Latest / Pod Save America / “Biden up, Trump down, Covid rising.” (with Alyssa Mastromonaco!)

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“Biden up, Trump down, Covid rising.” (with Alyssa Mastromonaco!) · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: And with us today is Hysteria co-host and best friend
0:28
Speaker 1: of the pod... Alyssa Master Monica.
0:30
Speaker 3: Hi, bros.
0:33
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this, Alyssa.
0:35
Speaker 3: I wish everyone could see how I make you guys
0:37
Speaker 3: laugh when I say, hi, bros.
0:40
Speaker 2: Guess what? They can, because it's on video.
0:43
Speaker 1: As you've said for over a decade, basically.
0:45
Speaker 4: I know.
0:45
Speaker 1: Forever. On today's show, Tommy talks to Jamal Bowman, who
0:49
Speaker 1: has declared an upset victory in the primary for New
0:52
Speaker 1: York's 16th congressional district. Before that, we'll talk about the
0:55
Speaker 1: frightening resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic. what the results of
0:59
Speaker 1: yesterday's primaries mean for the future of the Democratic Party,
1:02
Speaker 1: new polls that give Joe Biden a commanding lead over
1:06
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and a preview of our new miniseries about
1:09
Speaker 1: the vice presidential selection process hosted by none other than
1:13
Speaker 1: Dan and Alyssa called That's the Ticket.
1:18
Speaker 3: Because that's the ticket.
1:21
Speaker 1: Because that's the ticket. Uh, also check out pod, save
1:25
Speaker 1: the world this week. The team worked very hard to
1:27
Speaker 1: make sure no one has to actually purchase John Bolton's
1:29
Speaker 1: book to learn what he had to say about Trump.
1:32
Speaker 1: You just have to listen to Tommy and Ben. They
1:34
Speaker 1: also talk about the climate crisis, escalating violence in Afghanistan,
1:37
Speaker 1: Chinese cyber attacks, and Tommy interviewed Hamed Sanu, the lead
1:41
Speaker 1: singer of one of the biggest bands in the middle
1:43
Speaker 1: East and an influential LGBTQ rights activist. All right, let's
1:48
Speaker 1: get to the news. Um, I would say that COVID
1:51
Speaker 1: is back, but it actually never left. It's still the
1:56
Speaker 1: first wave. And on Tuesday, the US recorded more than 35,000
2:00
Speaker 1: new cases, the highest one day total since April 25th.
2:04
Speaker 1: This hasn't just been a surge in cases, but hospitalizations
2:08
Speaker 1: in states like Arizona, Florida, here in California, and especially Texas,
2:13
Speaker 1: where some hospitals in Houston are almost at capacity. Governor
2:16
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott, who started reopening the state as early as
2:19
Speaker 1: April 29th and signed an executive order just on June
2:25
Speaker 1: 3rd that forbids cities from enforcing requirements that people wear masks,
2:29
Speaker 1: is now urging Texans to stay home and wear masks.
2:33
Speaker 1: And he also announced this morning that they are pausing reopening,
2:37
Speaker 1: though I don't know what that means since they're pretty
2:39
Speaker 1: damn open already. Alyssa, what's your reaction to this as
2:46
Speaker 1: someone who's been through the horrific wave that hit New York.
2:51
Speaker 3: I mean, of course this is happening. Like all the
2:53
Speaker 3: medical experts have said this was going to happen if
2:56
Speaker 3: people didn't wear their freaking masks and socially distance. And
3:00
Speaker 3: so people are, you know, in Texas, I think they've
3:02
Speaker 3: been going back to the gym for like over a month. Why?
3:05
Speaker 4: Why?
3:06
Speaker 3: People are using cans and rubber bands at home. Like
3:09
Speaker 3: just do that for a little while longer. But yeah,
3:12
Speaker 3: I mean, here in New York, it's still... On the
3:15
Speaker 3: downward trajectory, but it's vigilant as hell here. I mean,
3:19
Speaker 3: when you walk around, it's like, you know, people forget,
3:22
Speaker 3: especially in like the more rural communities, that this is
3:25
Speaker 3: when people are harvesting their crops. And if you go
3:28
Speaker 3: to a store or anything, it is going to all
3:31
Speaker 3: of our stores around here. If one person gets sick
3:34
Speaker 3: in a store, the store has to close for two weeks.
3:36
Speaker 3: That's the rule here in New York. So it's like
3:38
Speaker 3: nobody wants things to close back down again. We were
3:41
Speaker 3: closed down longer than anybody and had the biggest economic hit.
3:44
Speaker 3: And so I think everyone here, for the most part,
3:47
Speaker 3: except those assholes in New York City that they keep showing,
3:50
Speaker 3: is very much like, we're all in this together. And
3:52
Speaker 3: if we don't keep our masks on and stay distant,
3:56
Speaker 3: it's going to go tits up again.
4:02
Speaker 1: Dan. It's important.
4:04
Speaker 2: Tits up is an official WHO term for virus spread.
4:08
Speaker 1: It is.
4:09
Speaker 3: It's a military term for, you know, when the plane
4:12
Speaker 3: goes tits up.
4:14
Speaker 2: Anything that's R plus one in infection rate is tits up.
4:18
Speaker 1: That's the chart. That's the chart. Dan, you and I
4:21
Speaker 1: have been under a shelter in place order since late
4:24
Speaker 1: March in a state that requires everyone to wear masks.
4:27
Speaker 1: So what's going on here? I mean, do Trump and
4:30
Speaker 1: Republican politicians deserve all the blame for what's going on?
4:36
Speaker 2: All of the blame?
4:36
Speaker 4: No.
4:38
Speaker 2: Most of the blame, yes. Look, this is a huge
4:42
Speaker 2: challenge under the best circumstances with the best leadership. And
4:45
Speaker 2: we're seeing that in California, where even as you begin
4:48
Speaker 2: to open up a little bit, you continue to see
4:51
Speaker 2: virus spread. As more people, as the percentage of people
4:53
Speaker 2: who are going back to work goes up, you're going
4:56
Speaker 2: to see virus spread. And so it is not as
5:00
Speaker 2: simple as blue state's good, red state's bad, as we're
5:03
Speaker 2: living here in California. But The one thing that unites
5:08
Speaker 2: all of the states is that we are being led
5:11
Speaker 2: by an incredibly stupid person right now in the White House.
5:15
Speaker 2: And it's funny, and we sort of laugh about it,
5:20
Speaker 2: but it's a gigantic fucking problem. The president of the
5:22
Speaker 2: United States does not want to solve the problem. He
5:24
Speaker 2: wants to pretend like it does not exist. He models
5:27
Speaker 2: the wrong behavior. He creates political incentives for people like
5:30
Speaker 2: Governor Greg Abbott to stop mayors from making their citizens
5:36
Speaker 2: wear masks to make them open up faster. And that
5:40
Speaker 2: is a huge consequence. I saw this video that Gavin
5:45
Speaker 2: Newsom tweeted out that was a– I think it's a
5:49
Speaker 2: PSA that has every living California governor from Gray Davis
5:54
Speaker 2: to Jerry Brown to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Pete Wilson, Republicans
5:57
Speaker 2: and Democrats encouraging people to wear masks. In an alternative
6:01
Speaker 2: universe where our president was someone who could think about
6:04
Speaker 2: something more than themselves for two fucking seconds, you could
6:08
Speaker 2: see a world where the president wore a mask. The
6:10
Speaker 2: president got Obama, Bush, Carter, Clinton into the White House,
6:14
Speaker 2: and they all put masks on to model good behavior
6:16
Speaker 2: because this is really hard. But there's one thing that
6:19
Speaker 2: we know helps, and that's for people to put a
6:22
Speaker 2: piece of fucking cloth on their face. And the president,
6:24
Speaker 2: instead of encouraging people to do that, decided to make
6:28
Speaker 2: it some sort of weird cultural issue. And has made
6:32
Speaker 2: the problem worse in this country. He is not solely
6:34
Speaker 2: responsible for what's happening, but he's a huge part of
6:36
Speaker 2: why there isn't enough testing. There isn't enough mask wearing.
6:40
Speaker 2: And a lot of this lies on him. And he
6:43
Speaker 2: should not just because something is happening in California that
6:46
Speaker 2: it may also be happening in Texas does not mean
6:48
Speaker 2: that this is not largely about a massive failure at
6:51
Speaker 2: the federal government.
6:53
Speaker 5: I mean.
6:54
Speaker 1: Public health is just as much about education and communication
6:58
Speaker 1: as it is about policies, right? Like, as you're saying,
7:01
Speaker 1: like people need information and examples from leaders at the
7:05
Speaker 1: highest level of government. Like Eric Garcetti can go to
7:09
Speaker 1: the microphone every day and tell us all to wear masks.
7:13
Speaker 1: And for that matter, so can Gavin Newsom. They simply
7:16
Speaker 1: don't have the megaphone that the president of the United
7:19
Speaker 1: States has, you know? And like, you know, LA County
7:22
Speaker 1: is 10 million people. We're the biggest, most populous county
7:25
Speaker 1: in America. Like you walk around and a lot of
7:29
Speaker 1: people wearing masks, but like in a lot of the
7:31
Speaker 1: fucking suburban counties in California, they didn't have mask requirements.
7:35
Speaker 1: They just decided not to. They decided to open bars
7:38
Speaker 1: and restaurants, you know, which I also, by the way,
7:41
Speaker 1: just don't understand the message of we've had the message,
7:45
Speaker 1: stay home. Everyone stay home unless you need to go out,
7:47
Speaker 1: but we're opening bars and restaurants. Well, like who the
7:50
Speaker 1: fuck's going to the bars and restaurants then if we're
7:51
Speaker 1: all supposed to be staying home, why did you open them?
7:54
Speaker 4: Right?
7:55
Speaker 1: Like I understand like outdoor restaurants. I understand outdoor activities.
7:59
Speaker 1: I even understand like retail people can like run in
8:01
Speaker 1: and run out because you're not in there for a
8:03
Speaker 1: long time. Like I can sort of get all that
8:05
Speaker 1: with enough precautions and with mask wearing. But part of
8:08
Speaker 1: the problem we're seeing here is like a lot of
8:10
Speaker 1: these bar and restaurant owners and a lot of other
8:12
Speaker 1: businesses are are are having such a hard time in
8:15
Speaker 1: the in this economy and they can't even count on
8:18
Speaker 1: congress or washington to do any like you could pay
8:21
Speaker 1: all the employees of restaurants and bars to stay home
8:24
Speaker 1: for as long as we need to to make sure
8:26
Speaker 1: that we don't do this they don't want to do
8:27
Speaker 1: that right like congress is broken we have no leadership
8:30
Speaker 1: from donald trump he's decided to polarize the most important
8:33
Speaker 1: thing which is wearing a mask and made that a
8:35
Speaker 1: fucking partisan issue too just like everything else and people
8:38
Speaker 1: take cultural cues from the president united states I.
8:42
Speaker 2: Mean, just here's how you know that the entire mask
8:45
Speaker 2: thing is just incredibly selfish bullshit, which is Donald Trump
8:50
Speaker 2: is doing a town hall with Sean Hannity, which Sean
8:53
Speaker 2: Hannity is one of the people out there yelling about
8:55
Speaker 2: masks and how it's an impingement of your freedom and
8:57
Speaker 2: all of this other bullshit. And at that town hall,
9:00
Speaker 2: people are going to be required to wear masks.
9:03
Speaker 3: Right.
9:04
Speaker 2: So it's an issue for politicians, but keep the virus
9:07
Speaker 2: away from the demagogues.
9:11
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, Alyssa. It's bad.
9:14
Speaker 3: Well, and we know how bad this can be, right?
9:17
Speaker 3: So like, why do we want to go back there?
9:19
Speaker 3: It's just, it's like the most selfish thing that people
9:23
Speaker 3: can do, even if the president is modeling horrible behavior.
9:27
Speaker 3: It's still like when you see people, and I don't
9:29
Speaker 3: know how it is where you guys live, but when
9:31
Speaker 3: you do see someone here who's not wearing their mask,
9:33
Speaker 3: they're just like not where they're, they're not just not
9:36
Speaker 3: wearing a mask. It's like this, fuck you. They're walking around.
9:39
Speaker 3: They're like, fuck you. I don't have my mask on.
9:41
Speaker 3: And I was like, I have mine on, but you're
9:43
Speaker 3: the endangered person. So like, you're like the old person
9:46
Speaker 3: who is at risk. I'm going to be fine. But
9:49
Speaker 3: it is such a statement, right? When people don't have
9:54
Speaker 3: it on because I just, I don't know. I find
9:57
Speaker 3: it incredible and very upsetting. And here too, again, I
10:01
Speaker 3: don't know how it is by you guys, but restaurants,
10:02
Speaker 3: we're in phase three. Most of the states in phase
10:05
Speaker 3: three or phase four now. And restaurants have opened, but
10:08
Speaker 3: no one is doing indoor dining. Instead, New York has
10:11
Speaker 3: taken a lot of pages out of Paris and how
10:14
Speaker 3: Paris reopened safely and they've blocked a lot of streets
10:18
Speaker 3: so that people the restaurants can set up outside and
10:21
Speaker 3: be socially distanced and not um and not like endanger
10:25
Speaker 3: people so that people can start like getting out and
10:27
Speaker 3: about but not be totally totally at risk though we
10:30
Speaker 3: still have not gone to eat anywhere because why.
