Latest / Pod Save America / “The empty National Mall in Trump’s heart.” (July 4th Mailbag)

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“The empty National Mall in Trump’s heart.” (July 4th Mailbag) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Later in the pod, Tommy's interview with Marcel McClinton, a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: young activist in Texas who just graduated from high school
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and is now running for the Houston City Council. You
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: might have seen Marcel in the documentary Running with Beto.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We met Marcel during the documentary. He is just a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: phenomenal young talent and got involved in politics because of shootings.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: And now he's gone from being an activist to actually
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: trying to run for office. as just a high school graduate.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And so he's a pretty great guy, so check that out. Also,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: make sure to check out our new Crooked mini-series, Reclaiming Patriotism.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: What does patriotism mean? Who gets to call themselves a patriot?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And how does politics play into that? The series will
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: be hosted by Ken Harbaugh, a former Navy pilot and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives. Ken will sit
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: down with people you've heard of, like Pete Buttigieg, Tammy Duckworth,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and Barbara Lee. along with people you might not have
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: heard of, to explore the roles that dissent, inclusion, empathy,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and reckoning play in our current understanding of patriotism. Subscribe
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to Crooked Minis wherever you get your podcasts to listen.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It's Ken's fantastic guy. I spoke to him for the series, too.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited about it, so check it out. Also,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We're going on tour again soon. We will be in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Denver on July 17th at the Belco Theater and in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City on July 18th at the Eccles Theater.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: The shows will be co-hosted by Hysteria's Aaron Ryan, so
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: make sure to come see us live. You can still
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: get tickets at crooked.com slash events.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, John, is there anything big in the news happening
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: that week that we might be able to talk about?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. Bobby Three Sticks finally going to Congress.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Money.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The Mueller hearings.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: That's Bob Mueller for those of you who don't follow
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the podcast that closely.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't give him the nickname. But anyway, yeah,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: he's finally testifying on that Wednesday. So we'll talk about
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: it in Denver Wednesday night, and we'll probably talk about
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: it more in Salt Lake on Thursday night. So that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: should be an interesting week, hopefully. All right, should we
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: jump into our second annual July 4th mailbag? Is it
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the second annual? I don't even know.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I think we've been doing July 4th mailbags since the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: beginning of time.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Since the beginning of time. Forever, we've been doing this. Okay.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Christina from Twitter asks, what is going on with this
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: 4th of July Trump extravaganza in D.C.? I realize on
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the list of amazingly shitty things happening, it is at
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the list, but it's just so mind-bogglingly ridiculous.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I agree, Christina. I agree. Dan, I was reading stories
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: about this last night, and it started getting me upset.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And I, it was one of the things that I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: didn't want to get upset about because there's too many
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: other things to get upset about in the news. So
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I tried to avoid the whole July 4th thing. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: then I actually started reading the stories and I was like,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: what the fuck is going on right now? Yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It's actually worse than you think it is.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, if, if we had been sitting here maybe
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: at the, I don't know, three years ago, July 4th
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: mailbag and someone had said, is it possible that Trump
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: would be holding a authoritarian style campaign military parade on
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the 4th of July from the Lincoln Monument, people would
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: have been like, that's a crazy thing to say, you
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory loving liberals. But no, that's what's happening. And
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: not only are we trucking tanks from the far regions
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of the country to come here to fill the giant
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: mall of insecurity inside of Donald Trump, the RNC is
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: also giving away tickets to donors. So we have a
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: perfect marriage of an event that could that takes American
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: patriotism and uses it to fuel Donald Trump's narcissism, his authoritarianism,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and his corruption all at once. So it's fucking great.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, when we lived in D.C. and Obama
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: was in the White House, the 4th of July in D.C.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was a very fun holiday. It was nonpartisan. It was
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: open to the public. there were musical acts from across
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the political spectrum. It didn't matter, you know, what party
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you were from. It was, it was just a, a
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: fun thing to do a celebration of the country. And
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: now it's basically.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Obama didn't go. That's an important point. He was not
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: involved in the fireworks.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. He would, he sort of watched from the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: white house with his family and, you know, there were
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: events at the white house as well, but the, the,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the official celebration was for the public. Um, This isn't patriotism.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: This is jingoism. This is Donald Trump feeling the need
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: to roll tanks into Washington, D.C. You know where they
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: got the tanks from? From fucking Georgia, man. They transported
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: tanks from a military base in Georgia to D.C. for
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's fucking parade. Think of all the military personnel,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: by the way, that have had to rearrange their plans.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: They're serving our country, and now they have to, you know...
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: make extra time to fulfill Donald Trump's fucking militaristic fantasies here.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: He's got the, all of the military chiefs have to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: stand next to Donald Trump while they play the different
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: anthems for the different branches of the military or whatever. It's,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: it's really wild. And just the fact that it's like
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a fucking RNC event that they're like handing out, you know, as,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: as usual, he's grifting, like they've doubled the prices at
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the Trump hotel. So it's a good thing that the,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: president of the United States is going to make money
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: off of July 4th this year.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. It's certainly not patriotism.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: This should be added to the list of things that
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: should be investigated, for sure.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: It probably won't be. We'll send a sternly worded letter,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: and then when we don't get a response, we'll move
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: on to something else.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Jennifer from Twitter asks, Canadian here, could you please explain
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: why Iowa is so important? What do you got, Dan?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Do you want to start or do you want me
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: to start?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I'll start. I'll start. Go for it. Okay. So, Iowa. Well, obviously,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it's first in the nation, so it's the first time
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: that people will actually choose a candidate. They choose it
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in a caucus. And, look, there's a lot of arguments
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: you can make against Iowa and against the caucuses. It is...
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a very white state. It is a state that is
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: not really demographically representative of the country. Caucuses are often
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: difficult for working people to participate in. You have to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: come out at night, usually on a cold, snowy night
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, and you have to sit around for a
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: long time. It takes a lot more work than voting.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So are there all the negatives? I think the positives
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: are it is the It is the closest thing to
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: pure democracy that you'll see in politics. Because I think
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: one thing that we have to worry about today in
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: this media age is that campaigns become run on television
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or online. And they're run by super PACs who can
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: pay a lot of money for ads. And, you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: all you see of the candidates is their soundbites during debates.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And then you see them on television and you see
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: them in some kind of scary attack ad. And that's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: all you know of a candidate. And that's not a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: really great way to pick a president. And in Iowa,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: it forces these candidates in both the Democratic and Republican primaries,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: when there is a Republican primary, to travel around the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: state to all 99 counties, or hopefully all 99 counties,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: if you get a good campaign, and meet with people
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and listen to them and answer their questions and campaign
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: door to door. And it is about activism and it
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: is about organizing. And there's an argument to be made
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that if you can, you know, the ultimate thing that
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: we're looking for here is not just voting, though voting
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is incredibly important, but it's to be active in politics,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to participate, to organize. That's how we succeed. That's how
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: we bring about real change. And so if you're a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: campaign who can bring people out in a cold Iowa
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: night to organize for you and to convince their neighbors
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: to organize and to back you, That shows real strength
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: as a candidate, and it shows a real organization, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I think there's something worthwhile to that.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. It's a proving ground for a candidate's
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: ability to handle tough questions. It's a proving ground for
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: a campaign's ability to organize voters. Also, it just happens
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: to be that the winner of the Iowa caucus won
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: the Democratic nomination in the year 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2016.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And it's important that like these things happen in phases, right?
