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"OK, Groomer." · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: On today's show, Democrats navigate immigration, student debt relief, and
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: gas prices with an eye on the midterms. Wisconsin Democratic
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Party Chair Ben Wickler joins to discuss the strategy behind
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: some of the big wins in his state's local elections
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: this week. And later, we'll talk about how the MAGA
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: wing of the Republican Party has taken to calling everyone
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: who doesn't agree with them a pedophile. But first, more
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: guest announcements for our upcoming live shows. On May 5th
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: in Chicago and May 6th in St. Louis, we'll be
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: joined by Hysteria host Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: How great is that?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So exciting. Tickets are on.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Sale now for these cities and more. Get yours at crooked.com
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: slash events. Another exciting development. Ira and Louis let me
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: be a guest host on Keep It this week.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: How about that?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: How did that happen?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I don't... I think... I think we forced them.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: No, I got an invitation. So it just happened. And
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you know what? It was great. We talked about the Grammys.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We talked about Bruce Willis, Sarah Palin, Elon Musk.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I saw the... show notes on that and did you
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: i didn't take he was either bruce willis or grammys
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: expert so i was sort of surprised you got sarah
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: palin yes i understand why that happened.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Dan i did some prepping i did some prepping for
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: keep it i went we i watched die hard again
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: because emily hadn't seen it i watched the grammys on
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: sunday the entire grammys so yeah i was deep into
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: it and.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: When you got the invitation were you concerned it was
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: a trap and that's.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: What i said to them i replied and thought it
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: was a track because it came on april fool's day
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: oh interesting i Which would have been a great prank.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I did it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It was fun.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: New episodes of Keep It Drop every Wednesday wherever you
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: get your podcasts. Shirley Ralph was also on that episode.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Way more important than me. It was a fantastic episode.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Go check it out.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to the news.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: On Tuesday's pod, we talked about the very happy news
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: that Katonji Brown-Jackson will be the next Supreme Court justice.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I believe the vote was just held today, Thursday. 53-47.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: She's heading to the Supreme Court. But today we're going
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: to talk about three developments in Washington on issues that
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: will be a bit more challenging for Democrats as we
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: approach the midterms. Immigration, student debt, and gas prices.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Lucky you, Dan.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: You don't get the happy Ketanji Brown-Jackson episode. You get
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: this pile of shit.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Everyone, I think, has an allotted amount of news luck.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And I think I used my entire balance for 2022
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: with the Madison Cawthorn orgy party.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, But this morning we woke up and
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: there is a great Washington Post interview with Donald Trump
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: that we will talk about. So that's just that's for us.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's for you. That's for you.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Donald Trump. Thank you.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Let's start with immigration, which is back in the headlines
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: after the 10 billion dollar bipartisan covid funding deal we
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: were talking about on Tuesday fell apart the next day
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: over the Biden administration's decision to end a Trump era
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: pandemic rule known as Title 42. which has allowed both
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: administrations to turn away asylum seekers at the border for
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: public health reasons. Senate Republicans wanted to vote on an
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: amendment that would reinstate Title 42 as part of the
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: COVID funding. Chuck Schumer said no, and now the bill
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: can't pass. Meanwhile, the combination of Title 42 ending and
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: a spring surge of migrants at the border has drawn
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Republicans to Fox News cameras like a Cawthorn to a
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Coke orgy.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Washington DC.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Now the leading paper in Washington has as a slogan,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: democracy dies in darkness. Joe and Kamala want darkness on
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the disaster that they have created. What we are seeing
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: is a systematic attempt by the Biden administration to essentially
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: destroy our southern border and empower the cartels.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: This is going to cause massive injury to migrants, cartels empowered,
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Americans endangered, fentanyl pouring across our border, all because the
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Secretary refuses to do his job. This is an unexcusable
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: dereliction of duty by the Secretary of Homeland Security. It
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: is an impeachable act.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: I have to say that I think Ted Cruz really
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: swerved out of his lane to try to hit the
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Washington Post in that.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Darkness.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: What was he doing there?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: What do you think about Biden's decision to end Title 42?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: He should have done it a long time ago. Any
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: policy that was authored and pushed by Stephen Miller is
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: a policy that a Democratic president should not have. I
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: think it was about a year ago. We had Dara
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Lind of ProPublica, the immigration reporter on. I interviewed her
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: and she talked about the fact that a year ago,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: that policy, a lot of people thought that policy should
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: go away because it was it did make a lot
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: of sense. There were obviously very serious moral questions about it,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: substantive questions, legal questions. And so getting rid of it
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: was the right substantive decision without a question. But it
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: comes with some real political risk, as we're about to
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: talk about.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: I think for all the reasons you just cited, that's correct.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I would also add just for public health reasons, right?