10:34
Speaker 1: We yeah, we we've done the same thing in L.A.
10:37
Speaker 1: as we opened for a while. We just did outdoor eating,
10:40
Speaker 1: which is perfect for L.A. I don't know why we
10:42
Speaker 1: just didn't stop there. Why do we need it to
10:45
Speaker 1: continue going inside, you know, to bars? Because, you know,
10:49
Speaker 1: the crowded settings are a problem. So, you know, for Trump,
10:53
Speaker 1: it's not just about the mask. It's also about the testing.
10:56
Speaker 1: We talked about this on Monday's pod. But after the
10:58
Speaker 1: White House said that the president was joking when he
11:00
Speaker 1: said that he told his people to slow down the
11:03
Speaker 1: covid testing. Trump told reporters, quote, I don't kid. Let
11:07
Speaker 1: me just tell you. Let me make it clear. And
11:09
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he did when the federal government announced
11:12
Speaker 1: on Wednesday that they are ending support for 13 drive
11:15
Speaker 1: through coronavirus testing locations nationwide, including seven in Texas, the
11:20
Speaker 1: Texas that we just talked about. The Trump administration is
11:23
Speaker 1: also sitting on 14 billion dollars of unused funding for
11:27
Speaker 1: coronavirus testing and contact tracing. So Democrats, Biden campaign, a
11:31
Speaker 1: couple super PACs are jumping all over Trump's testing comments
11:35
Speaker 1: with statements, ads that are airing in swing states. How
11:40
Speaker 1: big of a deal would you guys treat this if
11:41
Speaker 1: you were on a campaign?
11:44
Speaker 2: I think people are treating it appropriately. There was without
11:47
Speaker 2: a doubt that Trump's response to the coronavirus is one
11:50
Speaker 2: of the reasons why his poll numbers are down, as
11:52
Speaker 2: we'll talk about later. And this is a very easily
11:55
Speaker 2: understood example. And it speaks not to just his failure
11:58
Speaker 2: to to do enough testing. He admitted his actual reason
12:04
Speaker 2: for doing it was because it makes him look bad.
12:07
Speaker 2: It fits right into the narrative we talk about all
12:09
Speaker 2: the time, which is Trump first, America last. He is
12:11
Speaker 2: putting himself over what is best for the country. This
12:13
Speaker 2: is a way to drive that narrative in a way
12:15
Speaker 2: that is directly connected with what is happening in the
12:18
Speaker 2: country right now. I also think it's notable that this
12:21
Speaker 2: is one of the first times, I think really in
12:25
Speaker 2: the last few months, where Democrats have been able to
12:28
Speaker 2: drive a narrative on Trump through their actions. You know,
12:32
Speaker 2: they took a moment out of this and they are
12:33
Speaker 2: driving it in the free press and in the paid media.
12:36
Speaker 2: And it has Trump. Trump tends to put himself on
12:38
Speaker 2: his heels with his own stupidity. But here he said something,
12:41
Speaker 2: Democrats latched onto, and they drove that story for more
12:44
Speaker 2: than the 17 seconds that the normal Trump gaffe gets
12:47
Speaker 2: treated by the press.
12:49
Speaker 3: You guys know how I hate to politicize like national
12:53
Speaker 3: health crises and disasters and stuff like that. But this
12:56
Speaker 3: is literally like he is demonstrating how unfit he is
13:00
Speaker 3: because the one thing that I have not heard broken
13:03
Speaker 3: down by anyone really when he talks about this is
13:08
Speaker 3: that the testing is not driving up the numbers. Sick
13:12
Speaker 3: people are driving up the numbers. And the thing that
13:15
Speaker 3: I think is very interesting and I would like someone
13:17
Speaker 3: to do some research on is like the number of
13:20
Speaker 3: tests and how many sick people it's yielding. Because I
13:23
Speaker 3: think the problem is that the tests, if the tests
13:27
Speaker 3: were being given and everyone was coming out negative, they'd
13:30
Speaker 3: be praising the testing and being like, look how great
13:33
Speaker 3: we're doing. So the thing is, is that clearly people
13:36
Speaker 3: are sick. Clearly there are hotspots that could be contained
13:40
Speaker 3: if people were tested. And so his it's only June, right?
13:44
Speaker 3: The chickens are all going to come home to roost
13:46
Speaker 3: before September, October, November. And you're going to have places
13:50
Speaker 3: like Texas and Florida where, you know, a city like Houston,
13:54
Speaker 3: I think Texas Medical Center, which is like the largest
13:56
Speaker 3: medical facility in the world, is already at 97% capacity. Well,
14:01
Speaker 3: you could stop so much of this if you just
14:03
Speaker 3: put some protections and restrictions and pauses back in place.
14:08
Speaker 3: So it's, I don't know, it just, it's, it's, It actually,
14:11
Speaker 3: his strategy doesn't make any sense.
14:13
Speaker 1: It makes no sense. I mean, like, you're right. When
14:16
Speaker 1: you test more, you find more cases because there's just
14:19
Speaker 1: more cases of coronavirus out there than we know. We've
14:23
Speaker 1: known that for a long time, since the beginning of
14:24
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And in places where cases are rising right now,
14:30
Speaker 1: like Arizona... like Texas, it's still hard for a lot
14:34
Speaker 1: of people to get a test if they want to
14:36
Speaker 1: get a test. So what happens when you don't get
14:38
Speaker 1: a test? If you want to get a test, you
14:40
Speaker 1: don't know if you're sick, you could spread it to
14:42
Speaker 1: more people. It's also the quality of testing too, right?
14:45
Speaker 1: Like The White House has fucking those rapid tests, right,
14:49
Speaker 1: that can tell you right away, or there's tests that
14:51
Speaker 1: can tell you overnight, right? Like if we had deployed
14:55
Speaker 1: sort of that same rapid testing all across America, imagine
14:59
Speaker 1: what we could be doing if you could like take
15:02
Speaker 1: a test and in five minutes know if you have
15:03
Speaker 1: coronavirus or not. People could start going back to work.
15:05
Speaker 1: People could start going out. The economy could reopen more.
15:08
Speaker 1: The fact that that infrastructure is not in place, nor
15:11
Speaker 1: did Trump even ever try to put it in place, right?
15:15
Speaker 1: across the country is one of the big reasons we're
15:18
Speaker 1: in this fucking mess right now.
15:19
Speaker 3: Imagine if there were antibody tests that worked.
15:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
15:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, that too.
15:25
Speaker 2: But it's also not rocket science to figure out whether
15:30
Speaker 2: the number of cases going up is because of testing.
15:33
Speaker 2: It's algebra. Just divide. There's something, let's figure out the rate.
15:37
Speaker 2: There is a rate. We look at it every single
15:38
Speaker 2: day and it is going up. And so like the
15:43
Speaker 2: entire conversation around this, it's insane. If you were just
15:48
Speaker 2: to try to explain to someone from another planet that
15:52
Speaker 2: in the middle of one of the most challenging periods
15:54
Speaker 2: in American history, that the president would just basically put
15:57
Speaker 2: on the mission accomplished banner and be done with it
15:59
Speaker 2: without ever actually trying to fix it in his election
16:01
Speaker 2: year while he was down in the polls. It makes
16:04
Speaker 2: so little sense. It's hard to fathom just what an
16:08
Speaker 2: incredibly stupid period we're living in.
16:11
Speaker 3: Well, I think we can imagine what those people would
16:13
Speaker 3: say because the European Union is also saying it, which
16:16
Speaker 3: is like, hey, America, you suck. Stay in America. You're
16:20
Speaker 3: not welcome here.
16:21
Speaker 1: We're banned. We're banned from the European Union now.
16:24
Speaker 2: As someone said, we've become what Trump would refer to
16:27
Speaker 2: as a shithole country.
16:30
Speaker 1: I mean, no, Trump has looked at the polls that
16:32
Speaker 1: say that people don't approve of how he's handling the pandemic.
16:35
Speaker 1: And he's like, I know, I just won't handle the pandemic.
16:37
Speaker 5: Yeah.
16:39
Speaker 1: I'll just pretend it's not there. That's how I'll fix
16:41
Speaker 1: that poll number. I'm just going to pretend it's not around.
16:45
Speaker 1: That's how he's running right now.
16:48
Speaker 5: All right.
16:49
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mini wave of progressive Democrats who
16:52
Speaker 1: did really well in Tuesday's New York and Kentucky primaries.
16:56
Speaker 1: Because of all the mail-in ballots, some of these races
16:58
Speaker 1: haven't been officially called. But here's what we know so far.
17:01
Speaker 1: In the New York 16th, former middle school principal Jamal
17:04
Speaker 1: Bowman has declared victory over 30-year congressman Elliot Engel. who
17:08
Speaker 1: had endorsements from Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton.
17:11
Speaker 1: In the New York 12th, progressive challenger Siraj Patel is
17:14
Speaker 1: running neck and neck with longtime incumbent Carolyn Maloney. In
17:17
Speaker 1: the New York 15th, Richie Torres has upset the very Trumpy,
17:21
Speaker 1: homophobic Ruben Diaz Sr. And in the New York 17th,
17:25
Speaker 1: progressive activist and Obama Justice Department official Mondaire Jones is
17:28
Speaker 1: the apparent winner of a crowded primary to replace retiring
17:31
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Nita Lowey. If elected, Torres and Jones will become
17:35
Speaker 1: the first openly gay black members of Congress. And one
17:39
Speaker 1: last race we're watching in Kentucky that is too close
17:41
Speaker 1: to call, the Senate primary between Amy McGrath, who had
17:44
Speaker 1: a massive financial advantage, and Charles Booker, who closed the
17:47
Speaker 1: gap in the final weeks with a surge of grassroots support.
17:50
Speaker 1: As of recording this pod, it looks like Charles Booker
17:53
Speaker 1: has taken a small lead as they start counting all
17:56
Speaker 1: the votes in Louisville, but we are still waiting on
17:59
Speaker 1: that one. Alyssa, you have grown up in New York politics.
18:04
Speaker 1: You know a lot of these incumbents that went down.
18:07
Speaker 1: You've been around them for a while. How big of
18:09
Speaker 1: a deal are some of these underdog progressive victories?
18:12
Speaker 3: Well, it is a big deal, but it is also
18:15
Speaker 3: such a symbol of complacency on the part of the
18:19
Speaker 3: incumbents because if there's one thing that you could take
18:22
Speaker 3: away from AOC beating Joe Crowley last time around— It's
18:27
Speaker 3: that the fucking hustle matters, right? The hustle matters. Being
18:31
Speaker 3: in the district, knowing what's going on, it all matters. And,
18:35
Speaker 3: you know, I don't think that Engel would have maybe
18:37
Speaker 3: faced such a fight if he had, like, come back
18:42
Speaker 3: to New York during the pandemic. You know, like, New
18:44
Speaker 3: York was ground zero. And, you know, I've heard him
18:47
Speaker 3: talk about it, that, you know, their house in D.C.
18:49
Speaker 3: or Maryland, wherever it is, is bigger and it was
18:51
Speaker 3: easier for them to quarantine.
18:53
Speaker 1: Well.
18:54
Speaker 3: okay, I guess, but like, where were you before that?
18:56
Speaker 3: And so I think that the one thing you see
18:58
Speaker 3: about all these folks, I mean, chairs of two big
19:01
Speaker 3: committees in the house are now like in a lot
19:04
Speaker 3: of fucking trouble. And you know, it's just, I think that,
19:07
Speaker 3: I think it's, it was hubris to not on all
19:10
Speaker 3: of their parts to not understand that AOC would nationally,
19:14
Speaker 3: but specifically in New York in a budding counties was
19:18
Speaker 3: not a fucking thing. It was not a blip. It
19:20
Speaker 3: was people want to see their elected officials actually working
19:23
Speaker 3: for them. And, you know, I got called by every
19:26
Speaker 3: single one of those people who is in the lead now, basically.
19:30
Speaker 3: And I never heard from, you know, just the campaigns.
19:32
Speaker 3: I didn't even get a text message from any of
19:34
Speaker 3: the other campaigns. So, you know, the hustle's real.
