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Trump's Revenge Leads to Republican Revolt · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's
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  Speaker 1: no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to talk about how Donald
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Trump's revenge tour is backfiring in a way that just
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: about everybody could have predicted. with everything from his ballroom
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: funding to his insurrectionist slush fund now in jeopardy. We'll
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: also talk about how Trump may have made things even
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: worse for his party with his endorsement of Ken Paxton
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: over John Cornyn in Texas. And then just to prove
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that Republicans aren't the only ones stepping on rakes, we'll
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: talk about the long-awaited release of the 2024 DNC autopsy
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and whether Ken Martin's job as DNC chair is in jeopardy.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about new results from this week's New
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: York Times poll focused on what Democratic voters want from
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with California
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan. And finally, we'll explore the question
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: none of us thought we'd have to ask. Is Donald
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Trump going to skip his son's wedding? Tune in to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: find out. Before we start, go ahead and subscribe to
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• 3:20
  Speaker 1: let's get to the news. It seems like just yesterday,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: because it was, that the White House warned us to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: never again doubt Donald Trump's political power. And certain journalists
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: proclaimed an incredible few weeks for the president's political operation.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: This is all because Trump's handpicked primary challengers defeated Louisiana
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Senator Bill Cassidy and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey. Well, 24
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hours later, here's a text from a Republican senator to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Punchbowl News. Quote, our majority is melting down before our eyes.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So what happened? What happened? Well, the Senate was supposed
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to be voting on Trump's bill to fund ICE. But
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: then he also demanded $ 1 billion for his ballroom. And
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: he announced that he's stealing $ 2 billion from taxpayers so
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: that he can potentially hand out cash payments to January
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: 6th rioters who almost killed police officers and basically anyone
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: else he thinks has been mistreated by the justice system.
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  Speaker 1: Neither of these things sat very well with some Republicans,
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  Speaker 1: including people like Bill Cassidy, whose career Trump just ended.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And after a reportedly tense meeting about the insurrectionist slush fund,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch, where some Republicans proposed
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: restrictions on the slush fund. Senate Majority Leader John Thune
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: canceled the vote entirely and told everyone to go home
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: until June. Here's Blanch and J.D. Vance earlier in the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: week refusing to rule out taxpayer-funded payouts for violent insurrectionists.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: You know who never, ever gets an ounce of sympathy
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: when it comes to that disproportionate sentencing is people who
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protest.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: for this fund?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Well, as it makes plain, anybody is.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: Just let me know if they're eligible for the fund.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: As was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: eligible to apply.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: You're not going to submit this proposal to any.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Federal judge or independent... There is no judge.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Any independent authority?
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: What does that mean, an independent authority? It means not
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: somebody who's getting to pick five of the members who
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: is the president's former personal attorney. That would be somebody
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: who would be independent.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I'm the acting attorney general, okay?
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer
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  Speaker 5: is just a fact, but I'm the acting attorney general.
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  Speaker 3: So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: The acting attorney general will do something.
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  Speaker 6: Mr.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney,
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  Speaker 5: and that's the whole problem.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: That's the good shit right there.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: It's the good shit. What a fucking whiner. So after
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans were in revolt and the majority was melting down,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Trump was asked about it in the Oval on Thursday.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Here's what he said.
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  Speaker 5: Are you losing control.
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  Speaker 1: Of the Senate?
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  Speaker 4: I don't know.
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  Speaker 6: I really don't know. I can tell you I only
• 6:17
  Speaker 6: do what's right. I don't need money for the ballroom.
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  Speaker 6: You know, I'm making a gift of the ballroom. This
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  Speaker 6: is the biggest misreporting that I've ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: OK, well, we'll dig into that in a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: An incredible week for Trump's political operation, Dan.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: It's an incredible, truly unbelievable week.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Uh, let's start with the slush fund. Oh, you and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I talked about this, uh, on last Friday's episode. And
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we talked about, um, how Trump potentially settling the IRS
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lawsuit by personally pocketing billions in taxpayer dollars, um, was
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: maybe the worst political move we could imagine. Um, and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: then they did the slush fund, um, right as we
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: were finishing the recording. So we only briefly got to
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: talk about it. Um, What do you think? What do
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you think about the political move of, instead of Trump
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just pocketing the cash, deciding to put it in a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: fund with no accountability whatsoever so they can secretly pay
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: out whoever they'd like?
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  Speaker 3: Look, these brilliant fucking geniuses in the Trump political team,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the same ones who spent $ 20 million to defeat a
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Republican congressman in a district that Trump won by 35 points,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: really figured this one out. So instead of giving billions
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: of dollars to one criminal... They're going to.
• 7:34
  Speaker 7: Give $ 1. 776 billion, which is so clever, to an untold
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: number of criminals, many of whom committed violent offenses, assaulting
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: the Capitol and assaulting police officers. It is a move
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  Speaker 7: so bad that even Republican senators can figure out that
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  Speaker 7: it's bad politically.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Part of this is it's such a politically bad move
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  Speaker 1: that I've been shocked by it. I've been laughing about
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: it because how could you be so stupid? It's fun
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  Speaker 1: watching the Republicans freak out about this and everything fall apart.
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  Speaker 1: But NPR did a story about it where they started
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: going through some of the potential January 6th convicted felons
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: or people who were going to be on trial until
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Trump pardoned them to talk about how this would play out.
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  Speaker 1: This guy, Jake Lang, he admitted that to using a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: bat to attack police. He was on trial for assault
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  Speaker 1: when Trump pardoned him. He's now a white power activist
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: who's on video saying the N-word and giving Nazi salutes.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: When NPR called to confirm that he plans to apply
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: for a payout, which he did, he confirmed it, he
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: answered the phone, Jake Lang's office, America's newest billionaire. And
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: he said that the message, he told NPR that the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: message Trump was sending what the fund is, and this
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is a quote from the insurrectionist who beat police officers
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with a bat. Quote, if you do the right thing
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  Speaker 1: in the face of evil, you will be rewarded for
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  Speaker 1: your bravery and patriotism. That's what's happening there. That's what's happening.
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  Speaker 1: Another January 6th rioter, Andrew Paul Johnson, is currently serving
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  Speaker 1: a life sentence in prison for sexually abusing two children
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  Speaker 1: who he tried to keep quiet by promising them, quote,
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  Speaker 1: my Trump bucks that he expected to get as part
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of a restitution fund. And then that exchange we watched
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: between Van Hollen and Blanche, Van Hollen was asking about
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that case and asking Blanche to rule out that that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: fucking guy could apply for a payout from the slush fund.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And you heard Blanche like he just, he won't rule
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  Speaker 1: it out.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's pretty clear what happened here is Trump
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: wanted his money. I think he, someone was able to
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: convince him that him directly taking the money was probably
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: a bridge too far politically. Plus, he's made so many
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: other billions from so many other crooked schemes that he
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: could take a pass on this one, but he obviously
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: wasn't going to let it go. They were facing this
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: deadline because there was a court-imposed deadline. The day before
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the court-imposed deadline, they hatched together a poorly thought-out plan
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: that they thought would appeal to Trump.
• 10:18
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: It's not as bad as Trump getting the money, although
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: that is actually debatable, but it would still fit with
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: his need for revenge. And it's like perfect Trump. These
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: are my people. I'm going to help my people. I'm
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: going to hook up my people. And they didn't think
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: through any of the consequences. They just assumed every Republican
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: would be for it. And they, as you said, they
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: stepped on a rake. It's like a very obvious, very clear,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: very politically damaging rake, but they did it because they're
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: kind of morons.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And there's... No oversight, no accountability over this fund whatsoever.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: We may never know who they pay, how much they
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: pay them, who applies, who gets accepted into this fucking
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: slush fund, who gets denied. None of that because Trump
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: picks the people on the board, except for one gets
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: appointed by Congress who, you know, he can find a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: lackey in Congress to give him whoever he wants. Trump
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: can fire them at any time. The report is not
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: required to be released to the public in any way,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: shape or form. So the whole thing is just a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: fucking scam. And it seems like it's, I mean, I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: guess two January 6th police officers filed a lawsuit to
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: try to stop this. But there are going to be,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the best case they can make for standing, right?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Because there were police officers harmed in this. But the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: challenge is to have, like, who has standing to sue
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: on this? And the fact that it is legal because
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Congress passed a law to give the Justice Department... basically
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: an unlimited fund for restitution in the event that people
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: sue the U.S. government and then the Justice Department would
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: have to pay it out. Which is like, yeah, of course, right?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: If someone sues the federal government and they win, the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: federal government has to get the money from somewhere to
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: pay them out. But I don't think anyone envisioned that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the fund would be used in this way.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Nope, just driving a corrupt truck through another giant loophole
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: in our system.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Here's a statement on the fund. So the nation's top
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong, take
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: your pick. Guess who that came from, Dan?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I know the answer, so I'm supposed to pretend like
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I don't. Was that a resistance Democrat? Was that someone
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: on MS Now? Was that on Wednesday's episode of Only
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Friends with you and Tommy?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Subscribe now.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell. Well, Mitch. The reason we're in
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: this place, by the way, is because of you.
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: If you had just had the courage that Mike Pence had.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Could have convicted him after January 6th, and then none
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of these rioters would be getting any money. How likely
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: do you think it is that Congress will impose some
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: kind of restrictions on the slush fund? Legislation was introduced today, Thursday,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to ban the entire slush fund. Not restrictions, just ban it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: That was introduced by Democrat Tom Suozzi in the House yesterday.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, who's in a swing district in Pennsylvania,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and who Trump just threatened yesterday with a primary challenge
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: in response to a question he didn't like from Fitzpatrick's fiance,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Fox News reporter Jackie Heinrich.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Well, it's really clever of Trump to threaten a primary
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: challenge on Wednesday when the primary was Tuesday. Which is also,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it's notable that all of a sudden Brian Fitzpatrick has
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: found his courage the day after his primary.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think, I mean, I know that we
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: were like not scheduled to talk about this, but on
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that note, like I do wonder if a lot, like
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: we're suddenly going to see an outbreak of courage among
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Republicans now that most of the primaries have passed.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: It's going to be an interesting political calculus. Like someone
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: like Fitzpatrick who is in, he is, might be the
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: most vulnerable Republican in the country.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Um, or, Definitely one of the top couple.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: He is up there. We got some people who have
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: been redistricted out of existence, but of the people who
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: remain in their previous district, he's quite vulnerable. But there
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: is this challenge for Republicans, which is on one hand,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Trump attacking you would seem favorable. Like just hit, if
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I was Fitzpatrick, I would think in that district, I
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: think about taking the footage of Trump saying that he
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: votes against all the time and put it in an ad.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: But the challenge is they also need Republican turnout. And
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: if Trump is trashing you, are the people going to
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: turn out for you? And that's the real question.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a good point. Well, so then what
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: do you think about getting restrictions on this slush fund?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Because it does seem like they're going for restrictions in
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: this ICE funding bill, which is reconciliation, which means that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you would only need, you know, 51 votes in the Senate.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: There's two things happening here. One is, as we mentioned,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: the Republicans recognize this is terrible politics and they don't
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: want to vote for it. And they know how bad
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: it is. They feel the same way about the ballroom,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: which we'll talk about in a second. The other thing
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: that's happening in the Senate is these people are just
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: pissed at Trump. He took out Tom Tillis and Tom
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Tillis retired rather than face a primary challenge. But Roy
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Cooper is much more likely the next senator of North
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Carolina because he's running against an anonymous RNC chair that
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Trump installed as the nominee. They took out Bill Cassidy.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: He just endorsed, as we'll talk about, just endorsed against
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: John Cornyn, the number two person in the Senate for Republicans.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: And so he's basically taking out other people. And so
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: they're both pissed on this personal level that he keeps
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: taking out their friends. But they're also, he's making, in
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: almost all of these cases, he's making it less likely
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: they keep the majority. And so I think they're starting
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: to get restive here and are looking for some place
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: to show that they have some measure of spine. Now,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: are the restrictions they're going to put in going to
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: likely be pretty weak?
