Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s Grift-mas Miracle.”

Transcript

“Trump’s Grift-mas Miracle.” · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Democrats look to finish 2022 on a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: high note while Republicans look like a train wreck. New
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: poll show run, DeSantis beating three-time loser Donald Trump as
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Florida's governor tries to out-crazy the state's craziest resident. But
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that was before the MAGA King's major announcement today. Aren't
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: we lucky? We are very lucky today because we have
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Dan in studio and we get to talk about Trump's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: major announcement.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: As soon as Trump truthed that he had a major announcement,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I got on the first flight down here. I had
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to be here for this.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that in a little bit. And
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: then New York Times reporter Mike Isaac joins to talk
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: about the QAnon cult's new love affair with Twitter's new owner. First,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: quick update on our holiday schedule. You'll be able to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: hear our annual holiday mailbag episode next Tuesday, December 20th.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Our What a Year special on Thursday the 22nd. Then
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we're off for a week. And then we'll be back
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: on our regular schedule starting on Tuesday, January 3rd. Over
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the break, you should also check out Crooked's newest podcast,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Work Appropriate, where author and host Anne Helen Peterson brings
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: on experts to help find answers to all of your
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: workplace questions. New episodes drop every Wednesday. And finally, we
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: want to thank you again for all the ways you volunteered, donated,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: text banked, emailed, and knocked on doors for the midterms.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Our friends at Vote Save America have compiled it all
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in one place at votesaveamerica.com slash 2022. Go take a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: look at your impact and enjoy a well-deserved victory lap
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: during your holiday break. All right, let's get to the news.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: After a historically good midterm election, Democrats are feeling hopeful.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Inflation is down. Gas prices are down. The economy's growing.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: President Biden's judges are being confirmed at a record pace.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He signed a law protecting gay and interracial marriage this week.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And both parties have struck a deal on a budget
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: framework that that would fund the government for a full
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: year and reform the Electoral Count Act to help prevent
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a future coup. So is it time to pop the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: champagne yet or what?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: You know me, always. Class of champagne, half full.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I suppose the budget deal could still fall apart over
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the next week. Sure. Because they agreed on a framework,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: which is not an actual budget. But at the very least,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: it seems like Democrats... And a good number of Senate Republicans,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: including Mitch McConnell, want to get something done while Nancy
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Pelosi is still Speaker of the House. Why is that?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Well, before we get to that, I would like to
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: note that I do think all the things you said
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: are great and that this could have been much, much
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: worse than it was. But I am concerned that we
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: have to pass a law protecting interracial marriage here in 2022.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: It's not a great statement about the state of affairs
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in this country.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you got Clarence Thomas on the Supreme
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Court just writing an opinion in Dobbs that maybe interracial marriage,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: maybe gay marriage, maybe contraception is next. But anyway.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Let's get back to the budget deal.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And we should also say there's a few other
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: things that fell out that would have been important to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: include in sort of this lame duck session. There was
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: some hope that the child care tax credit would get extended.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Who had that hope? I don't know.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: People who erased Joe Manchin from existence.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: There's also the hope that there would be a deal
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that our independent friend Kirsten Sinema and Tom Tillis were
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: working out on Dreamers, on protecting the Dreamers. There's going
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to be an immigration deal. That just fell out. So
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: there's a few things that fell out of this package
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: at the end of the year that sort of it
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: sucks that they fell out. But hopefully we fund the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: government for a year. And the Electoral Count Reform Act
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: would be a big deal if we get that done
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be superb.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But why are they working so feverishly to get this
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: done before Mitch McConnell's Republican colleague, Kevin McCarthy, or some
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: other Republican colleague takes over the House?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Because if there is one thing that Democrats and Republicans
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: on Capitol Hill can agree on, it is that Kevin
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: McCarthy is an incompetent loser. And so think about this.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: These Republicans are voting for this deal. believe in Republican principles.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: They would like a more Republican-friendly budget deal. You know,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: better for corporations, less good for people who need help,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: or whatever makes up conservative ideology in the back era.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: And they would certainly have a better chance of doing
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: that with Republican control of the House. But they think
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is so dangerously dumb and so weak, or
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: whoever replaces him, so dangerously dumb and so weak, That
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: they probably can't get a real deal done and the
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: government would likely shut down. So they they are basically
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: taking this decision away from the House Republicans because they
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: think they are not up to doing it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And it's not just how they feel about Kevin McCarthy.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: They think that the whole that most of the Republican
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: caucus in the House is a bunch of lunatics.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But they would be correct.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Right. And I think there are a number of lunatics
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in the Senate Republican caucus as well. are going to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: try to oppose this deal. But I think that McConnell
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: probably believes he can get this thing done, that he
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: has enough votes to get this thing done.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he only needs 10.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Right. He only needs 10. So that's where we are.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And Kevin McCarthy, by the way, is like telling House
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans to be against whatever deal comes out of this,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: whatever deal they end up with. And so they're not
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: going to get any Republican votes in the House. But
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy privately is probably hoping that the deal gets done,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because even he knows he's weak and incompetent.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, I think he would like, he is going
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: to vote no, scream about it. He told the Republican
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: caucus he is a, quote, hell no on the vote.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: But he would- He doesn't want this on his plate.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He would much prefer not to have to deal with this.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So McCarthy also still doesn't have the votes to be speaker,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: even after the New York Times reports that Donald Trump
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: himself- has been calling House Republicans on behalf of his Kevin. Meanwhile,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the five core members of the Never Kevin Caucus told
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Axios they intend to vote as a group. So if
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: they vote no, we got ourselves a fucked Kevin. That's
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: what we got. How do you think McCarthy gets the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Never Kevin votes? Also, by the way, there's now the,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I guess you want to call them moderates, whatever you
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: call them, the people who back Kevin McCarthy. They have
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: started to oppose the never Kevin caucus. They have started
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: an only Kevin caucus with little buttons that just say, okay.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Which is more enthusiasm than anyone has ever had for
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: How funny is that? It's like the most fervent backers
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of Kevin McCarthy, all they can muster is a little
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: button that says, okay.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Like, was Kevin forever so hard?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: All right, so how does McCarthy get this done? What
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: happens if he doesn't?