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: This is a little bit like, you know, the NCAA tournament,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the primaries are, it's like win in advance. And if
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: you win Iowa or do well in Iowa, then you
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: have a chance in New Hampshire and then Nevada and
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: South Carolina. And if you do poorly, your campaign is
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: probably over. So this, this, it serves a function of
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: winnowing the field and all of the polling that happens
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: in the States that come after Iowa will be completely
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: upended by what happens in Iowa. So for better or
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: for worse, The best way to win the Democratic nomination
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: is to win Iowa. And the fastest way out of
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the Democratic campaign is to do poorly in Iowa.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Clint from Twitter asks, what's the best strategy against
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Trump and the Rust Belt states, in your opinion? you
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: want to start with this one.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Sure i think it's a two uh prong strategy which
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: is we need a populist progressive economic message that takes
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: on the powerful interests that have made this economy um
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: unfair to working people, right? Working and middle-class people that
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: is taking on the banks. It is, um, give it,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: it's taking on the wealthy who are getting wealthier. It
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: is a progressive populist message. That's, we need a positive
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: agenda that speaks to that. On the other side, as importantly,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: if not more importantly, we need an argument that shows
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: that Trump ran as a populist, but governed as a corporatist,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: that he, despite promising, um, that he's going to stand
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: for working people. His signature initiative was to give a
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: massive tax break to the wealthiest Americans and Wall Street
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: banks and huge corporations, and that he plans to pay
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: for it by cutting your Medicare and making your health
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: care more expensive. So we have to disqualify Trump as
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a champion of working people. But to do that, you
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: also have to have a place for them to go,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: which shows that you have an agenda that speaks to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the very real anxieties that Americans have in this economy,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: despite high, you know, high Dow Jones, high stock market
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: performance and in low unemployment.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Midwest, I know they don't
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: like being called Rust Belt states, the Midwest, Midwestern states,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: especially industrial Midwestern states, that's the place to show that
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is full of shit and has been full
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: of shit for a long time. You know, He promised
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: you better health care. He tried to take it away.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: He promised you higher wages. He gave tax cuts to billionaires.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: He promised you that jobs would come back to America.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Look at all these factories that are still closing. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: has your life really improved because of this man at all?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And if not, here are some ideas that may actually
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: improve your life. So vote for a Democrat instead. I mean,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I would look at the campaigns run by Sherrod Brown
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, by Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. These are progressive
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: senators who didn't give an inch when it came to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: issues of racial justice, social justice, um, anything like that,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: didn't give an inch. And yet they, their focus was on, um,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: economic populism and they were able to win, uh, Sheridan, a,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a pretty red state now, Ohio and, uh, Tammy Baldwin
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in a state that, uh, that, uh, Trump just won
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: by a hair. So, I would look at those politicians
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and those campaigns to emulate what they did.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: One point I think is important here is that I
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: don't think this was the subtext of this questioner's question,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: but the debate about what Democrats do in the quote
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: unquote Rust Belt, Midwest, et cetera, is often within the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: context of the political media, a proxy for how do
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: you win over white working class Trump voters? And I
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: think it's important to note that we believe that that
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: there is not a specific strategy for the Rust Belt.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I think this strategy that we just laid out is
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: also the way to win Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Virginia,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: and every other fucking state in the country. And the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: point is that you have to have a strong focus
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: on the economy and a focus on working middle-class people
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: of all races and all backgrounds of all parts of
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: the country, and that there is not some unique secret
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Rosetta Stone language that works for white people who live,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: you know, In the excerpts of Cleveland, this is about
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: a progressive populist economic agenda that shows that you are
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: fighting for working people and against the powerful interests who
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: are getting won over on the American people.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your message should be appealing to white working class Americans.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It should also be appealing to black working class Americans
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and Latino working class Americans. And there is plenty of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: overlap between all of the demographic groups in this country
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: or at least most of the democratic demographic groups in
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: this country except uh... you know the richest assholes that
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Trump cares about and uh... and your message should be
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: able to reach all of those people Russell from Twitter
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: asks how big of a fear should it be that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the democratic nominee wins the popular vote by four five
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: six or more million thanks to closing gaps in Georgia
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Texas and other states but still loses the electoral college
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to Trump hard to even type that without throwing phone
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: across room Russell, I hear you, man. I just smashed
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: my iPad on the floor.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should be very afraid of that. There is
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: a fundamental misalignment in this country where the population writ
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: large is getting more progressive, more democratic, and the mechanism
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: by which we pick our presidents, the Electoral College, is
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: getting potentially more Republican, more conservative. The weight given to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a set of states whose demographic trends are moving against
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Democrats goes up because they are moving faster in that
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: direction than states like Texas, Georgia have been moving in
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: the Democratic direction today.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So it is.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Very possible that were Trump to win the Electoral College again,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: that he would lose the popular vote by a margin
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: greater than he did in 2016, which will make for
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: some pretty amazing conspiracy theories coming out of the White
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: House in that second term. But yeah, we should We
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: should be worried about, like we always say, worry about everything,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: panic about nothing. Put this on the worry list.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, looking at the map, Dan, it seems like
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the states that I feel most focused on are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and then Arizona is sort of like the new swing
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: state that in the Sun Belt actually might flip to us,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: partly because Kyrsten Sinema won there in 2018. I feel
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: like as we talk about politics and as we talk
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: about Democrats' ability to win, we should think about the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: electorates in those four states. Who votes in those states?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: What's the makeup? What do those voters care about? It
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: seems to me that that's most important. Would you agree?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Are you taking Florida off that list?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I'm just so fucking sick of Florida. No, I think, obviously,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Florida is a 50-50 state. Florida is always going to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: be a 50-50 state. It's been the one consistent thing
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: about Florida for... a few decades now is that no,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: whether it's won by a Democrat or Republican and a presidential,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: it's always very, very close. But yeah, I guess, I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: guess I would look at Florida too.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the problem we have, and this could change,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: but in the 2008, 2012 elections, Democrats had like dozens
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: of paths to 270 because we could put all these
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: different states on the map, everything from Indiana and North
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Carolina in 2008 to Florida, North Carolina in In 2012,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Ohio and Iowa were competitive states, ones that Obama did
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: quite well in. But if you take 2016 as the
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: measure and you believe, as many do, that Ohio and
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Iowa have moved firmly into the lean Republican categories, and
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not 100% sure that's how it's going to be
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and that you know, a nominee of a certain type
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: could potentially bring them back into the map. But we
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: just have a very limited path. We have to win
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: those three states back from Trump of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And those are probably more likely just based on past
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: history than Arizona, only because it's an unproven thing. But
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: that should be watched very carefully. I also would not
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: take North Carolina and Georgia off that map. Georgia has
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: never been truly competitive. What Stacey Abrams did in 2018
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: was in was absolutely incredible. You do run against tremendous
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: voter suppression in that state, which is another problem in
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Florida as well, where they basically make it impossible to
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: register voters, although Andrew Gillum is putting in efforts to
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: try to deal with that. So I think all those
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: states matter. And you just want to keep as many
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: paths open to yourself as possible so that you don't
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: have to draw an inside straight to win, which is
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: what Trump had to do to win in 2016 and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: unfortunately did.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Mrs.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Schwinn from Twitter asks, when will you have Bernie Sanders
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: on for an interview? Anytime. We're trying, Mrs. Schwinn. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: actually think that we've made some progress on that front.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I believe Tanya has been in contact with his campaign.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So I think we're making progress on the Bernie Sanders front.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: We have made less progress on the Joe Biden front,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that we all know him and worked
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: with him.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Uh can't seem to get joe biden on the pod
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: been trying to reach out to his staff not a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: lot of success so uh if you see joe biden
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: let him know come on pod save america because we're.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Getting close to doing the full monty of the 712 candidates.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Right you know we are you just interviewed michael bennett
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: was here yesterday uh that pod is up great guy
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: we had a great we had a good time with
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: michael bennett here and then um We're down to Bill
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: de Blasio and Tulsi Gabbard and John Delaney. Ooh, sorry,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: John Delaney.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: John Delaney will not let you forget his name. He
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: will interrupt you.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: If you do. Yeah, so that's what we're down to.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we, of course, would love to have Sanders
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and Biden on soon, too. Adam from Twitter asks, why
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: is it harder to poll Nevada? And is there a
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: reason it can't be polled and just not aggregated with
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the other early states if the methodology would be different?
