resource called an aquifer under Memphis that
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: gives it some of the sweetest water in the world.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: They love their water.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: They love their water.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: They're obsessed with their water. Is this whiskey? What are
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you people talking about? It's water. Yeah.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I tasted it. It is really good water right out
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: of the tap.
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: And so there was really this unprecedented Black Memphis, White
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: Memphis coming together to build this cross-racial coalition called Memphis
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: Community Against the Pipeline.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: And they won.
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: And as one of the characters says, you don't fight
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: oil and gas.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: You don't beat oil and gas. And yet they did.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: They won. They stopped the pipeline.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: And I love how there's a young activist named Justin
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Pearson you spent a lot of time with. And it
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: was fascinating to hear him talk about how his activism
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: was inspired during, you know, the mid of 2020 when
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the George Floyd protests were happening. It just shows how
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: like these movements can become a spark that ignite in
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: all these different places across the country. It was really
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: inspiring to hear him talk. And look, a big lesson
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: from your work, you know, the podcast, the book, you know,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of the writing you've done is that racism
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: hurts everyone, right? And an oil pipeline goes through a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: black community in Memphis. It could poison. the well, literally, figuratively,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: for everyone in the city. And so the solution to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: stopping it is this multiracial coalition. And I thought it
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: was just so poignant and fitting that you start the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: episode by talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, because the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: last big movement he was leading was called the Poor
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: People's Campaign, which was this effort to bring together a
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: multiracial group of low-income people to pass anti-poverty legislation. And
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: then obviously he was murdered. I think it just sort
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: of spoke to the fact that racism is this individual
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: evil and feeling people have, but also it can be
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: a tool used by these powerful interests to preserve the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: status quo by dividing us. And it was just an
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: amazing story, I thought.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you.
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Memphis is where Dr. King was assassinated. And so
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: when I think of Memphis, that's what I think of.
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: I think of April 4th, the day he was taken
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: from us. And it was amazing to hear, you know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: not all of it made it into the tape, right?
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: But, you know, here, each of.
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: The characters reflect on where they were during the sanitation
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: worker strike, which was the final sort of set of
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: protests that Dr. King was there to participate in. and
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: where those characters were when he died. And the poor
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: people's campaign to me is emblematic of the promise of
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: American movement building.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Throughout our history.
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: The elite has used racist beliefs, us versus them, zero
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: sum scapegoating in order to convince white people that they
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: have more in common with the wealthy class of mostly
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: white folks than they do with other people who are
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: also struggling, who happen to be people of color. That
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: is a theme that is more prevalent now in our
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: politics in the era of Trumpism and the swing of
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: white working class voters away from the party of the
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: New Deal than it has been in my lifetime. That
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: is sort of, in my mind, the sort of single
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: most defining feature of our politics today. And so throughout
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: the podcast, as some of us, I do go mostly
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: actually to red and purple states And talk to people
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: who are trying to cross those divides and trying to
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: build a sense of collective action on the things that
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: matter to everybody, black, white, or brown, clean water, higher
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: pay at low paid jobs, better funded schools.
• 51:47
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm curious what you learned about what you
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: think the most effective activism is or the most effective strategies,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: because there historically are a lot of groups that focus
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: on one issue. And that's great. And they've done amazing work,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: but you also see this growing trend of making issues
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: as broad and intersectional as possible. And so, you know,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: what that means is some people might say, well, like
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: gun control is really a healthcare issue or, you know,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: like X ostensibly controversial social issue is actually about Y
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: ostensibly controversial social issue. And, you know, I often substantively agree,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: but I can't decide if that is confusing framing, if
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: it is, um, bringing groups together or has the potential
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: of shrinking your possible base of support because you're saying
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: this thing is also that thing and you have to
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: agree with this and that to fight for this. I
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: hope I'm not saying specifics. I don't want to like
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: single out any movements, but I'm curious what your take
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: is there.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: So my take is this.
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: The single most powerful force in changing someone's consciousness is
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: person-to-person relational organizing.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: And, you know, an example I'm thinking of right now
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: is a woman named Bridget Hughes, who is in an
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: episode that's coming up, a Kansas City episode about poverty work,
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: about she's a fast food worker. And she had the
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: kind of like conservative white working class consciousness blaming, you know,
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: immigrants for taking good jobs and thinking that Black people
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: were lazy and yet herself working hard. for her lifetime
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: in low paid minimum wage fast food work. And when
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: she first got approached about the fight for 15, she
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: was like, there's no way they're ever going to pay
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: people like me $ 15 an hour. And she's a character
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: in the book. And I went back to Kansas city
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: to spend more time for the episode in the podcast.
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: And I really got to understand how it actually was
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: seeing another worker from another fast food company, but across
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: town who was black, take a risk because he had
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: the same life as her, you know, for all intents
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: and purposes, the same economic struggles. And he took this
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: risk to organize and he was just as afraid as
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: she was to.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: Go out on strike. And it was in seeing him
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: do that, that gave her courage.
