Latest / Pod Save America / Kamala Harris: Still the Underdog

Transcript

Kamala Harris: Still the Underdog · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: On today's show, CNN's Dana Bash stops by to talk
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: about moderating the debate that changed everything. And what she's
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: expecting this Tuesday... when Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face off. Meanwhile,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the two candidates give dueling economic speeches on the issue
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: voters say they care about most, the economy. Then Liz
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Cheney says she's voting for Kamala Harris, while a bunch
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of other Republican politicians reportedly want Harris to win, but
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: are still too afraid to say that publicly after nine years,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: multiple defeats, an insurrection, and a felony conviction. Same as
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it ever was. But first, because we had the great
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: fortune To have Doug Emhoff in studio on Wednesday. This
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: is our first regular pod since Labor Day, Dan.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Feels like it's been 100 years.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It does. It does. So let me say welcome back
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: from summer. The final campaign sprint has begun. And it's
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: time to spend every moment between now and November in
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a perpetual state of crippling anxiety. Who's with me?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: What a compelling pitch you make. Get involved with politics.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Have your stomach hurt for 50-some days.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, though? It's fulfilling, and it will
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: lead to a good outcome for all of us, hopefully.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: The harder we work, and the more our stomach is
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in knots. Okay, we are 60 days from Election Day,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: which is both an eternity and no time at all.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: For context, 60 days ago, we were talking about Joe
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Biden's interview with George Stephanopoulos, where he said he would
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: only step down if the Lord Almighty came down and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: told him to. So, score one for the Lord Almighty.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: We don't know what he said to him.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: We don't know what happened. We don't know what happened.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: He was giving him different polling than Donilon. Anyway, so
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: lots can happen. The race is now basically a toss-up.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Polling averages give Kamala around a three-point lead nationally, but
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the swing state margins are terrifyingly close to the final
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: results in 2020, with Pennsylvania essentially being tied. A big
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: reason Nate Silver's model now shows Trump with a better
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: chance of winning. Harris campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon also
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: put out a memo on Sunday calling Harris and Walls
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: clear underdogs. So before we dive into the news of
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the day, what are your thoughts on the state of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the race right now? How are you feeling?
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: A couple of weeks ago, sort of at the height
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: of Kamala enthusiasm, you went through all the positive polling
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: and you asked me if I was going to rain
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: on everyone's parade. And at the time I declined. I'm
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: also not going to do it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's getting cloudy. No, no, no.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to say a couple of things. One,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: sitting here where we are today, I would much rather
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: be us than them. Kamala Harris is a better candidate.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: She has much more upside, much more of a capacity
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: to grow her vote than Trump does. She's much less
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: likely to light herself on fire every time she appears
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: in public. And so she has energy.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: She has momentum.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: She has resources.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: She has enthusiasm.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: She has what you want.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Having said that, this race could not be closer. In
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: every single one of the, as you pointed out, in
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: every single one of the swing state polling averages are
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: within one to two points. And then when you look
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: at the map and you start charting out a path
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: to 270, you basically have to win Pennsylvania. And if
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: you don't, you have to win Georgia and North Carolina
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: plus one other. And that is doable.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Or, well, you could do, you could win Oh, did
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: you say Georgia or North Carolina?
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Georgia or North Carolina and one other. You can win
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Georgia and North Carolina. You can win Georgia, North Carolina,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: or Nevada or Arizona. But you have to win Pennsylvania
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: or two other states, and one of those states has
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: to be Georgia or North Carolina. So that is hard, right?
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Georgia is a state we've won once since 96. North
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Carolina is a state that, on the presidential level, we
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: have not won since 2008. And so challenging- In.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania, we lost in 2016, and Biden won by 1.5%.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I think, in 2020.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: About 1.5%. Yeah, just to remind people how close things were,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: he won Wisconsin by 0.6%, Michigan by like 2.8%, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania by about 1.6%, I think, or about a point
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: and a half.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: And he won Nevada and Georgia by 11,000 votes, I think.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: So these could not be closer. And that is where
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: this race is. It's incredibly, incredibly close.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: And I was on John Heilman's podcast last week or
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: this week, I guess.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I saw that this morning.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: And he asked me what number would– he was going
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: through the polling averages and where Harris is and up
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: by three and a half points and the 538 average.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: He's like, what number would she need to be at
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: for you to sleep well night before the election?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: There is no number. There's no number.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: You know how we know that? Because Biden was at
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: that number in 2020.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: There's no number.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, what if the polling
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was correct?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: How are we going to know that?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: But what if it was what if there's not a poll?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: What if there is not a huge polling error like
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: there was in 20 and to a lesser extent, 16?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Like what's that? What's that actual not the margin, but
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: what's her number that makes you feel good that she
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: will overcome the Electoral College advantage that Trump has?
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, there is not a number where I would
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: sleep well. I mean, honestly, I haven't slept well in
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: a decade, so I don't think I would sleep well.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: What is the sleeping well you speak of?
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: What is a world in which you're not texting swing
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: state polls at 4.45 in the morning? Like, what world
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: is that?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm familiar.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: 52?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: 52, maybe. No, absolutely not. Higher than that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: 54?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, 54, I'm sleeping pretty well. I'm sleeping pretty
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: well at 53.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, in a world where the Lord Almighty, who
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: has recently left Joe Biden's residence and come to us
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: to tell us the polling is correct, maybe I would
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: feel okay at that. But in general, I will not
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: feel okay, no matter what her number is.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And I should say, you know, I had Lynn Vavreck,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: who's a great political scientist from UCLA. She's been on Offline.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: She's been on The Wilderness. We've talked to her a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bunch of times. She talks about how the electorate in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the Trump era is calcified, which is like polarization plus.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: It's polarized. It's evenly divided between partisans with the truly undecided.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And every time we say undecided, everyone should know it's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: undecided about who you're going to vote for or whether
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you're going to vote. But that group of voters makes
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: up a small but decisive group. And that's where we are.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And I think part of it is Donald Trump. He's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: been on the ballot since 2016. Part of it is
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: just A lot of the issues that are elections are
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: decided on now are identity inflected issues where there's not
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of room for compromise. And the parties, there's
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: just not a lot of overlap with the parties. Now,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: they are very well sorted between liberal, liberal leaning, moderate
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: to liberal voters in the Democratic Party and the rest
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party. It didn't used to be like
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: that throughout history, but it is now and it is
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: why all of these elections are incredibly close. Honestly, the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: outlier was Joe Biden post the first debate, right? Like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: that was the, that was sort of like the biggest
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: gap that we've seen in many years in the election.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: But now with a good, strong candidate like Kamala Harris,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: we are back to where Joe Biden was in 2020
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and and where elections have been generally in competitive swing
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: states in the Trump years.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: But even in Biden post-debate, yes, Trump picked up a
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: point or two in his top line number, but the
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: delta between Biden and Trump went up, not because Trump
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: went up, but because Biden went down. And so, and
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: that like, just as an example of how quote unquote
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: calcified things are, Trump was nearly assassinated. He was shot
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in the ear on near national television and then had
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: a viral photo that everyone loved that was shared gazillion
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: times on social media. And his top line number did
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: not move.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Nor did it move when he was convicted of a felony. Yeah.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: These major things are moving the polls one to two points,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: which is as likely to be statistical noise as it
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: is to be actual movement.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: But I think one thing you said is important for
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: everyone to keep in mind, which is that she has
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: more room to grow than Trump does. Of course, that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: means she also probably has more room to fall. But
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: people have mostly made up their minds about Trump. They
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: don't like him. But the ones who are still considering
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: him think maybe he's better on the economy, to a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: lesser extent immigration, just because they care about that a
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: little less than the economy. Those same people do not
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: know enough about Kamala Harris to make a choice about
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And so they want more information about who she is,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: what she values, what she'd do, how she'd be different
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: than him going forward over the next four years. And,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: you know, she has the money to tell that story.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: She has the organization to tell that story. But she
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: may not get a bigger megaphone. She won't get a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: bigger megaphone or more attention than this debate on Tuesday.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: You know, they could have a second one and maybe
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that gets the same ratings. But this is... I think
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: this is a big, big, big deal.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, you think the debate's a big deal?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: As big a deal as it could be. As big
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a deal as it could be. More so than a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: typical presidential debate, I think.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think when you have only one, in a
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: changed media environment where it's very hard for the candidates
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: to communicate with persuadable voters through the normal course of
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: the campaign, big, huge, monumental moments where people actually tuned
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: in are of outsized importance than they have been in
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: previous elections.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And I do think, this is my own guess, but
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: if she does really well in the debate, I would
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: not be surprised if she opens up a little bit