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: There's absolutely at this point, no public health rationale for
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: expelling asylum seekers, as every country in the world has
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: now demonstrated. Even the most restrictive masked places like South Korea,
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: a lot of those East Asian countries, like the most
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: effective way to handle Omicron right now is with vaccines, boosters,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: and treatments. And that will significantly reduce the severity of
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: your inevitable exposure to Omicron. And the idea that with
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: all of the transmission that's happening, not just in the
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: United States, but all over the world, some rule about
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: expelling asylum seekers at the border is going to somehow
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: curb transmission is preposterous at this point.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, we should just note at the absolute rank
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: hypocrisy of the Republicans who have downplayed the pandemic from
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: the beginning. They have said that accused Democrats of overhyping it,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: using it as a way to control people, and then
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: turning around and using the pandemic as a way to
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: treat migrants terribly is a bunch of hypocritical bullshit.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: So the politics here, as you mentioned, are complicated by
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the fact that nearly every Senate Democrat who's up for
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: reelection in 2022 has criticized Biden's decision to end Title 42.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Mark Kelly, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, Raphael Warnock in Georgia.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: The first two, Kelly and Hassan, just introduced a bill
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: today with three other Democrats and six Republicans that would
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: prevent the Biden administration from ending Title 42. Why do
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: you think they're against it?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: The fact that they are against it says something very
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: alarming about what they're seeing in their polling. And it
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: is the thing that really scares the shit out of
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: me about not necessarily the issue of title 42, but
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: just how scared Democrats are and what people's internal polls
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: are telling them is that Mark Kelly is a moderate.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: He is from a very immigration sensitive state. I don't
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: agree with what he's doing there, but I like him
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: being upset about this makes some measure of political sense.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I don't agree with it, but I can see you
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: get there. Raphael Warnock is not a moderate. He is
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: not someone who naturally just like their first instinct of
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: political trouble is to side with Republicans or criticize the president.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: He's not from a border state unless he's concerned about
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: people from Florida, which is, I think, a very legitimate
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: concern in a lot of ways. And so it tells
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: me that people are in sort of a near state
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: of panic about and looking for ways to diss themselves
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: from the president on an issue that Republicans believe is
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: very powerful for them. And I think the approach they're
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: taking is very problematic in a lot of ways, but
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: it says that people are very, very concerned and they're
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: starting to like lash out in ways that are going
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: to be unlikely to be constructive, I think.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we don't know what their private polling
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: is saying, but we do know what the public polls
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: are saying. Morning Consult polled this this week. 56% of
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: all Americans oppose Biden's decision. And that is the largest
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: backlash against any Biden policy that Morning Consult has tested
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: in the last two years. This is the most unpopular
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: thing that he's done. I do think, you know, whether
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: you're Mark Kelly or really whether you're any senator, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: of course, Kyrsten Sinema is also on this on this bill,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: along with Mark Kelly and the other vulnerable Democrats. I
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: think people I think they are concerned about a very
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: real challenge, which is a surge of migrants and asylum
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: seekers at our southern border that has in the past
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: and in May again this spring overwhelmed our already overstretched
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: immigration and asylum system. So you have thousands of people
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: in these border communities who can't get their asylum applications
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: processed in time, who can't get the help that they
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: need if they've just been fleeing from other country because
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: we just don't have the resources to handle that many
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: asylum seekers. And the number is, of course, has been
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: growing every single year. So that is a real challenge.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: But Title 42 is not the way to deal with
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: that challenge because Title 42 is about a public health.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: It's using a public health reason. to turn away asylum
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: seekers because our immigration system can't process them fast enough,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: which is just a mess. That's a policy mess right there.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: And what really needs to happen is to fix our
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: immigration system so that it is orderly, so that people
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: who are fleeing violence in war-torn countries can apply for
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: asylum and get asylum here and not have to wait
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: around for a year because there's not enough asylum judge
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: or courts and then everyone's hanging out in border communities.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: There is a problem at the heart of this. It's
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: just not what Republicans demagogue or what Title 42 is for,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: which is all about public health. So it's almost like
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: this whole Title 42 thing is like a stand-in for
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: an immigration system that has been broken for far too long.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: in which Republicans will not help Democrats fix. Because there
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: is a plan to fix immigration that Joe Biden has,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: that Barack Obama had too, that would give a pathway
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and make sure that the
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: border is secure and orderly as well. Republicans don't want
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: to have any part of this because they want to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: demagogue the issue. How does COVID funding get done now?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Great question, John. It seems like a real paradox because
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Republicans won't support it without Title 42. And Democrats may
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: not support it with Title 42. So what I think
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: will probably happen here is, and it sort of depends
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: on what Republicans demand, are they demanding inclusion of the
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Title 42 provision, or are they demanding a vote.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: On the Title 42 provision?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Because this could go two ways, right? There could be
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: a situation where they're going to have a vote. It's
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: very clear that if there is a vote, that enough
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Democrats would join with Republicans to add that to the bill.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That seems like that is definitely going to happen. It
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: is possible. What I think one way out here that
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Schumer may be working on is looking for a Democratic
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: alternative to the Republican policy. So there will be a
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: re-institute Title 42 amendment from one of the horrendous people
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: whose voices we just listened to. And then there's a
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Democratic alternative that maybe puts in place, maybe delays the decision,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: puts in place some steps that have to go in
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: effect before that can happen. Republicans vote for theirs, Democrats
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: vote for theirs. Maybe we Neither of them pass, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: then we get the bill. But it has to get done,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and there's bipartisan support to get it done, so they're
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: going to have to figure something else out here.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one hint may be in the bill that they
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: introduced today, that bipartisan group of senators, because I guess
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: that bill says it will prevent Biden from lifting Title 42, quote,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: without a detailed plan to stop an expected surge of
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: migrants at the border. So perhaps there's some kind of
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: plan that they can all work out. that shows that
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: we're ready to deal with the spring surge of migrants
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: at the border that will placate enough Republicans and Democrats.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: And I also think that could be the answer because
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: when you look at the Republicans who are on this
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: bill with the Democrats, they are not the most extreme
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Republicans in the caucus who probably want this issue to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: demagogue Democrats with. I'm sure all Republicans want this issue
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: to Democrat, but at least the Republicans that are on
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: this bill seem like they could be open to working
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: out a solution where, Department of Homeland Security just says,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: here's our plan.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Here's our resources. Here's what we're going to do.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: That is a classic. It's a classic thread the needle
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: legislative move. We're going to say that we oppose this thing,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: but we'll let it go if you send us a plan.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: There are people in the government whose whole job is
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to write these plans and send them to the Senate.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Fun.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Sounds like a good time. Republicans are overjoyed, of course,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: that immigration is back in the headlines. How should Democrats respond?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Not like this, John. I think the problem with... I
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: want to stipulate, as you pointed out, that there are
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: substantive concerns here. And I think that those are sincere.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: So I'm not suggesting that this is all panic. But
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: in some of the messaging on this, thus far from
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: this group of senators and other moderates out there, is
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: what we are doing is accepting the premise of the
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Republican argument. Like we are immediately accepting things are terrible
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: and this is going to make it worse and you
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: should be scared. And once you accept the premise of
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the argument, you've already lost. So I think the way
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: to approach this is– and you can have a position
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: and I think this alternative bill is a good way
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to get there– is to go on offense and also
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: talk about the things that you were doing and Republicans
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: are stopping you from doing to fix this problem. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: that Republicans want to use the issue to divide Americans
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to be able to put in place this agenda that's X, Y,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: and Z that keep tax cuts for the wealthy– cut Medicare,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: all of those things. So you have to reframe the
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: issue on gun offense as opposed to restating the premise
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: articulated by your opponents.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and also Republicans are the ones with
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: extreme positions on immigration. Make them own those positions. You know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: like I would say that Republicans are demagoguing this issue
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: to win an election. And if they take power, they've
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: told us what they're going to do. They're going to
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: deport dreamers. They're going to deport children who lived in
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: this country their entire lives. And they are going to
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: cut back on legal immigrations. Remember that during the Trump years,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: it went from Republicans wanting to stop undocumented immigrants from
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: coming to this country to actually cutting legal immigration. People
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: who are doing everything right, who are going through the process,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: they wanted to end that as well. Tag them with
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: that position because it's not a popular position. Deporting dreamers
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: is not a popular position. And then, you know, Cecilia Munoz,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: who worked on immigration in the White House with us,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: as she always says, Democrats should be the party of