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I think that's the case. But I would be surprised.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I would be surprised. And no one's ever made a
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: lot of money betting on congressional Republicans to do something brave.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: But I would be surprised if this bill passed without
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: some measure of something that at least is a putative
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: fig leaf of restriction on the slush fund.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: The challenge here is I don't think they get any...
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: They're not going to get any Democratic votes for it, right?
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Even though Democrats would want to ban this, if it
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: goes in the ICE funding bill, the restrictions, Democrats aren't
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: going to vote for the ICE funding bill.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Well, you'll get it on the amendment in the voterama.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, so Democrats can get it in there and then
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: just not vote against it.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: I just way outstripped my expertise on Senate budget procedure,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: but I think that's right.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's good enough. That's good enough for this episode.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. You think about switching jobs?
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: Maybe.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Ask yourself these questions. Am I growing or just repeating
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the same experience over and over again? Okay.
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: Ladder.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: It's a tough question to ask when we're doing this.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Do I feel energized by my work, obviously, or am
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I constantly drained and counting the hours until it's over?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Can I do both?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Do I know what my next career move should be
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: or am I just hoping something better shows up?
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely don't know that.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a hard one. Am I going to stay
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: here for another year? Will I be proud of my
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: progress or regret staying comfortable?
• 17:33
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  Speaker 1: you helixsleep.com slash crooked. Next up, the billion dollars Trump
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: wants for his ballroom, which he then just said he
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't need. On Saturday, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: money couldn't be included in the ICE funding bill because
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it doesn't comply with the Senate. budget rules. Trump then
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: demanded that Republicans fire the parliamentarian, but Republicans decided to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: remove the funding instead of the parliamentarian, admitting that they
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: didn't have the votes anyway, probably because enough of them
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: realized that asking taxpayers to fork over a billion dollars
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: for a ballroom no one asked for is fucking crazy. Trump, meanwhile,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: took reporters on a tour of the construction site this week,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, that's his passion. And he defended
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the project as a military necessity. And he said that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the roof would be a drone port that protects all
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of Washington. Does he think it's like an iron dome
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: over the White House now in Washington because that's what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the ballroom is?
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: He also announced how many stories deep the bunker would be,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: which is probably not a piece of information you just
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: want to hand out to the public.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: No. No. Is the ballroom in jeopardy? Like, does Trump...
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Trump then said he doesn't need the money. It seems
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: like he wanted the money pretty badly, which is why
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: he told them to fire the parliamentarian and is getting
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: really pissed about this. Is he going to find a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: way to just steal the money from taxpayers like he's
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: been doing now with this slush fund for insurrectionists? Or
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: maybe he just extorts more rich people with business before
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the government to just give donations?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to say. I... Once again, it seems
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: that no one in Congress wants to vote for a
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: billion dollars for a ballroom. And Trump is trying to
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: do what he's trying to do. Well, it's not really
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: for the ballroom. The ballroom is paid for by all
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: the rich people who were buying access in exchange for
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: the ballroom. But it's the security, the necessary security underneath
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: the ballroom that costs a billion dollars. It's too late
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: for that. It's the $ 1 billion ballroom. That's how everyone
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: understands it. An actual... impressive, uh, democratic messaging victory in
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: this day and age. So we should applaud that. Maybe
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Elon Musk fresh off the SpaceX IPO comes in and
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: gives a billion dollars to build the rest of it,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: but I don't know how they're going to get, it
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: doesn't seem like they're going to be able to get
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: money out of Congress for this, this year. No one
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: wants to do this, this close to the election. Maybe
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: they can throw something into an end of the year
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: deal after the election. I don't know, but it seems hard.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that, um, I think that the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: reason they asked Congress for the money in the first
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: place is they can't use private donations to fund, like,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: secret service and security. Yeah, I assume that's the case, yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: But that hasn't stopped them before. I was going to say.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, did we let Michael Dell pay our troops once?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Did you see the news that he also said he
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't need congressional approval to build his 250-foot arch? I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: have to say, I've tried really hard to— Are we
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: calling it an arch or an arc?
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Arch.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Arch.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I think it's an arch.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: Arch.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And it's an arc in French.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like the Arc de... Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: Sorry.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Yes. The fuck it is. We got arches. We got ballrooms.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: We got Qatari jets. We got... I don't know. I've
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: lost track. We got new Kennedy centers.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: We have new marble armrests at the Kennedy center, right?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: We have new marble armrests.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Let me spend some time and energy on that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: New helipad. We got a new helipad coming.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: The drone port. I've tried really hard to not focus
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: on the arch, as you call it, on the arch.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: It just seems... I mean, it seems crazy. I don't know.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I finally today, because we're doing this on the podcast,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I finally looked at where the arch was going to be.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Is it in Virginia? Or it's across the river?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But it also like, the New York Times did a
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: good like sort of AI rendering of what the views
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: would be like. And it kind of just like, It
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: blocks the view of the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: It's like bigger than anything else in Washington. Yeah, it's stupid.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if I was a DC resident, I'd
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: be fucking annoyed.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Well, like no one's asking for it.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: No one wants it. Don't forget the reflecting pool.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are repainting the reflecting pool. Once again, a
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: taxpayer dollars, I believe.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: It really is. Fucking worst declining empire shit.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: He is obsessed with, home renovation projects. Like this is,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: like that is his true passion. He cannot be bothered with,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: he likes stealing money, revenge, and interior design.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It's like the most cartoonish version of corruption by like
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: an aging dictator. He's just stealing money, you know, smash
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and grab anywhere he can. He's just putting gold everywhere,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: ensconced in his fucking DC home that he's turning into
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: fucking Versailles on the Potomac. You know, pardoning all of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: his friends, punishing all of his enemies, doing nothing else,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: decomposing before our eyes. It's just like, it's fucking bleak.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: It's fucking bleak, man. One more vote Trump's having trouble with,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: in part because he ended the careers of Republicans whose
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: support he needs, a measure that would force him to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: end the war in Iran. On Tuesday, the Senate finally
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: voted to take up the War Powers Resolution with newly
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: defeated Senator Bill Cassidy flipping to vote in favor. The
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: resolution now moves to the House, where retiring Maine Democrat
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Jared Golden says he now plans to flip his vote
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: in favor as well. And all this comes as Iran
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is reviewing the latest U.S. peace proposal, which Trump says
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: he'll give them a few days to do. He also
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: said that the U.S. and Iran are, quote, right on
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the borderline between war and peace, and that he's, quote,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: in no hurry to make a deal as the price
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: of gas inches towards $ 5 a gallon. What do you
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: make of the latest developments in Iran and the shift
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of Republicans now being in favor of the War Powers Resolution?
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Just the cycle. It's every week. We wake up on Monday.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: There is either a Truth Social or an Axios post
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: with multiple sirens that tells us that we're on the
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: verge of a deal. We are right there. They're circling
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: around it. That reality lasts like five hours. Then we
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: are on the verge of war. Trump is right. We
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: really are on the verge of both. Then we are
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: making war plans. We're threatening to bomb people. We're ending civilizations.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: And then at the moment right before the bombing is
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: set to begin, things get tacoed and we are back
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: to stalemate. And it's just, we've been on rinse and
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: repeat of this cycle for weeks now.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I will say that with each new draft of the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: peace proposal looks less like peace and more like a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: meaningless extension of a ceasefire yeah well this yeah the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: latest one is the latest one is just like this
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: will be like a memo that gives 30 days for
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: peace negotiations but like nothing happens within those like the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: straight doesn't open in those 30 days it's basically just
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: where we are right now but a more formal ceasefire
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: for another 30 days well what have they been doing
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for the last 30 days i know what's different i
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: don't even understand what the point of the memo is.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Like, theoretically, people are talking somewhere, right?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: People are talking somewhere. People are talking somewhere. Well, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: it seems like the Iranians, of course, have every incentive
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to continue to kick the ball down the road without
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: having to give anything up because they don't want to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: get bombed again because Trump keeps inching closer to resuming
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: just hostilities. And Bibi is reportedly pushing him towards that
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: as well. Apparently, there's like a tense call between Trump
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and Netanyahu where Trump was like, give peace a chance. Um, and, uh,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and Netanyahu obviously was like, no, let's bomb the shit
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: out of them. And so, um, yeah, like, would I be,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: would I be shocked if this time we actually get
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: some kind of a deal this weekend? No, but I
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: would be shocked if it was actually a meaningful peace
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: deal that ended the hostilities and actually for permanent.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: What do you think is more likely this weekend? We
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: take a step towards peace and I'm not a bit,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: not peace, but even like something like a memo or something,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: or we invade Cuba. I think Cuba's highly more likely.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think peace. I mean, not peace. Can I
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: just say the memo? I say memo. I say memo
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: over Cuba. But Cuba, who knows?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: We're doing rapid response three hours after this. Rapid response
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: in the middle of its wedding about the Cuba invasion.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will not be doing rapid response there.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Tommy has to do it. He's got to speak to
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the people.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what? We'll be at the bar.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: We can wave to Tommy.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: What, are we having mojito?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: All right. One other rake Trump stepped on this week
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that we got to talk about. You mentioned this. The
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: president has endorsed scandal-plagued Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in the Texas Senate primary runoff, much to the delight
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of Democrats in dismay of Senate Republicans. Trump called Cornyn, quote,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a good man, but said that he wasn't there for
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: him when he needed him, when times were tough. And
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: then he dubbed Paxton a true MAGA warrior who would
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: presumably vote for all the ballroom funding and insurrectionist payouts
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: that Trump asked for.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: And the SAVE Act. That's the big one.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: The SAVE Act, right. Remember the SAVE Act we talked
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: about forever? And then that's just, that's dead. Yeah, I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: guess Ken Paxton would revive it in the next Congress.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Runoff is Tuesday. What do you make of Trump's decision?