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Adam asked that question because our first poll with Change Research,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: we did early states. We did Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: We did not do Nevada because it is hard to poll. Dan,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: why is Nevada hard to poll?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Well, there have only ever been... two Democratic caucuses in
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the history of Nevada. It started in 2008, then we
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: had another one in 2016. And caucuses are just very
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: hard to poll because it's very hard to figure out
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: who goes to a caucus because it's a very small
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: percentage of the overall electorate. And The reason why people
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: are more successful at polling the Iowa caucus, although many
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: people are not successful at it. There are a handful
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: like Ann Selzer, who was with us in Des Moines
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: during our Iowa show, who were very good at it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: But there's a long history of figuring out who goes
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: to the Iowa caucus. It's something that people in Iowa
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: know a lot about. A lot of people in Nevada
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: don't know about the caucus. It's just such a new thing.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: And John Ralston, who is the godfather of media in
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that state, um, was critical of us for deciding not
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: to do it. Um, saying you could probably figure it
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: out and, and people will probably get closer to doing
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: it and people should get better at it because it's
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: an important state. We just didn't want to give a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: false impression of, of candidates strengths in the early states
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: by having a sample that, that was incorrect from that
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: state when we felt more confident about the ability to
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: get them in the three states. It's, It's hard. There's
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: just not a lot of experience in it. And because
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it's hard, a lot of people don't try to do it.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And so then there's not a lot of track record either.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Angela from Twitter asks, how concerned should people be
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: about whether 2020 will actually be a fair and trustworthy election,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: given all we know about foreign hacking and interference and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the lack of this administration's effort to protect electoral integrity?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Very concerned, Angela. Very concerned.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: We should all be very, very concerned because... And this
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: is just common sense. If you're Vladimir Putin and you've
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: conducted a completely successful operation against the United States in
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: 2016 that resulted in your favorite candidate being elected, partly, probably,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: because of the operation you conducted, the hacking and theft
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of Democratic emails and a social media campaign, why wouldn't
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you try it again? If you're another country that wants
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to fuck with the United States, why wouldn't you try it?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump clearly hasn't been doing anything himself to protect
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the elections. I guess we're hoping that somewhere in the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: bowels of the federal government, there are people who are
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan career officials who are trying to protect this nation
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: from another attack on our election. So we hope that's true.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: We also take some small comfort in the fact that
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: states largely run their elections. And so it's not the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: province of the federal government. And so hopefully, um, various
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: states are doing whatever they can to protect their elections. But, um,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm pretty worried about it. I don't think
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the media has learned any lessons from 2016 and how
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to cover, you know, stolen emails or hacked information. They
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: would probably cover it the same way they covered it
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in 2016 because they don't seem like they've learned any
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: lessons at all. That's how I feel about that. It is.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Those are my feelings as well.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Fucking asinine and backwards that we run our federal elections
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: based on different state laws and that you have a
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: different access to voting depending on what state you're born in.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It is so fucking stupid. But the small upside is
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: it creates more hacking targets for the Russians. So it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: harder to do than just hacking one place. So take
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that cold comfort, people.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Janine on Facebook. Can you spend some time talking about
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the various health care policies in the mix for the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: 2020 primary? I know there's Medicare for All and Medicare
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: for America. Is Medicare for America a public option? Are
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: there any legitimate other options in the debate right now?
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: My dad likes Medicare for All, but is under the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: impression that you'd buy supplemental insurance like older people do now.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Is that a thing? I just feel like I don't
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: have a good grasp on where we are with the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: healthcare debate right now. Thanks. We hear you, Janine. It's
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: very confusing. All right, I'll try to start, and you
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: interrupt me if I've fucked something up. So let's start
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: with the public option. And there's various different types of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: public options, or they're called buy-ins. They've been proposed by
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in Congress. They've been proposed by
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: some of the presidential candidates. Basically, what would happen then
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is on the exchange, which is the Affordable Care Act exchange,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: where you'd buy other health insurance plans that are private,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: there would be one option that would be a government-run plan.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And you could buy an insurance plan based off the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: government plan. You would still pay some sort of premium,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: some sort of copay, some sort of deductible. It would
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: cover a certain number of services that the government says
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that it has to cover, much like the Affordable Care
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Act has to cover now. And that would be that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: It would be affordable. It would probably be more affordable
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: than all of the other private insurance plans. And the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: hope is that because the public option would be more
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: affordable and more efficient, more people would join that public
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: option and it would force the private insurance plans that
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: are also on the market to be better, to be cheaper,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to be more efficient because they're now competing with a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: government plan that is pretty cheap and efficient. So that's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the idea for a buy-in public option. Uh, then you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: go up to Medicare for America, Medicare for America, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: this was a bill introduced by Jan Schakowsky, uh, and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Rosa DeLauro in the house. Um, This starts to look
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a lot more like Medicare for All, but it's not
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: quite there yet. What Medicare for America says is everyone
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: who's currently uninsured in the country would automatically enroll in Medicare.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: They would be enrolled in a Medicare program. Everyone who
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: is currently buying health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: on the exchanges, would automatically be enrolled in Medicare, in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a Medicare plan. Every newborn would automatically be enrolled in
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a Medicare plan. And the reason that is, is because
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: ultimately this is basically a long, long transition period into
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: full Medicare because, and that's why we're having newborns in it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Basically though, private insurance, some private insurance would still remain.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So if you're an employer, you have a choice. You
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: can either continue with your private insurance plan for your employees,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: or you can decide I'm going to enroll the whole
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: company in Medicare as well. So employers have that choice.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: If you are an employee and you have private insurance
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: with your employer. You can decide either I like my
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: employer's private insurance plan or I kind of like that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Medicare plan that everyone else is getting into. So you
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: can decide as an employee to enroll in Medicare. This
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Medicare program would cover a whole suite of services. You
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: would still pay some premiums, but it would be a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: sliding scale. So lower income people would pay nothing, no co-pays,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: no deductibles, no out-of-pockets. And higher income people would pay
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: up to, the highest income people would pay up to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: 10% of their income in premiums. And I think it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: like $ 5, 000 out of pocket, some lower deductible, basically much
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: cheaper than it is now, much more affordable than it
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: is now. And it would be financed, I think, on
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: repealing the Trump tax cuts, something like a 5% income
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: tax on people making $ 500, 000 or more. and a suite
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of other sort of high-end taxes to pay for it,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: but it comes with a fully financed plan. So that's
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Medicare for America. Then you have Medicare for All. In
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Medicare for All, what happens is the private insurance market
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: is eliminated. There is some insurance, private insurance, that you
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: can buy for like cosmetic stuff, but that's about it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: You can't get your primary care doctor from private insurance.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It's all one government plan. Now, one thing people don't
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: often think about is, You do get to keep your
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: doctor because every doctor in the country is now under
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Medicare for all. And so everyone is in the same network.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Everyone is under the same plan. There are no premiums,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: no deductibles, no copayments. Medicare would expand to cover dental, vision,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: prescription drugs. So Medicare covers everything. So this is like
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the full suite of everything you've got. The challenge of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: this plan is the financing. because basically Medicare would pay
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Medicare reimbursement rates to every doctor, every healthcare provider, every
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: hospital in the entire country. And they're used to getting
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: paid a lot more right now from private insurance companies.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And so it would be a difficult transition for hospitals, doctors,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: everyone else to figure out how to adjust to those
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: new rates. And people who put out Medicare for All
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: plans don't necessarily have a financing plan. Bernie Sanders released
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: sort of a suite of possibilities with various tax increases
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: on wealthy people. But most experts look at this and say,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you're probably going to have to raise taxes even on
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: middle-class folks. Now, what Bernie would say is, yes, there
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: might be a tax increase, but you're also not paying
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: health care premiums or co-pays or deductibles anymore. So in
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the end, it probably washes out. Did I do that right?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Those all the points?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, sure. It seemed great. I believed every word
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: of it. It was really good. It was a very good,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: succinct explanation. And I wish, I know this is impossible
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: to do in debates, but these differences between people's plans,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: the impacts of who they impacted, how they impacted people,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: it's just very hard to communicate in 90-second debate increments.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's a very useful exercise.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: That was longer than 90 seconds for sure. Okay, Tara
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: from Twitter asks, if Ivanka actually had experience that warranted
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: her a job as advisor to the president, Would it
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: still be okay to pop into a conversation among world
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: leaders like that? Like, is it normal for advisors to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: mingle with heads of state like that at summits? Or
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: just if you're deluded? Go ahead, Dan.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Well, John, I also, like Ivanka, was a senior advisor
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: to the president. I was frequently patronized. around with world leaders.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I'd stop in. I'd see David Cameron for tea. I'd
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: say hi to Abe. No, of course it's not fucking normal.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: It's weird. Ivanka Trump is staff. And there was a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: fundamental difference between staff and principal. And staff, stay away