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: The... Republican, the conservatives, the anti McCarthy, the never Kevins,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I guess, the non okays, the not okays. They have
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: made a list of demands of Kevin McCarthy, which are
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: some of which he can easily do, like various investigations.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: 72 hours between when a bill was released and voted
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: upon some things like that. But there was one specific
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: demand they want, which is they have the ability to
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: have something called a motion to vacate the chair, which
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: means that at any time, at any moment, a member
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: of Congress can make a motion to basically have another
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: vote on the speaker and to oust them. And that
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: is eventually how John Boehner got pushed out of Congress
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: because Mark Meadows, who would go on to move to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the White House to commit many crimes, all of which
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: will be recorded in text to various people. The iMessage bandit,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I guess. He made that motion about Boehner. And so
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: that went away. So that does not currently exist. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: McCarthy has refused to do it. He has gotten a
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: group of 50 or so moderate house members to stop that.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: McCarthy is going to get this by giving them almost
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: everything they want, including maybe eventually the motion to vacate
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: the chair because he has no other option. He benefits
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: from the fact, as we sit here today, is that
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: there is no other person who seems to want the
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: job who could get more than 30 votes. And the
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: thing that probably scares McCarthy the most is that at
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: some point they will go to Steve Scalise.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Well, and Punchbowl went to Steve Scalise and asked if
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: he'd heard from members who would like him to become
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: speaker instead of McCarthy. And all Scalise said in response
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to that was, I've had a lot of meetings with
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: members and we're all talking about the agenda that we
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: care about together. Like he just he's he's leaving it open.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: This is how Paul Ryan became speaker, because McCarthy was
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the heir apparent when Boehner was forced out by Meadows.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And he then had to drop out for a whole
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: host of reasons. But one of them was he as
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: a as part of his bid to show that he
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: should be speaker. He claimed that the Benghazi hearings were
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: effective because they hurt Hillary Clinton. politically and which seemed
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: to be saying the quiet part out loud yeah in
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: this day and age that would probably be completely.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Appropriate even hearing that from you, even though I lived
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: through that, I was like, so quaint.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but 2015 was a different era. And he got
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: drummed out and they went to Paul Ryan. And so
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the fear here is that Steve Scalise could pinch. It's
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: just like laying in wait for when McCarthy either can't
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: get the votes before the vote or fails on the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: first vote, which he is currently on a trajectory to do.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: There's also some reporting, I think, in Playbook around what
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: McCarthy might be able to give the Never Kevins as
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a compromise on the motion to vacate. Because right now,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what they want is any member can hold a vote.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: They think that maybe he offers them a deal like, okay,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: 30 to 40% of the caucus has to put forward
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a motion to vacate for it to actually happen. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: maybe he could live with that. House Republicans also plan
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: on reinstating a rule that allows Congress to zero out
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the salaries of individual government officials. Now, the House can
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: go ahead and do this. It won't pass the Senate
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: since Democrats have control and Joe Biden has a veto pen.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: But I think it just goes to show when we
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: look forward to the debt limit fight, it's not just
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that Republicans could hold the economy hostage for spending cuts,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: for getting rid of Social Security, for getting rid of Medicare,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: whatever they want to do. They could also try to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: play games around, all right, you have special counsel, Jack Smith,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: who's investigating Donald Trump. We're going to zero out his salary.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And if you don't do that, then we'll blow up
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the global economy with the debt ceiling. There's a whole
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: bunch of shit they can do here. That's very, very dangerous.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Bring us Hunter Biden.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, basically McCarthy is going to have to commit
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: to a bunch of performative nonsense that has dramatic implications
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: because of the debt ceiling is this one point of
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: leverage that this otherwise powerless body has.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I do think we're in for, I mean, we'll
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: see what happens with this vote and if McCarthy can get,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you know, strike some deals before the vote. But like,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you go one round and he doesn't win.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Then you go a second round and he still doesn't win.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: At some point, you really could see them say, okay, well,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the compromise is Scalise.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: No, for sure.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I have to say I'm legitimately looking forward to podcasting
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: about this in January.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Me too.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: It is high on my list of things.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And I genuinely don't know what's going to happen. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: could see McCarthy striking some deal because none of these
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: people have principles, so they're all willing to strike deals.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I could see that happening, or I could see it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: becoming total chaos. So Trump might be the only person
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: in politics having a worse end of the year than
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: his Kevin.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Until today.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Until today. Well, so two new polls this week have
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: him losing a head-to-head matchup with DeSantis by double digits.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And he now has the lowest favorability rating among voters
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: since he first announced for president in 2015. But of course,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: these polls were all conducted before what Trump billed as
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a major announcement that broke just before we started recording.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: Hello, everyone.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: This is Donald Trump. Hopefully your favorite president of all time.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Better than Lincoln.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: Better than Washington. with an important announcement to make. I'm
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: here and right now. They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: prizes like dinner with me. I don't know if that's
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: an amazing prize, but it's what we have. Or golf
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: with you and a group of your friends at one
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: of my beautiful golf courses, and they are beautiful. I'm
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: also doing Zoom calls, a one-on-one meeting, Autographing memorabilia and
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: so much more.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: We're doing a lot.
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: My official Trump digital trading cards are $ 99, which doesn't
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: sound like very much for what you're getting.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So as one Twitter follower said, it's the grift that
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: keeps on grifting.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: It's important to note, this is not a fundraising tactic
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: for his campaign. These are not NFTs to memorabilia, a
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: chance to win dinner with Trump if you give $ 5
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: or $ 10 or $ 100 to come in. This is money
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: going into his own pocket.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's stunning from a guy
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: who it's like, it's hard for him to surprise us.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I was surprised.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Like, I didn't think, I was not under the illusion
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that the major announcement would be all that major because
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the man just like will do anything to get attention.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: But just the, the, The naked transparency of the grift.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: There's like nothing. He's not dressing it up with anything else.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: It's just like, give me money for nothing.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I think you're going to hear from a lot of
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: crypto bots for that. It is at Jon Favs. There
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: is an entire industry of which Trump has participated in
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: of Trump memorabilia. If you ever watch Fox News, I
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: don't recommend it. There are these commemorative Trump gold coins
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: that exist. If you can buy this, these Trump watercolors
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: of him, like crossing the Delaware or whatever else.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: But I would, as I would like stocking stuffers, people,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: You still have a couple of weeks, but to get
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: these Trump digital trading cards, you need, according to the
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: fine print of this, a functioning crypto wallet.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: What do you think the overlap is of people with
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: functioning crypto wallets?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Well, Those that Venn diagram, those two circles never meet.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was also possibly a money laundering scheme
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: for people who want to give Trump money to do
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: it in a way in which no one will ever
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: know they did it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's possible. I mean, so obviously Trump's pivot
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: from dining with Nazis to hawking NFTs is impeccably timed.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: If you look at the crypto market and.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: You got to get in while the thing's going up,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: that's Trump buys the dip. The dip buys the dip.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Impeccably timed, a typically shrewd gambit to change the narrative
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and command the spotlight, but will it work? Will it work?