19:39
Speaker 1: Dan, Jamel Bowie had an interesting tweet about this. He said,
19:43
Speaker 1: one way you can think of the intrademocratic divide is
19:46
Speaker 1: that it isn't ideological but generational. And not generational in
19:49
Speaker 1: an old verse. young. But when did you form your
19:52
Speaker 1: ideas and impressions about partisan politics? He goes on to
19:55
Speaker 1: cite how Elizabeth Warren, who's 71, only came into politics,
19:58
Speaker 1: national politics over the last decade, which is one reason
20:01
Speaker 1: her style is closer to AOC than it is to
20:04
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer. What do you think of that?
20:07
Speaker 2: I agree with that. Jamel, as you would expect, made
20:12
Speaker 2: a similar point to one I've made in the past,
20:13
Speaker 2: but he made it more succinctly and more eloquently. The
20:17
Speaker 2: biggest part of the Democratic Party is not ideological. It's
20:19
Speaker 2: about democracy. And those who think that once Trump is gone,
20:22
Speaker 2: things will go back to normal are ones who understand
20:24
Speaker 2: that we have a much broader challenge before us, which
20:26
Speaker 2: I think is interesting. How you fall on that line,
20:28
Speaker 2: however you describe it, is based on when you came
20:30
Speaker 2: of age in politics. What were your defining political experiences?
20:33
Speaker 2: And if it happened in response to the Reagan Revolution
20:35
Speaker 2: and the DLC theory of politics in the 90s, or
20:39
Speaker 2: they happened after Obama was elected when you saw how
20:42
Speaker 2: the Republican Party became even further radicalized and went to
20:45
Speaker 2: extreme measures to defeat not just Barack Obama, but the
20:49
Speaker 2: political power of the Obama coalition, I think it says
20:51
Speaker 2: a lot. So I think that is the right sort
20:54
Speaker 2: of way to think about that divide. And I think
20:56
Speaker 2: You can see it not just in the policies that
20:59
Speaker 2: these people before, but like Mondaire Jones, for instance, ran
21:03
Speaker 2: on Supreme Court expansion. He has the support of Supreme
21:05
Speaker 2: Court expansion. And that is someone who understands that the
21:10
Speaker 2: obstacles to progressive power and policy are going to continue
21:13
Speaker 2: even when Trump is gone because the way in which
21:15
Speaker 2: the Republicans have rigged the Supreme Court. And so I
21:18
Speaker 2: think this is– Alyssa's right. The AOC primary was not
21:23
Speaker 2: just a specific one example of Joe Crowley being out
21:27
Speaker 2: of touch with this district and she being a transcendent candidate.
21:30
Speaker 2: It's about a much bigger– shift that's coming in the
21:33
Speaker 2: Democratic Party as the new generation takes forward, sort of
21:38
Speaker 2: the Obama generation takes over, and the post-Obama generation, in fact,
21:41
Speaker 2: takes over for the remnants of what came before.
21:45
Speaker 1: I also think that what you see in common with
21:49
Speaker 1: a lot of these races from AOC to Jamal Bowman
21:54
Speaker 1: is sort of the power of multiracial populism to stitch
22:00
Speaker 1: together a coalition of working class white and brown and
22:05
Speaker 1: black folks, especially in districts that are majority non-white, which
22:10
Speaker 1: many of these are. And, you know, Democratic politicians have
22:15
Speaker 1: probably used that message for a while, but what's making
22:18
Speaker 1: this different now is that the candidate themselves giving a
22:23
Speaker 1: message of multiracial populism is not white, is largely black
22:28
Speaker 1: in these cases. But I do think that speaks to
22:33
Speaker 1: the future of what we can expect from the Democratic Party.
22:37
Speaker 1: And which brings me to sort of the big question here, like,
22:42
Speaker 1: how does the Democratic Party nominate diverse progressive leaders like
22:46
Speaker 1: AOC and Jamal Bowman and Richie Torres, and then also
22:52
Speaker 1: nominate Joe Biden, who fairly easily defeated the most diverse
22:57
Speaker 1: progressive field of candidates we've ever had? What do you think?
23:03
Speaker 1: Anyone want to? Who wants to take that?
23:04
Speaker 3: Seems like a real nut to crack, huh? I mean,
23:09
Speaker 3: I think but I also think that this is sort of, again,
23:12
Speaker 3: that politics being local, right, that people want someone who
23:16
Speaker 3: can set the country back on path, which is Joe Biden,
23:20
Speaker 3: that they know is going to just fix it from
23:23
Speaker 3: what it is now. And I think that these progressive
23:26
Speaker 3: sort of victories are very much candidates reflecting what their
23:31
Speaker 3: districts actually want and how things are changing. Like Engel's
23:35
Speaker 3: district is majority minority. And so now by Bowman actually,
23:40
Speaker 3: you know, representing them potentially, they finally have a representative
23:45
Speaker 3: who reflects who they are, you know? And so I
23:47
Speaker 3: think it's a difference between local people what they want
23:51
Speaker 3: here and what they want in Washington. And I feel
23:53
Speaker 3: like they trust Joe Biden very much to fix what's
23:55
Speaker 3: broken-ish in D.C.
23:57
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think?
24:00
Speaker 2: I think in some ways what's happening in New York
24:03
Speaker 2: is a preview of Democratic politics in 2022, 2024, and beyond.
24:09
Speaker 2: And when the Democratic presidential race was in many ways
24:12
Speaker 2: frozen in amber from 2016— where the lessons of that
24:17
Speaker 2: election drove everything, narratives about electability, which, as we talk
24:23
Speaker 2: about all the time, are steeped in racism and misogyny,
24:26
Speaker 2: drove that election. And it very well may be, and
24:30
Speaker 2: the polls certainly indicate it now, that Biden is incredibly electable.
24:34
Speaker 2: But it was just a different occasion. I think had
24:36
Speaker 2: this been an open primary, where you were not picking
24:40
Speaker 2: the person who was going to take on Donald Trump
24:42
Speaker 2: and particularly save us from actually what we're living through
24:45
Speaker 2: right fucking now, you would have a different approach and
24:50
Speaker 2: possibly a different result. But also part of it is
24:54
Speaker 2: that Biden may have been the establishment older white guy,
24:58
Speaker 2: but he won almost entirely on the backs of tremendous
25:03
Speaker 2: support from the African-American community. And so he's like, if
25:08
Speaker 2: you were a Democrat who's potentially looking at a primary
25:12
Speaker 2: down the line– the Biden formula potentially works for you,
25:16
Speaker 2: which is you can't lose touch with the base of
25:19
Speaker 2: your party. And Biden, by whatever means he did it,
25:23
Speaker 2: and a lot of us were very skeptical of it
25:25
Speaker 2: throughout the entire primary, but he succeeded in maintaining rock
25:29
Speaker 2: solid and enthusiastic support from the most consistent voting bloc
25:34
Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party.
25:35
Speaker 3: I agree.
25:38
Speaker 1: I think One of the reasons, one of the big
25:41
Speaker 1: reasons the Democratic Party took a chance on a black
25:45
Speaker 1: man named Barack Hussein Obama, who was just a couple
25:49
Speaker 1: of years out of the Illinois state legislature in 2008,
25:52
Speaker 1: is because George W. Bush wasn't on the ballot anymore,
25:55
Speaker 1: as much as everyone didn't like George W.
25:57
Speaker 4: Bush.
25:57
Speaker 1: It was, like you said, it was an open primary.
25:58
Speaker 1: And so the fear of another Bush term wasn't there.
26:03
Speaker 1: In 2020, Donald Trump and the fear of a second
26:08
Speaker 1: Trump turn has driven almost everything about this election, including
26:15
Speaker 1: ultimately what happened in the Democratic primary. And so what
26:19
Speaker 1: you had is a lot like, look, a lot of people,
26:22
Speaker 1: a lot of Democratic voters at the end of the
26:24
Speaker 1: day really liked Bernie Sanders, really liked Elizabeth Warren, really
26:30
Speaker 1: liked Kamala Harris, really liked, like we had a lot
26:33
Speaker 1: of very well-liked candidates. The problem was not like favorability.
26:39
Speaker 1: It's for and for reasons, as you pointed out, Dan,
26:42
Speaker 1: you know, reasons of sort of like institutional sexism, racism,
26:46
Speaker 1: like people started voting because they were worried what other
26:51
Speaker 1: white voters in the Midwest might think. And they thought
26:54
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden might be the more electable candidate, including
26:57
Speaker 1: a lot of black voters in South Carolina and other states.
27:01
Speaker 1: That is a dynamic that exists, I think, uniquely in 2020.
27:06
Speaker 1: That in 2022 and 2024 may not be there anymore
27:10
Speaker 1: if Trump is gone. And if Trump is gone and
27:13
Speaker 1: we go to 2024, I actually do think Democrats are
27:17
Speaker 1: much more likely, the Democratic electorate, to take a chance
27:21
Speaker 1: on a more progressive candidate, a candidate of color, a woman,
27:28
Speaker 1: a woman of color. I think what we saw in
27:31
Speaker 1: New York, like you said, will be the Democratic Party
27:33
Speaker 1: nationally going forward.
27:35
Speaker 2: I think I agree with all of that. I do
27:37
Speaker 2: think we should not short shrift the Joe Biden in
27:41
Speaker 2: one respect, which is these candidates. One, as you said,
27:45
Speaker 2: by putting together a multi-generational multiracial working class coalition. And
27:50
Speaker 2: I know it upends every fucking Twitter narrative, but that's
27:53
Speaker 2: what Joe Biden did to win.
27:55
Speaker 1: He, well, I mean, he, he calls himself the bridge, right?
27:58
Speaker 1: He said this many times. He sees himself as the
28:01
Speaker 1: bridge and he, It's tough to do what Joe Biden did, right?
28:05
Speaker 1: Like the fact that he was able to win over
28:08
Speaker 1: every piece of the Democratic coalition, which now spans from
28:13
Speaker 1: young progressives in cities to like old white people in Wisconsin.
28:21
Speaker 1: It's a big fucking coalition right now. And we need
28:23
Speaker 1: it to be a big coalition in order to win elections.
28:26
Speaker 1: an electoral college majority, unfortunately. And to be able to
28:30
Speaker 1: win that breadth is very tricky, I think. So you're right.
28:34
Speaker 1: I mean, Joe Biden gets a lot of credit for that.
28:37
Speaker 3: I laugh every time they talk about him being the
28:39
Speaker 3: bridge and when he talks about being the bridge, because
28:41
Speaker 3: the bridge on SiriusXM, the channel, is literally Joe Biden.
28:46
Speaker 3: It has got something for everyone.
28:48
Speaker 1: It is. That's so funny. I've listened to that. It is.
28:53
Speaker 3: I know. It's You can really just welcome it into
28:55
Speaker 3: your home.
28:57
Speaker 2: Just the bridge the FX TV show a few years
29:00
Speaker 2: ago is Nacho Biden.
29:04
Speaker 1: So we're now used to seeing in pretty blue districts,
29:09
Speaker 1: House districts, primary challengers knocking off an incumbent who are
29:14
Speaker 1: sort of younger and more progressive. We haven't seen it
29:16
Speaker 1: as much in play out. We just talked about nationally,
29:19
Speaker 1: but even in Senate races. We may be seeing it
29:23
Speaker 1: in Kentucky right now where Charles Booker may be Amy McGrath,
29:29
Speaker 1: who's not an incumbent but is much more moderate than
29:31
Speaker 1: he is. Question, I guess, as we looked at 2022, senators,
29:35
Speaker 1: incumbent Democratic senators who are up in blue states that
29:42
Speaker 1: are going to be safely blue no matter what, what
29:45
Speaker 1: happens to them? Should Chuck Schumer be worried in 2022?
29:48
Speaker 3: They better find their fucking hustle is what they better do.
29:51
Speaker 3: I mean, better get your butt back upstate.
29:57
Speaker 1: What do you think, Dan?
29:58
Speaker 2: I mean, Chuck Schumer is clearly already worried because when
30:03
Speaker 2: they asked him about whether he was supporting Elliot Engel,
30:05
Speaker 2: his congressional colleague for like three decades was like, who? Who?
30:12
Speaker 5: Engel? Is it Engel?
30:13
Speaker 2: Eli?
30:15
Speaker 3: I don't know.
30:16
Speaker 1: Haven't heard. Not familiar.
30:18
Speaker 2: I mean, like a few things I'd say, though, is
30:21
Speaker 2: that running statewide in New York is different than running
30:25
Speaker 2: in a district in the Bronx and Queens.
30:27
Speaker 3: Right.
30:28
Speaker 2: It just is. Chuck Schumer has never been known as
30:32
Speaker 2: someone who lacks hustle. I mean he is someone who
30:35
Speaker 2: basically dedicated two years of his life in order to
30:37
Speaker 2: try to win every single county in New York for
30:40
Speaker 2: no reason. You don't get extra senatorial powers if you
30:42
Speaker 2: do that. I think it did– Alyssa, correct me if
30:45
Speaker 2: I'm wrong here, but didn't Chuck Schumer score a perfect
30:48
Speaker 2: score on the SAT twice?
30:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's correct.
30:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he went back and took it again
30:53
Speaker 2: just to prove he could. So I think he's going
30:55
Speaker 2: to hustle. You're going to see a lot of pressure
31:00
Speaker 2: on him. He's going to be the Democratic leader. If
31:03
Speaker 2: the Democrats take the Senate and the White House, he's
31:06
Speaker 2: going to be the Democratic leader pushing through legislation that
31:09
Speaker 2: is going to be potentially more moderate than a challenger
31:12
Speaker 2: would like. He's going to be under tremendous pressure from
31:16
Speaker 2: many people, including us, about the filibuster in that situation.
31:19
Speaker 2: And there will be a lot of challenges for Schumer,
31:21
Speaker 2: but he's not going to be caught off guard by
31:22
Speaker 2: this in ways that perhaps Engel and Joe Crowley were.
31:26
Speaker 1: But this is why primaries are good and the threat
31:31
Speaker 1: of a primary can be good, even if Chuck Schumer
31:35
Speaker 1: hangs on, right? If Chuck Schumer hangs on, then it's
31:38
Speaker 1: because Chuck Schumer did a good job for the people
31:40
Speaker 1: of New York and they believe that he's progressive enough
31:43
Speaker 1: and fighting hard enough for them to return him to office.
31:47
Speaker 1: And that probably means that when, you know, all of
31:51
Speaker 1: us and a bunch of progressives are pushing him on
31:52
Speaker 1: things like the filibuster, he's going to think, yeah, maybe
31:55
Speaker 1: I will get rid of the filibuster because I don't
31:57
Speaker 1: want my ass beaten by AOC in a primary. Like
32:02
Speaker 1: Chris Coons from Delaware. No one's confusing Chris Coons as
32:08
Speaker 1: some progressive, right? And the other day he's talking about
32:12
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden wins the presidency, yeah, we're not going
32:15
Speaker 1: to let Mitch McConnell block our agenda. Maybe we will
32:18
Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster. One of the last people
32:20
Speaker 1: I would expect to have said that. I was like, yeah,
32:23
Speaker 1: I was very excited.
32:24
Speaker 2: Do you think he's heard the whisper campaign I've started
32:26
Speaker 2: about my potential Senate primary race in Delaware in 2022?
32:28
Speaker 2: I hope so.
32:31
Speaker 1: I hope so.
32:32
Speaker 3: You know I'm going to run that race.
32:37
Speaker 1: But I do, you know, look, I mean, I know
32:38
Speaker 1: the DCCC has been all worried about this. They like
32:41
Speaker 1: blacklist consultants who work on primary challenger campaigns. I think
32:45
Speaker 1: that primary challenges are healthy in the Democratic Party, right? Like,
32:49
Speaker 1: and it's not because I want every single challenger to win,
32:53
Speaker 1: but like the incumbents should have, they should be pressured, right?
32:57
Speaker 4: Right.
32:58
Speaker 1: They should like they should feel the heat and they
32:59
Speaker 1: should like you said, Alyssa, they should hustle. They should
33:02
Speaker 1: have to earn every fucking vote.
33:05
Speaker 3: That blacklisting of the consultants was one of the dumbest
33:07
Speaker 3: things I've ever seen.
33:09
Speaker 1: So dumb. So dumb.
33:11
Speaker 4: All right.
33:12
Speaker 1: So before we move on, I do want to talk
33:14
Speaker 1: about one Republican primary results in the race to fill
33:17
Speaker 1: the seat of former North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, who
33:21
Speaker 1: is now the White House chief of staff. Twenty four
33:23
Speaker 1: year old Madison Cawthorn beat Meadows's handpicked replacement. Linda Bennett,
33:28
Speaker 1: who was also endorsed by none other than Donald Trump himself.
33:33
Speaker 1: Dan Cawthorn's win marks the third time that a Republican
33:35
Speaker 1: endorsed by Trump lost this cycle. Is the spell broken?
33:38
Speaker 1: What's going on here?
33:40
Speaker 2: Yes. And that's a story I'm sticking to. It is
33:47
Speaker 2: important to note that a lot of Donald Trump's ability
33:51
Speaker 2: to get the Republicans in Congress to cover up his
33:55
Speaker 2: crimes at is based on their very real fears that
33:59
Speaker 2: if he endorses their opponent in a primary, they will lose, right?
34:04
Speaker 2: Like that's how we ended up, frankly, with some of
34:05
Speaker 2: the people bucking up coronavirus. That's how we ended up
34:07
Speaker 2: with Brian Kemp and Ryan DeSantis in Florida and Georgia.
34:12
Speaker 2: And if that fear erodes, you potentially could see Republicans
34:19
Speaker 2: having like.
34:20
Speaker 4: A teeny tiny.
34:22
Speaker 2: More willingness to speak out and try to save themselves
34:25
Speaker 2: in the short term. I don't really know what happened
34:27
Speaker 2: in this exact race. It seems like the guy who
34:29
Speaker 2: won was a much better candidate than the person who lost.
34:32
Speaker 2: Mark Meadows is generally a doofus, so it's not surprising
34:35
Speaker 2: to me that he picked the wrong person to back.
34:39
Speaker 2: But if the mythology of Trump's hold over the party
34:42
Speaker 2: begins to erode in the minds of the only audience
34:45
Speaker 2: in which it matters, which is Republicans on the Hill,
34:48
Speaker 2: then that's a problem for him. So I think we
34:49
Speaker 2: should drive the fuck out of this neighborhood.
34:52
Speaker 1: Alyssa, do you think a bunch of Republicans are going
34:54
Speaker 1: to start fleeing from Donald Trump and not wanting.
34:57
Speaker 3: To appear with him on stage?
34:58
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no.
34:59
Speaker 3: Of course not. Well, also, let's be clear. Also, will
35:02
Speaker 3: this be the first member of Congress named Madison? I mean,
35:07
Speaker 3: this kid is still very Trumpy. It's not like he's
35:13
Speaker 3: some progressive Republican.
35:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:15
Speaker 3: So I think that, you know, they will distance themselves
35:19
Speaker 3: maybe from him, like they won't use his name, but
35:22
Speaker 3: they're still doubling down on all the bullshit he believes.
35:27
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the polls. There's a lot
35:35
Speaker 1: of them out there right now. Just about all of
35:38
Speaker 1: them show Joe Biden opening up a commanding lead over
35:40
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We are not talking about this to get
35:43
Speaker 1: you excited. to make you complacent or to predict in
35:47
Speaker 1: any way what might happen in November. That is our disclaimer.
35:51
Speaker 1: I'm just going to keep repeating it from now until November.
35:53
Speaker 1: We are talking about this to analyze where the race
35:55
Speaker 1: is right now and how that might affect each campaign strategy.
35:59
Speaker 1: We're going to use one of the highest quality polls
36:01
Speaker 1: in the country from the New York Times and Siena College.
36:04
Speaker 1: They were one of the only pollsters that had Trump
36:05
Speaker 1: leading in some battleground states right before 2016. They were
36:09
Speaker 1: closer to the 2018 midterm results than almost anyone else.
36:12
Speaker 1: And right now, nationally, they have Joe Biden up by
36:16
Speaker 1: 50 to 36 in the battleground States. He has an
36:21
Speaker 1: 11 point lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, a 10 point
36:24
Speaker 1: lead in Pennsylvania, a six point lead in Florida, a
36:27
Speaker 1: seven point lead in Arizona and a nine point lead
36:30
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. Alyssa, do these numbers make your stomach hurt.
36:33
Speaker 2: A little bit?
36:34
Speaker 3: No, I mean, here's the problem. You know that Trump
36:37
Speaker 3: thrives as an underdog and as a victim. So I
36:41
Speaker 3: just think this totally helps him. I mean, look, it,
36:44
Speaker 3: Like empirically, is it bad?
36:46
Speaker 1: Sure.
36:47
Speaker 3: And yeah, like poll numbers like this aren't great. But
36:51
Speaker 3: I do think that he really thrives when he can
36:54
Speaker 3: go to everyone on his campaign stops where he's having
36:57
Speaker 3: rallies without masks and being a super spreader. He can
37:01
Speaker 3: be like, see, they're trying to fucking take it away
37:03
Speaker 3: from us again. I think that his narrative, he is
37:06
Speaker 3: someone who does well with this narrative. So we definitely
37:10
Speaker 3: can't be complacent.
37:13
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think? My reaction to this was,
37:18
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps letting a plague loose on your people
37:22
Speaker 1: and then tear gassing them just isn't popular. Maybe it's
37:25
Speaker 1: just not popular. I'm no pollster. I'm not an expert,
37:30
Speaker 1: but gut sense, not popular.
37:33
Speaker 2: I woke up at 5.30 this morning and somehow you
37:37
Speaker 2: and Ben Rhodes.
37:42
Speaker 2: Who live like I do on the West coast had
37:44
Speaker 2: already been texting about this for 20 minutes, including some texts.
37:50
Speaker 1: 4 30 today. I can't sleep anymore. I don't know
37:52
Speaker 1: what's wrong with it.
37:52
Speaker 2: It's, you know, it's, it's practice.
37:54
Speaker 1: Um, I'm sleep training myself.
37:59
Speaker 2: Um, and you were saying some things that I thought
38:03
Speaker 2: were insane, like just, just for karma reasons alone. And
38:08
Speaker 2: I went looking at 530 because I feel like it's
38:11
Speaker 2: my job in life to take whatever optimism, hopes, and
38:16
Speaker 2: dreams you have and to find some recent history or
38:19
Speaker 2: data reason to crush them. So I opened up the
38:22
Speaker 2: New York Times app and I read this poll and
38:24
Speaker 2: I could find none.
38:27
Speaker 1: Which should make us even more nervous.
38:31
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. I am like....
38:35
Speaker 1: I.
38:36
Speaker 2: I can conjure up 700 ways in which this goes
38:40
Speaker 2: bad very quickly. But in this exact poll, in this moment,
38:43
Speaker 2: there is no good news for Trump. There is none.
38:47
Speaker 2: At first, I was like, ha, I found something. 56%
38:49
Speaker 2: of people approve of Trump on the economy. That seems good.
38:54
Speaker 2: But if you're only getting 36% of the electorate, that's bad.
38:59
Speaker 2: That means they took the one thing they like about you,
39:02
Speaker 2: and they do not care, right? And so, yeah, Trump
39:08
Speaker 2: is in a very challenging and historically terrible place for
39:10
Speaker 2: an incumbent to be. Now, the caveats I would put
39:13
Speaker 2: here before anyone gets super excited is, one, Trump is
39:18
Speaker 2: going to try to steal this election, right, through both legal, quasi-legal,
39:22
Speaker 2: and illegal means. So we should be ready for that. Two,
39:26
Speaker 2: when thinking of the national polls, we just have to
39:28
Speaker 2: remember that because we have an incredibly ass-backwards system of
39:32
Speaker 2: government in America, we spot Trump four to five points.
39:36
Speaker 2: So a poll where he is winning by 10 nationally
39:40
Speaker 2: means he's five to six points away from being tied.
39:43
Speaker 2: And then even when you look at some of the
39:44
Speaker 2: numbers in here, this is going to inevitably narrow. Now,
39:48
Speaker 2: absent some changes, some pretty significant changes in how some
39:51
Speaker 2: percentage of the people feel about Trump, that narrowing is
39:54
Speaker 2: not enough to get them across the finish line. But
39:56
Speaker 2: this is going to get closer. And Trump only has
39:58
Speaker 2: to get it within field goal range for the combination
40:00
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, voter suppression, and maybe Bill Barr to
40:07
Speaker 2: turn this from a Biden win into a Trump re-election.
40:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am. I tried to do the pessimistic path
40:16
Speaker 1: to freaking out. And that path is the media wants
40:20
Speaker 1: a race. The media is going to be tired of
40:22
Speaker 1: this narrative very soon. There will be natural tightening in
40:27
Speaker 1: these polls because these, at least maybe, maybe not, we
40:31
Speaker 1: don't know. But these are very big leads, especially in
40:34
Speaker 1: the battlegrounds, right? I mean, you were talking national, like
40:37
Speaker 1: we're seeing 11 point leads in battleground states. That's crazy.
40:41
Speaker 1: So- As these narrow, it'll start looking like the race
40:46
Speaker 1: is tighter. The press will take that as evidence that
40:48
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is fucking something up. There'll be a narrative
40:50
Speaker 1: that he's fucking up. Fucking up begets more fucking up.
40:54
Speaker 1: And then we also have like, you know, so they
40:57
Speaker 1: could try to frame his VP choice as a mistake.
41:00
Speaker 1: They could try to frame the convention as a dud.
41:03
Speaker 1: And now it's getting closer. He's got three debates to
41:06
Speaker 1: get through.
41:06
Speaker 4: Right.