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: from principals. She should talk to the staff members of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: those leaders and not walk around pretending like she is royalty,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: which is, I know what goes on in her head
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: and what the Trump think they are, that she has
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: something more than a government staffer, but she is a
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: government staffer who just happens to be the daughter of
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: our moron president.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Remember when we were in, uh, the UK for the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: state visit and we were at that reception and Obama
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: introduced us, it was, uh, you, me and Alyssa to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the queen. Like, we almost passed out and didn't know
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: what to say.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Cause I had zoned out when the, when the
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: protocol people were telling me whether you were, how you
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: were supposed to like touch or not touch the queen.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: So I was really, I was definitely afraid of having a, uh,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: major diplomatic incident.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And the way that you guys handled that is you
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and Alyssa pushed me in front of you both. So
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I had to do it first.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: So it worked out very well. It worked out great.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: She's lovely woman. Very nice meeting her, but I was
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: not going to then, uh, Just, you know, ask her
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: her thoughts on fucking, you know, trade agreements or whatever
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Ivanka was talking about. All right. Casey from Twitter asks,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: what do you think the best way to curb propaganda
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: would be? Obviously, you can't just ban Fox News and Breitbart,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: but you'd think there'd be some sort of punishment for
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: intentionally misleading the American people. Yes, you would, Casey. Dan,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I included this question because I really wanted to hear
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on it because I know this is something
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you think about quite a bit.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: There is not a simple solution. If we still lived
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: in the world where everyone got their news through television,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: you could reinstate something like the Fairness Doctrine or some
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: other thing where there are some standards by which you
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: got access to the public airwaves because that's how people
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: get it. But we now live in the internet.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Age.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And so there are an infinite number of outlets by
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: which people can communicate with the public, either as news
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: or fake news or propaganda or whatever else. And so
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: we can't, if you were to, somehow, if we were
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: to get, convince enough people, enough companies to stop advertising
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: on Fox News and it collapsed from within, that would
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: be a giant victory for American democracy. But there would
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: be something to replace it because there is a market
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: for right-wing propaganda. And there has been for a long time,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: even before the Trump era. Rush Limbaugh and these guys
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: got really rich in the 90s doing talk radio, and
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: then they moved it to TV. And now Breitbart and
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: The Daily Caller and all these other god-awful sites are
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: quite successful in the digital age. And so the key
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: is not... I don't think there was a way to
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: get rid of propaganda. So there's a couple of things
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that I think we should do. One is Media literacy
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: should be something that is taught in schools. And that
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: is not to make somebody liberal or conservative. It's to
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: help people have the skill set to determine what is
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: real and what is not, what is objective and what
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: is subjective. Second, we have to build out an aggressive,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: progressive media infrastructure along the lines of certainly what you, Tommy,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: and Lovett are doing with Crooked Media, but there are
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: other entities out there as well. But I think one
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: thing we can take away from the Trump era is
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: that the quote-unquote traditional media, the quote-unquote objective media, is
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: incapable of fighting back on propaganda.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: It's not even that they don't want to or they're incompetent.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: They cannot do it. The business model, the reach of
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: traditional media is insufficient as long as Facebook and other
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: social media platforms, which are fueled by outrage-rigged algorithms, as
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: long as that is the main distributor of news and
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: information in this country, there's no way to compete. So
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: we have to build this aggressive, progressive media infrastructure that
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: can speak to people about facts, truth, can push back
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: on the conspiracy theory and the lies are being pushed
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: by the right. We have to have entities who can
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: push content into the Facebook ecosystem to try to shift
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: the conversation closer to the middle. I'm trying to shift
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: it to the left. It is so far rightward right now.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: We have to shift it to the middle. um by
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: having more content in there to help get the message
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: out to democrats to the extent that there is hope
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: for the future i do have some hope that one
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: of the problems we have right now is that we're
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: in this weird notch generation of media consumption particularly for
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: older americans which is they grew up in an era
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: where you had every reason to believe that if you
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: saw something on tv you read it in the newspaper
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: that it was someone's best attempt at giving you the
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: facts No one thought the media was flawless, but that
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: someone was trying to give you the truth. And then
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we moved information onto Facebook. And
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: so now you have older Americans who use Facebook at
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: a shockingly high rate seeing information that they would generally
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: believe to be true because it comes packaged like news.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: And it is not. Younger Americans, people who grew up
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: with the internet in their lives from the day they
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: were born, are much better consumers of news, much better.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: They have both the skepticism about things they read on
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the internet and the skills to fact-check the information to
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: find out whether it's true or not. And so there
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: is some hope that as the millennial generation and the
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: ones that come after it age into the electorate, the
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: power of right-wing propaganda will diminish. The only problem we
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: have in the short term is misaligned timelines between the
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: melting of the fucking planet and millennials being the the
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: primary most dominant only force in politics.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's a great answer. And I
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: think it is super hopeful. And the key is that
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: those other outlets have to be there for young people
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: to actually get their information from in a way that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: is entertaining and interesting and catches their attention. So yeah,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I'm all for more crooked medias. And also, You should read,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: if you haven't yet, that New York Times piece from
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago. We were going to talk about
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: it when we were on the road. We didn't have time.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: That Kevin Roos wrote about sort of these right-wing YouTubers
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: who are spreading all kinds of propaganda and sort of
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: radicalizing a lot of young people. And the hope in
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: that story is there is now popping up a bunch
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: of sort of left-wing YouTubers who are using some of
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the same memes, language, phrases, that the right wing YouTubers
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: are in order to sort of work the algorithm in
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a way that sends people to them and their message
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: instead of just the right wing YouTubers. And so they
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: are starting to fight back at some of the propaganda.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And I do think that is, like you said, that's
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the future here is that we're not going to ever
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: fully end the propaganda on the right, but we have
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to battle it with our own truth and facts and,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you know, our own message. And so I do think
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: that's the future. And, If you want to hear more
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: of this conversation, I'm just going to do a plug now.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Listen to the episode of The Wilderness on the media
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that we did. There's more Dan. There's Tanya Somenator, who's brilliant,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: works at Crooked Media, and all kinds of smart people
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: on media and politics talking about what actually has to
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: be done. So check that out.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say one more thing about this, which
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I think is important that I left out in my
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: initial overly long spiel, but is every one of us
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: has agency in this, which is we are all on
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: these social media platforms. We all see... the fake news
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: or the conspiracy theories or the right-wing propaganda that is
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: being spread not just to a willing audience. It's not
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: just preaching to the choir because all of our social
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: networks and our social graphs are intermingled. So when you
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: share something, you're going to share something that will be
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: seen by your fellow progressive friends, but also your non-political friends.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: And I use friends in the Facebook version of that word,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: your conservative uncle. And So in addition to everyone on
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: their own trying to find ways to fight back– and
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying– I'm not arguing that you get into
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: a comments argument with your uncle or anyone else. I'm
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: saying instead sharing countervailing content that proves that what was
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: out there is wrong. And it is incredibly important, and
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: I think the urgency for this is this election, is
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: that campaigns or technology firms build tools that would allow
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: you to have at your fingertips– information that you can
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: share on social media to your network to respond to
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Trump's absurdity of day, to show why he said what
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: was wrong, to amplify a message of the day. We
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: have to alter the algorithmic-based conversation in these social media
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: platforms so that more can be seen. Basically, you have
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about the direction
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: of this country walking around with a supercomputer in their
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: pocket and an average of 300 Facebook friends who they
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: could be communicating with on a daily basis. They have
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: an average of 100-some Instagram followers and hundreds upon hundreds
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: of people in their contacts that if we can map
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: that information to the voter file and then give them
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: information about how to reach the right people there, that
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: we can make a huge difference. But everyone can fight
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: back on this. It's not Fox News against Crooked Media.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: It's Fox News and everyone else against the entire country,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and the entire country.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Has to fight back. Against democracy-loving Americans. All right. David
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: on Facebook asks, we saw a lot of conversions on
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: policy during the debates, particularly around climate. That is potentially
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: a good thing, but how do you see this panning
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: out on the campaign trail? Is there still a case
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to be made for a primary climate debate when the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: candidates don't seem that far apart? So I added this
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: question because when activists were first and Jay Inslee as well,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: sort of demanding a climate-only debate of the DNC. I
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: didn't really agree with it because I sort of understood
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the challenge that Tom Perez was facing there and the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: DNC was facing, which is once you sanction a debate
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: on one issue, then how do you tell people, oh,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: we're not going to do a debate on criminal justice
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: or we're not going to do a debate on women's
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: rights or we're not going to do a debate on this?