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just... So Joe Biden.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Did we just rename this podcast The Situation Room?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I have to hand it to the White House. They
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: immediately tweeted a tweet from President Biden that said, I've
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: had some major announcements too. Lower inflation, lower gas prices,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Britney Greiner comes home, gay marriage. It was very good.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: It's good.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: It's very good.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Well done. They made fun of the major announcement thing.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And lest you think that we're all laughing about this,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: us libs, we're all having a good time. And really,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: this is a move that's going to excite the base,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's base, the MAGA diehards. Here's how it's landing.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Here's how the major announcement is landing with the Trump
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: fans over at Newsmax. All right.
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: Breaking news right now. Here is that announcement, the major
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: announcement by the 45th president of the United States.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: He says this.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: My official Donald Trump digital trading card collection is here.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: These limited edition cards featuring art of my life and career.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: You can collect all your favorite Trump digital cards very
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: much like a baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: He says, don't wait.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I believe they'll go quickly.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: So that is his major announcement. Many thought it would
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: be political. Many thought it would be about maybe creating
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: a new party. I mean, there was so much speculation
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: on this. But it's not that.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: It's a digital trading card.
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: It's ninety nine bucks.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: And he said it would make a great Christmas gift.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: So there's a bunch of interesting timing for that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There you go. That's that. There's the announcement.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: But it's not that. It's a digital trading card.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Interesting timing on that one.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: There were a number of tweets from MAGA diehards surfaced
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: over the last several hours of some of Trump's biggest
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: fans just showing real disappointment in this announcement. Is it
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: possible this could do him some actual damage among his
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: MAGA media fan base? Maybe. Maybe.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know that we will look back and be like,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: this is the moment it all fell apart for Trump.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: But he is at, as you did in the run-up
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: to this, he is at his weakest point in a
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: long time. He's had a miserable several weeks. His numbers
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: are dropping. His primary opponent's numbers are surging. And his
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: response is a patently ridiculous grift. And that does matter.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: It says something about the state of his campaign, the
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: state of his strategy. racist questions about how much his
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: corroded black heart is in this, right?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It's idiotic.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It is absolutely idiotic. And when you are beating everyone
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: in the polls and you are the incumbent president with
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: a dedicated base, you can get away with a lot
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of idiocy. When you are in the position he's in
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: right now, that idiocy can hurt you.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I think the vast majority of Trump voters may not
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: ever even hear about this. But he's in a primary now.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: And the most committed pundits, activists, MAGA world people, they're
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: going to pay attention. And not too many of them
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: are going to be happy about this. Like, I think
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Trump's appeal has always been that his enemies are your enemies.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: And he's a con man who can make a rigged
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: system work for you. That's the appeal. But now he's
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: openly pitching himself as a con man who just wants
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to make money for himself and avenge his last defeat.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And that's it. And I don't know that a lot
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of his fans are going to want to go along
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: for that ride because selfishly there's nothing in it for them.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: People are making comparisons about oh, well, everyone was laughing
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: at him in 2015 and early in that. And yes,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that was true. But then he was out there talking
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: about saying horrible things about immigrants, stuff like that. Like
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: he was at least aligning himself with the feelings of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the MAGA base at that point, or at least some
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: segment of the population who loved hearing his xenophobic racist tirade. Right.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And now like What's in it for any voter with
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump? He's just going to make money?
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: His 2016 appeal, and I use appeal in the broadest
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: sense of that word, was that he was a giant asshole,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: but he was going to be a giant asshole on
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: your behalf. Now he's just a giant asshole.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Who's all about himself and about no one else. Let's
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: talk about Florida's other biggest asshole, Ron DeSantis. He is
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of Trump's weakness by trying to out-MAGA the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: MAGA king. On Tuesday, DeSantis called for a state grand
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: jury to investigate, quote, crimes and wrongdoing related to the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: COVID-19 vaccines. Even though DeSantis has gotten the vaccine himself
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and called them lifesaving, he's now insinuating, contrary to all
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: scientific evidence, that they may be ineffective and dangerous. Before
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we get into the politics of why he's doing this,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: can we talk about why this is just nuts from
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a public health perspective?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Because vaccines save lives?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: There's no scientific basis to do what he is saying.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: He's making two absolutely incorrect and deeply dangerous points. One
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: is he is taking out of context, unproven allegations that
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: individual people suffered from getting the vaccine. We don't know
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: any evidence of that. We obviously know that well over
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: 100 million people have gotten vaccinated and... you don't hear
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: these reports. It's cherry picking anecdotes is part one. Part
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: two is to say that because the vaccine does not
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: give you 100% protection about getting from getting infection, it
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: serves no purpose. And so if the vaccine could possibly
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: cause these adverse reactions to you and serves no purpose,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't get it. What everyone knows is that it
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: may not 100% keep you from getting the virus, but
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: it does make it much less likely you get it,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: and it makes it extremely less likely that you could
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: possibly get very sick and die. They are lifesavers. And
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: this is bigger than COVID, because what he is trying
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: to do here is he is riding a surge in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: broad anti-vax sentiment in this country, propelled by COVID, propelled
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: by the anti-vax grifters who use the pandemic to do that,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that is affecting everything. You are seeing in some localities
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: MAGA extremist Republicans trying to undo the Vaccine mandates for
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: things like measles and mumps and rubella, smallpox, polio. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: when that happens, it means that these diseases could come back.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: It also puts at risk immunocompromised children and others who
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: may not be able to get the vaccines.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It's an incredibly dangerous thing to do. He is insinuated
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: many times now that public health officials lied about vaccines
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: reducing the transmission of COVID, like you said. And when
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: they said that vaccines would reduce the transmission of COVID,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: it was before Omicron, which is much more immune evasive
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: than the other strains of COVID-19. And so, yes, the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: vaccines actually still do reduce transmission, but not by nearly
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: as much as they did with the original strain. That's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: not the fault of public health officials. That's the fact
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that the virus evolved. And like you said, if you
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: get the vaccine, most people are still going to be
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: kept out of the hospital and alive. That's a fact.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: It's also a fact that your chance of an adverse
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: reaction from the vaccine is not zero, but it's pretty
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: close to zero. It's like 0.0001%. That is the range
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: we're talking about here. Meanwhile, over 3 million lives in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: America alone have been saved by the vaccine. So the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: risk of an adverse effect, minuscule. And the good that
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the vaccines do by keeping you out of the hospital
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and saving lives has been well documented, not only in
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: this country, but all over the world. It's fucking nuts
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that he's doing this.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, no one is great at probabilities and math,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: but getting the vaccine is exponentially safer than 99.9% of
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: the things you do every single day in your life.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: If you think that is dangerous, don't drive a car.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Don't walk on the street.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: It's... So a Trump advisor told Politico, this is a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: shot across the bow. We know exactly what Ron is
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: up to. What is he up to? And how is
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it a shot at Trump?