41:08
Speaker 1: And also, we should remember that, you know, in the
41:11
Speaker 1: last four months, we had a pandemic, a once in
41:16
Speaker 1: a generation recession and sort of and protests about racial
41:21
Speaker 1: injustice that we haven't seen since the late 60s in
41:24
Speaker 1: just the last four months. So who knows what the
41:25
Speaker 1: next four months is going to bring? But right now
41:28
Speaker 1: it is it's bad. I mean, I think the number
41:30
Speaker 1: in there. that says more than anything else is 55%
41:33
Speaker 1: of registered voters in the battleground states say there is
41:37
Speaker 1: almost no chance they would support Donald Trump. 55%. This
41:39
Speaker 1: is like, I don't want to believe it.
41:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I just, it's so hard to, to, I mean,
41:47
Speaker 3: I believe that I believe their, their methodology is good,
41:51
Speaker 3: but I just, I, I it's June, you know, it's
41:55
Speaker 3: June and like, it's almost like, it's like he gets
41:58
Speaker 3: such a pass from everyone for being such a fucking
42:01
Speaker 3: malevolent moron that like you want to go to the
42:04
Speaker 3: battlegrounds with these people who still support him and be like,
42:06
Speaker 3: if you acted at your job the way he does
42:08
Speaker 3: at his, would you still have a job? Like the
42:10
Speaker 3: answer would be no. And so like, but that's been
42:13
Speaker 3: true for years now. So I just, I don't know.
42:17
Speaker 4: I don't know.
42:18
Speaker 3: I'm glad that it's better the numbers say that than
42:20
Speaker 3: the opposite, but you know, it's only June.
42:24
Speaker 2: I mean, just to give some perspective of June, the
42:26
Speaker 2: distance between the Iowa caucus in which Joe Biden came
42:30
Speaker 2: in fourth and today is the same distance in time
42:34
Speaker 2: between today and the election.
42:36
Speaker 4: I know. That was so funny.
42:37
Speaker 1: Tommy just said that.
42:37
Speaker 3: Very fast math.
42:40
Speaker 1: I got that one, Tommy.
42:41
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Attribution.
42:44
Speaker 1: Just to nerd out for a second, I want to
42:46
Speaker 1: just dig into some of the numbers on who is
42:48
Speaker 1: driving this lead for Biden and what is driving the
42:51
Speaker 1: lead for Biden. On the who... And we talked about
42:54
Speaker 1: this a lot on The Wilderness. So Biden's winning by
42:58
Speaker 1: 17 points among people who didn't vote in 2016. So
43:03
Speaker 1: the new people who have come into the electorate since 16,
43:06
Speaker 1: which is sort of whether you've sort of marched or
43:10
Speaker 1: whether you've registered to vote for the first time, whether
43:12
Speaker 1: you hadn't paid attention, those people are in Biden's camp
43:14
Speaker 1: by 17 points. But check out the shifts in this
43:18
Speaker 1: poll among people who voted in 2016 because they asked
43:21
Speaker 1: them who they voted for. Trump beat Clinton by two
43:24
Speaker 1: points among people in these battlegrounds who voted in 2016.
43:29
Speaker 1: Biden's winning now by five, mainly because a bunch of
43:33
Speaker 1: younger college educated white voters have changed their mind. They
43:37
Speaker 1: went from Trump to Biden. And there's also a good
43:41
Speaker 1: number of older white voters without a college degree who've
43:43
Speaker 1: changed their mind as well, which is even wilder. And
43:47
Speaker 1: it looks like his margins among black and Latino voters
43:50
Speaker 1: are basically unchanged. Dan, were there any surprises there for you?
43:54
Speaker 2: I mean, the fact that Joe Biden is basically winning
43:59
Speaker 2: with white voters or tied with white voters is just
44:02
Speaker 2: a dramatic change. There is this sort of existential question
44:06
Speaker 2: that it hung over this election where, you know, we,
44:11
Speaker 2: as we've talked about before, one of the reasons why everyone,
44:14
Speaker 2: ourselves included, got 2016 so wrong is that we made
44:18
Speaker 2: this assumption that the nadir for the party with white
44:22
Speaker 2: non-college voters would be Obama in 2012. And the assumption,
44:27
Speaker 2: at least at the beginning of the 2016 race, is
44:29
Speaker 2: that she would outperform Obama by at least a couple,
44:32
Speaker 2: if not more than that, which would give her the
44:35
Speaker 2: ability to turn some states like North Carolina that we
44:37
Speaker 2: could not win. And would certainly make up for whatever
44:40
Speaker 2: drop in African-American turnout was expected without Obama on the ticket.
44:45
Speaker 2: And there was this fear that The bottom is going
44:48
Speaker 2: to keep falling out among those voters. But that has
44:51
Speaker 2: not happened. And Joe Biden has both reconstituted elements of
44:56
Speaker 2: the Obama coalition and added onto it the voters who
44:59
Speaker 2: have moved in the post-Trump realignment after 2016. I think
45:06
Speaker 2: that is what goes for a lead that is that large. right,
45:10
Speaker 2: is that he is sort of, he's brought in those,
45:13
Speaker 2: like when you talk about the people who did not
45:14
Speaker 2: vote in 2016, that's not just new voters, that's also
45:17
Speaker 2: some portion of the 4 million Obama 2012 voters who
45:20
Speaker 2: did not vote in that election. So he's, those people
45:22
Speaker 2: have come back into the process and they're supporting Joe Biden, right,
45:26
Speaker 2: on top of the people who have moved to Democrats
45:29
Speaker 2: in the suburbs or elsewhere.
45:31
Speaker 1: Alyssa, I also think I found why Trump's economic advantage
45:35
Speaker 1: is not translating into better poll numbers. 55% of battleground
45:39
Speaker 1: state voters say the government's priority should be to limit
45:42
Speaker 1: the spread of coronavirus, even if it hurts the economy,
45:45
Speaker 1: while just 35% say the government's priority should be to
45:47
Speaker 1: restart the economy. And that includes people who've been unemployed
45:52
Speaker 1: because of this crisis.
45:53
Speaker 3: And also, this is right now, he has his lowest
45:55
Speaker 3: approval rating for handling the coronavirus. So, you know, I
46:00
Speaker 3: think that at some point people are like, OK, so
46:04
Speaker 3: my friends have died. You know, I mean, like there
46:07
Speaker 3: are there are no there there are a few people
46:10
Speaker 3: who have not been impacted in some way, shape or form.
46:14
Speaker 3: And so I think that, you know, this is and again,
46:17
Speaker 3: this is still the beginning of this pandemic. So that
46:21
Speaker 3: is something that does give me some hope, because I
46:24
Speaker 3: don't think he's going to turn this this pandemic ship
46:28
Speaker 3: around in time to change people's opinions on that.
46:33
Speaker 1: The other findings that I thought were very interesting had
46:37
Speaker 1: to do with the protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.
46:42
Speaker 1: 63% of battleground voters say they'd rather back a presidential
46:44
Speaker 1: candidate who focuses on the cause of the protests, even
46:48
Speaker 1: when the protests go too far, while just 31% say
46:52
Speaker 1: they prefer to support a candidate who says we need
46:54
Speaker 1: to be tough on demonstrations that go too far. And
46:57
Speaker 1: I find that interesting because there's this other finding where
47:00
Speaker 1: Voters over 50 without a college degree in the battleground
47:03
Speaker 1: states still oppose the demonstrations, say that too many have
47:07
Speaker 1: turned to violent rioting, are split on whether discrimination against
47:10
Speaker 1: whites is as big a problem as discrimination against minorities.
47:13
Speaker 1: So the same cohort that you would imagine had these
47:16
Speaker 1: views in 2016 are still there having these views in 2020,
47:22
Speaker 1: but they're no longer enough to give Trump an advantage
47:25
Speaker 1: in these battleground states, primarily because younger white voters... have
47:31
Speaker 1: views that are rapidly shifting on this, partly because of
47:34
Speaker 1: the protests and Black Lives Matter and everything we've seen,
47:37
Speaker 1: not just over the last several weeks, but probably over
47:39
Speaker 1: the last several years.
47:41
Speaker 2: When you look at those numbers that you just laid out,
47:44
Speaker 2: what is pretty clear is that Trump has massively misplayed
47:47
Speaker 2: his hand at every juncture over the last few months.
47:53
Speaker 2: At any point where there is a choice between two approaches,
47:56
Speaker 2: he has chosen the wrong one, right? Where it is
47:59
Speaker 2: side with the protesters or side with the police. Trump
48:03
Speaker 2: chose the police. The public chose the protesters. It was
48:04
Speaker 2: side with keeping us safe from coronavirus or opening up
48:08
Speaker 2: the economy. Trump picked opening up the economy or those protesters, right?
48:13
Speaker 2: I guess maybe that's the perfect example is we've had
48:16
Speaker 2: two very prominent groups of protesters. We had millions of
48:19
Speaker 2: people who were in the streets protesting systemic racism after
48:23
Speaker 2: the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and others.
48:26
Speaker 2: And then you had a small, tiny group of protesters,
48:28
Speaker 2: mostly carrying AR-15s, arguing for opening the economy in the
48:34
Speaker 2: middle of a pandemic. Trump picked that small group, not
48:38
Speaker 2: the big group.
48:38
Speaker 1: Back the wrong horse, buddy.
48:41
Speaker 4: And I think that one of.
48:42
Speaker 2: The reasons why that happened, other than the fact that
48:44
Speaker 2: Trump has a long history of just being stupid– is that.
48:47
Speaker 1: And racist.
48:48
Speaker 2: And racist, right? Like, reflexive racism and inherent stupidity are
48:53
Speaker 2: his problems.
48:54
Speaker 4: Yes.
48:56
Speaker 2: But he is running to be the president of Fox
49:01
Speaker 2: News America, right? He doesn't understand that what he sees
49:04
Speaker 2: on Fox News is not what's happening in the country, right? He,
49:08
Speaker 2: you know, when he watches Fox, I think he thinks
49:09
Speaker 2: he's looking out a window, but he's really looking in
49:11
Speaker 2: a mirror. And that has warped how it's approached all
49:13
Speaker 2: these things. And it was such a layup to do this.
49:17
Speaker 2: The public was yearning at the beginning of this pandemic
49:20
Speaker 2: for Trump to do the right thing, right? That's why
49:22
Speaker 2: they rallied to him in his pro-Russian lineup in the beginning.
49:25
Speaker 2: If he had just worn a mask, gone and met
49:30
Speaker 2: with and worked with Cuomo and Newsom and Whitmer and
49:36
Speaker 2: like tried to do the bare minimum of the job,
49:38
Speaker 2: the press and the public would have given him a
49:40
Speaker 2: ton of credit. Instead, he decided to do the exact opposite.
49:42
Speaker 2: And Nate Cohn talks about it in that poll in
49:44
Speaker 2: their write-up of the poll is one of the places
49:46
Speaker 2: where he's hurting the most is Michigan. It's where his
49:49
Speaker 2: pandemic numbers are the worst among the battleground stage, which
49:51
Speaker 2: is not unrelated to the fact that he declared he
49:53
Speaker 2: did not want to give Michigan equipment and tests because
49:57
Speaker 2: Governor Whitmer was mean to him. That probably hurt him.
50:01
Speaker 3: That he better hope, Trump better hope statues can vote.
50:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:07
Speaker 1: That's it. He's going to be down to just Confederate statues.
50:11
Speaker 3: That's it. Those are going to be his precinct captains.
50:15
Speaker 1: Alyssa, if you're on the Biden campaign, running the Biden campaign,
50:19
Speaker 1: what do you do over the next few months to
50:21
Speaker 1: press this advantage that he has in the polls right
50:23
Speaker 1: now to make sure that we're not sitting here in
50:26
Speaker 1: October and you're like, what the fuck happened? Now he's losing.
50:29
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, they shouldn't believe the polls too much.
50:31
Speaker 3: That's step number one. And I think he just, you know...
50:35
Speaker 3: just kind of has to keep doing what he's doing,
50:38
Speaker 3: you know, being positive, showing connection to people. I mean,
50:42
Speaker 3: it's like when you see these ads every morning you
50:44
Speaker 3: wake up and there's a new ad on Twitter that
50:46
Speaker 3: you can watch 10 times and cry. And let's be clear,
50:49
Speaker 3: I'm very critical of ads because, you know, I always
50:51
Speaker 3: think I could do better. But these are always, I mean,
50:54
Speaker 3: they are, and I think that they are so emotional
50:57
Speaker 3: because we have fallen so far that, you know, you're like,
51:01
Speaker 3: oh my God. But I would, you know, and as
51:03
Speaker 3: much as he can connect, keep like doing small things
51:07
Speaker 3: to connect with people as things open up. I don't
51:09
Speaker 3: know if they will do events or not, but I mean,
51:13
Speaker 3: I just think let's just, let's just not do anything crazy. Basically.
51:20
Speaker 1: Just, you know, stay healthy, man.
51:22
Speaker 3: Stay the course.