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of a lead, which in this environment seems like a
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: big lead. She's at three points nationally. You could see
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: her going to four four and a half after a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: pretty good debate. I just think that there's a group
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of voters who, like, they've pretty much made up their
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: mind about Trump, but they're just not sold on her yet.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And if they see her on stage next to him,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: they can compare the two candidates. She has a strong performance,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: tells people who she is, what she values, what she
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: wants to do, and Trump is Trump. You know, that
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: could be That could be good. Otherwise, I just think
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a dogfight and close like this
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: right up until November, which it probably will be.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: But even a four and a half point lead nationally
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: is a one point increase in where we are today,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: where we're already very nervous about the battleground state polls.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Which is big. I mean, one point is big.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: We went through how close all of these races were
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: and Biden won the popular vote by four last time.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So you know what everyone should do if you're a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: little nervous about this? You go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and you sign up to volunteer to help Democrats in
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: races all across the country, not just in the presidential level.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler, chair of Wisconsin Democratic Party, best Democratic chair
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: in the country. He always says the race is within
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the margin of effort. Not the margin of error, the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: margin of effort, which means that in a very, very
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: close race where it could be decided by a few
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: thousand votes, basically a few votes per precinct, every single
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: volunteer matters. Everything you do matters. Every donation matters, every
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: door knock, text, all of it matters. So if you
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: haven't signed up yet, go sign up.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Let me just make one point on this, which is
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: as dark and dreary as all of that calcification and
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: polarization and scary poll number sounds, there is one important
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: thing to remember is that there is an anti-MAGA majority
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: in this country, and there's an anti-MAGA majority in all
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: of the battleground states. We know because we've seen those
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: voters turn out to defeat Donald Trump and to defeat
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: MAGA candidates in 2022. Even North Carolina, the state Democrats
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: have not won in a long time. That majority turned
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: out for Roy Cooper twice in 2016 and 2020 when
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Trump was on the ballot. And so it is right
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: there for our taking. If we turn out the voters
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: who we know will support us and we persuade them
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: to choose Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and to choose
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz over the couch, we will
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: win this election. Like it is that simple. And that's
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: why the margin of effort stuff, are we supposed to
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: say America matters so much because we control what happens
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: here ultimately.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, we do. All right, so for most people who
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: are still undecided about who they're voting for, whether they're
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: voting at all, the number one issue remains the economy
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and cost of living. Both candidates delivered speeches on the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: topic this week where they laid out new economic plans.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris went to Northampton, New Hampshire on Wednesday to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: make an announcement about drastically increasing the tax deduction for
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: small business and startups from $ 5, 000 to $ 50, 000. Let's listen.
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: I believe America's small businesses are... an essential foundation to
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: our entire economy. And I've met so many entrepreneurs across
• 13:06
  Speaker 7: the country who take the incredible leap of faith that
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: is required to start a small business. Folks who put
• 13:14
  Speaker 7: their life savings on the line and work through the
• 13:18
  Speaker 7: weekends and holidays because they aren't just building a business,
• 13:22
  Speaker 7: they're pursuing a dream. And by extension, they're building a
• 13:27
  Speaker 7: stronger middle class and a stronger America for us all.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Harris also said this week that she'll seek a smaller
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: increase in the capital gains tax than Joe Biden wants.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: She'd go up to 28%, not as far as the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: nearly 44% maximum that the White House put in their
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: budget proposal. On Thursday, Trump spoke at the Economic Club
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of New York, where he promised to increase oil and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: gas production, which is already at record levels, hand out
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: about $ 10 trillion in tax cuts, mostly to the rich,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: do more to support crypto, slap some tariffs on everything
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that's imported, which is really fun. It's a couple of
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: thousand extra dollars per family. And he wants to take
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a suggestion from his favorite red-pilled billionaire. Let's listen.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: At the suggestion of Elon Musk, I will create a
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: for drastic reforms. We need to do it. And Elon,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: task force. I took care of our economy like I
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: would take care of my own company. My plan is
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: to make the Trump tax cuts permanent. They are massive
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: tax cuts, biggest ever, permanent. And to cut taxes even more,
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: you can be the head of the biggest bank in
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: the world and a couple of nukes and your bank
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean a thing.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: It's nice to hear them both side by side like that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I do enjoy that we're putting Elon Musk in charge
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: of the federal government audit because he has done such
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: a great job with his takeover of Twitter, which cost
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: investors $ 24 billion and counting, forced advertisers to flee. and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: cost a few thousand people their jobs but the product
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the product is just not just.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: The project working like the experience the experience of being
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: on that platform pure joy top notch top can't put
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: a price on that all right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: We'll go back to trouble let's start with kamala what
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: do you make of the political strategy behind her economic
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: proposals do you sense a theme or a story they're
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: trying to tell.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this story is very clear. They want
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: to make her someone who fights for the middle class
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: and small businesses, and Donald Trump is someone who fights
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: for the rich and large corporations. And that's the exact
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: contrast they want. That is why she has this slew
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: of small business tax credits. And Trump obviously helps with
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: that by going out and touting his massive permanent tax
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: cut for corporations. Most of that money did not get
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: put back in the American economy. It was given as
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: bonuses to executives and dividends to shareholders and stock buybacks.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, that's a very clear contrast. It's consistent
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: with what she's doing in her ads. It's all about
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: fighting for people like you. The measure that we've talked
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: about before is the most important measure probably in any
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: campaign on who's going to win or lose is who's
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: winning that contest.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit more, you know, fighting for
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the middle class than it is like populist warrior.
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: You know, I just noticed the emphasis on, especially with
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the speech this week, emphasis on small business owners, on founders.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And then her first real policy break from Biden going
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: with a lower capital gains tax increase. What did you
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: make of that?
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I've struggled to try to figure that out. And I'm,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: cause there's not a lot of political logic to it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: It's not, I mean, one capital gains tax rates is
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: not something that's mattering to every single voter. It's not
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: like a top of mind voting issue for people and
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: having a lower rate, but generally you would assume to
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: be less good politics broadly. Um, So I'm going to
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: go out on a complete limb and suggest that it
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: is very possible and maybe even likely that she simply
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: disagreed with this policy proposal of the Biden administration's. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: there is a true debate among the econ nerd community,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: many of whom are our friends, about this proposal. There
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: is a sense. And I don't feel qualified to weigh
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: in one way or the other. But an argument put
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: forward by some of our former colleagues in the Obama administration,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: some of whom are on both sides of this, is
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: that this is an ineffective tax because when you put
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: the tax rate that high, people just sit on the capital.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: They sit on their investments as opposed to selling them,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: putting that, then reinvesting that money, and it sort of
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: locks up capital. And that's why it doesn't make sense.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: So it neither raises revenue nor helps the economy. And
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: so you should do something else. The people who have
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: been pushing for this are Silicon Valley types, which sometimes
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: can be a black mark at times. But I think
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: what you hit on something that I think is tangentially
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: related to this specific question, I just don't think they
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: went out there and were like, you know, we're going
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: to distance ourselves from Biden on a 14-point capital gains increase.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just doesn't seem– I mean, you bring up
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: a good point, which is like you should know this
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: about campaigns. which is when you're dealing with a lot
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of the policy people, especially the economic policy people, oftentimes
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: they're not thinking about politics at all. They're literally just like,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: when I crunch my numbers, this would be better for
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the economy. And some people, you mentioned the San Francisco
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: angle here, say, oh, too many donors talk to her
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: or whatever. This is not something that you do for donors.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: She has more money than fucking any candidate at this point.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And a lot of it wasn't even raised by her
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: doing fundraisers.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: None of it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: She hasn't done any yet. And the other thing is,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: if you look at her tax proposals and what she
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: supports still from the Biden administration's tax proposals, she's hitting
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the super rich with a lot of tax increases still.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: She's still with the billionaire tax that Biden had proposed.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of the income taxes, a lot of the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: corporate taxes. So that's all there, which leads you to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: believe that, yeah, maybe it's just an actual economic policy
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: that if she wants to focus on small businesses and startups,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: you would want more investment in the economy.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I think the question of where does she distance herself
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: from Biden's economic policies is kind of the wrong one.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Because Biden's economic policies are actually quite popular. The bills
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: themselves are popular, and the components of those bills are
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: quite popular. What people are upset about are the results.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Rightly or wrongly, they are dissatisfied with the state of
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: the economy, either for themselves and their personal lives because
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of the high prices or some sort of sense of
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: where the national economy is going. It's not like Biden
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: did something specific that made people unhappy. He didn't pass
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: an unpopular bill. He didn't pass a bill that didn't work.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: People did not get hit with some sort of tax increase.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: It's largely environmental factors, largely outside of its control around
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: inflation and prices. So what she has to have, and
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I think is what she has done, is a different approach, right?