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: To understand this, you have to go back to two
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: moments in 2021. Both at a rally in Mississippi and
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: at an event with Bill O'Reilly in Dallas, Texas.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Wow, you're really taking us on a journey.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Just bear with me. It will bear fruit. Donald Trump
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: told the crowd that he got his booster. And in
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: both those instances, the entirely pro-Trump crowd booed Donald Trump.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: And Donald Trump's, it says so much about the modern
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Republican Party, about the MAGA base, that the only positive
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: thing you could possibly say about Donald Trump's handling of
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the pandemic is the vaccines were developed on his watch. Now,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I am not saying he had anything to do with that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I don't think he was in the laboratory. I don't
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: think he was meeting with the scientists. But he did
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: not fuck it up.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: He was a real micromanager when it came to Operation
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Warp Speed.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And so he should be... This would be one of the...
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have a lot of accomplishments, so this should
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: be one of them. But the fact that the one
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: thing he did right is his one major weakness with
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: his base. And so this is a way in which
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis is trying to get to Trump's right on something.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Just the most cynical tactic imaginable.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Like, as.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Last over at The Bulwark, he wrote a piece
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: on this today, and he pointed out that none of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: this is going anywhere. DeSantis saying, I'm going to convene
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a grand jury, they're not going to find anything. But
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: this is sort of part and parcel with all of
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: DeSantis' strategies and dumb little stunts that he's done. The
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: courts blocked his Stop Woke Act for schools, which everyone
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: knew was crazy and the courts were going to block it.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: They blocked his Disney punishment. Remember, he's going to take
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: away their tax breaks. They blocked his fake voter fraud arrests.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But DeSantis is fine with all that because the whole
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: point of this, as Lass says, it's the governing version
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of shitposting. All he wants is the headlines, and he's
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: pretty sure it's not actually going to work. Maybe it will.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll get lucky. He'll find some right-wing judge that
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: goes with it. But all he wants is the headlines.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: He just wants, like the appeal that Trump once had,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: for his enemies to be your enemies, and he's going
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to show you that he fights those enemies, and he's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: going to get those headlines. And the question is, does
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: this work for him? And does getting to Trump's right
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: on vaccines work? My view on this is, if the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: primary was being run in 2021, maybe. But, like, next year,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about COVID response and Donald
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's COVID response back in 2020 and vaccines.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it is too.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Diabolical by half.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: If these vaccines were so dangerous, why did Ron DeSantis
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: get them? If these vaccines were dangerous, why did Ron
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: DeSantis' government distribute them to people all across the state
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of Florida?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He's going to claim that like, oh, he was just,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: he was fooled. He was lied to. That's not going
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to work really well either.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's not, they've not thought through The second separate. Now,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it is effective in the governmental shitposting view in the
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: sense that we are talking about it today. And that
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: was the ultimate goal.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: We talked about the migrant stunt. We talked about this.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: He's very good at getting attention. He may even be
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: better at it in some ways than Trump.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Certainly more disciplined right now. Yeah, it is.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Well, let's see. We're going to be off for a
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks. Do you think he's going to release
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: an NFT collection?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: It is so... I did not expect it. I would
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: have never guessed it, but it is perfect.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: What do you think the chances are that there is
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: going to be a winner who gets to dine with Trump?
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: He's not going to dine with anyone.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I think he famously did several meals with Trump.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: He gave them away during the campaign and met with
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: none of those people. I think I remember that happening.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Look, his dance card is filled with Nazis. Yeah. He
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: does not have time to eat with anyone else.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: He should have said that Nick Fuentes was a random drawing.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Had to do it. Paid his 99 bucks.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, sweepstakes rules are sweepstakes rules.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: As we end 2022, how are you feeling about Don
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: versus Ron? How serious is the threat posed by DeSantis,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I think as we sit here today, it is very
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: clear that there is an opportunity for a right-wing extremist
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: candidate who is not Donald Trump to win this primary.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I do not think we know that that person is
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis. As far as I can tell, no one
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: outside the state of Florida has heard him speak publicly
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: in months. Could you even tell me what Ron DeSantis'
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: voice sounds like?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He just goes out, does a press conference, bitches
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: at reporters, yells at them about something, and then just
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: goes back in and whatever.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: He is an idea. He is a avatar for a smarter,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: just as mean Trump.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Without the baggage.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: And whether he really can pull that off, whether he
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: gets into an actual fight with Trump, can punch back,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: can he communicate with humans on a personal level? There's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of reasons to suspect he can't. So I
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: think we should not think of Ron DeSantis as this
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: overwhelming favorite or this person, but that Ron DeSantis' success
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: says something about where the Republican primary mindset is. And
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that means it's someone other than Trump could I would
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: say Trump is still the favorite for that just because
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: of institutional advantages and name ID and just connection with
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: the base. And he's ahead of everyone else. But he is,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: as you said, weaker than he has ever been.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And I think CNN had a poll today as well
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: that shows like even though there is a substantial percentage
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of Republicans who are open to someone else besides Trump
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and actually don't want Trump to run again. If you
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: then ask them, okay, what if Trump's the nominee? They're
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: all fine.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Or at least the vast majority of them are fine
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and will back him. So, like you said, there's an opening.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And I do think Trump is, I mean, the NFT
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: thing is funny. It's like almost sad. I have never
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: felt such pity. Not feel like in a nice way,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: but like I have never seen him as such a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: pitiful human being than watching that announcement today. That is
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: just fucking awful.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: It's... Yeah, it is.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: He looks more like a loser now than I think
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: he's ever, he's never looked as big of a loser
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: as he looks right now.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like when you see actors who used
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to be a big deal, like doing a infomercial or
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: on QVC or, I mean, there are these testosterone ads
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: like Frank Thomas, the baseball Hall of Famer, doing that
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: every time I see it, like my heart breaks a
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: little bit. And I feel like that's sort of where
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Trump is. He's in this sort of desperate, twilight of
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: your career pitchman face, and he's running for president at
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the same time.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wonderful. All right, before we get to the interview,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: we promised you we would nerd out about the midterms
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: when we got data that's more reliable than exit polls.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I'm sure people are holding us to that promise. Just
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: every day people are tweeting, you promised us the data
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: has been out. Where's the nerding?