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: fixing the problem. There is a broken immigration system. We
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: want to fix it. We want to make sure that
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: people who come to this country have a path. People
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: who are in this country have a pathway to citizenship
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: that we legalize dreamers and that, you know, we have
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: an orderly immigration system. That's that's the most popular position.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: And that's where the position that a lot of Democrats hold.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: They should be proud of it and they should talk
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: about it. President Biden took another big action this week
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: when he extended the moratorium on federal student debt payments
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: through August 31st. The administration also announced that whenever payments resume,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: borrowers would be given a fresh start that will automatically
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: eliminate delinquency and default. So when I asked Ron Klain
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: about Biden canceling student debt during our interview last month,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: he said that they'd make a final decision before the
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: moratorium ended on May 1st or before whatever date the
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: moratorium is extended to, which is now August 31st. Why
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: do you think they decided to extend the moratorium instead
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: of just canceling debt? And why do you think they
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: picked August 31st?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I think it is pretty clear based on reporting we've read,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: sort of reading between the lines in that conversation with
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Ron from a few weeks ago, that there is real
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: division in the White House about the substantive, political, and
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I think also legal arguments around canceling student debt. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I think they should cancel it. I think that is
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do. That is clear that there
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: is not unanimity in the White House. The president has
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: always been more conservative on this than a lot of
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: people he ran against. I think even for people who
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: are for it, and I think a lot of really
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: smart legal people have made a lot of really smart,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: solid arguments about why he has the authority to do it.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: But in the end of the day, a rigged Republican
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court is the arbiter of whether he has that power.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I can see a situation where in the White House,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: you're trying to make a decision about whether you do this,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: and you do it, and people are excited about it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe they make some financial decisions based on it. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: then six months later, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, et al.,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: nix it. And so what I think is August 31st
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: makes no political sense, because why would you kick a
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: very important, tough decision to right before the midterms? The
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: only reason I think, I guess the substantive reason would
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: be this is a conditions-based policy. Theoretically, it's because of
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the pandemic. And in a conditions-based policy, you should check
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: in every few months to see if the conditions that
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: you use to put in place the policy still exist.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: It's hard to square– like the Title 42 thing, this
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: is not really about the pandemic because you can't argue
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: that we've completely recovered from the pandemic, but also we
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: have to keep this policy in place. The reason we
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: have to keep the policy in place is because the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: cost of college and student debt is a gigantic disaster
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: for this country and for so many people. I assume
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: the delay here is because of this division in the
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: White House. There is this ongoing– policy debate. And this
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: is how policy gets made in the White House. And
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's very messy is this is sort of the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: deal they came up with. So, you know, some people
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: who think it's a bad idea, people think it's a
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: good idea and you kind of just split the difference
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: and it's August 31st and now they're just going to
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: have to deal with this all over again in two months.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: But maybe it's hoping some people buy time in the
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: process to get to cancellation before the election.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, so here's the deal with the moratorium. So,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: you know, Biden's the first president where no one has
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: no one who has a federal student loan has paid
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: anything during the whole course of his presidency. So this
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: what is now that moratorium is not completely free. And also,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: you know, I think some people think that the student
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: debt relief is about like sticking it to the banks
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: or the colleges. But in this case, that's not true
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: at all, because this is only about federal student loan debt.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: So the person that we're the entity that we're sticking
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: it to is the federal government. Which is fine, but
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: it's about $ 4 billion a month to have a blanket
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: moratorium like they're doing. Biden, when he was running, promised
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: something a little more specific, which is canceling up to $ 10, 000. Now,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, a lot of other Democrats want $ 50, 000.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I'd love $ 50, 000 to cancel $ 50, 000 in debt. I think
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: that's a good idea, but Biden's promise during the campaign
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: was never about $ 50, 000.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: In fact, he rejected it. It was about $ 10, 000. Fine.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: So why don't we get $ 10, 000 debt cancellation? Honestly, If
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: you want to be targeted and help the people who
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: need it most, canceling up to $ 10, 000 in debt is
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: probably better than a moratorium, which like 73% of all
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: student debt payments come from the top two income quintiles
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: right now. So if you're just doing a moratorium, the
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: benefit actually accrues to the wealthiest borrowers and not to
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: some of the people who probably need the help the most.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: If you cancel up to $ 10, 000 in student debt just permanently,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: and don't keep extending the moratorium, you're going to help
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: more people who actually need the help. So I don't understand.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: And on the Supreme Court thing, I'm like, try it.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Just try it. If they knock it down, they knock
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: it down.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's like if we were sitting in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: White House, that's the argument I would make in there.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I do understand why people... And we dealt with this
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: with a lot of executive actions that Obama took, right?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: That there was this risk. And is that a huge–
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: because ultimately, if you do it and it gets struck down,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: you haven't helped a single person. And you're taking this
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: theoretical political blow. And it's like there is– I think
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: that is a reasonable debate about which is better. I
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: think it is worth noting also that Biden in the campaign,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: his strong preference articulated over and over again was to
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: do it legislatively.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And that's why I get a little annoyed when all
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: the legislators just tweet out the hashtag at Joe Biden,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: cancel student debt. I recognize Joe Manchin is not for this,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: so that is a problem, but they haven't really tried either.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: They act as if they have no ability, particularly the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: leadership of the Senate. Chuck Schumer loves to tweet, cancel
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: student debt at Joe Biden. Even on the day Joe
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Biden announced the moratorium, he tweeted that at him. And
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: it's like, Do you have a bill? Have you tried
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: to pass that bill? Are you arguing for it in there?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Are you working Joe Manchin to try to see if
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: you can get something done? Like you have, you have
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: agency here too. And so activists, others tweeting at Joe Biden,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I'm for that. If you're the Senate leader, like at
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: least acknowledge that you have tried and failed or try
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: and fail publicly and show that.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I still think on the legal front, just from a
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: purely political standpoint, like Would Joe Biden rather people say, hey,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: why didn't you ever try to cancel our debt? Or
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: would he rather people say, Joe Biden tried to cancel
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: our debt, and then this right-wing court decided to strike
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: it down.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Fuck those people. Wouldn't you want that?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is the better argument. I just
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: have heard many people make the opposite argument in those meetings.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure that someone is making those arguments in
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: those meetings.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So Democrats in Congress also grilled a bunch of
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: oil company executives this week over high gas prices. Their
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: argument was that oil company profits are soaring because of
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the war in Ukraine, but oil company executives are using
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: those extra profits to enrich themselves and their shareholders instead
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: of helping people who can't afford higher gas prices. What'd
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: you think of that hearing? And is this something that
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: could move the needle for Democrats?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, what congressional hearing does not move the needle, John? Look,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's great they had the hearing. It's the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. From a substantive perspective, it's the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. From a political perspective, there was
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: this very famous hearing in the 80s, I think, where
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: they brought all the heads of the tobacco companies before
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: the committee. Our old friend Phil Shalero helped organize that
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: for Congressman Waxman. Everyone's been trying to recapture that magic
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: in hearings for the last 30 years or whatever. Obviously,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: most people won't see the hearing. Most people won't read
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: about the hearing. But it is a data point in
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: trying to make the argument that one of the reasons
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: for high gas prices is corporate greed. And so I
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: think it's great they did it. And I think what
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the next step is to communicate to people, excerpts from
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: that hearing, moments from that hearing, to help buttress that argument.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Because I think that is our, more so than Putin's
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: price hike, I think corporate greed is our best argument
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: for the midterms on gas prices.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Happens to also be true, whatever Larry Summers might say. Again,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: The argument here is not like, oh, the oil companies
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: are the reason that gas prices are high.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: We realize it's a commodity. We realize there's a world
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: market here, all that bullshit.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Their profits are at record highs right now. And what
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: they're doing is just buying back stock and just like
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: reaping the rewards themselves. And at a time where prices
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: are high and people are having a hard time filling
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: up their tank, then yeah, whether it's a windfall profits
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: tax or whether it's at least at the very least,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: taking away the taxpayer subsidies we give to oil and
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: gas companies right now. At least do that at a
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: time where they are making record profits when gas prices
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: are this high. Take away their subsidies, maybe use the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: subsidies to give Americans a rebate check for gas.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you fucking pass some legislation?