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: To the extent that Biden had a challenge in the
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: economy that was of his own making, it's that his
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: economic message was backward-looking.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: And hers has been fully forward-looking, right? You have not
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: heard her defend the CHIPS Act one time in this campaign.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: She's proud of those things, and she will talk about them.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: But what she's doing, she's articulating a vision for the future,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: which is sort of what people want. And that's the difference.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: And that's why in the numbers, like you look at
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: that Wall Street Journal poll, she is losing to Trump
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: by eight points on the economy and five points on inflation.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: In December of last year, Biden was losing to Trump
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: by 20 on both those measures. And so just the
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: fact that she is not Biden, because Biden's age also
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: affected these.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Things, which is- That's it. That's the real distance.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: That affected everything because if you do not– there were
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: a significant number of people who did not believe that
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden should run for president again. And if you
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: don't believe he should run for president again, you're not
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: going to suggest– trust him on the economy, your most
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: important issue. Change the equation there, you're going to have
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: a better number. There's more work to do, but it's
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: not a question. He doesn't have to go find some
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Biden policy and like shoot it like Joe Manchin did
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: the Obama Climate Act, right?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It's not like that.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and also Biden's approval ratings have gone up quite
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a bit. since he decided not to run, which tells
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you that people's problem with Joe Biden was not necessarily, uh,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: his policies or his presidency, but the fact that he
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: wanted to run for president again. So what the hell
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was Donald Trump trying to do in his economic speech? Uh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And how are you feeling overall about the contrast between
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the two candidates on this issue? Because obviously he leads.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I think what he was trying and largely failing to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: do would seem serious and normal at this speech. That's
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: why you go to the New York Economic Club.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You're there.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: It's this August setting.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: You don't think the nuclear weapon comment, if you're a banker,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you got a nuke. What does it matter?
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's not wrong.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's– yeah, it's– There's no set of FDIC rules.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You're not going to get Daniel Daled on that one.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: That's right. Who knows?
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Anything's possible. Daniel Dale. Daniel Dale is a great verb. Honestly,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I think it was basically to seem serious and normal
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: and to make the economy more of an issue in
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: this campaign. I don't know that he accomplished any of
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: those goals. It wasn't as bad as his normal set
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: of remarks. Maybe it's a redo for that North Carolina
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: speech from a couple of weeks ago when he made
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: fun of the idea he was supposed to be talking
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: about the economy and ended up talking about the election
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: and Joe Biden and much of other stuff. But he
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: didn't drive a consistent message. He didn't have anything really
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: interesting to say. It was not in the clip we played,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: but in talking about the commission, Trump said it would
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: save us trillions of dollars. A commission that is going
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: to save trillions of dollars is a commission that by
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: definition has to slash Social Security and Medicare.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the government spent $ 6 trillion overall last year.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: That's the whole thing. So if you're going to save
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: trillions off of that, that's That's not just cutting a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: few regulations and programs here and there.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: And so in that sense, I think he gave the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Harris campaign a bit of an opportunity to hit him
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: on that.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: His problem is the opposite of Biden's, which is people
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: have good feelings about the outcome of whatever he did
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: on the economy when he was president, but his individual
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: policies are very unpopular. The tax cut, very unpopular. The tariffs,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to the extent people know what tariffs are when they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: learn about them, unpopular. Even his like, you know, people
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: do want to cut government waste. They do want to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: take care of the deficit. Those pop in every poll.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has nothing good to say about that because
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: he added a ton to the deficit when he was
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: president and is now proposing $ 10 trillion of tax cuts,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: which are not paid for by whatever cuts, right? And
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: so like the more he gets into a debate with
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: her about actual economic policy, I think the worse it
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: is for him.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, theoretically, yes.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Like, obviously, we're having a debate.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: If he stays in, like, you know, the gauzy, you know,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I managed the economy well and everything was great, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: now everything's expensive and he doesn't go beyond that, like,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that's his strongest argument.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Right, I think that's right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: If he has to go, if he has to. dig
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: into that anymore and talk policy and talk about what
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: he's going to do for the next four years, it's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: not as helpful.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Well, that's true on every issue for him. Once you
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: get beyond that top gauzy level, you have to actually
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: say things. For two reasons. One, his actual specific policies
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: are quite unpopular. And two, he has no capacity to
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: understand or speak about them coherently. I mean, when he
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: got asked a question about childcare in there, his answer
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: was bananas.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I know we didn't play that clip just because it
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was so rambling. It was almost impossible to understand. But
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: He was basically, there was a Q & A afterwards
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and someone asked him about childcare and he just rambled
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: on and on about how like the tariffs are going
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to pay for the childcare and he's going to keep
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the childcare and childcare is actually not that expensive. And meanwhile, J.D.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Vance is like, you know, talking about why childcare is,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: you know, universal childcare is like, I think it's like
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: class war against normal people.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: And you should just have your uncle and your parents
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: watch your kids for you as if they don't also
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: have jobs in America.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Just, just crazy. All right, so Harris did get a
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: notable endorsement on Wednesday from friend of the pod, Liz Cheney.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know that is technically true because she
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: has been on this podcast, and you conducted a great
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: interview with her, but that is just like a hard
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: sentence to hear sometimes.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: That's why I said it. That's why I said it.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: During an event at Duke, she was asked about it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not like a Duke guy, but just
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: what a random shot at just a school in one
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: of our seven swing states.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I'm like Duke. During an event at Duke, she was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: asked by a student what she planned to do in November.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: The audio is bad quality or we play it for you,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: but here's the key quote. I don't believe we have
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the luxury of writing in candidates' names, particularly in swing states.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: And as a conservative, as someone who believes in and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: will be voting for Kamala Harris. So that was Liz Cheney.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: On the other hand... Jonathan Martin had a column in
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Politico this week saying that there are establishment Republicans out
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: there who want Trump to lose and lose definitively, not
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: just because they think he's dangerous, because they want the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: party to realize that it has to move past Trumpism.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Of course, unlike your Liz Cheney's or your Adam Kinzinger's,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: these Republicans are just too afraid to say it all publicly.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: They just got to tell Jay Mark quietly on background
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: or off the record, and that's all they're going to do. Sorry,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: nothing else they can do. unfortunately. They're hoping that he loses,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: but they're just spectators. What do you want them to do? Speak?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Say something? Campaign? Vote? So what do you make of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the Cheney endorsement and also how she did it?