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: And you start going down a path and it becomes
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: very difficult. But I've sort of been persuaded just the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: more I thought about it, the more I read about it,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that it might really be a good idea because climate,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, if we really believe that this is an emergency,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: that we have 10 years to drastically change our energy
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: consumption and production in order to save the planet for
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: future generations, then that seems like it is an issue
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that could potentially touch all other issues. And having watched
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: two debates and having seen sort of the climate sections
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: be not really that great, I actually think it would
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: be fairly interesting and important to have a debate that
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: is only about climate. And not only will that give
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: climate change as an issue a lot of attention, But finally,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: we'll be out of a debate format where there's, like,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: 30-second soundbites on one issue from 10 different people, and
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: then we go back and forth. Like, imagine two hours
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: digging into one issue. It would be totally different, totally new,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: but I actually think we could learn something from it.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You could have a real substantive debate about an issue
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that is an existential threat to the planet. I... Like...
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Like you, I.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I was, and am, very sympathetic to the DNC. And
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: it is worth noting that while Jay Inslee and a
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: couple others have called for climate debate, most of the
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: other campaigns have been silent about this, even though they
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: care passionately about climate or have very aggressive policies on climate.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: And it's largely because debates are stupid. That's unfair. I
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: think they're stupid. But they're a huge time suck for
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: campaigns and candidates, right? So every debate means you lose...
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: almost a week of time between getting to the debate,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: being at the debate, the day after the debate, traveling
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: home from the debate, and all that debate prep. And
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: so the DNC and the campaigns together are trying to
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: limit the overall number of debates. These rules were not
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: particularly well managed in 2008 when we were running in
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: that primary, and we did something like 25 debates and
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: candidate forums, which were basically just debates. And so the
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: DNC tried to fix that in 2016. They obviously went
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: overboard in doing so, which was a critique the Sanders
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: campaign had, and I think they were right. And they're
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: trying to find a balance here. Having said that, I
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: have no objection to a climate debate. If you had
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: to pick one issue that I think we could use
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: the 15, 20 million people that such a debate would
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: get to have a conversation about climate, I think that
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: would be awesome. I saw Some polling– I think it
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: was polling. It was on Twitter, so I'm sure it's true.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: That basically a quarter of the viewers of the debates
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: last month were Republican, which if we could get a
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: couple million Republicans to watch a climate conversation, that's a
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: fucking great trick. If we do this debate, which if
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: the campaigns want to do it and the DNC want
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: to do it, obviously I think that would be great.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I really hope that it is conducted with the questioning
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: done by subject matter experts.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: The problem with the climate discussion in the last debate
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: was we did it through the prism of politics. What
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: do you tell– and frankly, conservative framing of that conversation.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: The question was what do you tell a conservative voter
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: about their utilities going up as opposed to what do
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: you tell young people about the planet fundamentally changing by
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the time they're 35 or whatever? And so let's have
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: a real– there are a lot of really awesome climate plans.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: They're mostly– they're similar in scope but different in detail.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: And let's have a conversation about the details of that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: The hard questions that we're going to have to answer
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: as a society if we're going to get to the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: right place on climate, the tradeoffs that you're going to
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: have to make politically, policy-wise, economically to do that. That's
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: a good conversation. Just simply conducting some sort of bizarre–
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: imaginary focus group with imaginary swing voters in Ohio is
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: a waste of everyone's time. So, like, sure, it has
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: to be on TV.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe it doesn't actually have to be on TV. Maybe
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: it can be on the internet and people will watch it.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: But I really think it's important that we have subject
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: matter experts. I wish they would do that in every debate.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I wish we had 10 debates. Six of them were issue-specific. Economy, healthcare,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: civil rights and women's rights or something like that, state
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: of our democracy, and the questioners were subject matter experts
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: who could ask follow-up questions so that people could get
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: a real topic instead of just doing this proxy political
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: conversation around serious issues.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. All right, Dan. Julie from Twitter asks, Dan,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: thoughts on the Sixers' moves during free agency? Lost Jimmy Butler.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: What's going on? I'm so glad this question came. And
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I refuse to acknowledge that, quote-unquote, Julie is my burner account,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: but yes.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: So.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: As I treated Sixers Free Agency much like I treat politics,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: which was, I was dark.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: You're always pessimistic.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was very, very pessimistic. And I wouldn't say
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: I panicked, but I came pretty close to panicking in
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: the first hour. In fact, in my head, I both
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: wrote a column calling on the Sixers to fire their
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: front office and rehire Sam Hinckley, the father of the process,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: for all who care about that, and a strategy to
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: convince Brian to post that on Crooked.com. And while I
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: was doing that, uh, the Sixers made a bunch of
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: really smart moves and I'm very excited that they brought
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: in Al Horford. They got Josh Richardson and they did.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: And what I think is interesting about it, and I,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: most of you have stopped listening now, but is that
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: for the last six years, all of the NBA has
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: tried to go in one direction, which is small ball
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: pace and space. And the Sixers are looking to zig
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: where everyone else is zagged and to go big. And like, Basically,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of sports really starts more just like finding
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: the inefficiencies of the system and being bigger and stronger,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: maybe an inefficiency in the system. And so it's great.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And for all you Sixers fans out there, it's very
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: exciting that we get an entirely new team every six months.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: So there's my take. Thank you, Julie, whoever you may be.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: For asking that question. So Dan, you sound a lot
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: happier than our colleague and friend, Travis Helwig, who is
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: a Knicks fan. And Michael tells me that we have
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: some audio of Travis just Being upset about the Knicks. Kyle,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: can we play that?