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it'd be great if the House
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: passed something that obviously the Senate is not going to
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: pass that and Republicans would filibuster whatever, but it would
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: be good. It'd be a good vote to have.
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I wonder if you could get Joe Manchin in the
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: reconciliation bill, if you could get him on board with,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: you won't get him on board for a windfall profits
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: tax for oil companies and fossil fuel industries, but I
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: wonder if you could get him on board for getting
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: rid of the subsidies.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You might be able to.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm sure he has an articulated position
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: on this because.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: It's- Yeah. That if you asked him about it would change.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: It's a class.
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: It just depends on what moody is when he bumps
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: into Manu Raju in the breakfast line.
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: So Democrats clearly want midterm voters to know that they're
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: doing everything humanly possible to bring down costs. Here's a
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: new ad from the House Majority PAC that was released
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: this week.
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: Two years ago, we were in crisis. Democrats rescued the economy.
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: The biggest single year gain on record. 7.9 million new jobs.
• 25:05
  Speaker 7: A record drop in unemployment. Now Democrats are working to
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: lower costs, tackling gas prices by releasing a million barrels
• 25:12
  Speaker 7: of oil per day from our reserves. And they just
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: passed a $ 35 a month cap on insulin. Democrats are
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: getting things done to create jobs and lower costs. House
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: Majority PACs responsible for the content of this ad.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Democrats deliver! What do you think of that ad? And
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: what else do you think Democrats should do to go
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: on offense against the Republicans?
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was missing the hashtag Democrats deliver. So
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: huge oversight on that part.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's a good ad. That was the spirit.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good ad in the sense that
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: when Democrats do things, they have to pay to tell
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: people they did those things. Otherwise, they're not going to know.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: None of the voters that we need to reach because
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: they are less engaged with politics than the already decided voters,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: many of the listeners of this podcast, have no idea
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: these things happen. They're not going to watch the newscasts
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: that are going to cover them. The newscasts aren't really
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: going to cover them that much anyway, so you've got
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: to pay to tell them. So I think that is
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the exact right thing to do. Like, this isn't your
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: closing argument ad in any way, shape, or form. It is,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: you know, you often start in a, you have to
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: think of ad campaigns as a long process to tell
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: a larger story. And you often start with what you
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: did in your positives to build credibility with voters to
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: then make the case against the other side and to
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: inoculate yourself. So I think this is a good ad.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You can tell because Allie Lapp, who's the founder of
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: the House Majority PAC, tweeted it out that this is
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the House Majority PAC telling Democrats who they have limits
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: in how they can communicate with them because they're a
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: super PAC. Talk like this, right? It's not just for voters.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: It's for the members of that caucus to say, talk
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: like this. Talk about costs. Talk about the things you did.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: If you talk about the things you did, these are
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: the things we would highlight. So I think in that sense,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: it's a good message and worth doing, and I'm glad
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: they're doing it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, for a million reasons that we've talked
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: about before, economic messages tend to not break through the
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: clutter these days. Culture war issues, Donald Trump issues, legal issues, COVID, everything.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Economic issues, people struggling with costs and what Democrats are
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: going to do about it. It's a tough one to
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: break through these days. And so I think you need
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: ads like that just to, you just need to do
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: that over and over again. And I do think like
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: the one, I don't, I mean, they couldn't have included
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: everything in this ad, but the other way that Democrats
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: really need to go on offense is I'd like to
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: see some ads where it's not just like, here's what
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Democrats are doing. Democrats have delivered and here's what we're
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: doing to bring down costs.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: It's, oh yeah.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: And by the way, if Republicans take over Congress, they
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: said that what they want to do is raise taxes
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: on a hundred million people and take away your health insurance.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Seems like it's an important thing to mention. And the
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: reason they're doing this is because they want to have
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: that money so that the rich and powerful and the
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: oil companies and the 1% can keep their tax breaks
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: that they got from Donald Trump.