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: Well, as a.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Communications professional, I would not recommend rolling out your endorsement
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: on a random weeknight at a random college event with
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: no cameras where we only know about it because someone
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: in the audience recorded it on a cell phone, as
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: far as I can tell.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very confused by that. And like I get,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like you said, Swing state, North Carolina.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So that's nice. But just sort of, I don't know,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: did she just get the question and decide I'm just
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: going to do it now?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it sort of seems that way. I think she
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: was specifically motivated by Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey saying, I
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: think this past week, that he was not going to
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: vote for Trump, but he could not vote for Harris
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: or he was going to write someone else in the
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Pennsylvania election. And that has been– that is a burr
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: in the saddle of a lot of people in the
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Never Trump movement. We hear our friends at the Bulwark
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: talk about this all the time, sort of the cowardice
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: of this, where you think Trump is totally unfit, should
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: not be president, but then I'm going to do nothing
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: to actually help that person. And the cowardice of that
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: moment is truly magnified if you're in a swing state.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: If you're in California and you're just like, I can't
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: bring myself to vote for Kamala Harris and I'm going
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: to write in, I don't know, Jeff Flake or the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: ghost of Ronald Reagan, whatever.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is lame. That is very lame and
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: setting a bad example, but it's not as consequential. But
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: if you're a voter in Pennsylvania, like Pat Toomey is,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: that is embarrassing. I think she was implicitly calling that out.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think, like, do you
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: think it would be useful, if you're on the Harris campaign,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: do you want Liz Cheney to do events? Do you
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: want her to ever appear with Kamala Harris? Do you
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: ever want to put her in an ad, maybe? I mean,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you could imagine targeting voters in, you know, sort of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: center right leaning independence in some suburbs and, you know,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: around Atlanta and North Carolina and targeting ads to them
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that have Liz Cheney in it. But I don't know.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Absolutely.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: They were reportedly courting her endorsement for a while now
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: and trying to get her to come out and do this.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: So they clearly want it. How you use it, like
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Liz Cheney is someone in the world of politics. Like
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: the last name is very familiar to people. World of
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: political junkies. That means a lot. We all know the
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: story of what happened. We know the Courageous role she
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: played on January 6th. We understand how conservative she is
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: on so many issues, yet still opposes Trump. The average voter,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: particularly the ones we target, not so much. But there
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: are a group of people, like some of these Biden-Trump
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: voters who have been straying from our coalition.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: This is that.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: You can see a video. It's probably a higher quality
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: one than the one we have of this event that
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: maybe it never– it could be a targeted digital ad
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: or it could be a video that people could share
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: with the Biden-Trump voters in their lives, right? Just as
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: a piece of video you're texting or putting in your
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: group chain of just her to camera. A lot like
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: the voters that Sarah Longwell's group does, which is sort
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: of these raw cell phone videos of people talking. You
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: could see that with her, like a less slickly produced
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: version of her just kind of saying who she is
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: and why she's going to cross the Rubicon to vote
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: for Kamala Harris. Because some of these voters, they are
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: leaving Trump, so he's losing a point. But for us
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: to win, we need them to come over here and
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: come to Kamala Harris so that we are netting two
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: points out of this. And I think she could be
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: helpful with some number of voters that way.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking Georgia. I'm thinking Arizona, where John McCain's son uh,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: came out this week.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was cool too.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: That he's been drifting away from the Republican party and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: now he's going to be voting for Kamala Harris. So that's,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you know, probably big in Arizona. Jay Martz column, two questions.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: What do you think of all these Republicans who were
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: secretly hoping that Trump will lose? Do you buy that?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: And then do you buy that if he does lose decisively,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the party will be able to move on from Trumpism?
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Like Jonathan Martin is a excellent reporter. As we know
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: from his writing over many years, but also the book
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: he wrote a couple years ago, he has a great
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: ability to get Republicans to say things to him that
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: they would not say to others. So I believe they
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: have said this to him. And I don't think he
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: would write it unless he had sufficient numbers of sufficient stature.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: To say it.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Now, imagine being one of these people who you want
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: something to happen. You believe it's for the good, not
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: just of the country, but of the party and for
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: your career. And then waking up every single day and
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: doing the opposite of that. Because it's not just that
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: they are being silent. It's not just that they are
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: writing in someone else. They are actively campaigning and endorsing Trump.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: They are appearing with him when he comes to their states.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: They are going to events with their constituents and telling
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: them to vote for Trump.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Like Brian Kemp, right? Republican governor of Georgia, who Trump's like,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you know, attacking him, attacking his wife, blah, blah, blah.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: And he's just like, hey, let's focus on beating Kamala Harris.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Don't be attacking my wife.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: What the Brandkamp thing and Jonathan's column says is that
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: every Republican is Ted Cruz. We all thought he was
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: some special example of shameless obsequiousness, but no, they're all
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: like that. He's just a more embarrassing version of that,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: but that is how they all are.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And again, if you're a Republican who's just publicly like, no,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I want him to win because, you know, I have
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: my reservations about his personality and, you know, tendency to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: try to overturn elections and start insurrections, but I really
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: like the policy and that's what's important to me. Like, fine, right?
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: But these people are like, he's got to lose. I
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: want him to lose. I want him to lose, but shh,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: can't say anything. I guess they're just afraid of the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: right-wing media and Trump and what they can do to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: whip up voters. And some of these people face threats.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, who knows?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I think it is legitimately scary. If you want to
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: keep your job, you will lose your job as an
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: elected member of Congress. Liz Cheney, who we just mentioned,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: the daughter of Dick Cheney, true Republican royalty from Wyoming,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: gets hammered in a primary because she came out against Trump.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: You know, we go... Jeff Flake. Mitt Romney, Republican. He
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: was run out of the party, essentially.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: And it's not just that these people are run out
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of the party and don't have jobs again, but I'm sure,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: talk to Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, whoever, they've had actual threats.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the vitriol and violence.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Security, right? Just as Democrats have, too, who've been targets
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: of Trump. It can get pretty scary.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Now, to the question of whether this Trump losing would
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: rid the party of Trumpism... That is one of the
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: most naive, dumbest things I've ever heard.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It's just a big no.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: You know, I wrote today in MessageBox about how Gen
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Z men are becoming much more pro-Trump, that this is
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: a group Biden won. Obama won men under 30 by
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: 30 points, almost 30 points in 2008. Trump in swing
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: states during the New York Times polling is winning them
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: by double digits. And these are not just like small
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: government lower taxes things. Jack Kemp, Mitch McConnell Republicans. These
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: are MAGA Republicans. And this is the largest generation in
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: American history. MAGAism will exist beyond Trump. Defeating Trump will
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: go a long way to taking one of the most
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: dangerous people in American political history off the board. Absolutely,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: if we defeat him in this election. But there is
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: a long work to do here to beat the dangerous
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: strains of the Republican Party. And it's because the exact
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Republicans that Jonathan Martin talked to have been fostering this
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: and enabling this strain of politics with their silence over
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: the last 10 years.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And their problem is their voters. It's more their voters
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: than it is Donald Trump, because this is what they want.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of politics they want. The problem
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: for them is going to be that the candidates that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: they have nominated who aren't Trump, but who are still Trumpy,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: have tended to do pretty poorly in statewide races. The
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Senate candidates, the gubernatorial candidates, there's exceptions here and there,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: but most of them who've tried to be Trumpy have
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: lost by quite a bit.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: It presents a short-term electoral problem if you have either
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: super kooky candidates who are truly MAGA or like Hershel Walker,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: for instance, or Blake Masters or Carrie Lake, or you
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: have more traditional Republicans doing MAGA karaoke like Ron DeSantis.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Those candidates tend not to do well. But you're still
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: going to end up, because of gerrymandering, you're going to
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: end up with a Congress full of MAGA candidates, which
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: means that every government funding deadline, if they have control of,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: you know, we don't even want to talk about what
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: the Senate map looks like for the next coming cycles.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: If they have power, dangerous things can happen.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yep. All right. After the break, I'll talk with
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: CNN's Dana Bash about landing the big interview with Harris
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and Tim Walz and get an experienced moderator's view of
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: what's at stake for Harris and Trump. on Tuesday in Philly.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: But before we do that, two election-related asks for you. One,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: please share this podcast with people in your life who
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: are looking for a little more information about politics in
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the 2024 election. If you can take 20 seconds to
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: share your favorite episode with five of your friends, it'll
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: make a big difference. Two, a second reminder. If you haven't,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: please sign up for Vote Save America's Organize or Else program.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: So far, more than 57,000 of you have joined. That's amazing.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: But we need your help to hit 75,000 signups by
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: National Voter Registration Day on September 17th. Even if you've
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: never volunteered before, Vote Save America makes it easy with
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: weekly welcome calls and regular office hours so you can
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: phone bank and canvas with confidence. Head to votesaveamerica.com slash
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: 2024 now and make sure to subscribe to Pod Save
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: America on Amazon Music now so you never miss an episode.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: This message has been paid for by Vote Save America.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: we come back, Dana Bash. Joining us now, she's CNN's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: chief political correspondent and the anchor who co-moderated the first
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: presidential debate back in June. and landed Kamala Harris's first
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: interview as the Democratic nominee. She's now the author, along
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: with David Fisher, of America's Deadliest Election, the cautionary tale
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of the most violent election in American history. Dana Bash,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: welcome to the pod.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: It's good to have you.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: Long-time listener, first-time caller.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: So before we get to your book, I want to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: start by talking about your incredibly busy summer, which began
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: with you and Jake Tapper moderating what might've been the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: most consequential presidential debate of our lifetime, maybe ever. Can
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the process for preparing
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: for that debate? How do you think about the questions?