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: You know what, Dan? That moment is here. So the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: New York Times' Nate Cohn had a piece this week
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: that explains how Republicans lost the midterms despite winning the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: popular vote by three points. The National House popular vote
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: was 51-48 Republicans. And I think if you take out
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: uncontested races, it's still like two points they won by.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: The GOP also performed better than Donald Trump's 2020 campaign
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in nearly every state. They overperformed in districts with large
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Black and Hispanic populations. And if the midterms were a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: presidential election, House Republicans would have won with 297 electoral votes. So,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Knowing all this, why did Republicans lose the Senate and
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: barely win the House?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Three reasons. One is candidate quality. Republicans nominated really terrible candidates,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: particularly in the Senate, but also in a number of
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: House races that gave Democrats an opportunity they would not
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: otherwise have. These candidates were so bad that there were
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: voters who, under normal circumstances, would have voted for something
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: resembling a generic Republican. But they did not get a
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: generic Republican. They got unfit, corrupt, out of touch with reality,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: dangerous individuals who are obviously dangerous individuals. Second reason is Dobbs.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: The Dobbs decision was a cataclysmic political event that changed
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: everything in this election and possibly for elections to come.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And it made real the extremism of the Republicans. It
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: made it not seem just simply as an affect, something
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: that would affect everyone's lives. The Republicans then doubled down
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: on that hearing by offering in the wake of the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Dobbs ruling, a series of extreme positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: banning books, all of that that was very, very real.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: And they were so extreme, and Dobbs made the extremism
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: argument so real that it trumped the economy. It's why
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that half of voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden picked
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: a Democrat or Republican. In both 2014 and 2018, those
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: voters who somewhat disapproved of the incumbent president voted for
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: the other party by more than two thirds. So that
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: is the gap in the states. And the third reason
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: is this election, primarily the Senate, but also the House,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: took place in one of the most favorable maps that
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Democrats will ever have. It is all six of the
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: states that had the core Senate races, Democrats won five
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: of those six, were in states that Joe Biden won.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: In most cases, won quite narrowly, but we could expand
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: our Senate majority without flipping a single state that Donald
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Trump won. We didn't have to win in North Carolina
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: or Florida. And the House map, because of redistricting, this
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: is a weird thing to say, but it's actually less
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Republican than it has been in a decade. There are
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: actually a majority of seats in the country that Joe
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Biden won. Now, he won many of them quite narrowly,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: and we lost some of those seats. But this was
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: a much better map that sort of served as a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: levy against a red wave and gave us some advantages
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: and had more seats that we could win than we
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: otherwise would have.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I would add one more reason. You talked about candidate
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: quality in terms of Republicans nominating really bad candidates. Democrats
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: also had really good candidates and ran really good campaigns.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And Nate points this out in the piece. If you
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: look at Colorado, for example, Colorado was the one state
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: where Republicans nominated for a Senate candidate, sort of like
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: an anti-Trump Republican who was supposed to be reasonable and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: more moderate. And Michael Bennett still won by a lot
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: more than he probably should have in this environment where
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Republicans win the national House vote by three. And that
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: happened also in a lot of House districts where the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Republican candidate was not a typical MAGA extremist, but just
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: like your standard Republican. I think Democrats ran really smart,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: effective campaigns. They had good candidates. They had good ads,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: good strategies. And like, you know, we spent a lot
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: of time criticizing Democrats for stuff here and there, and
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: especially of like the the online pundit class of Democrats,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: but the people who are running the campaigns, the candidates,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: their campaign managers, their strategists, like they did a good
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: job in a lot of these places, which is why
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Democrats did better in almost all of the battleground districts
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and states where there were fierce campaigns waged than some
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of the districts and states where there weren't as competitive campaigns.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: The Joe O'Day, which I think is the name of
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Bennett's opponent, that was a real thing. There were a
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: lot of people saying that he was going to win
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: or do incredibly well. But at the end of the day,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: if you step back, do you really think you're going
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: to out-reasonable Michael Bennett? America's most reasonable man.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: So what, if any, implications does all this have for
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: 2024 as we look ahead to both the presidential and
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: then the House and Senate races there?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I think we have to, as you just did, celebrate.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: The successes of this race give credit to the Democratic candidates,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the Democratic campaigns, the DCCC, DSCC, the White House, President Biden,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: everyone for pulling off something no one thought was possible.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: The fact that we have 51 Senate votes, the fact
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: that the House majority is so narrow that we have
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: a very good shot at getting it back in 2024
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: is a tremendous success. So we have to do that
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: while also recognizing the fragility of our victory. that as
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: you point out underneath all the success are some signs
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: that are quite worrying and they speak to long-term challenges
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: for the party. And the reason why it's important to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: recognize that fragility is we are so close. Every election
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: is going to be so close. It's gonna be decided
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: on the margins. And I think you were there for this,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: but in 2011, the Obama senior staff did a offsite retreat.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: We were like planning, what the next two years were
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: going to look like. We had a bunch of new
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: people who had joined the senior staff after the midterms,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and people made various presentations about things. And David Plouffe,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: who had run the 2008 campaign and now had just
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: come on board as the president's senior advisor, did a
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: presentation where he took the 2008 electoral map, a massive
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: landslide for Obama. He won everywhere. He won easily. It
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: was such a big thing that the moment they could
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: call the election, they called it. At the 11 o'clock
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: news on the East Coast, Obama was declared president. And
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: he showed, he went through adjusting the numbers within the
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: states Obama won by just a little bit. What happens
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: if youth turnout goes down two points? What happens if
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: black turnout goes down two points? What happens if independents
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: who Obama won by huge margins go back to Republicans