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: And the way that they're going to deal with the
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: government's finances is let the rich people keep their Trump
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: tax breaks, let the oil companies keep their tax breaks,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: but raise taxes on $ 100 million Americans and take away
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: their health insurance.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: That's the choice in the election.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And I have no doubt that that is sitting on
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: a hard drive at the House majority pack right now.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: But you have to establish some credibility as a messenger
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that you have in order to say that they have
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: opposed all these things. I understand the imperative to say
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: that you delivered on these things first.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: The other midterm challenge Republicans have to contend with is
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. We say this almost every week now, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: that's only because Donald Trump is physically incapable of shutting
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: the fuck up. Every time he opens his mouth, says
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: crazy shit. Case in point, the interview he did with
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the Washington Post's Josh Dossey this week from Mar-a-Lago. Here
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: are some highlights. This is the highlight of the piece.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: On the January 6th insurrection, quote, Trump said he deserved
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: more credit for drawing such a large crowd to the
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Ellipse and that he pressed to march on the Capitol
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: with his supporters, but was stopped by his security detail. Quote,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Secret Service said I couldn't go. I would have gone
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: there in a minute. The crowd was far bigger than
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: I ever thought. But you see very few pictures. The
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: fake news doesn't want to show pictures. But this was
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: a tremendous crowd. So Trump's only regrets are that he
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: didn't get to storm the Capitol and didn't get enough
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: credit for bringing together all those insurrectionists. That's his big
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: regret from January 6th. Do you think that's the best
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: thing to say when you're being investigated for your role
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: in inciting a violent insurrection against your own government?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Not the best thing for Donald Trump to say, but
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: it is the best thing for us that he said it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So that is good.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And I say that as people care about democracy and
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: people who have to put out a podcast twice a week.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: And so thank you, Donald Trump, for feeding the content
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: gods at the absolute last minute and giving us this gift.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I think this whole thing is so great. You may say,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: why was Donald Trump talking to Josh Stassi at Mar-a-Lago? Oh,
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: because Josh Stassi had either crashed or been invited to
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: a movie premiere that Donald Trump was hosting at Mar-a-Lago
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: for a film about how Mark Zuckerberg stole the election.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: True story.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: In all.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Of the Star Wars bar freaks of Trump world all
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: showed up. It was their, I guess, their version of
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: the White House Correspondents Center.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I do not know.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just, I highly recommend everyone read Josh
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Dossi's story from Wednesday that was about, I think it
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: was a Wednesday that was about this completely insane, embarrassingly
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: sad event. But I also just want to note that
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has told many big lies about But the
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: biggest lie may be the idea that he wanted to
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: walk one mile from the White House to the Capitol.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was not going to happen.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: That's not because of the Secret Service.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That guy's like 20 years past being able to walk
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to the Capitol.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Doesn't walk when he golfs.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe he wanted to take a golf cart.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I just had this vision of him in the front
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: in a golf cart with some MAGA flags on it.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Just leading the way.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: QAnon shaman riding shotgun.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: And riding like seven miles, driving seven miles an hour
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: as people amble behind him because the golf cart is
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: so slow. It's great.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: What an asshole.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Were there any other gems in that episode? And that
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: story that you found particularly noteworthy?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Either story.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: The Wednesday story is great, of course, about the party itself,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: about the Zuckerberg film. But also just the interview with
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Josh Dossi that he does is wild.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is not the biggest issue in the world,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: but in the article about the film premiere, in his
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: remarks introducing the film, Donald Trump talked about how excited
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: he was to have a new film to screen because
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: he was bored of screening Citizen Kane and Titanic all
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I saw that.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Like, he's a huge Titanic guy.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? A huge Citizen Kane guy? Really?
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's getting into the classics now?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: That I understand because he's an old, old man who
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: thinks that nothing that happened after the pass of the
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act is good. So, like, that's probably where
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: his interest in film stops. But Titanic? Like, is he
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: into the Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio love story? Does he
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: stand on the Truman Balcony and scream, I'm the king
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: of the world? Like, it's just... I found that notable.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: That is the part of the story that's not getting
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: enough attention, in my opinion.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got a lot of thoughts on whether Jack
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: could have made it onto that raft.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: That's his big thing. Yeah, it's wild.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: And by the way, like, again, we've been talking about this.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I do think he continues to put more pressure on
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: the Justice Department and Merrick Garland to charge him. It's
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: just daring them at this point. Like, Oh, the insurrection
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: that all my staff said, no, he didn't want people
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: to go to the Capitol.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: He was blah, blah, blah.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, I would have gone with them. Yeah, I would
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: have gone with them to the Capitol where they stormed
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: the Capitol and tried to obstruct Congress from certifying the
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: election that I just lost. I was trying to go.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: And by the way, didn't I draw a big crowd
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: of insurrectionists to Washington? Shouldn't I get some credit for
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: all the fucking insurrectionists I brought to the Capitol that day?
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: It is just daring people. Daring them to indict him.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: The other thing that's great is his daughter went to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Capitol Hill to testify, I assume under oath, about the
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: president's views on this. And he immediately does an interview
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: with the Washington Post to possibly contradict everything she just
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: said under oath.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: That'd be cool.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Dad of the year over here.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Dan talks to Wisconsin Democratic Party
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: Chair Ben Wickler.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yesterday, Wisconsin held local elections races for school board, city council,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: and mayor, and we were thrilled to say Democrats held
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: their own. Joining us now to talk about it is
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Ben Wickler. Ben,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: welcome back to Positive America.
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: Thanks so much, Dan. Always great to be with you.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: So, Ben, I don't know how much news you've been
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: reading recently, but Democrats really need some good news, right?
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And so tell me why what happened in Wisconsin last
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: night should make Democrats feel good.
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: Republicans... think they have a secret weapon, a magic silver
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: bullet in the form of divisive, race-baiting, fear-mongering attacks on
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: teaching history accurately and on trans kids to sweep school
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: board races and ladder up to governor's races across the country.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: And they put it to the test all over Wisconsin
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: this Tuesday, and it flopped. Republicans won in places where Republicans...
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: already have the majority of the votes. And in the
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: purple and the blue areas, their school board candidates came
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: up far short. We swept school board races from Eau
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: Claire in western Wisconsin to Appleton in northeast Wisconsin, and
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: even in some red communities like Holman, Wisconsin and Sparta, Wisconsin.
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: We won the school board races there after a huge,
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: well-funded Republican push that included both official party organizing and
• 35:19
  Speaker 6: right-wing talk radio and dark money ads often in these
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: local races. what we saw is that if you stand
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: up strong for public education, you organize hard and you
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: have candidates that are proudly talking to voters about their values,
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: you can win in these races. And that speaks volumes
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: about what can happen up ballot as well in November.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Can you maybe help explain to our listeners why, who
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: don't live in Wisconsin, are very obviously concerned and interested
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: in defeating Ron Johnson, in winning Wisconsin in the presidential election?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Why Fighting and winning these school board races matters for
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: those larger statewide and federal races.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: So the first big thing is that if Republicans have
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: people in local office, those people can actually affect the
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: lives of the people in their school districts and their schools.
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: And of course, local government. we're going to talk about
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: the sort of broader political implications, but it matters enormously
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: in people's lives. So in my view, it is always
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: worth voting and organizing for local offices, even just by
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: the very fact that local office saves people's lives. That said,
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: Republicans think of these offices as opportunities to chip away
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: Democratic advantages, you know, a ballot. They want to have
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: people who can become local spokespeople for Republican causes who
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: can go on right-wing talk radio and blast. In Wisconsin,
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: we have a governor who was a former teacher. Tony
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: Evers is the education governor here. He was a science teacher,
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: school superintendent, the state superintendent of public instruction. If Republicans
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: can grab education as an issue the way that they
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: are so proud to have done in Virginia, they think
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: that that is their way of going after the core
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: strength of Tony Evers. And the reality is, Republicans have
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: the biggest glass jaw in the world on education that
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: Rebecca Clayfish, their front runner for governor massively cut school budgets.