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: How do you think about when to jump in during
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: an exchange?
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: Well, the jumping in, first of all, thank you so
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: much for being here. It's awesome to see you. The
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: jumping in was limited by the rules. The rules were
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: very strict and we're now seeing with the ABC, um,
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: rules coming out that they, you know, everybody has their
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: own set of rules. There's a similar to ours, but
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: it looks like they have like an additional minute or so.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: So that's the answer to that. There was a lot
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: of structure, let's put it that way. And, but in
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: terms of the prep, it's, um, the way I kind
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: of describe the team here, it's like Avengers assemble because
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: we have so many superheroes that do different things that
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: have different superpowers. And when it's time to do a
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: big event, and it didn't get much bigger than this,
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: everybody comes together. And we prepare for a very long time.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, I guess maybe by these standards, we didn't
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: have that long, by debate standards. But we had three weeks,
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: four weeks. And so it's the churning. Maybe it's not
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: that different from the process of writing a speech, where
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: you have an idea... You have a set of principles,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: you have a loose, and then you put it together,
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: but you have to make edits and make changes because
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: it feels wrong here or it doesn't feel exactly on
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: mark there. And we do that with um, a fantastic,
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: as I said, group of superheroes and who have been
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: doing this for a long time at CNN, both from
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: the production team to the researchers and on and on.
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: And then we just, we go through it over and
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: over and the news cycle changes, um, things in the
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: world change. They say things on the stump that make
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: us amend the approach that we're taking to a certain issue. And,
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: and then we just play it out. We do mock.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Do you do mock? I was going to say, do
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: you have people play the candidates?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah. We do.
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: We have people play the candidates and it's, I mean,
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: I don't, I can't imagine doing a debate without that
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: process because it really does help inform how something is
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: coming across and maybe not coming across as we intended.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: And I will say, for these mock debates, I'll let
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: you in on a little secret. We did not mock
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: for the actual debate that we had.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Just because there wasn't enough time?
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: No, it's just we didn't expect that to be the
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: way the debate went. Oh, oh, oh.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask about that. Well, I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: was going to get to that. I imagine, like, do
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you guys talk about how to handle Trump who... is
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: unusual and that he enjoys yelling not only at his
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: opponents and interrupting them, but like yelling at the moderators
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and interrupting moderators in debates?
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: We practice for everything. Got it.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: That's what I figured. Yeah.
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: Knowing the nature of the candidates and how they tend
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: to act and react in debates and interviews and other scenarios, absolutely.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: The thing about this debate, which ABC is going to
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: deal with as well, is that he could have yelled
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: at me or yelled at Jake anytime. He was free
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: to use his time however he wanted, but he couldn't
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: do it when his mic was off. And so these rules,
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: and this is obviously, you know, far better than I,
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: why the Harris team wanted to change that and not
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: have muted mics, because we all realized real time, especially
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: the Biden team who wanted to impose that rule, that
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: it was actually a built-in set of guardrails for Donald Trump,
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: which his campaign was thrilled about, but you didn't really
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: see the kind of Trump who we saw in several
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: of the debates in 2020.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm wondering how much you think the muted mics
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: debate matters. Like, did you guys, could you guys hear
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Trump when he, when his mic was muted? So could like,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that worked.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: We were in a relatively small studio and I, I'm
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: guessing ABC will have a similar situation because they don't
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: have an audience like we did. So yes, you can
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: hear the challenges, how much the audience can hear because
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: the mic is muted and they're close. So you could
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: potentially pick it up on another mic. So we did
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: a lot of practicing for that. But what happened in
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: reality is that knowing that the mic was off, Trump
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: really didn't say much when his mic was off and
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: when Biden was speaking. It happened a couple of times.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: So it kind of prevented him from acting out.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: So it was, forgive me, moot.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. That's interesting. What was your reaction in the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: moment to Biden's performance? Like, what do you remember thinking
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: when it was five minutes in, 10 minutes in?
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Okay, well, let me ask you this.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: Well, I actually think I've already asked you this on
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: the air, but I'll ask you this on your podcast.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: What were you thinking from the first minute?
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I thought before the debate that it could
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: go fine or it could go really badly. Even in
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: my wildest imagination of how badly it could go, I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: did not go to that level. Like I thought, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know, after the first five minutes, I'm like, uh,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Slow start. This is really bad. He's got to pick
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: this up at some point. Unfortunately, people always remember the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: first five, 10 minutes of a debate, not the end.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: So even if he's stronger at the end, it's going
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to be tough. But then by the time he got to,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: you know, we beat Medicare and he killed Medicare.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then pivoting from like an abortion answer, which
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: should have been strong to like the killing campaign. of
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Americans by undocumented immigrants. I was just like, what is,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this is, this is bad. This is really bad.
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So that's, that's, we felt it. We felt it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: And I do think that it's possible that people at
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: home had an even stronger reaction to it because We
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: were seeing sort of the whole scene in front of
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: our actual eyes. And at home, you obviously saw, for
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: the most part, the split screen. So you saw the
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: close-up shot. So I think it was even more stark
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: for viewers at home. But yeah, it was a holy
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: shit moment.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: There was some criticism before and after the debate about
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: CNN's decision not to do live fact-checking. How did you
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: guys think about that leading into the debate?
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: Wait, there was criticism of our debate?
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me more?
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: First, I'm here a bit.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Wild. Wild.
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: Of anything that we do in this country?
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: No.
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: And you know what? Fair game. That's being in the arena.
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: I'm glad you asked that because we looked at the
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: history of presidential debates since, you know, Kennedy, Nixon, modern
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: presidential debates. And We felt, pretty much all of us,
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: our bosses, the execs, the production team, Jake and me,
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: that the way that it is done best is for
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: the moderators to facilitate but not be the story and
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: not participate any more than we have to because we're
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: obviously asking the questions. And it's a debate. It's between
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: two individuals who want to be the leader of the
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: free world. And I recognize that in today's times, it
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: is not the same as it was prior to eight
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: years ago, never mind, you know, other times in our history.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: But it was we decided to use that traditional model
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: that if and when Donald Trump said something that wasn't true,
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: which we did fact checking after the case, after the fact,
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: which we telegraphed to everybody that we were going to do.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: through our great Daniel Dale 30 times, he did not
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: tell the truth, he, Donald Trump. If we were to
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: jump in, we would be active participants as if I
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: was doing an interview or we would do in a
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: town hall that we moderate when there's not a political
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: opponent there, but that it was up to Joe Biden
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: to do the wait a minute and vice versa. Joe
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Biden said a couple of things that were at least
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: a couple of things that were just not accurate. He
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: suggested that no military service men had died on his watch.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: And we know that's true because that's not true because
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: people unfortunately were killed in the chaotic extraction from Afghanistan.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: I'm not to say that I'm equating them because it
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: was not the same amount when you look at the
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: numbers when it was all said and done. So that's
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: what we decided to do. The rules, as I mentioned,
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: were such that they were very, very structured, and that
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: was part of a negotiation that Jake and I had
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: nothing to do with, and it really came primarily at
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: the beginning from Team Biden, who said that they wanted
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: to do this early debate. And then there's also the
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: question of the real-time fact-checking and the pitfalls of it.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: We know the facts. We generally have a sense of
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: what each candidate, particularly Donald Trump, is going to say
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: that's like, what? And not true. Because we do it
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: in interviews. We've interviewed him lately, but in his, or
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: his surrogates and others. But there's still, like, if we're
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: going to do it, we got to have it right.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: And there is, it's been done and it's not worked
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: out that well and it's dangerous.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, my experience with this was in
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: which I'm sure you know well, in 2012 when Candy
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Crowley fact-checked Mitt Romney during the debate with Barack Obama.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: And obviously we were thrilled at the time that she
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: did and also a little surprised that we got the fact-check.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah, because I didn't know that she
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: would actually do that, right? But I think it was
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: partly because both Romney and Obama were sort of staring
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: at her and being like, see, what do you think?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: What do you like? You know, Obama just kept saying,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: look at the tape, look at the tape, look at
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the transcript, look at the transcript. And then Romney's kind
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: of looking at candy and yeah, it was a tough position.