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: by five points or two points? And with just the
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: smallest changes in that election, if that were to happen
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: for 2012, we would have lost. And it just shows
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: that even in races where you feel like you win
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: by a lot, Just a little shift among one demographic
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: group in one part of the state can change everything.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: And so think about this in terms of 2024. Joe
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Biden won a huge popular vote victory, massive one. But
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: he won the Electoral College by 40,000 votes spread across
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: a handful of states. He did, I think, about five
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: points better with. working class white voters than Hillary Clinton
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: did in 2016. That's what got him to that narrow victory.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: What if we lose that by two points?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: What if we just go back? What if we split
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: the difference between 2016 and 2020? We lose Michigan, Pennsylvania,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin in that thing. What if black turnout or support
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: among black voters drops by a point or two, we
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: lose Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and that situation.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: We're in line with, by the way, which is in
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: line with the trend over the last several elections, right?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Same thing with the Latino vote. Like I looked at
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: the Nate Cohn piece and like not only did Republicans
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: overperform in districts with large black and Hispanic populations, the
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: turnout among black and Hispanic populations were down in a
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: lot of those districts. So we have a lower turnout there. Also,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: We have talked a lot about how it's great that
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of independent and Republican-leaning voters, voters who otherwise
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: would vote for Republican candidates, cast their ballots for Democrats
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: this time. Having your coalition rest on a bunch of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Republican-leaning voters who just voted for your party because the
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: other candidate was extreme is not a... That doesn't make
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you feel... That doesn't make you sleep easy at night
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: when you think about future coalitions. There was another piece
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times about the suburbs and said
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the gains that the Democrats made in the suburbs... in
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: 2018 and 2020 weren't completely reversed, but we lost a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: little bit of ground in 2022. Well, that's great, but
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: we can't lose much more ground as we're heading into 2024.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there are a lot of places if you
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: look at the win in 2022 where there are some
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: real flashing lights underneath. And I also think like there
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: needs to be some real research into sort of why
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: working class populations have been of all races, have been
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: sort of slipping away from the party. And I think
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of the explanations tend to be simplistic when
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you read them in punditry. And they're obviously much more
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: complicated than that. And I think we would do ourselves
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: a real favor by digging into that over the next
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can really see a world where that
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: suburban coalition, which is, leans more conservative, more, you know,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: there are people who have previously pre-Trump voted for Republicans
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: their entire lives in that coalition. Without Trump on the ballot,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: if there's a different Trump, even if that person is
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: just as MAGA as Trump, could be problematic. Or the
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: gap between... Another thing worth remembering, there's... I wrote about
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: this in the message box last week, but Third Way
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: had this report about the dangers of a third-party candidacy.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: And the difference between Trump's victory in 2016 and his
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: loss in 2020 is not that he lost support. He
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: actually gained support across the board over that four years.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: The difference was that there was a significant support for
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: third-party candidates in 2016. There were no legitimate third-party candidates
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: in 2020. If there is a third-party candidate that gets
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: even 3% of the vote in a battleground state, it's
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: going to make it much easier for a Republican to
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: win because some of those never-Trump Republicans or people who
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: otherwise were Republicans but don't like Trump have a place
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: to go that is not Joe Biden or not a Democrat.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: And these are the tiny little things. And there are
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Republicans who are right now there's a reason everyone's trying
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: to get Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema run for president.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Cause they make it easier for Donald Trump to win.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: And all these little, we are right. Everything is in
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: American politics in this age is on the razor's edge.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: So celebrate these victories, study the weak spots and figure
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: out how we can make gains for 2024. Cause we're
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: going to have to, if we want to win, in
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: my opinion.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And none of this is to tell people to like,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: everyone should be gloomy and freak out. It's that we
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: should be smart and work hard because like we just
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: faced a incredibly tough environment in these midterms. And again,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Bunch of Democrats ran really smart campaigns. Bunch of people volunteered, donated,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: turned out. And we did way better than anyone expected.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: So it can be done. It's just, you know, take
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: a break, but don't just celebrate for too long.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: As they say, worry about everything. Panic about nothing.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: That is what they say. That is what they say.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: You should NFT that. Sell Dan Pfeiffer message box trading,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: digital trading cards.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I think you may run a company that turned into
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: a stress ball at one point.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Shit, we did do that. All right, when we come back,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Dan talks to the New York Times' Mike Isaac about
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk and QAnon.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: On Monday, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted a cryptic message saying,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: follow the white rabbit, which appears to be a nod
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: to QAnon. Here to help us understand all the crazy
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: shit happening at Twitter is New York Times tech reporter
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Mike Isaac. Mike, welcome back to the pod.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, man. All right.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: It's fair to say that Elon Musk's Twitter habits were
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: not super normal before he owned the company, but it
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: seems to have gotten a lot worse in recent months,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: culminating with this potential likely QAnon tweet. What is going
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: on here? Does he believe this stuff? Has he been red-pilled?
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Is he trolling?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Is there some sort of strategy here? What are people
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: in the tech world telling you about what is happening
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: with Elon and his behavior?
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Totally. I think, well, so it's funny because not super
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: long ago, let's say five or six years ago, he
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: was super revered. I think like, you know, with normal
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: people who are not like you or me and looking
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: at Twitter, still probably the vibes are like, you know,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: smart entrepreneur guy or whatever. And a lot of his
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: more recent stuff, is just starting to get out, I think,
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: into the larger world of like normies who are not
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: media connected all the time. But like he used to
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: be fairly normal and just kind of like basically what
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: I would call a shit poster or a troll, right?