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: I don't like being a Knicks fan. Sports are supposed
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: to be fun, and this isn't fun. And America is
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: bad a lot.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Of the time.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: And sports are supposed to be a nice little break
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: from it all. I don't know what I'm going to
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: do with myself. I could maybe get into gardening. I
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: could start working with clay, maybe do something with my hands.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: But I know for a fact that I can't fucking
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: be a Knicks fan anymore. It hurts too much, Michael.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: And here's what sucks. This is coming out of me
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: because I haven't been able to vocalize it. And this
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: is very therapeutic. And even if it doesn't go on
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: the podcast, I appreciate it. If there wasn't these expectations,
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: this would have felt great. It would have been a
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: normal free agency for the first time in my whole
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: fucking life. It feels like shit. And I don't want
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: to have hopes up anymore.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man. I'm just going to be a
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Lakers fan. It's easier to have to win.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: And so if 2020 teaches me anything is that sometimes
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: you might have to give up on things in the past,
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: like the New York Knicks and Joe Biden and move
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: to the future, like Los Angeles football club and Marianne Williamson.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: That was amazing. I hadn't heard that before. I love
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the music too. That was some, that was some sad music.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: When I would go, when I got to crooked, I mean,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: crooked headquarters, uh, yesterday. My first thing it is, I
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: go over to Travis's desk and treated him as if
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: his favorite pet died. It was really, he's dark.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Um, so Brian on Twitter asks, will Marianne Williamson ride
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: in on a unicorn or flying on a dragon to
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the next debate? Brian boiler. I am. That is not
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: nice to say. Just going to assume who that's, that's
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: who that's from. But that is just, that's not nice
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to our friend Marianne. Um, But probably a unicorn.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Sure, why not?
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Gabby from Twitter asks, who's your favorite Democratic primary candidate pet?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Liz versus Beto's dog, etc. Also, if a candidate doesn't
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: have a pet, should they be allowed to run? Easy
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: answer to that last question. No. Trump is the first
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: president in U.S. history to not have a dog. I
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: think that tells you everything you need to know about
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the man. Favorite Democratic primary candidate pet? I have to...
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I have to give the edge to Bailey, to Elizabeth
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Warren's dog, just because I had golden retrievers growing up.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I currently have a golden doodle. So I have a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: soft spot for goldens and Bailey's all over social media.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: And you know what? When the Bailey pics show up
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: on Instagram... I smash that like button every time.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: John, are you saying I can't run for president because
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I don't have a pet?
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: No, Dan, no. You need to get a pet if
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you're going to run.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: John, let me be very clear. There are a limited
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: number of things that Hallie and I think we can
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: keep alive at any one time. We have a child
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: and a plant right now.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Well, the dog is easier than the child. The dog
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: is like, you know, it's, It's basically a month of
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: waking up in the middle of the night because the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: dog shits somewhere and it's pissing in the house. And
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: then it's over. And then they're great.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I think you have no idea what it would be
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: like to have a dog and a child at the
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: same time.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Many people do. Yeah, that's true.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Kyla loves dogs. She is obsessed with dogs. You and
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Emily very generously gave her a stuffed Leo when she
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: was born. She also has a stuffed Sarah, which is
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: her favorite dog, which is our good friend's dog. She
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: stands at our window and looks at dogs as they
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: walk down the street. She wants a dog. The dog
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: will eventually happen. It would be unfair to put a
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: dog in our current apartment. But either way, I also
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: like Bailey. I like all the pets. I will not
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: choose among them. I even support Beto's turtle. People should
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: have all kinds of pets.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Gus the turtle.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: What I don't like are politicians. You have to have
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: a careful eye on this, because there are politicians who
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: have pets and become politicians, and there are politicians who
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: decide they need a pet so they can turn their
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: pet into Instagram influencers.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not good. That's not good.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: It is up to the voters to distinguish between those
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: two groups of people.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: There are some pets that haven't been featured enough. Like,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Gillibrand has some sort of doodle mix there, and I've
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: seen it.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Maple, I think?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Maple, yeah. And I never see Maple on her social media.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Get Maple out there.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: The difference between where you're polling and the lead is
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: more Maple content, Senator Gillibrand.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I always know that I'm at a disadvantage in any
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: sort of pet-dog conversation because not only do you all
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: have dogs, they are prominent features of both your personal
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: lives and your online personas. And so I did research
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: for this question, and I looked up everyone's dogs, and
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I discovered that Gillibrand's dog is camera shy, which is
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: why we don't see her very often.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. I didn't know that that was.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: A problem that existed.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And I think the name is Maple.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's Maple Gillibrand.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, that's good. All right, final question from Trevor
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Lee Cobb on Instagram. What gives you hope about 2020
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: in the world in general? You want me to? I
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: can start. I can start.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: You go first.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I can start because it's been a dark couple months, years.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I think that sometimes over the last several months, we
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: have sort of erased the 2018 midterms. from our memory,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: as everything is erased from our memory in this Twitter
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: age that, you know, it's like two days and you
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: forget what happened in the news. But we had a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: pretty commanding victory in the midterms. Now, just because one
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: party wins the midterms doesn't mean they win the presidency.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: We have the history is littered with examples of one
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: party winning the midterm and the opposite party winning the presidency.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: But what I'm talking about is the energy and activism
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: that we witnessed during the 2018 election, and we had
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to be on the road during the HBO show,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: we had the opportunity to go to the Crooked Seven
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: districts here in California and do some campaigning, and what
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I saw on the ground there in terms of people
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: who've been in Democratic politics for a long time, working
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: harder than they've ever worked in their lives, and so, so,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: so many new people, people who've never paid attention to politics,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: young people, um, who were thought that politics was boring,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: that politics didn't speak for them, that politics didn't mean anything.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: And then because Donald Trump was elected and they saw
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: it as a national emergency, they decided to drop everything
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: and do everything that they possibly could to elect Democrats
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: and to stop this madness. And seeing that kind of
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: energy and activism on the ground in 2018, um, I
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: have to believe that it has not dissipated just because
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the Democrats won the House of Representatives. That is just
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: part of the job. And so my hope is that
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: that feeling that, you know, we need to do everything
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: we possibly can, knock on doors, register voters, convince our
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: family and friends, give money, you know, do everything we
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: possibly can to get Donald Trump and a lot of
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: these Republicans out of office in 2020. I have to
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: believe that that energy is still there and that even
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: though we have so many challenges as a party ahead
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: of us and we're going to have a lot of
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: fights and a lot of debates, I feel like that
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: feeling that we have to be better than this and
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: we have to make that so is still there among
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in this country and hopefully around
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the world as well.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: I think that's right.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I'd make two points.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: One is, I think you hit on the most important one,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: which we taught the pundits and everyone are hand-wringing about
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: the quote-unquote lessons of 2018. And in that telling of history,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: the lesson is that moderate wins and that a focus
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: on healthcare and taxes and not Trump wins and ignoring
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: the immigration issue wins. And in some races, there is
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: some truth to that. But the true lesson of 2018
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: is that activism fucking works. That if people get involved...