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: We had a teacher crisis. They not only assaulted teachers unions,
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: they also just stripped away funding from school districts around
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: the state and Wisconsin rankings in, you know, the U
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: S news school rankings plummeted as a result. And now
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: they're back in the top 10 under governor Evers. So, uh,
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: when voters were looking at these races, they look at
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: these Republican candidates using the exact same issues that statewide
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: candidates like Rebecca Clayfish are running on, these attacks on
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: trans kids and these totally BS claims about the way
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: that history is being taught at our schools. And they
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: thought they were on offense, and it fell flat with
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: actual voters who were not already in the bubble. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: that tells us something really powerful about about messaging, about
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: whether Republicans have this kind of secret weapon here. What
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: we did, we used this framework called the race class narrative,
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: where we said, why are Republicans trying to divide people?
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: It's because they're massively cutting school budgets and they want
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: to turn us against each other so they can come
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: after our public schools. And we helped make these things backfire.
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: At the same time as we elected school board candidates
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: across the state, voters passed big increases in school funding
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: and school referenda in most communities across Wisconsin and this
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: is an area of strength. We should not get scared
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: and stop talking about education. We should stand for our
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: values on education and go after the Republicans for what
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: they're trying to do, which is profoundly unpopular.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: In your messaging, how much was offense and how much
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: was defense?
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: There was, it was a mix. A lot of it
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: is defense in the sense that it's not, it's not,
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: you know, countering point by point what Republicans are saying.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: It is introducing people to our candidates and what they
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: stand for. Um, So there was less going after individual
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: Republicans and ripping apart their claims. There was a lot
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: of making sure that every Democrat knew that there were
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: actual champions on their side who they could vote for
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: and turn out for. And I think one of the
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: things that's really important in midterms, differently from presidential campaigns,
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: but frankly, important in presidential too, is that we shouldn't
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: assume that people know who our candidates are or what
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: their values are. You actually have to make the case
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: for your people. And a lot of the kind of
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: The studies I've seen, it races up and down the ballot,
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: is that if you talk about your candidates, what they
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: stand for, what they want to do, and whose side
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: they're on, and whether they can actually deliver, that moves
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: people a lot. Most of what the general public and
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: certainly swing voters and Republican voters learn about Democrats, they
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: learn from Republicans because Republicans have such a big noise machine.
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: You write powerfully about this and I'm grateful for it.
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: In Wisconsin, there are 81 right-wing talk radio stations and
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: they crank out misinformation constantly about Democrats. So if you
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: actually lay out what you're for, and do it in
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: a way that draws a clear circle that includes you
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: and the voters and not the Republicans, that can go
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: a long way towards defining what the playing field, what
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: the races are about. And once you do that, then
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: you also want to push Republicans out of the circle
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: of common sense and trust and make clear that they
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: would break their promises to voters and that they are
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: against the things people stand for. But you have to
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: plant a strong flag and make a case for yourself
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: as a first step so that you actually have a
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: two-way fight in these battles.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: What I thought was interesting about what you said is saying,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: who they're fighting for, whose side they're on, because that's
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: one of the most important parts of messaging because it is,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: it is a positive message, but it is an implicit contrast, right?
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Which is like, we sort of sometimes divide messaging into positive.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: These are the things I do. These are things I've done.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And then negative messaging, which is, is why this person's bad,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: but ultimately it's a narrow, everything positive and negative messages
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: is a message about why you, why not them, your,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: why your values are good and correct for the moment,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: why theirs are not. And so I think that's great.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Another part of what was on the ballot last night
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: was the big lie. Wisconsin is ground zero of the
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: big lie. Ron Johnson is one of the biggest proponents
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: of the big lie. Your really wonderful state Republicans have
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: been pushing the big lie. They continue to push it.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: They are very clearly and explicitly setting the stage for
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: using similar tactics in 2024 with the hopes of being
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: more successful than they were in 2020. Was there anything
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: from the or the peril of a big, of the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: big lies of political message in Wisconsin. For sure.
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: And it is a mixed, is a mixed report card.
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: So I want to be really upfront about that. And
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: I think it's critical for, for folks to recognize that
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: this is an active thread. It's an organizing principle on
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: the right. It does fuel base energy on the right.
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: At the same time, it can be a source of
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: tremendous energy on our side. And so, um, I look
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: at a few different races when I think about what
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: we learned. My favorite one was in De Pere, Wisconsin,
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: a 25,000-person city in Brown County near Green Bay, where
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: Kelly Rue is one of the alders. She was an
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: incumbent alder who was also a fraudulent elector who claimed
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: to represent the voters of Wisconsin as an elector in 2020,
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: cast her fake electoral college vote for Donald Trump at
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: the same time as I was elsewhere in the Capitol
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: casting my actual elector vote for Joe Biden very proudly.
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: And she was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: then she decided to run for re-election as an alder
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: in De Pere. And Pamela Gantz, who's a real estate
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: agent and a poll worker, ran against her on the
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: basis of, you know, we shouldn't have conspiracy theorists who
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: choose who the clerks are who administer our elections. Now,
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: They both talked a lot about local issues. There were
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: a ton of roads and bridges and the kinds of
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: local issues that make up a big part of these races.
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: But there was also this democracy element. And Pamela Gantz
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: welcomed support from the Democratic Party. We were proud to
• 42:46
  Speaker 6: work with her on mail and organizing. And she crushed.
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: She won by a double-digit percentage margin. And Kelly Rue
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: lost in that election.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: So that was great.
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: At the same time, in Green Bay, in the city
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: council race, the right has been on fire attacking the
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: mayor and the city council over their giant heap of
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: lies about whether the 2020 election was free and fair.
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: And they have this constant flood of stuff. The Dick Uline,
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: the Stop the Steal funder, right-wing billionaire actually had TV
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: ads on and cable TV in Green Bay attacking the
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: city council. And a group of pro-big lie candidates defeated
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: some non-big lie candidates. Now, it was a more complicated picture.
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: And you know, a lot of voters were sick of
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: partisanship in general. Some of the incumbents took a no
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: partisan pledge. So we actually couldn't, we couldn't, you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: we couldn't make in kind and direct contributions to support them.
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: Some of the no, some of the nonpartisan folks lost
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: and some of them won. Some of the folks who
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: worked at the Democratic Party lost and some of them won. And,
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: you know, not every Republican won in those races, but
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: it's now essentially six Republicans, two kind of moderate Republican
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: independents and four more progressive candidates who It's pretty split.