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Which is just someone who messes around online and tweets
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: like random stuff. He kind of does dad tweets because
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: he like checks Reddit for like two week old memes
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: and posts them basically. And nothing like, crazy or super
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: harmful that I would say just more like, like Rick
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: and Morty humor or something, which is, which is what
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: it is. It's fine, I guess, you know? Um, but
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: since he, uh, since he, a, since he bought Twitter,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: but even before that started really surrounding himself with, uh,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Silicon Valley figures who, by the way, he's not the
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: only one who has more right-leaning conservative views in Silicon
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Valley these days. I think this is, uh, he's sort of,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: speaking more about it than other, frankly, other billionaires would
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: because of not wanting to mess with whatever politics, their companies,
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: their image, and sort of voice more concerns about how
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: he feels that the quote unquote woke mind virus is
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: taking over or that, you know, leftism is sort of predominant.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: And so there's that. But then this most recent slide
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: is like the most extremist version of that, right? Like
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: now he's posting, you know, You know, there was a
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: homophobic sort of attack on the former head of Twitter's
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: trust and safety that sort of plays into this groomer
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: stuff that super right wing folks are obsessed with these days.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: The sort of Q phenomenon. So, like, the thing that
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: I've been really struggling with is. you know, how much
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: does this guy believe any of this stuff? Does he
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: sort of like actually buy into it? Is he surrounded
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: with so many right-wingers that are more extreme that this
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: is the paranoia taking over? I think on the one hand,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: he does need to drum up activity on this very
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: expensive purchase that he made and sort of bring folks out.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: And I think everything he's been doing so far leads
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: to that. He practically is begging Trump to get back
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: on the platform, which he has not done yet. And
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: then on the other hand, I don't think it matters
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: because his actions kind of just speak for themselves. Like,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: even if you don't believe any of this stuff, even
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: if you're that deeply cynical that you just want to
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: do it for engagement, it's still having real world effects.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, the head of
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: trust and safety, who you mentioned, had to leave his
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: home because of violent threats because of this absolutely false
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: accusation that he was somehow involved in grooming or pedophilia
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: or all of sort of pizza gate insanity. You had
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: a story the other day about the fact that Twitter
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: has stopped paying rent on its offices. They are not
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: paying bills for private jets. They are exploring ways to
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: avoid paying the severance packages promised to the employees laid
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: off after Elon took over, which seems challenging considering, according
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: to another report, there are no lawyers working there anymore.
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: And I'm sort of confused by this because Elon Musk
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: keeps saying, Twitter is in financial crisis. But before Elon
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Musk took Twitter over, as I understand it, it was
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: a totally fine business. Not a giant growth business like
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: some of the other tech companies a few years ago,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: but it made money. People worked there. It wasn't in
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: danger of going bankrupt. How did we go from a
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: fine business to we can't pay the rent on our
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: headquarters in a few months?
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Sure. No.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: So a few things. One, I would say Twitter is
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: an anomaly in social media ad-supported companies in that Facebook
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: is throwing off cash. TikTok, it's a private company, so
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: we don't know their exact finances, but they are doing
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: a lot in revenue for where they are in their lifecycle.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Google is not social media, but they're also throwing off
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: cash and it's ad-supported. Twitter is... I would say fine
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: is probably a good summation, maybe even middling, because for
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: eight of their past 10 years they've been in sort
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: of investment mode meaning they're not profitable but they've turned
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: a profit a few times um And so you inherit
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: that and you could kind of go along and maybe
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: break even or whatever and be okay with that. But
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: the problem for Elon is the way he bought this company,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: he saddled himself with tons of debt, like $ 13 billion
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: in debt, which means he owes a billion dollars in
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: interest per year alone just on paying back those loans.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: So- It's less, I think, about the specific company's immediate
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: financial issues and more Elon's financial issues and really overpaying
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: for a company at the height of the market before
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: everything took a dive. He screwed up. That's the whole
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: reason he tried to get out of this whole thing,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: which didn't work. So now the other part of it
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: is he goes into this cost cutting mode that, you know,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: we did some stories on. Basically, he did this at SpaceX.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: He did this at Tesla. He just sort of like
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: finds everything he can to minimize costs. Now there's cost
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: cutting and then there's literally like wage theft and like
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: severance packages, like not paying people. And I think his
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: philosophy is basically that. if you want to go to court,
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: let's go to court. I'm the richest person in the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: world and I will tie this up in litigation. It's
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: very like dispassionate and pretty brutal version of, of hardball business,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: you know? And that, that goes from everyone from the top,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: like not paying severance to the, the C-suite, which, you know,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: you can, cry river for folks not getting their multimillion
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: dollar exit packages, but he's stiffing them as all the
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: way down to the bottom and folks who basically have
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: left of their own accord or got fired from him.
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: So it's, it is his standard playbook, but it's also,
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: I think by most measures, pretty messed up because people
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: are counting on that. And the job situation in the
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Valley right now is not what it used to be. Basically.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I sort of struggle with this because Elon has run
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: several successful businesses. Many people will debate how much credit
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: he gets for Tesla or anything else, but Tesla and
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: SpaceX are very successful businesses. PayPal, which I know he
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: was removed from at some points, but was also a
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: very successful business. I do not pretend to be an
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: expert in business, but it's very hard to see what
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: the strategy here is. Because as you referenced, maybe if
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: you're trying to ascribe some strategic thought behind his crazy
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: tweets is he's trying to be Trump in the absence
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: of Trump. We want someone whose tweets are must-see, that
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: drive the conversation every day, that is always a Twitter
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: main character, pump engagement up. But Twitter's business to date,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: at least, and we will get in a second to
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: what comes next, but has been brand advertising from major companies.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: And so how do you get Coca-Cola to Apple, et cetera,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: to advertise on a platform where the CEO is pushing QAnon.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Is there anyone at Twitter, anyone around Elon? And I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: know they have no communications department anymore, but is there
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: anyone who tries to explain that there is a plan here?