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: I'm a humongous candy Crowley fan. She's one of my
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: heroes and mentors from when I first started here. And
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: it was, I'm glad that you gave that proper context
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: because I remember they were looking at her like, do
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: something lady.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: And, we had prepped for that exact moment. Really? Yes.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: And so we've told this story before, but Ben Rhodes,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Ben Rhodes, especially when Obama was giving a practice answer
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: about Benghazi and about whether he called it terrorism or not,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: said something like, I said terrorism in the Rose Garden speech.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: And then Ben said, no, no, you got to say
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: act of terror because that was exactly what was in
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the transcript. And Obama's like, why? It's the same thing, right?
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: And Ben's like, it's not the same thing and you've
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: got to be precise. And sure enough, Obama was precise
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: in the debate. That's exactly what Romney called him out on.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: So we had prepped for that moment.
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: Did you also prep for the, when Romney calls him
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: out and disputes it for like looking at candy to say,
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: fix this?
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: That I think was Obama's instinct to just like give
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: him enough rope. because I think he knew he got
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: him in that moment. I do not know that he
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: expected Candy to jump in, but interesting. It's very interesting.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: This debate coming up Tuesday, what are you expecting and
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: what are you going to be paying particular attention to?
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: Well, based on our experience, I am expecting literally anything.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: I'm expecting two individuals named Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: to be on a debate stage, and that's the end
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: of my expectation.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It seems like they've agreed on, even though they're
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: going to have muted mics, they've agreed on letting the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: moderators step in when candidates interrupt and communicate to the
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: audience when someone says something on a muted mic, which
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: sounds interesting.
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: Well, it's funny because that's really, that's one of the
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: challenges of having the muted mic because if you're Kamala
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: Harris and Donald Trump doesn't, say, in his guardrails and
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: he talks while she's talking and she can hear it,
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: but you, the viewer, can't hear it, it could get
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: a little bit confusing. So that makes sense that the
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: moderator will communicate to the audience, like, here's what's happening
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: right now that you might not fully absorb.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: And they're going to have both mics open during intense exchanges.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. Did you guys have that? There weren't
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of intense exchanges.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: No, we didn't.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: Trump took his foot off the gas when he saw
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: what was happening, I thought.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: So you also landed the first big sit-down interview with
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. And I'm so curious about
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: how you prepare for something like that and approach the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: interview itself. I mean, especially you going into this interview,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: there were entire pieces written about what questions should be asked.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of pressure on the candidates and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: you since it was their first interview. You only had
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: like 20 minutes. How did you think about what you
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: wanted to get out of that interview?
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: That's such a good question because there were so many
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: ways to go because it was the first. And what
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: I decided along with the Avengers that I described, which
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: we had to assemble very quickly because I got the
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: call Monday night and I had to be on the
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: plane with her. I was at the beach somewhere in
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: the vicinity of where you grew up, but I'll leave
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: that alone.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: And then, um, it's where I was after the debate. So, yeah.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: So I, um, so I quickly, you know, got back
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: to Washington and I was able to fly with her
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: to Air Force Two. And meanwhile, we were doing a
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: lot of this, obviously quickly and remotely and from far
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: flung places. But, but what we decided was that this
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: needed to be like foundational, um, because of the nature
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: of her candidacy. She was, you know, shot out of
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: a cannon and, She was still full. I mean, she
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: was I think at that point she had just done
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: like one little piece of her economic plan. And for
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: the most part, it was her agenda was Joe Biden's agenda,
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: which still is largely. But she's starting to since then
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: separate herself a little bit and be her own person.
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: But that was the foundational part of the interview that
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: I thought was so important, which is you have basically
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: been the understudy for almost four years. How much? are
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: you going to do the role like the lead and
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: how much are you going to make it your own?
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: And so those were some of the, that was the
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: thought process behind some of the key questions, including, pun intended,
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: drilling down on issues like fracking, which is like table
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: stakes in a place like Pennsylvania, which she has to win.
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: And I thought it was interesting that she was obviously
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: prepared for that. And she wanted to make it extraordinarily
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: clear that she is not going to ban fracking. Like
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: she wanted to get that out there right away to which,
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: you know, I can't, there was, there were a lot of, um,
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: there was a lot of commentary on the, the kinds
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: of questions and whether or not that was, you know, Oh,
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: that was written by MAGA or whatever, but you'll appreciate
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: this as a, you'll appreciate this as a, um, democratic
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: strategist that my impression, and nobody ever said this to me,
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: but my impression is her campaign wanted her to say
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: that because if you're an undecided voter in Pennsylvania and
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: you think that this is like a big issue for you,
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: you want to hear it. If you're already voting for
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: Kamala Harris, who cares? Like they got them in the bag.
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: And if you're already going to vote for Donald Trump
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: and you're not persuadable, who cares? It's going to be
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: such a, campaign, we believe, on the margins that that
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: kind of stuff really matters. So she was eager to
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: be asked questions like that to try to explain, and
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: more broadly, like her thought process. She was a candidate
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: for a brief time in the 2020 cycle. She left
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: in 2019, and she had a very different sensibility in
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: that time, not very different, somewhat different in that time
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: than she does now, which in many ways is understandable
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: because she's the understudy. So how much Have you changed
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: because you learned on the job, or how much have
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: you changed for other reasons?
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't catch too much of criticism from the left,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: but when I did, I thought it was sort of insane.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: It was like a very fair interview of questions that, like,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I'm a Democratic. I'm a former Democratic operative who still
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: considers myself an activist. And like I would have asked
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: those questions.
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: Can I take this quote and like put it on
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: a pillow and then take a picture of it and
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: pin it to my social media feeds?
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I remember I interviewed her when she
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: was running in 2019 in the primary. And that was
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: in that case, it was she had this record as
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: a prosecutor. and as attorney general, which sometimes was like
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: a little more moderate than the position she had taken
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: in 2020 in the primary. And I just like dug
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: into those and she wasn't mad. No one, you know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: like she, you expect that if you're a candidate, that's
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the whole, that's what you get prepared for.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: And, and it's.
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: In, in normal times, she would have been going through
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: that with, with other candidates against her in a democratic
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: primary process and with voters pressing her on those issues.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: But that's not, Well, I think you did a great job.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: So, okay. Your book, some people may not know much
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: about the, uh, 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election and its repercussions. Um,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: prior to preparing for this interview, I was one of
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: those people. Uh, why, why did you decide to write
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: a book about that election?
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm so glad when smart people like you say,
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: I didn't know anything about it. It makes me feel
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: so much better because I didn't know anything about it. Um,
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: I mean, I knew some, like I heard Colfax Massacre,
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: particularly after the 2021 debacle, because it was kind of
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: in the conversation about the ramifications for that, which I'll
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: get to in a second, of that and 1872 and
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: then the 1876 election, which was an election where the
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: Electoral College was a mess and Congress had to deal
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: with the mess that they got because four states gave
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: them multiple slates of electors because they couldn't figure out
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: who actually won in their states. Back then, it was
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: because there was actual corruption. There was actual fraud. And
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: there was disenfranchisement of Black voters, new Black voters, because
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: it was during Reconstruction. And so it was genuine, unlike
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: what we saw in 2020, which was allegations of fraud
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: and corruption which there was no evidence of, at least
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: presented in any court of law. So that's a really
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: big difference. But going back to 1872 and Louisiana, my co-author,
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: David Fisher, approached me with this. Dan Abrams, actually, who
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: wrote a few books with David Fisher, somebody came to
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: him with the idea or he had the idea or something.
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: But anyway, he put us together. And I sort of
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: said the same thing. How do I not know about this?