• 28:47
  Speaker 7: Insane.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: A truly insane decision. It's in the immediate aftermath. Let's
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: just go back in time a couple months to the
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Texas primary, which honestly feels like 10 years ago. But
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Cornyn did better than anyone expected. The assumption was that
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Trump said he was going to make an endorsement. Everyone
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: assumed he was going to endorse Cornyn. If Trump had
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: done that, Paxton would have probably had to drop out.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: His campaign would have dried up, and Cornyn would be
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: the nominee. Instead, he invaded Iran instead of focusing on this,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: dithered for a long time, could have just stayed silent,
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: and then endorsed Ken Paxton with a week to go,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: almost ensuring that Ken Paxton will be the nominee. Ken
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Paxton is, by every measure, less electable than John Cornyn.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: We've seen this in the polling. There is a slice
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: of Republicans who will vote for Cornyn over Tallarico, but
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: we'll vote for Tallarico over Paxton. And just like, he
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: is so like, this is the example. He's so focused
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: on vengeance that he decided to go after John Cornyn.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: We were already, we already just talked about the, the,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: the consequences in the Senate. And just even more practically, like,
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: This day– I think the Cook Political Report moved this
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: to lean Republican.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: They said they will.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: If– They will if Paxton is the nominee. So they
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: probably still have advantages here. But the NRSC, all the
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: super PACs are going to have to spend ungodly amounts
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: of money in this race to try to just win
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: a state they should have already won. All because Trump
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: just could not help himself.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Could you make a political argument, and I realize it
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be a good one, it's not one that I favor,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that it's possible John Cornyn would be a weaker candidate
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: than Ken Paxton because the Trump, like the hardcore MAGA
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: base would be pissed and maybe stay home if Cornyn
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: was the nominee and so you would sort of, and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you need turnout in the midterm, like is that a thing?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Maybe we would have made that argument if Cornyn wins.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: We may make that argument if Cornyn wins the primary
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday. So stay tuned.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Hey, that's not what we do here, Dan.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Tune in to next week's Polar Coaster.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: That's not what we do here.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I think that argument is hard to support.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, all the polling shows that Tallarico does
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: better against Paxton than Cornyn, but only by a point
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: or two. In some of this polling. Which, in Texas,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: could be everything, of course. Probably would be everything.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: He's not winning by more than a point or two, FYI.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right. But I thought that the delta between
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the two in the polling would be bigger than it
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: has been. Now, there haven't been that many polls, but,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And there's also, in these polls, there's, you know, like
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: 10% to 12% undecided. And we have to look and
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: see who makes up that undecided. But if you are
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: in Texas, just... I think that it's just, it's like,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: let's not overcomplicate this. Ken Paxton is a man who
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: is an absolute crook, a serial adulterer, a fucking lunatic.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: And he's terrible at raising money.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: His own staff called the FBI on him. That to
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: me is my, that's my favorite thing. It's like, how
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: many people have their own staff call the FBI on him? Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And no one here, right? Nice.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Checking.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: They're all the way to the left.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: But Paxton is such a perfect foil for Tallarico. this
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: nice thoughtful guy who can talks about his religion. It's faithful.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Like you just, they're the exact opposite of each other.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: And that is that it really helps tell the Rico
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: in a way that is, it's not just Republican Democrats,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: like a good person, a bad person. And that, that
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: is going to help tell Rico. There's, we can, we
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: can pretend like Cornyn cause he sucks as a politician
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: and isn't very good on the stump. And it's kind
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: of a, there, he puts on a cowboy hat every
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: year for an ad and it looks fucking ridiculous in it. Um,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: it looks like it's basically Photoshopped on his head. Um,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: But Paxton, running against Paxton is way better for Tallarico
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: than Cornyn.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you make the argument that Cornyn basically
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: is generic Republican in a ballot, and Paxton is less,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: is more vulnerable than a generic Republican because he, again,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: is committed bribery and corruption and adultery.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: But think about how close Beto came to beating Ted Cruz.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Tommy and I talked about this on OnlyFriends, which I
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: was like, there's like three factors here, right? It's Three
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: questions for does Tallarico win? Do you think the overall
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: national environment is bluer than it was in 2018? Do
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you think Tallarico is a better candidate than Beto? And
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: then do you think Paxton is a worse candidate than
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz?
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I think on all three measures, this is better for
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Tallarico than it was for Beto. And Beto came within
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: three points.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's probably right.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: But now those last three points, that is a long fucking.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Mile to cross in Texas. I also said that. That's
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: where I came down. I'm like, and he could do
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: better than Beto and still lose like just a little. But,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I think he's a special candidate. I have
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: for a long time. I know you do, too. And, like,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, everyone should.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: If anyone can do it, it is James Tallarico right
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: now in this environment against Ken Paxton.
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by the Obama Foundation.
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• 34:41
  Speaker 1: All right, Dan, some breaking news this morning on the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: 2024 DNC autopsy. Ken Martin finally agreed to release the
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: full text of the report, which CNN published after the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: uproar that followed his interview with us a few weeks ago.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: This is from Martin's statement, quote, I didn't want to
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: create a distraction... But by not putting the report out,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: I sincerely apologize. He also said, quote, it does not
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: meet my standards and it won't meet your standards, but
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I am doing this because people need to be able
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word. Well,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I agree with him there. The 192-page report is riddled
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: with inaccuracies, at times incoherent, ultimately incomplete. The section headlined, conclusion,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: comes with an annotation that says, this section was not
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: provided by the author. Still, it's all you need to know.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: There's also no mention of Biden's decision to run again,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: his age, Gaza, inflation. Dan, do you have some thoughts
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: you'd like to share? I feel like I've said plenty
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: on this.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: You'll have more to say, I hope. This is so
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: fittingly stupid. This is what we suspected all along, which
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: is Ken Martin hired the wrong person to do the report.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: The wrong person did a terrible job. Instead of starting
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: the report over or saying that Ken Martin just started lying,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: couldn't stop lying, and just got himself into this incredible hole.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: And then he doesn't get points for transparency here because
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: CNN got some parts they were able to get from
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: some sources, parts of the report. And once the CNN
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: had that, then the DNC made the decision, which was
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: the right decision, to release the rest of it. Like
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: it's so– it could not have been handled more poorly.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Just every part of it. So I'm going to go
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: through a couple of things here. One, this is just
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a management disaster. This was supposed to be a huge
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: priority for Ken Martin. He hired someone to work for
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: free who no one in the Democratic Party would have
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: picked for this role. There was no actual process set up.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: There was clearly no monitoring of the process or oversight
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: or anyone working on or tracking what was happening because
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: he was shocked when he got the report. Well, why
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: weren't there calls every week? Why wasn't someone on your
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: staff in charge of doing this? Why wasn't there a
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: committee of people? I can think of dozens upon dozens
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: of very, very qualified, very, very smart Democrats who would
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: have volunteered to be part of this process to do
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: it right. And I know this because there have been
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: a bunch of other autopsies that have come out where
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: they've gotten really, really smart people to do it and
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: completed the work.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Someone that we know reached out to me and said,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: we wrote a 700-page post-mortem on the 2012 campaign, the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Obama campaign, and it was done in January. The election
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: was in November.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: And so that's just an absolute management disaster. The second
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: piece is the lying.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: It's the biggest piece.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: The lying is so crazy. And I go back to
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: the interview with you, which is, and you talked about
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: this when we did the interview. We talked about it since.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I just want everyone to fully understand. We did not
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: seek out Ken Martin for the purpose of talking to
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: him about the autopsy. We had no interest in talking
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: to Ken Martin about the autopsy. He complained to you
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: about tweets sent by someone who's not you.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Nope, nope. Ben Rhodes' tweet. Ben Rhodes' tweet kicked it off.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: And then he came up to you at the Grindr party.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Yep, sure did.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: And expressed his dismay. You can talk about how he
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: expressed it. And so the response was that he would
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: come on the podcast and discuss it. He sought out
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to do it to continue to push the lie.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Because the argument that they were making, Kenneth Martin had
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: two points in this about the autopsy. It's done. It
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: was helpful. It has informed our playbook. He said the
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: word playbook 10,000 times in that interview. And we can't
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: release it because it would be a distraction and divide
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: the party before the election. The last part is, yes,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: it would be a distraction, but the main reason not
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: to release it is it was embarrassing to Ken Martin,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: or not to come clean with why you weren't releasing
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: this because it would be embarrassing to Ken Martin, not
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: because it would be bad for the party.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if it was just the autopsy and this
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: was just one incident here, that would be one thing.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: But the fact that it goes to trust issues and credibility.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: And as Ken says in his statement, we need to
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: be able to trust the Democratic Party and people need
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to be able to trust us again. It is indicative
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: of a larger issue that he has had since taking
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: this role as chairman at the DNC. And look no
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: further than the April fundraising reports that came out the
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: same day today, that say, once again, the Democratic National
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Committee has negative $ 3 million in the bank when you
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: account for the debts that they owe. And the Republican
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: National Committee has $ 124 million in the bank. And then
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: when you look at the fundraising of the RNC versus
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the DNC, the RNC has raised many, many, many, many,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: many more times the amount of money as the DNC.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the fundraising between the D
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: triple C and the Republican congressional campaign committee. Um, when you, the,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the two house committees, uh, you know, the Republicans have
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: outraised Democrats by a little, but not as much as
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: RNC versus DNC. Same thing with the Senate committees. So
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: it's not a democratic party wide problem, fundraising problem. It's
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: a DNC problem.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: And one of the reasons why the DNC is not
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: able to raise money and Ken Martin has disputed this,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: but many, many donors have said otherwise. is the autopsy.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: Because the autopsy has bred just frustration that DNC didn't
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: do it, questions of trust about Ken Martin. What are
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: we giving our money for if we're not getting it?