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: And the key, key, key thing now in Green Bay
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: is the mayor, Eric Genrich, who is great, who believes
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: in democracy, who's up in 2023, again, before 2024. And
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: so my lesson from that is we need to stay
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: in the fight on this thing. And the fact that
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: Republicans have been incessantly messaging and hammering, we can't let
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: it go unanswered. We have to be able to keep
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: communicating about the fact that this election is real and
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: people are trying to steal our democracy from Why? In
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: order to give themselves power and then rip people off
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: regardless of their politics or their race or where they live.
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: Republicans are trying to lock in control so that they
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: can keep shoveling money to people like Ron Johnson and
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: his billionaire backers. And that's a message I think that
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: can be really powerful in November in 2023 and in 2024.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: We're obviously looking at a lot of political headwinds for
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Democrats this year, inflation, just sort of the historical snapback
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: after presidential elections. The so much of what's going to
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: be what's going to happen in the midterms is going
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: to happen in Wisconsin as the party chair. How are
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: what strategies you're putting place either organizing or messaging or
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: whatever else to try to counteract those headwinds to ensure
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: that we can defeat Ron Johnson? We can reelect Governor
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Tony Evers and win all the other races you talked
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: about here.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: The.
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: The stakes are enormous, and the environment is tough. So
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: Wisconsin was a tipping point election in 2020 and 2016.
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: It's the only state where four of the last six
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: presidential elections came down to less than one percentage point.
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: And those enormous stakes weigh on people pretty intensely. And
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: what they tell us is that we have to do
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: everything all the time, year-round, statewide. We have to do
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: persuasion and turnout. We have to experiment with new tactics
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: and do stuff that's proven. We have to communicate at
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: every available time. channel and medium and language. We operate
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: now in English and Spanish and in Hmong. We have
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: about 50,000 person Hmong population in the state of Wisconsin.
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: But I think the central pieces to the strategy are,
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: first of all, find every Democratic voter and make absolutely
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: sure that they vote. And part of that is making
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: sure people who voted by mail in 2020 get absentee
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: ballots now and vote before election day so that we
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: can focus our volunteers and our energy on the people
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: who have not yet voted. If you have half your
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: votes cast before election day, it's like you double your
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: field organization on election day because you're chasing half the
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: number of people. So absolutely blow the roof off in
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: terms of organizing for turnout, but then simultaneously make sure
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: people know how absolutely awful and radical people like Rebecca
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: Clayfish are, how extreme and out of step with Wisconsin
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: voters and people like Ron Johnson. And then thirdly, define
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: organizations are, well, accurately communicate. People like Governor Tony Evers
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: get it, they're on people's side, and they can actually
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: deliver the goods. And Evers is like the most non-political
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: human being you'll ever meet. He's literally like the science
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: teacher that you love and trust from high school or
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: middle school, if you're lucky enough to have that person.
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: And he has actually helped their schools, paved enough roads
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: to drive to Denver and back from Wisconsin to And
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: gotten Wisconsin's unemployment rate down to a historic low by
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: investing a billion dollars in small businesses in rural and
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: urban Wisconsin alike. He has a really clear record that
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: reflects his values, which reflects the fact that he gets
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: what people are going through. And the Republicans running in
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: this election are profoundly radical. If you go back to
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: 2010 and you look at the races where Democrats won,
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: that was a Republican wave year. It was really tough.
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: And Wisconsin, that's when Scott Walker and Ron Johnson swept in.
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: But look next door to Minnesota. The Democratic governor, Mark Dayton,
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: won by under 10,000 votes, but he won. And Harry
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: Reid won in the Senate race in Nevada against Sharon Engel,
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: an extreme radical. They made those elections about the specific
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: people involved, a choice between the actual Democrat and the Republican.
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: They made it not just like a competition of what
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: the national talking points were, but about the actual humans,
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: a choice between these people. Who's on your side? Who
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: gets it? what are the local issues that you can
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: deliver on? And we're going to localize this race, building
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: on the extraordinary things President Biden has delivered and enabled
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: us to do in Wisconsin, but we're going to make
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: sure that people actually understand who these people are, what
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: they stand for, and whose side they're on, and then
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: turn out every voter we can find. That's the kind
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: of core of the recipe for us. And we've seen
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: it work even in really tough environments, and we just
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: saw it work in cities all across Wisconsin in these
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: local elections. So it is full steam ahead and impossibly
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: high stakes. And I feel really good about the energy
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: driving our side.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: So Ben, for our listeners out there who want to
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: help you put in place that strategy, how can they
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: do that?
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: Delighted by that question.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you let me get to the last
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: question before the call to action. I thought you were
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: just going to do it on your own. So I'm pleased.
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: I'm smiling ear to ear for people not watching on
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: video right now. So You can go to wisdems.org, that's
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: W-I-S-D-E-M-S dot org slash volunteer and sign up and we
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: will put you to work. If you're in Wisconsin, you'll
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: knock on doors. If you're anywhere else, we want you
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: to call people's phones. There's so much to do. There
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: are hundreds of thousands of people who have their IDs
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: on file to get an absentee ballot who did not
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: vote in 2018, who voted for Biden. by mail in 2020.
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: Let's call all those people until they get their absentee
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: ballots now. So there's a ton to do on the
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: volunteering side. And then become a monthly donor, which is
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: my favorite kind of donor in the universe. If you
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: go to wisstems.org slash donate and click make it monthly,
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: that allows us to budget all the way through election day.
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: And literally the biggest budgetary decision I'm going to make
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: is whether to move organizing hires earlier in the year.
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: If you start earlier, you can build neighborhood teams that
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: become self-running organizing operations in communities around the state. If
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: you hire someone in August or September, it's too late
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: to build teams. You can't do that kind of work.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: So my goal is to know that we'll have the
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: funding to keep people on staff and expand the team
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: as much as we can, as early as we can,
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: And you listening right now with your power to give
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: a monthly donation can make that possible. So we want
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: your time and your treasure. Donate and volunteer. And we
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: want your talent when you're doing either of those things.
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: And with all that, we're going to blow the historic
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: midterm trends out of the water and demonstrate what's possible.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Ben McClure, always great to talk to you. You always
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: make us feel a little bit better, a little bit
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: more inspired. And so everyone, go to wisdems.org and help
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Ben win Wisconsin. Thank you.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Dan.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: All right, before we go, the hottest new trend among
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Trump Republicans right now is calling.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: People they don't like pedophiles.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: The latest craze started when Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee,
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, spent much of Katonji
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing accusing her of going soft on
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: pedophiles despite her objectively mainstream sentencing record. Then Marjorie Taylor
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Greene got in on the act after learning that Susan Collins,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney would support Judge Jackson's nomination.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: She tweeted that the three Republicans are, quote, pro-pedophile. Then
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: she went on television and said this.