51:25
Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think? Anything you do?
51:27
Speaker 2: I think, uh, he has an advantage right now. He
51:29
Speaker 2: should press it. And, uh, Ultimately, Trump is going to
51:33
Speaker 2: decide that the only way he can win is to
51:35
Speaker 2: completely destroy Joe Biden. Now, that strategy may not work,
51:39
Speaker 2: but that is coming. And so take advantage of Trump's
51:42
Speaker 2: distraction right now to define yourself in the minds of voters.
51:46
Speaker 2: Because negative partisan– this race is right now a referendum.
51:49
Speaker 2: And maybe it will stay a referendum until the end.
51:51
Speaker 2: But these things tend to default into being something more
51:55
Speaker 2: like a choice. And if you have– Biden now has
51:58
Speaker 2: the resources and the ability and the time and the
52:00
Speaker 2: credibility– to shape how that choice plays itself out if
52:05
Speaker 2: it manifests itself at the end. And so I would
52:07
Speaker 2: be doing that by being out there, by certainly running
52:11
Speaker 2: ads and really sort of using, this is a huge
52:15
Speaker 2: opportunity to tell his story, both his personal story and
52:18
Speaker 2: his life and his governing experience story, which there's some
52:21
Speaker 2: really good ads out from Unite the Country, the Pro
52:25
Speaker 2: Joe Biden super PAC that connects what's happening now to
52:28
Speaker 2: the way he helped manage the stimulus with Obama in 2009, 2010.
52:34
Speaker 2: And like, I think that is a good first step, right?
52:36
Speaker 2: Maybe you never need it, but, uh, because Trump can't
52:39
Speaker 2: get out of his own way, but you, but you
52:41
Speaker 2: have the time now to, to do the work, to
52:43
Speaker 2: prepare for the worst case scenario.
52:45
Speaker 1: So last question I want to ask you both, uh,
52:47
Speaker 1: is about how the current state of the race might
52:48
Speaker 1: affect Biden's VP selection, which also gives us an opportunity
52:52
Speaker 1: to talk about your new pod save America mini series
52:55
Speaker 1: about the VP selection process. That's the ticket. Uh, You
53:00
Speaker 1: want to give everyone a little preview? Alyssa, give us
53:02
Speaker 1: a little preview.
53:03
Speaker 3: So this is just Pfeiffer and I. We are both
53:05
Speaker 3: going down memory lane for all of the things that
53:08
Speaker 3: we have seen. But then also, I think that Biden
53:13
Speaker 3: has said that he is going to choose a woman.
53:15
Speaker 3: And so we have a lot of examples of both women,
53:18
Speaker 3: Geraldine Ferraro, first woman to be picked on the ticket.
53:21
Speaker 3: Other women who have been in public office, Hillary Clinton,
53:24
Speaker 3: Shirley Chisholm, who was the first woman to run for president.
53:27
Speaker 3: How were they treated? What are the important things that
53:29
Speaker 3: he's going to be looking for? What is the vetting
53:31
Speaker 3: process like? How do you roll this out? How do
53:34
Speaker 3: you roll this out in a Zoom world? And who
53:39
Speaker 3: is he looking at and what sort of characteristics are
53:42
Speaker 3: potentially the most important to getting him across the finish
53:45
Speaker 3: line and keeping those polls where they are?
53:48
Speaker 5: Yes.
53:49
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Dan.
53:50
Speaker 2: I was going to say, the vice presidential selection process
53:53
Speaker 2: is the most discussed and perhaps least understood part of
53:56
Speaker 2: presidential politics. The reporters covering it, the people obsessing about
54:00
Speaker 2: on Twitter don't fully understand how that process takes place.
54:04
Speaker 2: I often describe Alyssa as the foremost living expert on
54:07
Speaker 2: how that process takes place because she worked for John
54:10
Speaker 2: Kerry when he was on the shortlist in 2000 and
54:13
Speaker 2: was involved with him.
54:15
Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot about that.
54:17
Speaker 2: She helped lead that process for John Kerry in 2004
54:20
Speaker 2: when he selected John Edwards, which we will not hold
54:23
Speaker 2: against her. And then help spearhead that process for Barack
54:27
Speaker 2: Obama in 2008 when he picked Joe Biden, for which
54:29
Speaker 2: we will give her full credit. And what we want
54:33
Speaker 2: to do is not say who Joe Biden is going
54:36
Speaker 2: to pick or even who he should pick, but is
54:38
Speaker 2: to help people understand how that process is playing itself out.
54:42
Speaker 2: What are they looking at? What is happening behind the scenes?
54:45
Speaker 2: And as Alyssa said, talk about how the pandemic has
54:49
Speaker 2: changed how that process works, right? Where all the You know,
54:53
Speaker 2: where you're potentially making a decision over Zoom or rolling
54:56
Speaker 2: someone out over Zoom. And Alyssa has a gazillion great
55:01
Speaker 2: stories about all of the subterfuge and secrecy that goes
55:06
Speaker 2: into trying to keep this decision a surprise. And the
55:10
Speaker 2: first episode comes out tomorrow, Friday, June 26th. And it
55:17
Speaker 2: was super fun to hang with.
55:19
Speaker 5: Alyssa, as always.
55:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fun. but she has some amazing stories about, uh,
55:24
Speaker 2: how John Kerry and Barack Obama went about, uh, making
55:27
Speaker 2: their selections in secret. That includes everything from, you know,
55:30
Speaker 2: how the vetting process works, how you sneak people into
55:32
Speaker 2: meetings to how you warn John Kerry about, uh, some flatulent, uh,
55:37
Speaker 2: potential contenders.
55:41
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for this. And, and, and by the way,
55:43
Speaker 1: you can hear it right here on the pods of
55:46
Speaker 1: America feed. It's going to be right on this feed.
55:48
Speaker 1: So just check it out tomorrow. Um, one theory of
55:51
Speaker 1: the case on what the Biden campaign is thinking right
55:55
Speaker 1: now in terms of EP might be, okay, now we
55:58
Speaker 1: have this big lead, um, that we, you know, maybe
56:02
Speaker 1: internally they have this same numbers that the New York
56:04
Speaker 1: times has. Um, we have this big lead. Maybe we
56:08
Speaker 1: just need to not fuck things up, not take risks,
56:12
Speaker 1: be super cautious in our pick, make sure we don't
56:15
Speaker 1: make any waves with it. Um, Do you guys have
56:19
Speaker 1: any thoughts on whether they might be thinking that or
56:21
Speaker 1: whether that's a good idea?
56:22
Speaker 3: I hope they don't overthink it. I mean, I think
56:24
Speaker 3: the most important thing is that whoever he picks, people
56:27
Speaker 3: can see a true chemistry with, like that they are
56:30
Speaker 3: going to be a real team. And so, you know,
56:33
Speaker 3: if you... if you sit there and really overthink it,
56:36
Speaker 3: like that's one thing I think that was interesting about
56:39
Speaker 3: the John Kerry selection versus the Barack Obama selection. There
56:42
Speaker 3: were so many more people involved in the, in the
56:46
Speaker 3: like internal chit chat about who, what, when, where, whereas
56:51
Speaker 3: I think Barack Obama just literally decided this is who
56:54
Speaker 3: my partner is.
56:56
Speaker 5: Right.
56:56
Speaker 3: And so, and I think that that's very successful. And
56:58
Speaker 3: so I think that he just needs to pick the
57:00
Speaker 3: person that's, that he feels is going to be his
57:03
Speaker 3: partner and that he doesn't listen to like 17 consultants
57:08
Speaker 3: tell him who's going to do better in fucking North
57:10
Speaker 3: Carolina because that's all bullshit and we know it.
57:14
Speaker 1: That's good advice, Alyssa.
57:15
Speaker 2: Thank you.
57:16
Speaker 3: I've done this before.
57:18
Speaker 1: Don't listen to the 17 consultants. Listen to Alyssa. Dan,
57:22
Speaker 1: do you have any parting thoughts?
57:25
Speaker 2: Look, I think they should definitely play it safe. No
57:26
Speaker 2: one has ever lost a game by playing prevent defense.
57:29
Speaker 2: It has a 100% record of success. Just ask Super
57:33
Speaker 2: Bowl champions, the Atlanta Falcons and others. Look, in all seriousness,
57:39
Speaker 2: I think Joe Biden is going to put tremendous weight
57:44
Speaker 2: on who he wants to work with and who he
57:47
Speaker 2: thinks will be the right partner for him. We know
57:49
Speaker 2: from working with him, we know from what he said
57:52
Speaker 2: that His partnership with Barack Obama was so important to
57:55
Speaker 2: how that presidency worked, right? So he's going to want
57:59
Speaker 2: to try to get the same thing. And that is
58:03
Speaker 2: a thing that– like that is a decision only he
58:05
Speaker 2: can make. That's going to be based on his experience
58:08
Speaker 2: with the person, right? And how stable their Zoom connection
58:11
Speaker 2: is when they meet.
58:11
Speaker 3: Can they use Zoom?
58:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
58:16
Speaker 2: So I think that's going to be the driving factor.
58:19
Speaker 2: The thing I hope that plays into that, if you're
58:22
Speaker 2: choosing between two people you have equally good chemistry with,
58:25
Speaker 2: is that he is going to pick the person who
58:29
Speaker 2: is going to be the leader of the party after
58:31
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, whether that's in four years or in eight years.
58:34
Speaker 2: And I hope that that is part of the process,
58:37
Speaker 2: that he really is building the bridge to the future.
58:40
Speaker 2: Who that person is, I do not know the answer to,
58:43
Speaker 2: but I think- One of the things we learned in
58:47
Speaker 2: the Obama administration is the president blots out a lot
58:53
Speaker 2: of the sun for other parts of the party. And
58:55
Speaker 2: so you need to elevate someone who is the potential
58:59
Speaker 2: future leader of the party. So I hope that's part
59:00
Speaker 2: of the calculus.
59:03
Speaker 5: All right.
59:03
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with
59:07
Speaker 1: the winner of the New York State. 16th congressional district primary,
59:12
Speaker 1: Jamal Bowman.
59:21
Speaker 4: Jamal Bowman is a Democratic congressional candidate in New York's
59:25
Speaker 4: 16th congressional district and the founder and principal of a
59:28
Speaker 4: public middle school in New York City. Jamal, thank you
59:30
Speaker 4: so much for doing the show.
59:32
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you for having me. Really appreciate being here.
59:35
Speaker 4: So you're running in New York's 16th congressional district. You are,
59:41
Speaker 4: I guess, still in the process of running against an
59:43
Speaker 4: incumbent Democrat named Elliot Engel. But as of when I
59:45
Speaker 4: was typing up this question, you are winning 61.8 percent
59:49
Speaker 4: to 34.9 percent, which is a good place to be.
59:53
Speaker 4: So first question is, how's the vibe today? How are
59:55
Speaker 4: you feeling?
59:57
Speaker 5: Feeling good, man. Feeling good. Can't wait for the final
1:00:01
Speaker 5: votes to be counted so that we can, you know,
1:00:04
Speaker 5: declare victory 100%. I mean, right now we're probably about,
1:00:08
Speaker 5: you know, 85% there. The numbers look great. It's just,
1:00:13
Speaker 5: it's exciting the way people like showed up and showed
1:00:16
Speaker 5: out for this election all across the district. You know,
1:00:20
Speaker 5: early on in the campaign, there were some questions about,
1:00:22
Speaker 5: you know, how we were doing Westchester and how we
1:00:25
Speaker 5: were doing Riverdale and, but we did well in Riverdale,
1:00:28
Speaker 5: we did well in Westchester. I think at last count,
1:00:31
Speaker 5: we had a 29 point lead in the Bronx and
1:00:34
Speaker 5: a 25 point lead in Westchester. So people really responded
1:00:39
Speaker 5: to our message and our message was their message. We
1:00:43
Speaker 5: pretty much just reiterated what I learned in education over
1:00:48
Speaker 5: 20 years and 10 years as a middle school principal
1:00:51
Speaker 5: and what people were telling us throughout the campaign, housing justice,
1:00:55
Speaker 5: food justice, fully funding our schools, jobs, racial and economic equality.
1:01:01
Speaker 5: I mean, those are the issues we ran on. That's
1:01:02
Speaker 5: what we believe in. And that's why we think people
1:01:05
Speaker 5: turned out.
1:01:06
Speaker 4: So there's probably some listeners who are hearing you for
1:01:09
Speaker 4: the first time. Can you tell them a little bit
1:01:10
Speaker 4: about yourself? You were an educator and an education activist
1:01:13
Speaker 4: for a long time. What made you decide that this
1:01:16
Speaker 4: year you're going to take the plunge and you're going
1:01:18
Speaker 4: to actually run for Congress?