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: And this is, I mean, burying the lead here, but
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: this is why I think Ken Martin should step down.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I think this is a bridge too far. He cannot
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: repair the trust here. Everything we've seen here is he's
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: not the right person for the job. I'm sorry, that
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: seems like a harsh thing to say, but it is clear.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: There's He has an impossible job. We have worked with many,
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: many DNC chairs. Even under the best circumstances, the job
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: sucks ass. It is really, really hard. No one has
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: ever seen a successful DNC chair. People are hammered for it.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: But the thing is that Ken Martin is now the
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: distraction that he was trying to avoid. And because you're
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the distraction, then you should go. Like he says in
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: his post, my job is winning elections. Well, the best
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: thing for the Democrats to win elections is to have
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a fresh start at the DNC, both now and in 2028,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: where the trust issue matters so much more because the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: DNC is going to run the presidential primary. They're going
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: to set up the debates. They're going to pick the calendar,
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: which is a huge thing. They're going to make decisions
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: about how delegates are allocated. They're going to deal with
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: states to try to jump the calendar. All of this matters.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: And when people don't trust the DNC, as happened in 2016,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: when all of the emails came out as part of
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: the the Russian hacks of DNC emails that showed that
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: people at the DNC were favoring Hillary over Bernie. People
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: didn't trust the DNC. They didn't trust the process. They
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: thought it was rigged and it hurt. It hurt in
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: the general election. We need people to trust the process.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: And I say that as a Sixers fan, but we
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: need people to trust the process.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and what he has opened up to now is
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: any candidate who runs for president in 2028, who complains
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: about unfairness at the DNC, whether those accusations are fair
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: or not, accurate or not, like no one's going to
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: believe Ken Martin because he has this credibility issue, right?
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: And same thing with the excuses on the money, right?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: He did a whole thing with me in the interview
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: about like, you know, we're actually fine and we're investing
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: in state parties and you need to spend and all
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. But like, I don't know. Can
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I believe that now? I don't know. He had this
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: other lie for a long, long time and tried to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: hide it, tried to cover up this report. So, yeah,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I guess after it was released today, there was a
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: call for DNC members, a private call just for all
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the DNC members, and it talked to some people who
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: were on the call. And he basically just read the
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: statement that he gave CNN, essentially, and apologized again, and
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: then also said that Paul Rivera, who he put in
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: charge of this report, is no longer helping out at
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the DNC because part of the CNN story said that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: even after he fucked up the autopsy, Paul Rivera was
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: still walking around the DNC, like demoralizing staffers just by
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: his presence because they all knew that he had fucked
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: up so badly. So he said that Paul Rivera is
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: no longer working. And then no questions on the call.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: No questions from any of the DNC members after this.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I also got something from some of the DNC saying
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: that a lot of the outlets are mistaken in saying
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: that there's no pathway to removal for Ken, that it's
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: actually just a simple majority vote of the DNC. So
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that's interesting. And there's at least one congressman, Representative Mark Veazey,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: said that it's time for Ken Martin to go. So
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I tend to think, do
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: you think his job is safe? Do you think he'll resign?
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: It seems like a tall order, but I don't know.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I hope he would be willing to look
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: at the reality of the situation and recognize that because
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: of the mistakes that he made that the best thing
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: for the party would be to step down. I don't
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: think he's going to do that. We're in this mess
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: because he was trying to protect himself, not the party.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: So hard to say. I mean, you know, is the,
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: are we really going to take the, even if it's easy,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: it's an extraordinary step to remove the DNC chairs. Anyone
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: going to do that five months before the midterms, I'd
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: be surprised.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: And then you need another candidate.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: It's a real question. before the 2028 calendar is set
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: as to whether we have to do something different here. Also,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: the other problem is no one seems to want the job.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: So you need someone else who would want the job.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: You need someone else who, you need the donors to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: say that if someone else takes the job, then the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: money will start flowing again and they'll start donating, right?
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Because you don't want the new, you don't want a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: new chair to still be stuck at the same problem financially.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: And it does, you know, people have been complaining, this
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: is a distraction, distraction. Like it does at some point
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: eat up a you know, as we're getting close to
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: the midterms. But the challenge is after the midterms happen,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: if they are as expected and things go well, again,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: you can hear the DNC taking credit for it in
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: advance and they will have nothing to do with the victory. Again,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: if things don't go well, it's still not the DNC's fault.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: They just don't have that much to do with midterm
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: elections at all. But as soon as the midterms are over,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: we're fucking into the presidential primary. And people are going
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: to start putting their campaigns together, and you're going to
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: need the calendars and all the stuff that you were
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: just talking about. And so, I don't know. It's a
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: fucking mess. Fucking mess.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: It's so stupid.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And we're not digging into the actual autopsy because it's
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a joke. It's not worth talking about anything in it
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: because it's not endorsed by the DNC or anyone else.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: It's just like Paul Rivera's ramblings that are the basis
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: of him talking to... just some people involved with the
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: 2024 campaign who aren't even most of the senior people
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: on the campaign.
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: There's been a lot, I would say to people who
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: are interested in what happened, there's been a lot of
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: actual autopsies from outside groups. Way to Win has one.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Catalyst has their report. We talked about Rob Flaherty's bulwark
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: piece the other day. There's one from, I think the
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Strategic Victory Fund, if I'm saying that correctly, has one.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: There's actually some pretty good, pretty exhaustive work about what
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: happened in 2024 that people want, they should go look at.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: But looking at this version is not worth doing. Because
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: you could look for it. I would say read the
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: executive summary, but that was also not provided.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 46:55
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you think he'll come back on the pod? Maybe.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Maybe. Maybe you guys will meet up again at next
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: year's Grindr party.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Fingers crossed. Maybe there'll be alcohol this time. All right.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Democrats being unhappy with Democrats, the New York
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Times released new results from their latest poll that we
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: talked about on Tuesday. This installment is focused on Democrats
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: and independents who say they're planning to support Democratic candidates
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: in the fall. Overall, more than half of these voters
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: disapprove of the Democratic Party. More than half also said
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the party should move to the center rather than move
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: to the left in order to win the 2028 presidential election.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: But when asked that question about specific issues, the results
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: were more varied. On economic issues, 36% said move to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the left, pretty competitive with the 42% who said move
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: to the center. And on health care, 45 percent of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Democratic voters want to move to the left compared to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: just 27 percent who said move to the center and
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: 26 percent who said don't move in either direction. Health
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: care was the issue where the biggest percentage of voters
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: thought the Democratic Party should move to the left. And
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: then I would say economy was next. And then when
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: you get to issues like crime, I think was the
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: top issue where the most the highest percentage of Democrats
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: said that the party should move to the right. or
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: at least move to the center, sorry, and then immigration.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: And actually, you know, we can talk about this too,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: but trans issues was not as, there weren't as many people,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: and this would go against sort of the prevailing narrative,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: but there weren't as many Democrats who wanted the party
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to move to the center on trans issues as there
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: were on crime and immigration, still the top two. So
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: what did you make of this novel line of questioning
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: in the poll, which they did ask voters like, how
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: do you personally feel about the direction of the party
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: on these issues and what direction do you think the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: party should move in? And then they asked which direction
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you think the party should move to win. So they
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: did both, but the, the, the move to win basically
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: asking voters to be pundits is a, is a new one. Yeah.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: I generally hate that idea. Like it's always, it's just,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: it's just, I much rather more, I'm much more interested
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: in what voters actually think because you would like to
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: believe that that's what informs voting behavior. But I will
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: say that this is a very interesting finding. One, it
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: just proves that among Democrats, the narrative that Democrats lost
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: because we were too far to the left, too woke,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: too liberal has taken hold among Democrats. The plurality of
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: Democrats believe that, at least on a core set of issues.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: It's like that's an interesting data point that that has,
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: you know, there was this battle after the election. Were
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: we too moderate or too left? And at least for
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: the people responding to this poll, it was clearly the
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: problem was we were too left, not left enough. And
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: the other reason why I think this is somewhat informative
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: is electability has become the preeminent issue in Democratic politics.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: You know, it was a huge issue in the Texas
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Senate primary. It was a huge issue in the Maine
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Senate primary before Janet Mills dropped out. It's a giant
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: issue in the Iowa primary that happened a couple of weeks,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: and it's a big issue in the Michigan Senate primary
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: that is in August. And so it's interesting to know
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: what voters think makes someone electable, or in this case
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: may make them think someone is less electable. You know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: looking at the numbers, it is.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Did you dive into the crosstabs?
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: The crosstabs are not that... They're not that surprising.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I figured you did, but I did too. I'm ready
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: to nerd out about some crosstabs of people.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Some real nuggets, but it's sort of, it's what you,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: the findings are kind of across the board. What would
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: be interesting would be if there was one group who
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: really thought they should move to the left, but really
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: just kind of across the board people or not move
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: to the right or whatever it is, but everyone kind
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: of all feels the same way, just in varying degrees.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: The college split on these issues is notable to me.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: that non-college voters tend to want the party to move
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: towards the center and college voters want the party to
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: move to the left. And then it splits on racial
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and education lines in a very interesting way, which is
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: non-college black voters and non-college Latino voters, along with non-college
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: white voters, very much want the party to move to
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: the center. And really the only demographic group that most
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: wants the party to move to the left is white
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: college grads. Also some black and Hispanic college grads, but
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: it's just a larger chunk of the electorate is white
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: college grads.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: And more with younger people. It all skews younger in
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: all of these.