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: sometimes for the first time, and they march and they
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: make phone calls and they register voters, we can win.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: And this is the part of that that gives me hope,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: is that for all of the complications of politics and
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: voting laws and voter suppression and messaging and polling and
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: tacking right or tacking left or all of that, there
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: is a simplicity of politics, which is you just have
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: to vote. And there are more Democrats than there are Republicans,
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: even in these battleground states that decide the electoral cause.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: There are more Democrats than Republicans. They just have to vote.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: More people agree with us than agree with Donald Trump.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And so we just have to turn out. And when
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: you think about it, there are a lot of pumps
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: in the road between here and there. But we don't
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: need Republicans not to turn out. We're not betting on
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: diminished turnout from Republicans to win. We just need to
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: turn out. We need to turn out and vote. And
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: if we do that, we can win. the House, the
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: White House, and the Senate and put this country back
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: on a path that looks a lot more like the
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: America that Obama talked about than the one that Trump
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: tweets about.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And speaking of Obama, if you want to be
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: hopeful over this 4th of July holiday and you don't
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: want to watch Donald Trump's fucking militaristic jingoism bullshit that
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: he's got going in D.C. and you want to really
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: understand what patriotism is and what patriotism can be, Go
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: back and read my favorite Obama speech of all time.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: And I can say that because I did not work
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: on it. It was after I left the White House.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: It was the president and Cody worked on it. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: it's the speech that Barack Obama gave in Selma to
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in 2015. And it's
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: maybe the most patriotic speech about America that I've ever read.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: because it's about all the people who've made this country better.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And I was just looking at it the other day
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: before I talked to Ken Harbaugh. And that's real patriotism
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: in this country. So, all right. When we come back,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: we will have Tommy's interview with Marcel McClinton.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: On the line is Marcel McClinton. He's a high school
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: senior who is running... for Houston City Council in November. Marcel,
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: it is great to have you on the pod, man.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: How you doing?
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: So you are like a bona fide celebrity. I should
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: be thanking you for coming on. We first met because
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: you were in the Running with Beto documentary that we
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: helped produce. You got a shout out from Beto at
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: the debate other night, which is pretty cool. Can you
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: talk about how you came to be in that documentary
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: and how you ended up meeting Beto O'Rourke?
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: For sure. So back, well, I guess it was last year,
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: the Santa Fe shootings took place. I'm in gun violence
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: prevention activism. I remember someone on Beto's team reaching out
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: to us, asking if they could set up a meeting
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: with some of the Santa Fe survivors the students talk about.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: gun laws. And I was organizing in Houston and had
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: been to Santa Fe for a few days talking to
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: the community and getting to know that area and trying
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: to find organizers in Santa Fe, given it's a deep
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: red conservative area and they didn't want to focus on
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: changing our gun laws. So we set up the meeting up.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: And I think that was the same day he had
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: his march in Tornillo. It was crazy weather down here.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: He was diverted to Austin, drove three hours from Austin
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: to Houston, and then made it. We met there, and
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't really want to like Beto at first. I
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: thought he was using this as a publicity stunt and
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: was campaigning in this. this living room, but he walked in,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: and we got to talking, and I knew instantly that
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: he was just different and that he wasn't one of
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: the candidates that I had spoken to before, and that
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: he was genuinely interested and heartfelt in his responses with us.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: And so the doc team, obviously, I mean, they were
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: there in that living room, and it was incredible. And,
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, things just happened. I got more involved in
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: the campaign and, you know, pushed gun violence prevention to
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: be in the forefront of Beto's campaign. Um, and then
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: the doc crew just, you know, continued to hit me
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: up to film. Um, and it just became a thing. Um,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: and so it was, it was, I mean, it was,
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: it was a lot of fun. It was, it was
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: crazy cool. Um, and then seeing myself on HBO was, was,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: was also kind of just crazy.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, seeing you on HBO was, was so inspiring
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: for me and so inspiring for all the people viewing,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: because I mean, well, let's start with some of the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: work you're doing on gun prevention. You're involved in this
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: very cool group called the Orange Generation.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about that group?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: And would you mind sharing some of your personal story
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: about how you became an activist trying to prevent gun violence?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: For sure. So in 2016, I was in a shooting.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: I was at church teaching Sunday school class to a
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: room full of toddlers. And a gunman ran on a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: shooting rampage with an AR-15 rifle. for like 50 to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: 55 minutes. And so we were on lockdown, had to,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: you know, hide the kids. And I was in the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: front lobby underneath this window with like eight other guys.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: And we were watching him pace our parking lot. My
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: friend Denise Slaughter was shot through her car door, five
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: bullet holes in the headrest. And then, you know, one
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: bullet went in and out of both her thighs through
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: the car door. And I mean, it was a really
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: scary time. And I was 14 when that happened. I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: didn't make the connection between gun laws and activism and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: what I experienced. And so there was this lull in what,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: you know, from my shooting to when I first got
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: involved after the Parkland shooting. But during those two years,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, shooting after shooting took place, the Parkland shooting,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: the Pulse nightclub shooting the year before. And I was
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: getting more and more pissed off. And I kept watching
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: on TV these videos and these folks, these survivors talking about,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, just the days after the shooting and
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: how they were feeling in their mental health. And I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: related to all that stuff so much. Um, and I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: would watch these, you know, news stories and I would,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: I would just talk to myself and my mom and
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I would talk and, um, you know, just, I would
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: say to her, I would say, you know, these folks
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: don't even know what like the next, you know, month
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: or two months are going to be like. Um, and,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: and I, you know, I, I was blessed that the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: shooter wasn't even, wasn't in the church doors. Um, but,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: but I can imagine, you know, what, what, I mean, I,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: you know, what I would, how I would be like
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: now if, if he was, um, And so I got
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: involved after the Parkland shooting, co-organized the Houston March for
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: Our Lives. We had 15,000 folks downtown Houston marching in
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: front of Ted Cruz's office. It was an awesome moment,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: an awesome sight. I was appointed to the Mayor's Gun
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Task Force here. And then, you know, grew my activism
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: after the Santa Fe shooting, meeting Rhonda Hart, Brie Butler, connecting,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: you know, my Houston activist friends, Ariel Hobbs and Kelly Choi,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: And we, you know, we pushed GVP in every, you know,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: campaign that we got involved in. So Lizzie Fletcher's down here,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Lena Hidalgo down here, the county judge in Harris County,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: of course, Beto's. And then we tried to grow that
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: over time and formed a group, Orange Generation, which now
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: we're just kind of more of a coalition with other organizations.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: And now with the campaign, I'm doing less work with
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: the org, but still, you know, focusing on my activism
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: as well. But I mean, we traveled on Road to Change,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: which March for Our Lives put together. It was a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: cross-country bus tour where we hit a different city every
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: single day. And we're holding rallies and barbecues and town
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: halls in these communities to learn more about them and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: talk to them how they can get engaged and really
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: focus on voter registration and young people getting involved. And so,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: I mean... After the Beto campaign, I was in El
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: Paso November 8th and 9th, and I sat down and
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: had a discussion with Jody Casey, his campaign manager then,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: and she pushed Rhonda Hart and myself to run for
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: office and just to do more in our activism this year, 2019.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: At that time, I didn't think that I was going
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: to run for city council or anything, at least not
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: this early, but we kept talking, and I had more
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: discussions with other folks here locally. And then it pushed
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: to a city council race. So, I mean, it was
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: a lot happening last year and even more this year,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: it feels. Yeah, man.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: I mean, you're a busy guy. What's amazing is in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: such a short period of time, you have had so
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: many phases of your activism, right? I mean, you were
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: taking care of others who've been in similar circumstances. You
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: were leading these coalitions. You were marching. You were giving
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: the business to elected officials from both parties. What got
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: you to take this next step, which is to run
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: for office?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, you know, partly
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: was just the conversation with Jody Casey and then that
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: last little push. But it was also just, you know,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: I felt that my city was going through so much,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: you know, in the last two years. And I was,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: I didn't see anyone in our city, you know, becoming
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: a true advocate for people. And when I was sick
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: and tired of elected folks just not representing people as
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: a whole. They were representing their businesses or their personal
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: interests or growing their own name for a title or
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: a plaque. And I was just tired of seeing that happen.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: And so no one in our city was talking about
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: sex trafficking or homelessness or gun violence. until our campaign
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: got in the forefront, got a lot of press, and
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: the issues were starting to get highlighted a lot more.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: And so I wanted that for my city, and I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: was sick and tired of just seeing stories on the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: news here locally of kids getting shot and killed, of
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: unloaded guns, and of our gun shows that don't require
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: background checks here in the city. And then sex trafficking,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: of course, we're still a hub. And so all these
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: issues were just pissing me off more and more as
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: the days went on, And it was, you know, I
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: looked at school board and I looked at city council
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: and the age requirements, of course.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: For both.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: And I saw that, you know, I could do, I
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: think I thought I could do more good running at large.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: So citywide in Houston, I want to look at the
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: city holistically, you know, look at the big picture when
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: talking about policy. And so that's why I chose to
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: run at large and for city council.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: So how are people receiving your candidacy? Are you getting folks...