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: And I just really feel like in some ways, activism
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: about the things that really matter the most. Like there
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: was nothing more important to her as a mom than
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: being able to keep the lights on and put food
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: on the table.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And that's what really mattered.
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: And sure, once she was in the movement and organizing
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: all the time and volunteering, you know, she could think
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: about other issues, but like you do have to actually
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: get at for, if you really want to organize, not
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: people who are, have a lot of leisure time, but Um,
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: but people who are really busy and struggling, then you
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: have to go at what is the source of the pain?
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: What is the thing that can totally transform their lives
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: if you fix it and you don't do it online. Um,
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: and you don't do it through politician speaking. You really
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: do it through one-to-one relational organizing and movement building.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It's funny how that is still the most effective way,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: despite all the tools and all the promises of online
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: this and digital that, um, So I teed you up
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: at the beginning as a hopeful person. We're about 100
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: days out from the midterms. By the way, go to votesaveamerica.com
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: slash 100 days if you want to get involved. Are
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: you feeling hopeful about these midterms? What are you thinking?
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: How are we going to do? Because you worked on
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of campaigns too.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: So I'm feeling more hopeful than I was 30 days ago,
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: 60 days ago, 90 days ago. I think that the
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: more time passes, the better the polling is going to
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: be and the more likely it is that it's going
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: to not be the kind of blowout that a lot
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: of the indicators, you know, like inflation and top of
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: the ticket or top of the party approval numbers would suggest.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: We can all prognosticate, but what it comes down to
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: is are we volunteering? Are we working as hard as
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: we did in 2020? And it feels impossible to ask
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: people and ourselves to do that again, because it feels
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: like we left it all out on the field. But
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: there is no reason that this radical fringe Republican party
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: should capture any form of governing power at the national
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: level ever again in our society, except if we let
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: them basically.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, I think the
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: biggest The biggest challenge is not necessarily like inflation or
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's approval. It's like, okay, so we hope that
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: this huge bill will be passed in a week or
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: two by the Senate. We then have to communicate with
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: people in the country about what's in it, what the
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party has been doing, the choice, the extremity of
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: the MAGA movement, the extremity of Trump judges overturning Roe
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: versus Wade and ripping away abortion rights from women in
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: all these states. And there's just no guarantee these days,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I think, that people hear that information, right? I mean,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: some of them go to like Breitbart for their news.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Some of them don't watch news, you know, and like
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: reaching those people, it might just be through knocking on
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: their doors or this relational organizing. They get a text
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: from their cousin, like whatever it might be. And that's
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: where the hard work comes in.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: And the piece that's missing in that is that means
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: that the Democratic Party activists, the progressive activists, have to
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: be active again.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Because we're the ones doing the door knocking. We're the
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: ones sending those texts, right? We're the ones signing up
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: for those volunteer shifts.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: And what I think that the potential breakthrough on the
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: climate tax, on the Biden agenda, basically, on the Democratic agenda,
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: could do is help to give us that crucial piece,
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: which is make us feel like the Democratic Party is
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: worth fighting for.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: Because they fought for us.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're the ones we've been waiting for, as someone
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: once said. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama once said. Heather, the podcast is fantastic. It's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: The Sum of Us. It's available now on Spotify. Great
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: to see you again. Thank you for doing the show.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: And congratulations.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Labor of love, you can tell.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you again, Heather McGee, for joining the show. Thank you, Adisu,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: who's still here. Sometimes we just leave little Easter eggs
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: of bullshit in the outro. You know, here's a topic.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I'm a Celtics fan. You're a Warriors fan.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Go Doves. Champions. The champions. The four-time champion, Golden State Warriors.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: In fact, I don't know if we're going to be
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: able to put.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: This on camera, but I just put on my Warriors
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: championship hat that I bought at the finals.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: That's actually a You guys have cool gear too. That's
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: one of the annoying things about it. It's like good color.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: It's a good logo. Have you been to the new stadium?
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: I went, so I got COVID at the end of
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: April during the playoffs. And I was being rightly, I
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: think was being pretty cautious with my young son. And
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: once I recovered from COVID, I was like, okay, I
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: got to take advantage of these antibodies.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: So I went to a couple of games in the playoffs.
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: So I did.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: Uh, and then by the way, I got COVID again
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, so stay masked. This BA
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: five is not taking any prisoners. Um, uh, yeah, twice
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: in the last couple of months, but, uh, but yes,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: I went to like three or four playoff games and, uh,
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: it was awesome.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: It was awesome, honestly, to be back in the crowd
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: with folks. I think we all missed that.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: But Awesome to see my team win a championship again
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: and beat yours. And to see Draymond troll the shit
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: out of the Celtics afterwards.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: He was very mean. No, DC tried to send me
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: like a nice note checking in on other things in life.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: And I was like, before you say something about that series,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want to fucking hear it. Okay. Well, that's
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a sufficiently painful outro. So thanks everyone for listening. And
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: we'll be back on Monday. Pod Save America is a
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producer is Haley Muse,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: and Olivia Martinez is our associate producer. It's mixed and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Kibi Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montufe. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.