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: And particularly on issues, again, against the prevailing narrative, on
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: issues of immigration and crime. Yeah. That you see black
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: and Latino, non-college, Democratic voters say they want the party
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: to move to the center.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Oh yes.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is the, I guess I thought we,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: I felt like we were past that prevailing narrative, um,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: or that even that narrative is kind of, but I guess,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: I guess it depends on where you're getting your news
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: these days.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Just, just wait till we get to the
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: next primary.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, and it's like, obviously electability is going
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: to hang over, uh, the 2028 primary in a massive way. Um,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: and so this, this will inform that. I think the
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: healthcare one is very interesting on economic issues. It's only
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: a six point spread. Um, which I think is also notable.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: And then what I found also interesting is that they
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: asked Democrats if they thought the economic system in the
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: country was generally unfair to most Americans. 88%, yes. Only
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: 11% said fair to most Americans. And whether the political
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: and economic system needs to be changed. So 63% said
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: major changes. 20% said torn down completely. And 15% said
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: minor changes. And 1% said no changes. who that person is,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: which Democrat thinks that regards no changes I'd be interested in.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: But I think there is this paradox here, which is
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you have people saying, we think the party should move
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: right on certain issues, but there is an appetite for big,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: bold ideas on the economy and healthcare. And like people
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: want real change. And so nibbling around the edges is
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: not going to be sufficient, both in the Democratic primary
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: and And the general. People want to see that you
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: understand the scale of the problems affecting their lives, the
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: ways in which the system is broken and corrupt, and
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: you have big ideas. So the sort of– not to
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: pick on Kamala Harris' economic team, but this is what
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: not to do is we're going to offer– Tax credits.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Tax credits for first-time homebuyers. It's a good policy theoretically,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: but it just seems small compared to what people actually want.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Building more houses would be a better policy.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Well, that would be a better policy. You can do both.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do both. But yeah, I mean, there
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: was a line in here in the write-up of the
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: piece of the poll, which was, and when presented with
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: two opposing economic visions, more than two-thirds of Democratic supporters,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: now we're 65, 66%, said they favored a candidate who
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: would go after corporate monopolies and price gouging, while just
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: 30% preferred a candidate who promised to lower prices by
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: easing housing regulations and expanding energy production. Now, You know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: some of this is in wording, but that doesn't sound
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: very exciting to ease housing regulations and expand energy production.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: But just to give people a baseline, because I thought
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: this was interesting. So they asked, like, how do you
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: think about the party? Is it too far left? Is
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: it too far right? Or is it not too far
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: either way? 55% said not too far either way. 20%
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: said too left. 17% said too right. So right there,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: you're a candidate trying to win the party's nomination. You
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: got like a little more than half of the electorate
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that you're trying to get who thinks the party is
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: ideologically good where it is right now. And then you've
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: got almost similar percentages on either side. So that is
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: a tough thing to navigate. I also thought the delta
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: between when they asked people, where would you personally like
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: to see the party move? And to win where would
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: you like to see the party move was actually not
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that different. So 28% said they personally like to see
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the party move to the left. And 25% said that
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: to win, the party should move to the left. And
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: then 47% said they personally want it to move to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: the center. And 52% said to win, they want to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: move to the center. So you do have a percentage
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of people who are saying, oh, personally, I want the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: party to be more left oriented. but to win, it
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: should move to the center. But not a ton. The
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: delta wasn't as big as I thought it would be.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Well, it's, I mean, for the reasons we've talked about
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: for many years, which is the median Democrat is a
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: voter that didn't go to college and is more moderate
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: than most people listening to this podcast and we are personally.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: And that's the party that nominated Joe Biden in 2020.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And that remains true. I think these questions are a
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: little confusing in how they're ordered. Like, But it is
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: just notable that 55% are generally okay with the direction
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: the party is. Now, how many of those 55% can
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: name what the direction of the party actually fucking is
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: right now?
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to say, the other thing
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that stands out in some of the questions that they
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: asked is, and we always talk about this, but it's
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: a good reminder for everyone, is how those of you
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, you are so different than 70%
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of the rest of the electorate in that you pay
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: closer attention to politics and know more about what's going
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: on in politics day to day than most of the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: people who will show up and vote in elections. So
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: they asked about Schumer and Schumer's approval rating in this
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: poll among just Democrats and independents that they're going to
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: vote Democrat is 26% in favor, 31% opposed. And you're like, well,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: that's kind of low. 35% never heard of Chuck Schumer. Uh,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, uh, 11% approved, 48% disapprove. The rest never
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: heard of Joe Rogan.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: Nick Fuentes. What is it? 9% approve.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't even see Fuentes in there. Yeah.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: Fuentes is in the cross tabs.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: They asked, I guess just for fun. Uh, have you heard,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: maybe Ezra got this question and, uh, have you heard
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: of the abundance movement? 91% of people in that they pulled, uh,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: all of whom, again, all these people said they're going
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: to vote in the midterms. 91% never heard of the
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: abundance movement. Um, So it's a good reminder that people
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: who are even in midterms, which is a more engaged electorate,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: even midterm voters are just not paying as much attention
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: to all the shit that we talk about every week.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: These are registered voters, right?
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but registered voters who said they're going to vote
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: in the midterm. The Israel numbers, crazy. Only 20% favor
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: more aid to Israel. 74% do not. 15%. sympathize with
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Israel over the Palestinians and 60% Palestinians over Israelis. The
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: highest group of support for Israel of any demographic is
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: 65 plus, unsurprising there. Even that group, 65 plus, only
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: 27% said that they have more sympathy for Israel and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the Palestinians. That is just a massive shift on that issue.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: You can thank Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Bibi Netanyahu
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: for that.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. And then 49% favor socialism, 22%
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: no socialism, and then the rest had no opinion.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Every age group of Democrats has a favorable opinion. So
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: they don't support socialism. They have a favorable.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Opinion of it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: That is important, yeah.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: That may be a distinction without a difference in the
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: ads that will be run, but I think it does
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: matter on what people say. But yeah, even voters... over 65,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: if I remember correctly, Democrats over 65, by a more
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: narrow margin, have a favorable view of socialism.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, last one I wanted to ask you about. 49%
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: of voters said it was important to choose leaders with
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: a fresh approach. 48% want to choose leaders with proven experience.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: It's a real.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: And guess what young people wanted?
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: Experience?
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. By like a lot more than other age groups.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: It was a sort of... I think that.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: This one is... I think this is a confusing question,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: and I don't think it says exactly what you think
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: it says. I think the backdrop for this is our
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: reality TV show president, who has no real experience and
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: is fucking up left and right every single day. And
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: so I think the question that will be more interesting
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: as we think about the 2028 Democratic primaries, do you
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: want someone who is a part of the establishment or
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: against the establishment? Because everyone who's running is going to
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: have some answer on experience. It's just what experience means.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: We saw this in 2008. Everyone can define experience the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: way they do, and then you either sell it or
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: you don't. Because if you don't... No one wants someone
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: with insufficient experience.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: That is true.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: That is true. While we're on this topic, there's a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: bit of a mess brewing in the Democratic primary in
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Texas's redrawn 35th district, where Sheriff's Deputy Johnny Garcia is
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: now in a runoff with a sex therapist named Maureen Galindo,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: who has posted wildly anti-Semitic comments online, including calling Judaism
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the synagogue of Satan and promising to turn an ICE
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: detention center into, quote, a prison for American Zionists, and
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: former ICE officers, adding, quote, it will also be a
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: of the Zionists. Disgusting. A mysterious super PAC called Lead Left,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: which was formed earlier this month and whose website initially
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: linked to the Republican platform WinRed, has now spent about $ 600, 000
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: to boost Galindo. Demoline super PACs have now just about
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: matched that spending to defeat Galindo, and everyone from James
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Tallarico to Hakeem Jeffries to AOC has condemned her. Um,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: what do you make of this?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's, it's a mess. It's an absolute mess. I mean,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: good for everyone for speaking up and trying to defeat
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: this person. The Republicans are pretty devious in what they're doing.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: They're going to do this in multiple places around the country.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: They've already tried to do it in a couple of states,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: including Pennsylvania. I mean, we have, we have been involved
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: in private democratic groups have been involved in primaries before.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: So this is not beyond the bound, beyond the bounds
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: of what's acceptable or what's appropriate. but add us to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: the list of people condemning her and hoping she does
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: not win.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you are in that district, if you're
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: a voter in that district, if you know voters in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: that district, like tell them to go vote for Johnny Garcia.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: She got more votes in the primary.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 9: I know.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: That's what, that's what we're all worried about. This is on,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: this is on Tuesday. She got, so this is the
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: runoff and she got more votes than him the first
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: time around. And so, you know, I think I, I
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: can't even begin. The most generous explanation is that people,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: who voted for her did not know about all the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: comments and all the positions, I hope. And that maybe,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and that she obviously had a lot of money and
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: spending behind her. So her name ID was better than
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Johnny Garcia. So he needs better name ID. Maybe this
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: controversy getting kicked up will help sort of focus people
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: and people in that 35th district will hear about this
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and be like, oh, that's crazy. We've got to vote
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: for Johnny Garcia. But anyway, we should, everyone should get
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: the word out because this isn't just someone who's like
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: crazy lefty This is like fucking concentration camps for Zionists.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Are you fucking kidding me? Like, it's awful. And Republicans,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: of course, are so fucking cynical and having a field
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: day with this and being like, oh, Democrats, Democrats are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: the ones voting for the anti-Semites and the people who
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: want to put Jews in camps, not Republicans. And meanwhile,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of course, not saying anything about the fact that there's
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: this like mysterious super PAC linked to the Republican group
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Win Red that is spending to on this race, which
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: is just crazy. So, Johnny Garcia, go check it out.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: All right, one last topic today. There are two very
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: notable weddings taking place this Memorial Day weekend. As we've said,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: one is our own John Lovett and Ari Schwartz, which
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: we're all very excited to attend. The other is Donald
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Trump Jr. and Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, which Donald
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Trump Sr. is maybe skipping? Let's listen to what he
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: said in the Oval.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: I think your son's wedding this weekend, by the way.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 8: He'd like me to go, but it's going to be
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 8: just a small little private affair, and I'm going to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 8: try and make it.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: I'm in the midst.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 8: I said, you know, this is not good timing for me.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 8: I have a thing called Iran and other things. That's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 8: one I can't win on.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 6: If I do attend, I get killed.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 8: If I don't attend, I get killed.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: What?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I saw this this morning. It is 4 o'clock in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the afternoon. I am still stunned by this.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, we have joked for many, many years about
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: how Donald Trump does not love his children and they
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: act this way because he does not love them and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: he can barely identify them and really did no parenting.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: This kind of proves the point.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just generational trauma, just inaction. We're just watching it
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: unfold right in that clip. Also, you know what? Donald
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's famous for skipping festivities and any kind of leisure
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: activity because he likes to be focused on the nation's business.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: He's well known for that.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: No one would kill him for going to his son's wedding.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: He does a lot of dumb shit.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: He's going to USC finals.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: He's playing golf. This would free pass for this one.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: It's in the Bahamas, I guess. Air Force One can
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: go to the Bahamas.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: He can go anywhere, yeah.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: He can go anywhere. They could bring a fucking mobile
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: sit room.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: I bet he says this is not at Mar-a-Lago because
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: he wanted to charge his son.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: That is... I can't even imagine. I can't imagine. It's
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: so good. I hope he doesn't go. I fucking hope
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: he doesn't go. And also not like, he also wasn't even,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: it would have even been different if he was like, oh,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I'm so like, I can't make it. You know, like
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: he was definitive and he had the excuse, but he
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: did the worst of all worlds, which is just be like,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to make it, but I don't know.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not good timing.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Also, it's about me.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I told him it's not, he had not good timing
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: for me. Yeah. Not good timing for me. It's really,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: it's your fault. I'm not coming to your wedding, son.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Good stuff.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Anyway, anyway, congrats to John Jr. Congrats to John Jr.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: And John Lovett.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: And John Lovett.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Just cut from the same cloth. When we come back,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: California gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan.
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• 1:07:02
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• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: with a full head of hair and a sick mullet?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: There's that or there's just you're standing outside at a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: press conference and it's a little warm and suddenly you
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  Speaker 1: got the new hair dripping down your face.