1:01:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, so born and raised on the Upper East Side,
1:01:23
Speaker 5: East Harlem section of Manhattan, raised by a single mom
1:01:26
Speaker 5: with my three sisters, lived in public housing and rent-stabilized
1:01:29
Speaker 5: apartments with the public schools my entire life, worked in
1:01:33
Speaker 5: public schools for 20 years, was a teacher in the
1:01:36
Speaker 5: South Bronx for five or six years before becoming a
1:01:38
Speaker 5: dean of students for three years at the High School
1:01:42
Speaker 5: for Arts and Technology, wrote a proposal for a new school,
1:01:45
Speaker 5: opened a new school in 2009, and did organizing work
1:01:51
Speaker 5: at that point to not just bring additional resources to
1:01:53
Speaker 5: the school, but change education policy in a way that
1:01:56
Speaker 5: really benefited children. Unfortunately, like so many public sector institutions
1:02:02
Speaker 5: or industries, privatization is something that we had to fight
1:02:05
Speaker 5: against in public school. So we pushed back against the
1:02:08
Speaker 5: expansion of charter schools, against standardized testing that was harmful
1:02:12
Speaker 5: to kids. and just look to transform education in terms
1:02:14
Speaker 5: of focusing more on educating the whole child and providing
1:02:17
Speaker 5: a holistic approach to our schools. And just that experience
1:02:21
Speaker 5: and just seeing how, regardless how hard we worked in
1:02:25
Speaker 5: the school and how great work that we did there,
1:02:29
Speaker 5: kids still had to go into communities that were neglected
1:02:31
Speaker 5: and under-resourced, and kids were still not a centerpiece to
1:02:36
Speaker 5: our political agenda. And as we spoke to people about
1:02:39
Speaker 5: Congressman Engel's representation or lack thereof, We continue to hear
1:02:44
Speaker 5: that he was absent and not engaged and they felt
1:02:47
Speaker 5: that it was time for a change. And that's when
1:02:50
Speaker 5: we decided to get into this race on June 2019.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:02:54
Speaker 4: So like typically insurgent campaigns like yours rely on like
1:02:59
Speaker 4: worn out shoes and face to face, you know, field
1:03:01
Speaker 4: programs knocking doors. That must have changed a lot in
1:03:05
Speaker 4: the pandemic. How did you adjust and like what strategies
1:03:08
Speaker 4: can Joe Biden or anybody else steal from you to
1:03:11
Speaker 4: turn people out? Because I mean, look, it's it's not
1:03:14
Speaker 4: a it doesn't make me feel good inside when I
1:03:17
Speaker 4: see gigantic lines at the polls. That means that there's
1:03:19
Speaker 4: some sort of voter suppression happening, in my opinion, usually.
1:03:22
Speaker 4: But it did show enormous enthusiasm for you.
1:03:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to your point, we were we
1:03:29
Speaker 5: did have worn out shoes prior to the pandemic. So
1:03:32
Speaker 5: we were hitting the ground very aggressively. from June until March,
1:03:36
Speaker 5: early March. We canvassed the entire district aggressively, but specifically
1:03:42
Speaker 5: the areas that Engel had ignored throughout his 30-year career.
1:03:46
Speaker 5: So we went to the housing projects and we stayed
1:03:49
Speaker 5: there throughout the campaign. We went to Co-op City. We
1:03:52
Speaker 5: went to parts of Yonkers and Mount Vernon and New
1:03:54
Speaker 5: Rochelle that just felt ignored. And we wanted them to
1:03:57
Speaker 5: know from the very beginning that we need you to
1:03:59
Speaker 5: be a part of this conversation, not just in terms
1:04:02
Speaker 5: of this election, but in terms of our democracy overall.
1:04:06
Speaker 5: Your voice is the power that this district needs, and
1:04:09
Speaker 5: your voice needs to guide the policy that I'm going
1:04:11
Speaker 5: to take to Washington to support this district. So we
1:04:14
Speaker 5: did that early and often, and those relationships were deep.
1:04:17
Speaker 5: They were authentic. They were not transactional. And we think
1:04:21
Speaker 5: that's why pivoting to a Zoom world was so much
1:04:24
Speaker 5: easier for us, because we already did the work in
1:04:27
Speaker 5: terms of building relationships. And once we pivoted to Zoom,
1:04:30
Speaker 5: it was all about mutual aid. It was all about
1:04:33
Speaker 5: dealing with trauma and the stress of the moment, asking people,
1:04:36
Speaker 5: how are you doing? How are you feeling? How are
1:04:38
Speaker 5: you coping? What do you need? Is there anything we
1:04:40
Speaker 5: can do for you? Which led to us supporting, you know,
1:04:43
Speaker 5: local food pantries in Yonkers, Mount Vernon in the Bronx,
1:04:46
Speaker 5: supporting with the delivering of PPEs, and then having the
1:04:50
Speaker 5: conversation around, I'm running for Congress, you know, here's my
1:04:53
Speaker 5: background and story, you know, would you be interested in
1:04:56
Speaker 5: supporting us And yeah, it seems so far seems to
1:04:59
Speaker 5: have worked out OK.
1:05:00
Speaker 4: Yes, it seems like it did. I mean, so it's
1:05:02
Speaker 4: an amazing story of sustaining momentum. And it makes me
1:05:06
Speaker 4: think about how in the wake of George Floyd's murder,
1:05:09
Speaker 4: there has been so much more awareness and discussion and
1:05:12
Speaker 4: activism around police brutality and systemic racism. What's your advice
1:05:17
Speaker 4: to organizers, activists, people on the street for how to
1:05:20
Speaker 4: sustain that momentum? And then what do you think you
1:05:23
Speaker 4: can do about it in Congress when you get there?
1:05:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, so my advice is don't do it alone, you know,
1:05:30
Speaker 5: because there's a lot of wear and tear that goes
1:05:33
Speaker 5: into organizing. And organizing is about building coalitions and relationships
1:05:38
Speaker 5: and connecting with people that you may not be accustomed
1:05:41
Speaker 5: to working with or building relationships with. Secondly, you got
1:05:45
Speaker 5: to meet people where they are. You know, the people
1:05:48
Speaker 5: in Eden Wall Projects, for example, were so open to
1:05:51
Speaker 5: our conversations because no one had talked to them in
1:05:54
Speaker 5: 30 years. You know, no one had made them feel
1:05:56
Speaker 5: important or part of the process. When I get to Congress,
1:05:59
Speaker 5: my plan is an inside-outside strategy. All of the organizations,
1:06:04
Speaker 5: all of the grassroots organizations like Working Families Party, Make
1:06:07
Speaker 5: the Road Action, Community Voices Heard, The Jewish Vote, and
1:06:10
Speaker 5: many others, I'm going to continue to work with them
1:06:12
Speaker 5: because they've been doing the work on the ground with
1:06:15
Speaker 5: the people for decades, transforming policy at the state level
1:06:19
Speaker 5: and leveraging that energy to write the right policy in
1:06:23
Speaker 5: Washington and build in coalitions even within Congress, whether it's
1:06:27
Speaker 5: the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, who historically have
1:06:31
Speaker 5: not been as progressive. It's hopefully about to change because
1:06:34
Speaker 5: of the energy we've been able to create throughout this campaign.
1:06:38
Speaker 4: So speaking of those coalitions, so your opponent, Elliot Engel,
1:06:41
Speaker 4: chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So foreign policy got
1:06:44
Speaker 4: talked about more in this race than you might expect,
1:06:46
Speaker 4: including a couple million dollars worth of shitty, self-defeating ads
1:06:49
Speaker 4: that we'll never talk about again because the people who
1:06:52
Speaker 4: paid for those embarrassed themselves. But so a couple of
1:06:55
Speaker 4: weeks back, you were sent this letter by a guy
1:06:57
Speaker 4: named Rabbi Weiss about U.S. policy towards Israel. And if
1:07:01
Speaker 4: I'm being honest, the letter frustrated me so much because
1:07:05
Speaker 4: it was lots of guilt by association, lots of sort
1:07:07
Speaker 4: of whataboutisms about why you haven't denounced this person or
1:07:10
Speaker 4: that activity, like valid issues. But I think that's a
1:07:12
Speaker 4: way to shut down debate rather than foster it. But
1:07:15
Speaker 4: what I really want to talk about is your response,
1:07:17
Speaker 4: because it was so gracious and thoughtful and And this
1:07:21
Speaker 4: line in particular jumped out at me as important, which was, quote,
1:07:24
Speaker 4: the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the United States is
1:07:27
Speaker 4: part of a rise in ethno-nationalism, authoritarianism around the world.
1:07:31
Speaker 4: In this country, white nationalists threaten Jews and black people
1:07:34
Speaker 4: alike with violence and terror. And it's just that is
1:07:37
Speaker 4: so true now. It is scary. It's historically true, right?
1:07:40
Speaker 4: Like David Duke was a Nazi and a Klansman, still is.
1:07:44
Speaker 4: How do you think we do a better job of
1:07:46
Speaker 4: preventing people like Donald Trump from dividing communities that he
1:07:50
Speaker 4: is also trying to marginalize?
1:07:54
Speaker 5: You know, I've spoken from the very beginning of this
1:07:58
Speaker 5: campaign about our collective struggle and our collective humanity. And
1:08:04
Speaker 5: I think the COVID pandemic really highlighted and provided a
1:08:08
Speaker 5: space where we were all dealing with collective trauma together.
1:08:13
Speaker 5: And there was an opportunity, I think, to bridge the
1:08:15
Speaker 5: gap between race and class and differences, to have those
1:08:19
Speaker 5: conversations about our collective humanity, which is what we did
1:08:24
Speaker 5: throughout the campaign. And Rabbi Weiss's letter, though I agree
1:08:28
Speaker 5: with you in the tone of it, opened the door
1:08:31
Speaker 5: to dialogue. And it allowed me to share a response
1:08:36
Speaker 5: that that was anchored in my experiences as a Black
1:08:39
Speaker 5: man in America. I know what it feels like to,
1:08:42
Speaker 5: you know, just because of who you are, feel an
1:08:46
Speaker 5: existential threat from the space and the area in which
1:08:49
Speaker 5: you are living. And I think that provided me the
1:08:53
Speaker 5: opportunity to sort of bridge gaps between the African-American community
1:08:56
Speaker 5: and the Jewish community and the Muslim community, right? There
1:08:59
Speaker 5: are so many communities that because of xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, anti-Semitism,
1:09:05
Speaker 5: so many communities that we can use this opportunity to
1:09:08
Speaker 5: come together and fight against what I think is a
1:09:11
Speaker 5: common enemy, which is ethno-nationalism, multinational corporations, just looking to
1:09:16
Speaker 5: not just, you oppress us, but psychologically, emotionally, socially, and economically.
1:09:23
Speaker 5: So it opened the door to begin a dialogue. And
1:09:26
Speaker 5: I think the beginning of that dialogue is not only
1:09:29
Speaker 5: how we defeat Trump, but how we make sure we
1:09:32
Speaker 5: never have another Donald Trump again in the White House.
1:09:35
Speaker 5: And we begin to tactically and systemically deal with issues
1:09:40
Speaker 5: of racism and anti-Semitism And understanding that they exist within institutions,
1:09:46
Speaker 5: not just in individuals. Like Donald Trump is a person,
1:09:49
Speaker 5: but he represents an ideology and institutional discrimination that is
1:09:56
Speaker 5: my job and all of our jobs to fight against.
1:09:59
Speaker 4: Yeah. There was this moment in your victory speech Tuesday
1:10:02
Speaker 4: night when you said, you know what Donald Trump is
1:10:05
Speaker 4: more afraid of than anything else? A black man with power.
1:10:08
Speaker 4: And I love that because it is true. It is
1:10:10
Speaker 4: clearly true. When he was looking at Barack Obama, do
1:10:13
Speaker 4: you have thoughts on how you plan to use that power? Like,
1:10:15
Speaker 4: do you, have you thought about committees you want to
1:10:17
Speaker 4: serve on? And then maybe more importantly, have you been
1:10:20
Speaker 4: invited to join the squad?
1:10:25
Speaker 5: Uh, the squad I thought was like a media thing.
1:10:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:10:28
Speaker 5: I didn't know there was like a squad caucus in Congress. Uh, but, uh,
1:10:33
Speaker 5: I'm in contact with my sisters, uh, in the squad. So, uh,
1:10:37
Speaker 5: You know, I hopefully I look forward to working with them. And,
1:10:43
Speaker 5: you know, I haven't thought I have thought about committees.
1:10:45
Speaker 5: You know, education, obviously, is one I'm interested in. Budget, maybe.
1:10:51
Speaker 5: But I'm pretty open to to those conversations and what
1:10:56
Speaker 5: that's going to look like. And, yeah, you know, in
1:10:58
Speaker 5: terms of leveraging that power. you know, the power of
1:11:02
Speaker 5: our voices is tremendous, right? And just continuing to lift
1:11:06
Speaker 5: up the power of my voice individually, but also the
1:11:09
Speaker 5: voices of my students and families that I've worked with.