• 51:19
  Speaker 8: The Democrats are the party of pedophiles. The Democrats are
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: the party of princess predators from Disney. The Democrats are
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: the party of teachers, elementary school teachers, trying to transition
• 51:32
  Speaker 8: their elementary school-aged children and convince them they're a different gender.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: So this isn't just Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican pundits like
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Molly Hemingway, Benny Johnson, Candace Owens have all started calling
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: everyone they don't like pro-pedophile. What's going on here, Dan?
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Are they just trying to lock up the QAnon vote?
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like they already have it.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, they have the QAnon vote.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Are they worried they're not going to show up at
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the polls, the QAnon folks, vote for Republicans?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: The issue here is that these are the worst fucking
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: people in the world. They are gigantic, historic assholes in
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: desperate need for attention, for attention. relevance, for profit, for
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: political power. And this is what is alarming about this
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: is this is the incentives of the attention economy, of
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: the outrage algorithms. It's the world Mark Zuckerberg built, which
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: is the best way to get people to talk about you,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: to get your tweets to go viral, your Facebook posts
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: to go viral, is to say something so out of
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: the mainstream, so outrageous that people react to it. And
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: what happens is someone says something, And then gets attention.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: And then everyone else says that. So now he gets
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: less attention. And there are diminishing returns for that level
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: of outrage. And so you've got to be more outrageous.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: And so by this time next week, you're not going
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: to get the attention you want from calling someone a pedophile.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: So you're going to be something more extreme than that.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: And that is what is going on here. I mean,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: this is the inexorable path of conservative politics in the
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: age of social media.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: And of course, as many have now pointed out, There
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: was a Republican lawmaker in Tennessee, a state legislator, who
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: recently said to introduce a bill that it's an anti-gay
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: marriage bill here in 2022. And he basically wanted to
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: create an institution for people to get married who didn't
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: want their marriage to be like the same as marriages
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: between gay people. I don't know how that works, but
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: that was his fucking bigoted bill that he introduced. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: in the bill, he did not include an age limit
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: on when you can get married. And Democratic legislators in
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Tennessee brought that up and say, well, where's the age
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: limit in the bill? And he said, oh, it's just assumed. Well,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: then why isn't there a specific age limit in the
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: bill about granting people the right to get married?
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Didn't know.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Now, Marsha Blackburn, who questioned Katonji Brown Jackson about her
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: sentencing record, didn't bring this up, even though that's the
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: state that she represents during the hearings. And then after
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: a big fuss over this, finally, someone got someone got
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: them to put an age limit in this in this bill.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: But like the idea that Republicans are going around, some
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: Republicans are going around accusing people of being pro pedophile
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: or soft on on on on child abuse. Particularly, and
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: it's not just Democrats they're going after, now they're going
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: after their own.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins, Mitt Romney for voting for Katonji Brown-Jackson. It
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: is absurd. It is absurd.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: You know who they're not going after? Matt Gaetz, who
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: is reportedly under criminal investigation for sexual misconduct with a minor.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Remember Roy Moore?
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who many of them supported and campaigned for? Ginny
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Thomas's favorite Senate candidate?
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Remember Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert?
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Mark Foley?
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: How many? I mean, it's, you know.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: Now, how seriously do you think we should take this?
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: Because I do think, you know, accusing people of being
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: soft on child abuse, of being pro-pedophile is, you know,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: it didn't just happen recently. It is a tried and
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: true tactic among the extreme right here in this country
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: and autocrats, right-wing autocrats in other countries. Orban did this
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: in Hungary. Putin has done this in Russia. There's a
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: long history of some right-wing extremists accusing their opponents and
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: autocrats accusing their opponents of being soft on child abuse.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: This has a history, and part of it is dehumanizing
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: your opponent because you try to say the worst thing
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: you could possibly say about them, which is that they
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: abuse children.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I do not believe that a quote-unquote persuadable voter will
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: hear Marjorie Taylor Greene or other people say that Democrats
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: are the party of pedophiles and find that believable. I
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: don't think there's probably a single person who is an
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: available voter to Democrats to believe that. But the danger
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: here is not political.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: It's actual.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Because what you were doing, and this is why so
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: many of the people that you list have done this
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: in history, you're right, is to dehumanize people. It is
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: to spark violence and retribution against them. And this is
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: not liberal panic. It's not trying to make this into
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: more than it is. We know that this can happen
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: because of what happened due to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: which was the conspiracy theory that's at the core of QAnon,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: that there was a DC pizzeria where there was a
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: basement that Democrats and Hollywood elites and others, including the Clintons,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: were using for child sex trafficking. Now, that is obviously
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: not true. The pizzeria doesn't even have a basement. But
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: someone who believed it showed up at the pizzeria with
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: an assault rifle. And fortunately, no one got hurt. But
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: that can and will happen again. Someone is going to
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: get hurt because of this. It could be a teacher.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: It could be someone just walking down the street. And
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: it's because of this dehumanizing language. It is deeply, deeply dangerous.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: And there is no one in the Republican Party with
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: the political credibility or the moral authority to stand up
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and say, stop.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: Haven't heard from Kevin McCarthy on this one. Kevin McCarthy,
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: very upset when Madison Cawthorn said that maybe Kevin McCarthy
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: and other Republicans were attending Koch orgies.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Very upset about that.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Didn't hear him say anything about Marjorie Taylor Greene saying
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: that Democrats are the pro-pedophile party or didn't even come
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: to the defense of his fellow Republicans in the Senate
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: who she accused of being pro-pedophile. So that's what you're
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: getting from Republican leadership. But yeah, no, it is dangerous
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: and that It is an attempt to potentially justify political
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: violence because your opponents are sexually abused children. That's what
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: they're trying to do. And it's pretty, pretty gross. Anyway,
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: that's that.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Republicans are bad.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just in conclusion, Republicans are bad. Thank you so
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: much to Ben Wickler, who was good. who did some
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: great work in Wisconsin this week, for joining the pod.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: That's a happy note that everyone should think about and
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: get people to work really hard ahead of the midterms
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: because they had a number of big wins in Wisconsin
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: this week. So, you know, and again, Katonji Brown-Jackson is
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: the next Supreme Court Justice. So we end on a
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: high note.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Yep, and thank you, Donald Trump, for saying more crazy shit.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Of course, as always, as always. Have a good weekend, everyone.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you next week.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montooth. Our
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.