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• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: promo code CROOKED. My guest today is the mayor of
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: San Jose. He's running to be the next governor of
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: the great state of California, Matt Mahan. Great to see you.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Good to see you.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming into the Crooked Media grand offices.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: It's beautiful. I love the art.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really digging for compliments today. All right, let's
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: cut to the chase. So- You've got a motley, crowded
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: field of candidates in this race. Election day is fast approaching.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: People are already voting. I got my ballot at the House.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: I'm an undecided voter. I want to talk to you
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: about it in a bit. Why are you the best
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: candidate to lead this state?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 9: Well, thanks for having me on. I think I'm the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 9: best candidate to lead the state because I'm the only
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 9: Democrat in the race who has a track record of
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 9: challenging the establishment within my own party to make our
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 9: government deliver for people. And at a time when we've
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 9: got an authoritarian president who is trying to take the
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 9: country in a very dangerous direction. We need Democrats who
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 9: can govern and make people's lives better. The way we
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 9: win in the long run is proving that we can
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 9: implement policies that make people's neighborhoods safer and cleaner, their
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 9: schools better, make housing more affordable. If we're delivering bad
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 9: outcomes and people are dissatisfied with our leadership, it becomes
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 9: very hard to fight for democracy and get people to
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 9: care about climate change change and many of the kind
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 9: of longer term goals that we have.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: So I agree with a lot of what you're saying,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: but just, you know, we're in LA, we have this
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: mayoral race happening. That's kind of goofy. I'm sure you've seen,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: we've got Karen Bastian come into the Democrat. She's got
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: a challenge from the left from Nithya Raman. And then
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: a challenge from the right, from like a washed up
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: reality TV participant, I don't even want to call him
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: a star, Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Palisades fire and I think has channeled very understandable anger
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: about the response into a surprisingly effective campaign. And he's
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: like tapped into this rage at the government, rage at
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: the system, that I think was bubbling below the surface
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: for a lot of people. And like, not just, you know,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: people who are feeling like the economic pinch, like a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: lot of rich, powerful people in this city are like
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: pro Pratt now. Are you hearing that anger on the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: campaign trail? And if so, how did Democrats address it
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: and speak to it? Like when we're in charge of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: everything here and have been for a while.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 9: I am hearing that frustration and in some cases outright anger.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 9: And that's exactly what I'm talking about. When I ran
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 9: for mayor of San Jose, which is the third largest
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 9: city in the state, I was hearing deep frustration with
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 9: the most basic things. There's crime in my neighborhood, sprawling
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 9: tent encampments, our schools are failing, I can't afford the rent.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 9: I mean, the stuff that really keeps people up at
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: night and affects them in their daily lives. And I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 9: realized very quickly when I was out knocking on doors
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 9: and talking to people that we have to own those
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 9: shortcomings and offer people change that is pragmatic and responsible.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 9: I believe we are almost continuously in a change election
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 9: mode because government today is failing to get the basics right.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 9: In San Jose, I focused on things that are very
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 9: simple but have an outsized impact. Speeding up permitting, creating
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 9: a neighborhood quality of life unit within our police department,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 9: building basic dignified interim housing. And when it's available, requiring
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 9: people come indoors, partnering with our county to get more
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 9: people into drug treatment. by focusing on very basic issues
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 9: that people see and feel every single day that you
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 9: sadly see go viral on Nextdoor and everywhere else, we've
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: increased trust in City Hall by 40% in my time
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 9: as mayor. And I think that's the playbook. It'll look
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 9: different in different cities and different states. But again, I
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 9: go back to this core premise that we have to
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 9: be outcome focused. We have to look at the outcomes
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 9: that matter most to voters. And they're pretty clear. They're
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 9: telling us it's It's cost of living. It's quality of schools.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 9: It's public safety issues. It's very basic issues. Now it's
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 9: the cost of gas. And yeah, we could spend all
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 9: of our time arguing how much of the cost of
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 9: gas is Trump's war versus.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of it. Yeah.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 9: The last, what, dollar and a half, $ 2, something like
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 9: that is thanks to Donald Trump. But the $ 1. 50 before
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 9: that is largely our own policy decisions. And we need
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 9: to be honest about that. I've argued that the gas
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 9: tax in California has become the most regressive tax that
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 9: affects people living in the kinds of communities I grew
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 9: up in. I grew up in a small farming town
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 9: on the Central Coast, people who can't afford an EV,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 9: Californians who are driving farther because they live in rural
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 9: communities or out in the suburbs and they're commuting every day.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 9: And we should.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 9: Keep it, but we should right-size it. In fact, I
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 9: would convert it into a flat fee that makes sure
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 9: EV owners are paying their fair share. That would be fair.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 9: You'd provide some relief to people and you'd show that
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 9: the Democratic Party is still fighting for working people and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 9: trying to make a real impact in their daily lives.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: Let me be annoying and ask a process question and
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: we'll geek out a little bit. So you got into
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: the race pretty late. It was a crowded field, but
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: now you've been running for a couple of months and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: there was a poll out earlier this week that had
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: you at 4% of the vote. How do you turn
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: things around if that poll is accurate between now and
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: election day when it's, what, a month out, less?
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Less.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 9: I mean, look, there's a lot of fluidity in the polls.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 9: We also recently had a poll that showed us at 10%.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 9: I mean, look, when it's a low turnout race and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 9: voters are holding onto their ballots, it means there's a
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 9: lot of uncertainty and therefore variability in terms of what
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 9: can happen. I believe people are listening. They're not thrilled
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 9: with the choices that they perceive to be the frontrunners
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 9: today because they have some very legitimate concerns about Tom
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 9: Steyer and Javier Becerra and certainly Steve Hilton. And I'm
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 9: offering an alternative that is resonant with those who have
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 9: heard it. What we see in our data is when
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 9: people have seen our ads and heard our message, we
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 9: go above 20% and we're in the top two. So
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 9: my focus is on communicating directly with voters through every
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 9: possible channel, including, thank you very much, this opportunity today.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 9: I want to talk to people about what we've done
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 9: to get housing under construction, to make San Jose the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 9: safest big city in the country, to reduce homelessness faster
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 9: than any other city in the state of California, and
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 9: offer a different view of how we make Sacramento work
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 9: for them. I mean, we have to own, as Democrats,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 9: the fact in the last six years, We have increased
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 9: spending in Sacramento by 75%. That's $ 150 billion per year
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 9: more than we had six years ago. And none of
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 9: the outcomes that people care most about have gotten better.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 9: That is a systemic breakdown. And that's why I'm trying
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 9: to offer very concrete solutions. Fund Prop 36, expand treatment capacity,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 9: do high dosage tutoring when children are falling behind to
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 9: make sure every child's on grade level for reading by
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 9: the end of third grade. These are things that work
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 9: that we have not done largely because of special interest
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 9: capture in Sacramento. We don't build condos in the state
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 9: of California anymore because the trial lawyers like the fees
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 9: they collect from using construction defect laws to sue builders
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 9: of condos. So the city of Miami builds more condos
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 9: every year than the entire state of California. Why does
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 9: that matter? That's the most accessible form of home ownership
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 9: for young people. And we wonder why people are getting
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 9: priced out of our state. I'm running against the special
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 9: interest capture in Sacramento and the status quo. I've done
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 9: that as the mayor of a large city and it's worked.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 9: We've delivered meaningful outcomes.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you more about homeownership and young
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: people in the state. Just one more sort of process thing,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: which is like, look, I'm literally an undecided voter in
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: this race in part because as you know, we have
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: this stupid fucking jungle primary system here where there's a runoff,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: there's a first round on June 2nd, the top two
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: candidates go to the runoff. So that leads to strategic
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: voting right there was all this anxiety about democrats splitting
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: the vote two republicans ascending and right then we have
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: a de facto republican governor that probably won't happen now
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: because uh chad seems to touch cuckoo um and trump
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: has chosen the british short king is his guy in
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: california what's going on there i guess fox um yeah
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: but then but then there's people like me who are
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: just like overthinking it right because i have candidates that
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: appeal to my heart and i worry though that if
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: they can't win then maybe i'm doing a harm reduction
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: vote because I have candidates that I think are bad
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: and I want to vote for someone to displace them. Um,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: why do we have this dumb system? I hate it.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 9: Well, I hope I'm speaking to your heart.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: We'll find out.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: We got 15 more minutes.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 9: You can let me know at the end. I don't
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 9: think people should overthink it. It is almost statistically impossible
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 9: for two Republicans to get through. There are not that
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 9: many Republican votes in the state of California. Donald Trump
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 9: is not on the ballot, which means turnout will be
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 9: lower than it would otherwise be. Bianco is hanging in
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 9: there with his third of the Republican Party, but not
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 9: any more than that. And I just, I think it's
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 9: more likely we'll have two Democrats than we will have
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 9: two Republicans by far. It's just not going to happen.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 9: So I think people should vote for the Democrat who
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: they believe will do the best job.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: Can we get rid of this process at some point though?
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 9: The voters can.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 9: They can.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: It's annoying.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: No one likes this.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: Who is this for?