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: Because the South was still licking its wounds in a
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: big way. The Civil War had just ended and segregationists,
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: racists in the South were still trying to cling to
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: the notion that, you know, they didn't have free labor
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: anymore with slaves, but they were still trying to cling
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: to the notion that the white race is the supreme
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: race and black people should not have the same rights
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: that they have. And after, during Reconstruction, a lot of
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: black elected officials were sent into, not a lot, but comparatively,
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: black officials were sent for the first time into Congress
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: and into elected offices all over the South because they
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: were representing the people who were voting for them. The
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: Democrats then, because of course everything was in reverse, the
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: Democratic solid South, the segregationists said, well, we have to
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: stop this. And they realized that the way to do
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: that was at the ballot box. And You know, the
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: things that we hear today and we see today, even
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: though 100 years after that, John Lewis and Martin Luther
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: King and all of the amazing civil rights leaders tried
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: to right the wrongs from back then, it was born
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: out of this time period. And let me just give
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: you one fact that I did not know, one of
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: many I didn't know before working on this book. So
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: this election in 1872, because it was so corrupt, Nobody
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: would concede for the governor's race, for the legislature. It
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: even impacted judges. So two governors were inaugurated by their
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: own people. Two legislatures were sworn in by their own
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: supporters and so forth. So this went on for months.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: And the people who were trying to win out to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: actually be the real governor, they had no problem with
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: inciting violence. particularly those who were aligned with the Democrats.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: And that happened in a stunning way. There was blood
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: on the streets of New Orleans. There were pitch battles.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: There were insurrections. There were coup attempts. There was all
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: kinds of chicanery beyond. We think that there's stuff that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: happens now. I mean, it's nothing compared to then. There
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: was a massacre, which I mentioned, the Colfax Massacre. which
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: happened in Grant Parish, named for Ulysses S. Grant, the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: president at the time, of course, the general before that,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: where 150 black men were slaughtered in cold blood. And
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: it was horrible. They were just trying to make the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: point that their vote should count and they should have
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: had the right to vote. And this is after the election.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: In order to prosecute this case and to try to
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: find justice, The federal government said, we're going to do
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: this through the federal court system because there were new
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: constitutional amendments in place post-Civil War that gave some protections.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: So instead of just trying them for murder in the South,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: which they thought these are white guys in the South
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: killing black men, there's not going to be a fair
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: trial here, we'll do it through the civil rights laws.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: Went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: the Supreme Court decided that the federal government doesn't have
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: a role here in civil rights. It should be up
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: to the states. They're going to determine how people should live.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: And the South said, fantastic. And let us present to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: you the Jim Crow laws. And that's how Jim Crow
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: happened and lasted, of course, for a century. So it
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: was that election and all the ramifications from that, that
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: really laid the groundwork for the horrific way that Black citizens,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: after they were already slaves, were treated for so long
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: in this country.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, reading about it, you know, made me feel
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: better about our current political climate, just because you look
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: to history and realize how much more violent and horrific
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: it was back then. But are there parallels between that
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: you learned about while writing the book that make you think, well,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: you know, this kind of thing can happen, right? And
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: what we have is very fragile.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: Going back to four years after what I was just
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: talking about, 1876, and the problems that I just described
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: in Louisiana happened in other states. And it was so
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: fraught and so corrupt that And nobody in the state
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: could make a decision, okay, like the canvassing board in
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: Louisiana was the returning board. This is our slate of electors, Congress,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: please certify them. They sent multiple slates to Congress. And
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: one of the debates was whether or not the vice
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: president on the day that they certified the electoral results
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: had the ability to choose which slate of electors or
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: whether it was just a ceremonial role. And they decided
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: that it was a ceremonial role, just like Mike Pence
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: decided 150 years later.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they looked at, they must have, I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: wonder if Pence and his folks looked at this.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: I think they did. It's funny because I have been
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: meaning to call his people to ask, I mean, how
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: could they not have? It was pretty much the only precedent.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: But then what happened was, They just said, we can't
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: count these four states. They don't count. So then there
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: was a tie, an electoral tie. And then they had
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: to figure out, well, now what do we do? And
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: so they came up with a commission because that's what
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: we do in Washington.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Even then.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: Even then. And it was supposedly bipartisan and then nonpartisan.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: But of course, at the end, it was one Republican
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: who decided who was going to be the president. One man.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: And they decided it would be the Republican- Rutherford B. Hayes,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: and he became the president, but not for free. The trade-off,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: which was never obviously made official, it was the quintessential
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: backroom deal, was that the federal government would pull federal
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: troops out of the South. So not only at that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: point had the Supreme Court said, it's up to you
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: to set the laws, the federal government troops had been
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: there on and off for years to try to preserve
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: the peace, they had to come out.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, and of course, when they pulled
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the troops out, that's when the reign of terror in
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: the South began. And it was Jim Crow laws, but
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it was also a lot of violence. So it's interesting,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: the alternate slates of electors, when you think about the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: potential issues with 24, you know, they passed reform in Congress,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and obviously Trump's not president this time so you know
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things he can't do but you
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: do wonder about a lot of these states uh especially
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: with republican legislatures and very trumpy legislatures sending in uh
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: their own slates of electors and then in a lot
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: of the states there's democratic governors and so you could
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: see the dual slates getting sent in and yeah he's.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: Not president but they changed the laws in a lot
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: of these key states yeah like georgia and they're not
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: the same as they were yeah.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: No, I know. That's the, uh, Oh boy. Well, you know,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: we've had a, we've had a pretty busy summer, so
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: maybe the, maybe the fall will be quiet. Maybe all
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: will just be normal again.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Um, Dana, Dana bash. Thank you so much for, uh,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: for coming on pod. Save America. The book is America's
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: deadliest election. The cautionary tale of the most violent election
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: in American history. It is on sale. Now go check
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: it out. Fascinating history. And, uh, Thanks again for coming on.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. Sorry, my voice just cracked out.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: It's done. You know what? You've been talking too much.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: We all have. Bye, Dana. Take care.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: You too.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. We'll be back in your
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: feed on Sunday morning with Pod Save America Live in Phoenix.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Our guest host is Jane Koston. We also got Ruben Gallego,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: who's running for Senate. But we have some extra content
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: for you right now. Tommy and Lovett sat down with
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: one of our producers, Caroline Reston, to talk about some
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: untold campaign stories on the newest episode of our subscription show,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Inside 2024. Here's a 10-minute preview of their conversation. To
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: hear the full episode, plus Polar Coaster, Terminally Online, and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: all of our other subscription content, subscribe at cricket.com slash
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: friends or on Apple Podcasts. Here's Tommy, Lovett, and Caroline.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Inside 2024. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm John Lovett.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Who are you?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 8: Oh, I'm Caroline Reston.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Do we not do that here?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 8: No, we don't do that on this show. But thank
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 8: you for thinking of me as an equal for a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 8: hot second.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: You are, of course.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: In today's episode, we're going to take a little trip
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 6: down memory lane and answer listener questions about our days
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 6: on the campaign trail.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 8: This is a great question from the Discord. If the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 8: campaign is in a small town with no hotels rated
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: two stars and above, where does the candidate stay? Do
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 8: they fly out on their private plane and go home?
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: What kind of lodging arrangements are available to the entire entourage?
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Good question.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, candidates do stay in dumps. Total dumps.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 8: Was Obama staying in dumps?
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, our.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: Go-to was a shitty hotel by the airport where he
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: could rip cigs in an adjacent room.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: So, yeah.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: There was a period of time when it was a
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: normal thing for candidates to stay with supporters. Like, you'd
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 6: go to some random little town and John Edwards would just, like,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 6: shack up with somebody in there.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Well, not shack up. You know, well, with him, you know, well, maybe.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Poor word choice. We'll never know. You know, some empty nester, like,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: just crash in their, you know, kids' former room. Like,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Jerry Brown, who is the governor of California, is old
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: school and he would stay in, like, supporter housing when
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: he traveled just to save money. It's really, really, one
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: thing that has changed, like, just in the last like
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: we're so old. Like it used to be that like
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: hotels were more like there was more varying quality, but
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: now there's just. These chains that have like made the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: same experience at virtually every city. Yeah, they have a baseline.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: So it's like never too horrendous anymore.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: It's like you're in a Kempton and you know what
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: it's going to be. Yeah, or Hampton Inn. Hampton Inn.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: I think we did Hampton Inn a lot. Obama did
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Hampton Inns. Hampton Inns, great value. I believe in the
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Hampton Inn model.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 8: Are you being sponsored by them?
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: No, but they could sponsor me. I think it's a
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: great price point. It's not luxury, but that's okay.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 8: When's the last time you stayed at a Hampton Inn?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: When we were in Boston for... Oh, okay, okay. A
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: tour show, I believe.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 8: You stayed at a Hampton Inn?