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: who are inspired by the fact that someone that, how old.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Are you, 18?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: 19?
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: 17, now I turn 18 in like a week.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: 17.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: You're 17, you're taking this big step. Are they inspired
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: by that? Are they saying, hey, maybe slow down, wait
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: a bit? Because, you know, we all watch this debate
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: where Mayor Pete is talking about big generational change, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: then you are doing it.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah. So, I mean, you know, a lot of
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: the reactions we get at first are, you know, holy hell,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: this is incredible, you know, go you for taking this on,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: and then they support us up front. But then, of course,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: there's the fair response, which is, you know, why should
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: I trust a 17- or 18-year-old, you know, to make
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: policy for my city and then to represent me in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: city council? And that's a fair judgment and a fair
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: first reaction. And what we've seen is, you know, when
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I get in front of these people, If it's through
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: social media or digital media or in person at these
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: events and meetings, their reaction usually changes. And they hear
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: me speak and they hear us lay down policy and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: our true vision of what Houston can become. And they
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: buy in and they want to invest in the campaign
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: that way. And so, I mean, sure, some folks are
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: still going to be skeptical, and I've gotten the whole, well,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: come back to me in a year when you voted
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: once or when you've served one year, and then you'll
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: get my endorsement, or then you'll get my support for
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: your reelection. And to those folks, we're not writing them off,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: but we are saying that that's been said for way
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: too long in just America's history. So there's no more
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: time because the issues are happening now, and they're only
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: going to get bigger and worse. And so if we're
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: not going to invest and trust the next generation of leaders,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: we can't expect these issues to be solved with the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: same cycle of folks who are just in the system
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: always and just want to get higher up in office.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: And so we're hoping that pushing a message of change
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: and fighting for new leadership and new ideas will resonate
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: with folks in our city. And that's what we see
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: most of the time, which is really rewarding because at first,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: you know, I was worried a bit because, you know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: at first we had, you know, two completely different reactions.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: It was, you know, either, oh, go you, or, you know,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: there's no way in hell I'm voting for an 18-year-old,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: you know, or, I mean, yeah, but those are, again,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: are fair judgments, and we're seeing that kind of change
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: as time goes on.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, I've also been really interested and excited by
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: the way you've been able to use social media to
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: reach voters. I mean, I came to social media as
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: an adult at work, found Twitter and whatever.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like you are part of.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: A generation that grew up using Snapchat, Instagram, all these services.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: It's native to you.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: You understand how to reach people.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: In better ways.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: How have you balanced that and the potential that comes
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: via social media to reach voters with the reality of
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: being a public person on some of these platforms and
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: some of the nastiness you have to deal with because
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: of that public profile.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, you know, your first point, social media
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: in our generation is huge. It's like what, again, we
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: grew up with. And that's what I think is so
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: important to our campaign, digital and social media. My opponent,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: who's 67 or 68 years old, didn't grow up with
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: social media. and doesn't know how to use social media
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: to its full extent and doesn't really know how to
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: connect with voters to that degree. And so that's our
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: plus and that's our benefit. You know, I do know
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: how to use social media and we're reaching folks every
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: single day and we're using it really, really skillfully and wisely.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: I think digital and social media are just the new
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: wave of campaigning. Houston is a huge city and I'm
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: running at large. And so hitting every single event that
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: happens in our city every day is a challenge. But
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: if we can make it seem like we were at
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: each and every event, then we've done our part. So
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: if I can send an intern or a surrogate to
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: two or three of the events, and I'm going to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: the other two or three, and we're posting about all
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: six of them, then we're making a huge impact and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: we're showing voters that we are being present. We are
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: listening to voters and people at these places. And I
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: don't think that others or older folks who are in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: office know how to do that skillfully. And so it's huge.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: It's it's kind of the backbone of the campaign other
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: than next month, you know, canvassing. Right.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, it sounds like you were running like a smart, lean,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: efficient campaign.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you a couple of questions.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, I want to ask a couple of questions.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: So like, first of all, just a personal thing, what's
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: your plan for the next few years? Are you, if
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: you win, are you going to enroll in school in
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: the area? Like, what are you thinking in terms of college?
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm taking a gap year this year to
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: run for city council. Well, I'll take two online core classes. Um, but,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: but then next year is when, um, I'll, I'll enroll
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: here locally, just UH or TSU. I'm still kind of
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: debating between the two. Um, I'm not sure what I
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: want to study. Um, you know, maybe just get my MBA,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: go into business, but also study, um, you know, uh,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: international affairs or political science. Um, but, but yeah, so,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: so that's, that's the next year and year and two years. Um,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: I really wanted to focus on the race, um, in
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: the fall and not the transition into, you know, you know,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: just high school to freshmen in college.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: Last question.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: Give me the elevator pitch for the things that you're
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: running on in your campaign. And then if folks like
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: what they hear, tell them how they can support you.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: I'll do the 30 second, 45 or five minute.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Whatever you want. Give me the 30.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. So in our campaign, we're focusing on change
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: and I am that change candidate because uh... be being
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: the youngest person to to run for for local office
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: citywide office here in in houston and the youngest black
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: african-american to run for for city council in texas and
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: that changes really important to us and to talk about
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: things like uh... climate change in flooding and homelessness uh...
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: sex trafficking and of course gun violence and so those
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: issues are all issues that are getting worse and bigger
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: here in houston uh... and and you can support us
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: and tackling those issues investing in our campaign by going
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: to www.marcellforhouston.com. That's spelled out F-O-R. And yeah, help us
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: beat out our incumbent opponent, who is ultra-conservative, anti-LGBT, and
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: a veteran bail bondsman in our state. All the things
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: that Houston as a whole doesn't represent. He doesn't represent
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: our city. our LGBTQ community is thriving and growing. And
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: he got our Equal Rights Ordinance repealed a few years ago.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: And so those are the reasons that I chose his
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: seat to run for. And I hope that folks listening
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: will feel that energy and that motivation to get involved
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: in our campaign.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: Hell yeah, man. I mean, The running with Beto, Doc,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 5: was obviously about Beto O'Rourke and his family in that campaign.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: But I really think it was more about a moment
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: in history when Donald Trump was elected president and people
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 5: like you and how you responded and how you became
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: more activist and involved in politics. And one of my
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: favorite parts in the whole film is Beto loses and
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: you are at his lost party on the phone with
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 5: people trying to organize the next big rally to keep
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: fighting for common sense gun control. And I feel like
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: that's the attitude that's we all need to have in
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: these very depressing, very trying times is, you know, do
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: what Marcel did and just keep going.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm so psyched that you're running.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: Thank you for doing the show, man.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: Best of luck.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: And everyone should check out your website, check out the
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: campaign because we need a new, new generation of leaders.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I totally agree.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Have a great fourth. And, you know, we'll, we'll talk
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: to you next week.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: Bye, guys.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: Unless there's a coup on Thursday.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Unless there's a coup on Thursday, then we'll be back
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: at the microphones. Talk about the coup.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: Bye, guys.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: Bye, guys.