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 9: Well, the theory, I do want to try to articulate
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 9: it because look, there are trade-offs. Partisan primaries also tend
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 9: to drive candidates to the extreme.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: Agreed.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 9: And so I don't know that there's a, I've heard
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 9: another interesting alternative, which is, I know this is going
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 9: to sound crazy, but I was intrigued when someone pitched
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 9: me on this the other day. having the top three
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 9: or four candidates advance and then in the final, the
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 9: second round, do rank choice voting.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: I would do rank choice for sure.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like that solves the problem.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 9: If you winnow the field from 62, which is literally
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 9: what we have on our ballot today, which is insane.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Including someone named Barack Obama, I believe.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Good move on his part.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: Well played, sir.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 9: If you narrow it to say the top four, then
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 9: you're almost certain to have ideological and partisan variety. And
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 9: then because it would then theoretically, if you did rank choice,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 9: you would then optimize for whoever's kind of the best
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 9: overall choice. So I'd be interested in something like that.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 9: I worry if you go back to a partisan primary,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 9: you get the most extreme Republican, the most extreme Democrat.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 9: It's all decided in the primary. And that's, by the way,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 9: looking at the other side, that's how you ended up
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 9: with a Ted Cruz in Texas. He got 5% of
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 9: the vote but because it was enough to make him
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 9: the top candidate in a hyper-partisan Republican primary in a
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 9: red state, he became the de facto Senator for years
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 9: to come.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: Well, he is a very appealing human being, so I
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: can see that magnitude.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 9: For that 5%.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: Drew that 5% in. You have come out against this
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: proposed one-time billionaire's tax, a 5% wealth tax on billionaires
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: in California. This could be on the ballot this fall.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: What's your opposition to this plan?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 9: Yeah. So it's not because I don't think billionaires shouldn't
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 9: be paying more. I mean, look, I think there are
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 9: a lot of loopholes in the tax code we should close.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 9: I'll give you one example. Today, very wealthy people can
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 9: borrow against their stock options or other assets that they
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 9: have not yet paid capital gains on and then deploy,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 9: use those dollars as a way of funding their lifestyles,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 9: their investments, and then never having to pay capital gains.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 9: That's a loophole. We should close that. Actually, I'll give
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 9: you one more. Elon Musk, if he were to die today,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 9: would pass his stock onto his heirs, 500 billion or
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 9: whatever it is, and it would automatically get repriced at
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 9: market rate, meaning even if they turned around and sold
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 9: it the next day, would never pay capital gains on it.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 9: Fundamentally unfair. So there are a whole bunch of things
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 9: in the tax code I would fix. I also think
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 9: with automation, capital gains will probably need to go up.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 9: so that we can lower income tax on those who
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 9: are working.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: For a living.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 9: But when it comes to this wealth tax, the concern
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 9: I have is it's going to punish the middle class
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 9: in California. We've seen about a trillion dollars of capital
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 9: flight from the state already. And this is right in
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 9: line with what we've seen in every other place that's
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 9: tried a wealth tax.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: Trillion dollars in wealth asset value, right? Not taxation.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 9: A trillion dollars worth of wealth, of assets that people
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 9: hold that no longer reside within the state of California
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 9: because their owner now has a primary residence in another state.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: Like Reno or something.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 9: Nevada, Florida, Texas, whatever. And that's what we've seen. So
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 9: there are 14 European countries that have tried wealth taxes
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 9: at the national level, not even the provincial or state level.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 9: And they have generally rolled them back or had to
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 9: significantly modify them for a couple of reasons. One, they
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 9: have seen the overall tax base shrink because they've had
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 9: capital flight. People with very high net worths moving their
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 9: assets and their primary residence out of the country or
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 9: out of the state. The other is to assess people's
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 9: wealth is not a trivial thing. You actually need to
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 9: have an army of assessors go out and go through
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 9: people's belongings and figure out what are all these things worth.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 9: value them and then tax them. And there's a lot
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 9: of distortionary effects. I just think it's likely to backfire.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 9: It's going to be very costly. And ultimately, I think
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 9: it's the middle class that's going to be left holding
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 9: the bag.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: Because there will just be less revenue, you think? Yeah.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 9: And that's not just me. The legislative analyst office, the
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 9: independent policy shop in Sacramento says that we've probably already
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 9: taken $ 10 billion a year off of our future revenues
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 9: based on the capital that's already left the state.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: But if we could recoup that with this one-time tax,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's estimates that it could bring in up
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: to a hundred billion. I mean, it's hard to pencil
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: out the math, right? Cause we just don't know how
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: many people will leave. I also feel like there's this concern.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: We're talking about like 200 people, right? Like 200 billionaires
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: in California. Um, if they all left the state, do
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: they all really have that much income that gets taxed?
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: Like Jeff Bezos famously pays himself 80 grand or something
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: and has since 1998, but all of his wealth is in, uh,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: often unrealized gains in Amazon stock, right? Which is not
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: getting taxed no matter what happens. It's like, how do
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: we get at that money?
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 9: Well, that's why I point to those other two reforms
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 9: that I think make a lot more sense. One is
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 9: if he's borrowing against those unrealized gains, there should be
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 9: a cutoff at which point it's considered realized and you
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 9: have to, you can't just endlessly borrow against your unrealized assets.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 9: I think that's a way smarter way to do it
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 9: that's less distortionary. And I would, I mean, really ideally
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 9: that would be a federal policy.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 9: The other is inheritance. The best wealth tax is a
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 9: one-time inheritance tax when you pass things on. And if
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 9: you don't want to actually force people to sell assets
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 9: because it's a family business or a farm, that's fine.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 9: But don't rebase the value of it at market rate
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 9: at the moment the person dies. Leave the original cost
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 9: basis so that when your heirs sell, they pay capital gains.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 9: That seems only fair.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: And there's so many carve-outs for farms and it's like,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: Tens of millions of dollars is already exempted from the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: wealth tax. It's insane that we are not focusing more
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: on that. So you're the mayor of a city at
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: the heart of the American tech industry. In a past life,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: you worked in the tech industry. Americans, I think, increasingly
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: have a negative view of a lot of tech companies, right?
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, as recently as 2015, Pew found that 71%
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: of Americans thought technology companies had a positive effect on
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: the country. By 2019, that was down to 50%. Now
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: you're seeing AI explode onto the scene. People are worried
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: about the data centers. There's polling that finds an increasing
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: number of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: You've got people getting booed for mentioning AI at college
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: commencements this past weekend. What would you say to voters
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: who are furious at Silicon Valley because certain tech CEOs
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: got fabulously wealthy while they did not? The news media
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: got hollowed out. They feel like harms were done by
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: social media. And now it just feels like the same companies,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: the same people, they're getting to run it back with AI,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: which we're all told is this unbelievably powerful, like step change,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: new thing. And I don't trust those people. I don't
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: trust Elon or Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman to be
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: in charge of it.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 9: I think it's a very real fear and I understand it.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 9: And on some level I share it. I don't, I've
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 9: little kids. I don't want them on social media or AI.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 9: I've argued that, and as governor, I would fight for
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 9: policies that require parental consent for using social media, ban
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 9: cell phones in public schools. I've actually got experience with
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: regulating technology because as a mayor, our city is procuring
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 9: and using technology and constantly thinking about the trade-offs. New
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 9: tools can give us new capabilities to improve things. We've
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 9: sped up our public buses. We've improved language translation in
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 9: our meetings. We're identifying potholes proactively. We've done a number
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 9: of things that are making government more responsive and efficient,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 9: which is great. That's really cool stuff. On the other hand,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 9: people's fears around privacy, manipulation of elections, and just misinformation
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 9: more broadly... job loss, environmental destruction are all very legitimate.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 9: And that's why we created something called the GovAI Coalition.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 9: San Jose was the founding member of a platform that
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 9: helps over 900 public agencies navigate technology adoption. And it's
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 9: all about the ethical and responsible use of AI. So
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 9: we use license plate readers, but we don't allow facial recognition.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 9: We don't sell data to third parties. We don't even
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 9: share it with the federal government because we don't trust
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 9: how they will use it. we delete it every 30 days.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 9: On the other hand, it's helped us solve murders and
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 9: kidnappings and rapes and all kinds of horrible crimes. So
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 9: striking that balance of how do we harness the value
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 9: of tools? And I think we want to continue to
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 9: be a state that is innovative and that is at
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 9: the cutting edge, but we have to regulate and protect
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 9: people from these changes. Data centers you mentioned, I believe,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: and this should be a national standard, but certainly for California,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 9: any new data centers needs to pay the full cost
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 9: of the infrastructure they require, the full cost of energy.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 9: They should be required to use the cleanest energy. Their
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 9: investment should help facilitate the clean energy future that we
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 9: all want. They should have to use recycled water. So
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 9: I think that we can raise the bar.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: Some people want to pause on building those. Is that
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: too far from you?
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 9: And that's kind of my point. You have this sort
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 9: of much more laissez-faire approach on the right that is
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 9: sort of like, oh, you know, business is good, capitalism
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 9: is always good, and let's just have this sort of
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 9: unbridled capitalism and see what happens.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: I reject that. The David Sachs approach, we're laissez-faire until
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: Silicon Valley Bank is going to collapse, and then we're
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: screaming for corporate welfare.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 9: So I reject that mindset and approach. I also think, though,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 9: that there is a more extreme version within my party
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 9: that wants to just hit the brakes. And I think,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 9: I just believe we are better served, and I think
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 9: historically we have been better served by regulating, managing, shaping
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 9: technological change, but having the authority to do that than
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 9: just saying no and having it happen elsewhere. And I
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 9: think there's a balance to strike there. I put out
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 9: an AI accountability plan that's all about striking that balance.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 9: It's about investing in workforce development, putting strict guardrails on
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 9: the way that children interact with technology, accountability for data
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 9: centers and robotics companies. We need to have an AI
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 9: shared prosperity fund that is paying, that is taking tax
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 9: revenue from these hyperscalers, these big tech companies, and paying
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 9: for the upskilling and reskilling we need to make sure
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 9: that people are prepared for the jobs of the future.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 9: And look, if it gets really dire, we haven't seen
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 9: this yet, but we should have a Plan B, if
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 9: job loss increases, we're going to have to talk about
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 9: things like a UBI. We need to have a whole
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 9: other set of tools, a totally different safety net, if
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 9: this plays out in a way that some of us fear.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: What's your AI drug of choice? Are you a Grok guy?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: Claude?
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: Chat GPT. What are we using?
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 9: I go between Claude and chat and, um, yeah, chat
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 9: GPT mostly. Although I ended up by default and on
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 9: Gemini a lot just because of the browser.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: But then it's always wrong. You know, you're just getting bullshit.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: I'm a Claude guy these days. I was using chat
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: GPT and then Sam Allman did something shitty. When he,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: when he swooped in and was like, I'll take your
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: Pentagon contract to build the autonomous killer robots. I was like,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: I'm out.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 9: Then you went to Claude.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: See you buddy. Yeah. Who's just, I don't know, secretly
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: building the autonomous killer robots. Who knows? Um, So you
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: raised a bunch of money from folks in the tech world,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: CEOs at Google, Dropbox, Snapchat, Twitch, I think some prominent
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: venture capitalists. What's your response to people who worry, look,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: when you take all that money, there are strings and
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: it can make you beholden to the tech industry?