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: I was on Survivor. Like, I'm okay with some roughing in.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: Were they filming in the Hampton Inn with their cameras there?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: I don't. I enjoy luxury, but I can sleep anywhere.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: But to answer this person's question, I mean, odds are
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 6: you just drive to, like, the kind of larger city nearby.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, I guess that's a pretty good workout. Does
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 8: knocking on doors and phone baking still work? Is there
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 8: data showing that it's the best use of volunteer time
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 8: versus user-generated content for social media, for example?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of data that shows that it works.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: It is effective. I would argue it's getting more effective
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: because as it gets harder to reach the most important
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: and needed voters, lower engagement, less likely to vote, undecided voters.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: These are people that are less likely to be consuming news,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: less likely to be consuming television, less likely to see ads.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: knocking on doors and phone banking become more important. It's
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: very much worth doing. It's a game of inches and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: you can knock on 100 doors and you'll talk to
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: two or three or four people, two of whom don't
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: want to talk to you, two of whom maybe do.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: But in that 100, you'll get one and dozens of
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: other volunteers are hitting blocks around you. And together, you're
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: drawing out the people that will make the difference. I
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: will say, though, I have definitely noticed in the last
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: couple of years, something after the pandemic versus before the pandemic,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: which this was when we were in North Carolina knocking
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: on doors. You go knock on doors of like Democratic
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: precincts where you're really just trying to remind people to
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: vote if they might not have put their ballot in yet,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: just to make sure you get every single vote. That's different.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: But if you're in kind of a more moderate or
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: like if you're knocking on like the independent doors or
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: the doors where you don't know what you're going to get,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: I have noticed that the people are Just a little
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: bit more reluctant to answer the door, a little bit
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: more suspicious of each other. Since the pandemic, there is
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a, I think, darkness that has
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: come in. But even still, you have really good experiences
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: knocking on doors.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: What do you say?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 8: I never open my door when someone knocks when I'm
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: at home because I always just assume it's a Jehovah's Witness.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: Well, and you watch a lot of horror films.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If they have a mask on, don't.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 8: Oh, that's what I do open it.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: With like a hockey mat? Yeah. Like a knife?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 8: I'm like, welcome in. I'm ready to be a star
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 8: of a podcast. It's a good follow-up. How do you
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 8: get out of your head and just talk to voters?
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: I feel like I'm afraid of saying something wrong or
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 8: not knowing something and then I get frozen.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: There's no wrong answer. The way you get out of
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: your head is you do it. You do it and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 6: you do it. It's weird at first and then it's fine.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: But like there's a very funny story from 2007 where
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 6: I think it was Samantha Power, Austin Goolsbee, and Cass
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 6: Sunstein were canvassing together. So these are people who, one's
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: a Pulitzer Prize winning scholar of genocide and foreign policy,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: one is an economist, and one is like the smartest
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 6: legal mind alive. And they're like, okay, we're like the
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: A team. We're going to canvass and every question we
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 6: could ever get on the door is like, we got
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: it covered. And they knock on the door and the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: first question they get is, when is the caucus or
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 6: where is my caucus location? And they didn't know and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: they failed on their first question.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: So you will be fine. It's going to go okay.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: Just do it. Yeah, I think that's right. Also, you
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: just don't have to pretend to know everything. You can say,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that, but here's why I really
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: like Kamala Harris or here's why I really like Ruben Gallego,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: whoever it might be.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: Ask questions, listen to them, get their data. Just make
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: sure you write down what these people care about and
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 6: get it to the campaign.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 8: Okay, that's really good advice. What is the maddest you
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 8: ever got at someone on a campaign over something dumb?
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: I think it was when Lovett's sandwich got here in
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: a couple minutes.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: I'm getting pretty mad now.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 8: Hey, you have 20 more minutes before it gets here.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: That's not a campaign. You know, I— I feel like
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: you've yelled at reporters, don't you, right? Well, yeah. I
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: don't even remember some of them now because they were
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: so stupid and small, in part because we were exhausted, frazzled,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: stressed out, mid-20s people. Being on the Hillary campaign in
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: 2008— slowly, inexorably marching towards defeat, but never losing a
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: primary so badly as to justify either getting out or
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: winning so decisively as to justify describing the race as
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: having changed. It was a pretty grueling time. It was
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: quite a year.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 8: I can imagine.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: The upside of it is that that year was a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: proving ground for a ton of campaign staffers, both in
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Obama world and in Hillary world, that are still the
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: people kind of you hear about doing these jobs. It
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: was an amazing experience for everybody involved, myself included. Yeah,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, my job was to fight with reporters. And
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: so we were young and there was a lot of
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: bravado and bullshit and we did it in ways that
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: were probably counterproductive. Ben LeBolt, who's now the White House
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: Communications Director, used to have a fan set up blasting
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: directly onto his body because he would sweat through his shirts.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: So he would have just a fan propped at himself.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: But the time I really remember losing it was when
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: Fox News first reported like the Madrasa stuff that Obama
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: was attended to Madrasa when he was younger. And I
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: think like I felt my like I disassociated as I
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: screamed at this producer on the phone and that fixed everything.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: Fox News came correct after that. And did they did
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: they did they believe you that he hadn't gone to Madrasa?
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they know. No, still don't.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 8: When you're on a presidential campaign, what's your relationship like
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 8: with the staffers of the opposing campaign? Is there a relationship?
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 8: Is there any kind of like, you know, like Kirsten Dunst,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: Gabrielle Union and bring it on? Like, respect you, but
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 8: I hate you and I'm going to beat you.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 6: I mean, the primary campaign ones are the weird ones
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 6: because those are your actual friends. You know, it's like
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 6: your roommate got a job in one place and you
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: did in another. So you know those people. I actually
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: got to know the McCain people really well. because I
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 6: went to the RNC and we ended up going out
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: to dinner. A couple of reporters took a bunch of
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 6: the Democratic flacks and Republican flacks.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: We all went to dinner. We had a good time.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: We became friends. We actually stay in touch.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: But I do remember one time when we had a
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 6: particularly kind of strident Obama surrogate on the air against
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 6: a very strident McCain surrogate. And I got a call
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: through the switchboard And this person was like, it's Tucker
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 6: Bounds for Tommy Vitor.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, Tucker Bounds? He's the McCain national spokesman.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: And he's like, Vitor, we'll promise never to put this
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 6: person on air again if you promise to never put
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 6: that person on air again.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: It was this very funny moment.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Like, detente.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: Did it work? No, we both were booking those people
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: all day. But it was hilarious. It was a call
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: for us. That's really funny. Like a moment of.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 8: Like, Fake truths between you two?
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 6: Just us being like a moment of recognition that we
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: both were sharing an experience from completely different perspectives. And
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 6: in that moment, we both could see how awful the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 6: thing we were producing was.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: And we just wanted to acknowledge it.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 8: That'd be a great buddy comedy movie.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: Sure. Well, there was some movie about... I can't remember
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: what it was called. Is it Our Jobs or Crisis
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: or something?
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: Something like that. That's right, yeah. I didn't know anybody
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: from the Obama... campaign. But then we first talked around
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: cutout gate.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: What's cutout gate? It's not important. And then that was
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: the first time we really spoke. And then the speech
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: writing job came up, I think, later. Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 8: Is it expected that the sappers of a losing primary
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 8: campaign kind of try to get jobs on the winning
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 8: primary campaign? And is it humiliating? Or is it like
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 8: this is normal?
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: I think it's normal. It's normal. Yeah. I think sometimes
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: it's harder for spokespeople because spokespeople both they're very public
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: in drawing the contrast between the two candidates and the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: best spokespeople are ferociously loyal and you know it's you
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: know you can sell a salesperson anything is an old
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: saying and when your job is selling the candidate you're
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: not just selling it to the world like you sell
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: yourself and you really believe it and so i think
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: that can sometimes be the hardest um bridge to build
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: and also they're on the record like It's hard to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: get a job working for Barack Obama if you're on
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: the record for like an entire month of March with
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: your campaign's message of he's not from here and he
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: can't be president. It's particularly hard for spokespeople because like
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama picks up the paper and sees like named
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: official attacking him. And you're like, we're going to hire
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: that guy.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: No, you're not.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: But I mean, David Axelrod, I mean, people like, yeah,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of sometimes people you're also aware that
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 6: some of the people working on the campaign you beat,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 6: they're actually smarter than the ones working on the current campaign.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: So it's awkward.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to that preview. To listen to the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: full episode and much more, subscribe to Friends of the
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: Pod at cricket.com slash friends or on Apple Podcasts. Talk
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: to you this weekend. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone. If you
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at cricket.com
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: and YouTube for access to full content. episodes, bonus content,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends, family,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: or randos you want in on this conversation. Pod Save
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is David Toledo.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safaree. Reed
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.