1:11:13
Speaker 5: Because it's all of those experiences that give me the
1:11:17
Speaker 5: passion and the energy and the purpose to take to Washington. Like,
1:11:21
Speaker 5: I can't forget, you know, my PTA president who ended
1:11:25
Speaker 5: up homeless and had to live in a shelter in
1:11:28
Speaker 5: Queens and commute to the Bronx five days a week
1:11:31
Speaker 5: to go to school. I can't forget my student whose
1:11:33
Speaker 5: father was shot over the weekend. And because there weren't
1:11:36
Speaker 5: any mental health supports in the school system, we had
1:11:39
Speaker 5: to do our best job as a staff to support
1:11:42
Speaker 5: that student. You know, I can't forget the stories of
1:11:44
Speaker 5: my students and families. They drive everything that I do personally.
1:11:48
Speaker 5: And it's uplifting those stories and our voices that's going
1:11:52
Speaker 5: to defeat Trump and people like Trump going forward.
1:11:55
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, I mean, look, I got into politics working
1:11:59
Speaker 4: for Barack Obama in 2004 and 2008. And like, I
1:12:01
Speaker 4: don't think I really realized how lucky I was, right?
1:12:04
Speaker 4: I was like this young kid. I was wide-eyed and hopeful.
1:12:06
Speaker 4: And like every day was inspiring and it was like
1:12:08
Speaker 4: endless possibilities. And now you look at the news and
1:12:11
Speaker 4: it just, it sucks, right? Our president is a bigot.
1:12:14
Speaker 4: He's a bully. And I think the reason I got
1:12:17
Speaker 4: so excited about your campaign was it felt like an
1:12:21
Speaker 4: antidote to that, right? Like you have fun on the
1:12:23
Speaker 4: campaign trail. You goof around, you dance with kids. I
1:12:25
Speaker 4: think we We saw you whip in Nene at points
1:12:28
Speaker 4: on the trail. What advice for you to have for
1:12:31
Speaker 4: us who are like motivated by fear too often and
1:12:35
Speaker 4: want to find more joy in this work?
1:12:38
Speaker 5: You know, once the negative ads started coming out against us, which,
1:12:44
Speaker 5: you know, unfortunately that's par for the course, you know,
1:12:47
Speaker 5: I started talking about the politics of fear versus the
1:12:51
Speaker 5: politics of love, right? And love sounds like this, you know,
1:12:55
Speaker 5: this gushy word, like, what does he mean love? Well,
1:12:59
Speaker 5: when you're guided by that, you're guided by humanity. You're
1:13:02
Speaker 5: guided by compassion. You're guided by empathy. You're guided by
1:13:05
Speaker 5: what connects us, which is joy and hope and faith.
1:13:10
Speaker 5: So for me, you know, if I'm not enjoying this
1:13:14
Speaker 5: process in some way, shape or form, you know, we're
1:13:17
Speaker 5: doing it wrong. Right. Because it's a privilege to, to
1:13:21
Speaker 5: be in this position where we have protests all over
1:13:25
Speaker 5: the country pushing back against police brutality and institutional racism.
1:13:30
Speaker 5: And it's a privilege and I'm very fortunate to be
1:13:32
Speaker 5: a candidate and hopefully congressional elect in this moment. And
1:13:37
Speaker 5: that brings joy to me. It brings joy to me
1:13:40
Speaker 5: to have that privilege and joy is infectious. And if
1:13:45
Speaker 5: we can share our joy with each other, I think
1:13:48
Speaker 5: we could begin to shift the narrative and shift the conversation.
1:13:50
Speaker 5: We don't have to be driven by fear, even though
1:13:53
Speaker 5: Trump is atrocious. He doesn't have to dictate how we
1:13:58
Speaker 5: respond to the day-to-day realities of being in this country.
1:14:01
Speaker 5: We can respond to each other and to the world differently.
1:14:05
Speaker 5: And again, for me, I'm an educator. So everything starts
1:14:08
Speaker 5: with my kids. And despite going to underfunded schools and
1:14:13
Speaker 5: despite being in under-resourced communities, our kids came to school
1:14:18
Speaker 5: every day with a passion for life and love and
1:14:22
Speaker 5: learning and each other. And there's no way that I
1:14:27
Speaker 5: can be depressed or fearful or angry when that drives me.
1:14:32
Speaker 5: And I also have a six-year-old daughter that I come
1:14:35
Speaker 5: home to every night. Like, I'm living a dream, man.
1:14:39
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying? When you have kids and
1:14:42
Speaker 5: a daughter, I mean, it's like the best thing in
1:14:44
Speaker 5: the world. So, As much as I can. And last
1:14:48
Speaker 5: thing I'll say is I've been blessed with an amazing team,
1:14:52
Speaker 5: you know, around us for this campaign who works tirelessly
1:14:56
Speaker 5: and they're brilliant and they're united and they're driven by
1:15:00
Speaker 5: making the world a better place. So I'm just very fortunate.
1:15:03
Speaker 5: And I want to share that with everyone because I
1:15:04
Speaker 5: think I think that joy is reciprocal.
1:15:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do, too. I mean, I think there's probably
1:15:09
Speaker 4: a lot of people who think about what a congressman
1:15:13
Speaker 4: person looks like or has done and thinks, oh no,
1:15:16
Speaker 4: I didn't go to law school or I didn't run
1:15:18
Speaker 4: for the state Senate. And they think that somehow means
1:15:20
Speaker 4: they shouldn't do it. And I think the opposite is true, right?
1:15:23
Speaker 4: Like when I saw B-roll of AOC scooping ice in
1:15:26
Speaker 4: a bar, you realize, okay, that's a human being who
1:15:29
Speaker 4: can relate to other human beings on a level that
1:15:31
Speaker 4: is more fundamental, right? So I bet there's a lot
1:15:33
Speaker 4: of people listening right now who have thought about running
1:15:36
Speaker 4: for office or who want to run to office, but
1:15:38
Speaker 4: think I don't have that pedigree. I'm too scared. What
1:15:41
Speaker 4: advice do you have for them?
1:15:44
Speaker 5: Lean into the fear because it is scary because you're
1:15:49
Speaker 5: kind of putting yourself out there and you don't know
1:15:52
Speaker 5: what's going to come next. But when you lean into
1:15:55
Speaker 5: the fear, it's like, first of all, you learn so
1:15:58
Speaker 5: much about yourself and the process and then other people
1:16:02
Speaker 5: come along to help you out. And that's the big
1:16:06
Speaker 5: thing for me. I wouldn't be here without the support
1:16:09
Speaker 5: of everyone who believed in me personally and believed in
1:16:12
Speaker 5: this movement who came along to help me out. AOC
1:16:16
Speaker 5: is a great example because she's a leader for the
1:16:22
Speaker 5: working class person and the poor. If there weren't an AOC,
1:16:28
Speaker 5: there wouldn't be a me in this situation because she
1:16:31
Speaker 5: broke through the glass ceiling in terms of centering the
1:16:36
Speaker 5: needs of those most disenfranchised in everything that she does.
1:16:39
Speaker 5: She's that kind of leader and that kind of voice.
1:16:42
Speaker 5: And she created a space for someone like me to
1:16:45
Speaker 5: come along and do what I'm doing now. And I
1:16:51
Speaker 5: don't have a law degree, but I've worked in public
1:16:53
Speaker 5: education for 20 years. And it's like, what's the 50
1:16:57
Speaker 5: cent line? Got a purple heart for war, but I
1:17:00
Speaker 5: ain't never left the city. When you're in it and
1:17:04
Speaker 5: you're doing the work, The work is the work and
1:17:07
Speaker 5: the work is transferable. So in whatever industry anyone is
1:17:12
Speaker 5: working in, whatever job anyone has, Congress needs more, you know,
1:17:17
Speaker 5: sanitation workers, more nurses, more bartenders, more teachers, more principal.
1:17:22
Speaker 5: Congress needs more of that because then our policy will
1:17:26
Speaker 5: be rooted in the realities of everyday people.
1:17:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, agreed. Just sort of along those lines, like, you know,
1:17:32
Speaker 4: the Biden campaign has got a big decision coming up.
1:17:34
Speaker 4: They're going to pick a VP. Do you have thoughts
1:17:36
Speaker 4: on who that person should be, like their character, their values,
1:17:39
Speaker 4: and how they or she can help inspire and turn
1:17:43
Speaker 4: out the base of the party?
1:17:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, they should, I think, share the values of,
1:17:48
Speaker 5: for lack of a better term, the progressive wing of
1:17:51
Speaker 5: the party, right? Rooting the values in the needs of
1:17:55
Speaker 5: working class people and the poor in this country and
1:17:58
Speaker 5: rooted in the understanding that we have to deal with
1:18:01
Speaker 5: institutional racism and sexism and classism in all its forms
1:18:06
Speaker 5: urgently and right now, not through incrementalism, not waiting for
1:18:11
Speaker 5: someone else to come along and get it done. This
1:18:13
Speaker 5: is the moment in our history, which is why we
1:18:15
Speaker 5: released our reconstruction agenda. We tried to reconstruct after the
1:18:19
Speaker 5: Civil War, but Klansmen and white supremacists burned it down.
1:18:23
Speaker 5: We tried to reconstruct after the Civil Rights Movement, but
1:18:26
Speaker 5: mass incarceration occurred under Nixon and everyone after Nixon. This
1:18:31
Speaker 5: is our third chance at it. And targeting criminal justice reform,
1:18:34
Speaker 5: police reform, and looking at institutional racism and everywhere it exists,
1:18:39
Speaker 5: we need someone to come in rooted in those values
1:18:41
Speaker 5: and understanding that lens very clearly and unapologetically. Because as
1:18:46
Speaker 5: we did with this race, we need to galvanize everyone
1:18:49
Speaker 5: to be a part of our democracy, because if not,
1:18:51
Speaker 5: Trump will win again and there'll be more Trumps coming
1:18:54
Speaker 5: down the line. Yeah.
1:18:55
Speaker 4: Maybe even literally like his terrible son or daughter or
1:18:58
Speaker 4: one of those goobers.
1:18:59
Speaker 5: Literally. Absolutely.
1:19:01
Speaker 4: Let's not talk about it. This was a very hopeful interview.
1:19:04
Speaker 4: So last question. People listen to this. They think, I
1:19:07
Speaker 4: like this guy. I want to get involved. I want
1:19:09
Speaker 4: to help him out. Where should they go? What can
1:19:10
Speaker 4: they do to make sure you're in Congress?
1:19:13
Speaker 1: Yes.
1:19:14
Speaker 5: So go to BowmanForCongress.com. Learn more about, you know, my
1:19:18
Speaker 5: background and our platform there. Please click the donate button.
1:19:22
Speaker 5: And if you can donate a couple bucks to help
1:19:24
Speaker 5: us out, that's always huge. We have an amazing staff.
1:19:28
Speaker 5: I want to make sure that they can, you know,
1:19:30
Speaker 5: can pay their bills. So it helps us to do that.
1:19:34
Speaker 5: And right now, we're just waiting for the final votes
1:19:38
Speaker 5: to be counted. But it looks like we're going to
1:19:41
Speaker 5: be congressional elect. And it looks like we'll be able
1:19:45
Speaker 5: to hit the ground running. But we still need tons
1:19:47
Speaker 5: of support. So please, like BowmanForCongress.com, share the website, share
1:19:52
Speaker 5: social media, support us in any way that you can,
1:19:55
Speaker 5: because this movement needs to continue to grow. This is
1:19:57
Speaker 5: just the beginning. We're not stopping now. And we need
1:20:00
Speaker 5: everyone's support.
1:20:01
Speaker 4: That's very well said. Everyone, Check it out. Chip in
1:20:04
Speaker 4: five bucks. Jamal Bowman, thank you so much for doing
1:20:07
Speaker 4: the show. Thank you for giving me a race to
1:20:09
Speaker 4: watch that makes me excited about politics and inspired to
1:20:13
Speaker 4: think about who's going to be in office next year.
1:20:15
Speaker 4: It's been great.
1:20:16
Speaker 3: Awesome.
1:20:17
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
1:20:23
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jamal Bowman for joining us today. And thanks, Alyssa,
1:20:27
Speaker 1: for riding along as our co-host today. This was fun.
1:20:31
Speaker 3: I'm really glad I made the cut, guys.
1:20:36
Speaker 2: Look, I got to do two podcasts with Alyssa this week.
1:20:38
Speaker 3: You guys are never going to get rid of me.
1:20:41
Speaker 3: I have nothing to do but podcast with you and
1:20:43
Speaker 3: make jam, which hysteria listeners know. So call me up anytime.
1:20:48
Speaker 1: All right. Jam and podcast. Let's do it. Bye, guys. Bye.
1:21:00
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
1:21:02
Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
1:21:06
Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
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Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
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Speaker 1: Milo Kemp, who film and upload these episodes as videos
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Speaker 1: every week.