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, look, it's a very fair question. And
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 9: my response is, one, I've regulated tech. And as an
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 9: elected official over the last six years, I have never
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 9: done one thing to benefit the biggest employers in Silicon
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 9: Valley over the people of San Jose. And I sure
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 9: as heck am not going to do that in Sacramento.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 9: I'm actually running against special interest capture in Sacramento. And
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 9: I'm not going to replace one set of interests with another.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 9: I have been very willing and have consistently... put restrictions
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 9: on how we use technology, how we interface with tech companies.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 9: I think the honest reason that there are tech employees,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 9: tech leaders, investors, et cetera, who have contributed to the
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 9: campaign is I lead the largest city in Silicon Valley,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 9: and they've seen that we have led the state in
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 9: reducing crime, reducing homelessness, building housing, fixing our problems. And
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 9: I think people are drawn to results and competent leadership.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 9: And I'm just better known in the Bay Area where
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 9: we have a number of tech companies. But that's why
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 9: I'm spending so much time traveling around the state, getting
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 9: to know people in other places and really making the
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 9: case for good government. But I put out a very
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 9: clear AI accountability plan that is based on everything I've
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 9: done in San Jose over the last six years. and
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 9: is where I am on these issues. And I put
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 9: that out transparently for everyone from voters to my donors
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 9: to see it. And if donors don't like it, they
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 9: can find another candidate.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: One donor name that surprised me was a guy named
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: Joe Lonsdale. He's a co-founder of Palantir, big Republican mega donor.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: He's like a big Elon stan, give a million to
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: Elon's like pro-Trump super PAC. Maxed out to you. What's
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: up with that guy? He seems a little crazy.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 9: I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I mean,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 9: I have, I have, probably thousands of donors.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: He's not like someone you knew back in the day
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: when he was a Palantir or something.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 9: No, I know he's from, he's from the Bay area.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 9: And I, I, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: He's just an aggressive tweeter. I've we've come, we've crossed paths.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 9: That's why you guys have been tweeting at each other.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: You know, look, we all have our weaknesses and that's
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: one of mine. Um, it does feel like though, like the,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: there was a time, look, I was in the Obama
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: administration and like the kind of, Oh, wait through 2013
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: phase of like the, the, there's a lot of excitement
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: around tech. There's a lot of cooperation between the administration
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: and tech industry, probably too much to our discredit in
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: the Obama world. Now it seems like a lot of
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: the tech industry guys are like, gloves are off. Fuck this.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: We're battling regulation, right? Like Andreessen Horowitz, according to the
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: New York Times, has made more than $ 115 million worth
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: of disclosed federal contributions to candidates or entities working on
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: the upcoming midterms. That's like 50 mil for like a
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: AI pack, another 47 million for crypto super pack. Like,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: does that worry you? Does that disgust you that like
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: this one VC firm can dump a hundred million to
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: advocate for like it's, you know, book of portfolio companies?
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 9: I mean, I'm worried about concentrated power in politics in
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 9: all forms. The biggest donors and tech now is becoming
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 9: one of the largest industries or donor bases in the
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 9: country of any industry.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: You've had oil and gas.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 9: In the state of California, it is worth noting there
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 9: are other groups as well from public sector unions to
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 9: trial lawyers who spend a tremendous amount of money.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 9: Um, sometimes for things I agree with that I think
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 9: are generally good for society, sometimes for narrower interests that are,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 9: that are not always good for society. I actually got
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 9: involved in the, the way I ended up in tech
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 9: was building tools for grassroots organizing the early petitions, like
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 9: the change.org tools, early fundraisers, go fund me these kinds
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 9: of early tools, um, to try to basically help people
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 9: organize at a grassroots level. And make the system more
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 9: accountable to the people than to the donors. I've always
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 9: been worried about the influence of concentrated money and power
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 9: in our politics. So it does worry me. I do think, though,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 9: that the Democratic Party has to also recognize there's a
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 9: split within the party right now. And we have also
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 9: driven away many people who have started companies. And I'm
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 9: not just talking about in tech. I mean, generally speaking,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 9: as I go around the state, just set tech aside,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 9: when I go talk to people in agriculture, in Hollywood,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 9: in manufacturing, in a wide range of industries, the regulatory
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 9: burden in California is a real issue. And I think
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 9: we become very dismissive of it as, oh, deregulation is
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 9: a Republican thing. That's just because they want more profit.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 9: I don't think that's the case. I mean, we broke
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 9: the housing market by over-regulating it in California. Building more housing,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 9: creating room for new people, for future generations, making housing
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 9: more affordable is actually a very progressive aim.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: I totally agree, but I feel like we're just so
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: far from over-regulating social media companies. I mean, Australia is
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: banning accounts for kids under 16, right? I mean, we're
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: doing nothing. Right.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 9: And that's part of my proposal is actually to require
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 9: at least parental consent up to 16. So yeah, I
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 9: think that's fair. But I do think we risk losing
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 9: natural allies of the party if our answer to every
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 9: problem is another regulation, another tax. And I think, look,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 9: within tech, maybe it's appropriate. The regulatory environment is not
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 9: very mature at this point. But there are plenty of
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 9: other industries like housing and agriculture where you could argue
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 9: we're punishing, we're actually restricting economic opportunity and pushing people
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 9: out of state.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: You've criticized Governor Gavin Newsom for focusing too much on
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: trolling Donald Trump. I think you said he made a, quote,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: blind leap into meme land. Gavin and Trump have kind
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: of a Ross and Rachel, will they, won't they, frenemies,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: antagonistic thing going. It's probably unique to them, right? They're big,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: larger than life people. But Trump and the conservative media,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: they love to beat up on California, right? Fox News
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: all day is like some video of something that happened
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: on the street. So I don't think the Trump attacks
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: end when Gavin is gone. How would you manage that
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: relationship differently than him or continuity?
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 9: I mean, the way I think about it is there's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 9: a set of things that are just red lines for
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 9: me and for the state of California. We're going to
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 9: fight to protect our vulnerable neighbors. We're going to push
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 9: back on ICE. We're going to fight to protect constitutional freedoms.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 9: We're going to fight for our fair share of federal funding.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 9: There are a we are going to have to fight
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 9: fire with fire, as Governor Newsom has said. And in
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 9: San Jose, I've led us to sue the Trump administration
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 9: multiple times. We've used our budget to backfill cuts. We're
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 9: funding legal services for immigrant neighbors who are at risk
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 9: of deportation. We've banned ICE's use of masks and their
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 9: use of public property.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: So I.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 9: I will use every tool in the toolbox, legal, budgetary,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 9: bully pulpit, whatever tools we have to fight back. I
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 9: do want to go back to the place I started,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 9: which is I also think that we've got to take
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 9: ownership of our shortcomings and start solving highly visible and
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 9: visceral problems that affect people every day. I mean, this
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 9: may sound superficial, but when people drive around Los Angeles
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 9: and see the state of the freeways and see thousands
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 9: of people living outside in misery and tents and trash
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 9: and fires and graffiti, it just undermines our credibility. It
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 9: undermines trust in government. It makes it that much harder
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 9: to stand for something different that people can believe in.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 9: And I'm not pretending that the Republicans have got it
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 9: all right. They've got plenty of problems and red states
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 9: have plenty of problems. We do a better job in
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 9: many ways of being economically inclusive and certainly more welcoming
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 9: socially and politically. But I just I think we've got
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 9: to also fix our fundamental problems, starting with the high
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 9: cost of housing. And until we grapple with that, I
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 9: don't think we're going to be a very effective resistance.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: My last question for you is about housing, which is
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: in California, we have something called Prop 13. I'm sure
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: you know about it. Listeners naturally don't. It was passed
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: in the late 70s. Younger Californians mostly hate it because
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: it means that new homebuyers pay much higher property taxes
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: on the identical house to someone who bought it 40
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: years earlier. You can correct me if I'm getting the
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: details or I'm shorthanding this. It creates this general unfairness
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: and it can lock up housing supply because if you're
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: a senior, you're not going to downsize if that means
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: you're going to pay a much higher property tax rate.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: You want to lock in that privileged tax rate. Over time,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: Prop 13 has gutted revenue for California's public schools. And smart,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: kind of wonky people I know almost literally will blame
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: it for all of California's problems.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 9: There are a number of books to that effect as well.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so sadly, it feels politically impossible to repeal
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: the thing because- a high propensity to vote seniors like
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: it because it keeps their property taxes low. So like,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: what do we do here? How do we bring some
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: fairness to property tax collection and unfreeze the housing market
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: with this anchor around our neck?
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 9: How many hours do you have? I mean, Thursday, Thursday.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 9: I think one is just, Across the board, our housing
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 9: issues come down to a lack of supply. So we
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 9: need to build more housing. And that will slow down
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 9: the rate at which the value of housing goes up,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 9: which will help moderate property tax.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: Increases.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 9: The reason Prop 13 was passed was property tax increases
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 9: were happening so fast that people were literally getting pushed
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 9: out of their homes because they couldn't keep pace with
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 9: the rising costs. So it doesn't freeze it, but it
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 9: caps it at a one and a half percent increase
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 9: per year, which you could argue is too low. Maybe
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 9: to properly have a more functioning market, it should be
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 9: it should be higher, right? That's a debate you could have.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 9: I think there are some pragmatic things that could be
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 9: politically feasible. One is we should enable older residents to
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 9: take their property tax benefit with them if they downsize
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 9: so that we can free up that housing stock. So
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 9: if you're an older couple or you're living alone and
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 9: you've got four bedrooms in a If we could incentivize
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 9: you to capture that benefit and continue to have low
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 9: property taxes by moving into a condo by the beach, great.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 9: We should allow for that flexibility and fluidity in the market.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 9: Another thing that could be done is you could say, well,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 9: having property taxes go up more than 1.5% per year
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 9: could price people out. But what if some of that
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 9: actually accrued over time and then was assessed at the
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 9: time that you sold the home? And so that way
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 9: you're not getting hit each year with a larger and
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 9: larger property tax bill that you can't afford when you're
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 9: raising kids or whatever else you're doing. But when you
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 9: eventually sell the house, presumably the house is appreciated. That's
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 9: why your property taxes are going up. That thing gets
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 9: paid back in. But I would also just note, I
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 9: think Prop 13 reform is about fairness and distortions in
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 9: the market. I think it's a mistake for Democrats to
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 9: make it a big revenue generator because the truth is,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 9: while it did reduce revenues to the state and to
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 9: school districts, after it passed, we went and found a
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 9: bunch of other sources of revenue. We created an income tax.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 9: We tax capital gains. We tax businesses. We tax everything.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 9: So our overall tax burden is the second highest or
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 9: third highest, depending on how you measure it, third highest
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 9: in the country.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: I've noticed, yeah.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 9: So you're experiencing it. We found other ways to tax.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. You're right.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: We could talk about this forever. But you got a
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: lot of things to do. Where can people find your
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: campaign if they want to get involved, support you, knock doors, donate, whatever?
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 9: Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate all the great questions.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 9: And my website is Mahan, M-A-H-A-N, for California.com. You can
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 9: find me on social media. If you have any follow-up
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 9: questions to this interview, shoot me an email. Otherwise, hope
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 9: to see folks out there.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: Excellent.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Mr.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: Mayor, thank you so much for coming in.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Matt Mahan for
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: stopping by. Alex will be back on the feed on
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: Sunday with a conversation with our buddy Norm Eisen about
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: the slush fund and all of Trump's other self-dealing. Check
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: it out. Everyone else, have a good weekend.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 7: Bye, everyone.
• 1:41:19
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• 1:41:21
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