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: No, it's not really. I mean, I was having a
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: private conversation with someone who I would say is an
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Elon supporter the other day. And they had felt like,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: he's getting too much heat or like, if you take
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: the focus on every moment, like give the guy some
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: breath or breathing room and like, look at it longer
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: term or whatever. And, you know, maybe, maybe he can
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: get there, but right now it's under the spotlight. I
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: have a hard time believing that just because I do
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: feel like a lot of his decisions so far have
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: been based on emotion and like what he wants the
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: company to be like, take the badge stuff, the blue
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: check stuff, which is, just in short went very poorly
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: because he tried to redefine what it meant. And it
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: is now in kind of totally upheaval and trying to
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: get people to pay eight or now $ 11 for a
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: blue check throws all sorts of identity issues into the mix.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: The brand advertising stuff is crucial because it's a, so
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: brand advertising is like, like exactly what you said. Coca-Cola
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: wants to come in, buy like a hashtag or buy
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: a little like emoji or, or a campaign that just
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: sort of says, Hey, go buy Coke or whatever, you know,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: or like TV shows are really, really popular on Twitter
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: and people like tweet about the white Lotus. And so
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: like the white Lotus had a whole campaign and that's
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: a brand thing. It's not like a Google ad where
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: you go click something and buy it immediately or an
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Instagram ad and Twitter's whole bread and butter is brand advertising.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just about awareness and pushing this stuff
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: out there and showing up in between other tweets in
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: the feed because it's People are looking at those and
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: then they can see this. What advertisers don't want, advertisers
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: are famously conservative in the lowercase sense where they are
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: scared of any sort of controversy. They don't want Coca-Cola
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: appearing next to like a QAnon tweet or like a
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: groomer accusation or whatever, right? Like that's the last thing.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: And so what you've had as the service has rapidly
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: sort of spun into Elon 24-7, and this happened with
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Trump too, on Facebook and Twitter too, is brand advertisers
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: being like, all right, forget this. We are pausing momentarily.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Maybe that means long-term, but we're going to just wait
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: and see how this goes because this is crazy. And
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: That is existential for Twitter's business right now because their
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: whole business is basically brand advertising, like the vast majority.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: And so he's working to replace that with subscriptions, basically.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: That's Twitter blue, right?
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: And he has implied that's coming out again quite soon.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Do you have any sense of how they will avoid
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: not having a blow up in their face like they
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: did last time?
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: So it's funny. Last time there were like problems with
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: the badges and like who gets a badge and what
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: does the badge mean? And now I believe they're rolling
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: it out with like, OK, if you're an organization, you
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: get a gold badge instead of like a blue badge.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: And then anyone who pays for it. I mean, his
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: whole point in revamping Twitter Blue was basically to try
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: to eliminate bots, which is his obsession, because, you know,
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: to be fair, he is followed around by every bot
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: on the service 24-7. It's all crypto scams beneath him.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: But it just feels like he's trying to redefine what
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: this blue badge means after 16-odd years of it meaning
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: a different thing. So it comes with all sorts of
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: weird identity issues, scamming issues, Eli Lilly stock tanking because
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: of a random tweet saying that insulin was free. And
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: his idea, just business-wise, is offset brand advertising declines with
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: subscription fees. But it's like he's chasing pennies while throwing
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: dollars out of his pocket, basically. Because these multi-million dollar
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: campaigns are no longer being paid for. And instead, he's
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: getting new subs 11 bucks at a time, basically. So
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I have a hard time seeing it.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: And it also, as has been reported, the legal department
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: is quite empty at Twitter. And if I recall correctly-
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: The reason that the blue check bar was ever created
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: by Twitter was because baseball manager Tony La Russa sued
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Twitter because there was a fake Tony La Russa account
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: going around attacking him, pretending to be Tony La Russa.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: And in order to avoid being sued by every person
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: under the sun, they created this. And so they're opening
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: themselves up to all kinds of trouble, right?
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: I think so. I think his biggest issue is and
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: I think this follows him around at every company, is
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: he needs a team of people to basically to handle him.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Like this is like famous people syndrome or billionaire syndrome.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: You need a team of people around you who know
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: how you work, who know how to handle you and
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: who know how to like steer you into decisions that
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: might be good for the company. And there are folks
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: who would disagree with me and be like, look, he's
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: a revolutionary. He has these like crazy ideas and that's
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: why we like him or whatever. But I think he's
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: figuring out why Twitter did what it did for so
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: long in real time by stepping on to rakes sideshow
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: boss style over and over, basically, you know. And so
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know until he builds up that executive staff
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: with more lawyers, you can be like, hey, this is
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: probably not a good idea because X, you know, I
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: just think he's going to keep running into walls here.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of the people who gave him the
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: money to buy Twitter are Elon They're in the Elon business, right?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Some of these VC funds, they're doing this because whatever
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: the next thing is after this, they want to have
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: first shot at it. But there are real people, banks
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: and others who gave him money. Is there at some
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: point here where they step in or have a real
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: conversation with Elon about trying to get this thing on
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: stable footing, about having a real CEO run the business?
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: He can own the company, but that doesn't mean he
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: has to also run it to get a serious... person
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: that are trying to fix this before it falls apart
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: on him? Because I mean, he is, according to Elon,
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: bankruptcy could be around the corner.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, it's a great point that it's funny
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: because the banks who, so to your point, there are
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: people who are like, yeah, we'll get in on this deal,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: including some of the banks that will get on this
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: deal because deal flow down the line. Like we always
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: sort of this, we consider this an investment. If we
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: have to spend a billion dollars right now to get
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: in on Elon's next thing, we'll do it. Even though
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: that might be flawed because who knows if the guy's
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: going to do, you know, have the golden touch forever
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: or whatever. But, um, The banks now, like the debt
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: that they took on, for instance, they can't even resell
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: that debt for 60 cents on the dollar of what
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: they originally paid for it. Like it's the number of
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: bad decisions that he has made, not just in, you know,
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: the liberal biased media's eyes, but. And valuations by financial
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: experts who are looking at this dispassionately have been multiplying
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: every day, basically. And I think that... I think you're right.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I think at some point, folks are going to be like,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: how do we... Sometimes if you can't get a new
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: CEO in mind, or if he doesn't have one in mind,
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: then they might put a new COO alongside of him,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: someone who knows how to really operate. I think right
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: now he's... kind of has he's brought in folks from
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: SpaceX and Tesla, like basically like ranks of folks from
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: his other companies to kind of do this because he
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't have those at Twitter. He doesn't have people that
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: he trusts at Twitter. He really doesn't trust as you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: can see with these like Twitter files drops that he's doing,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't trust basically anyone from the old regime and is
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: sort of doing these tests to make sure folks are
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: signed up for like new Elon Twitter, basically. But I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: think it's going to take time again, if, if he
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: can turn it around and if he can do a
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: good job, I think it will take time and building
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: up a bench of folks that he trusts and will
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: actually like rely on their advice. And then they have
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: to be good at what they're doing too. But these
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: are hard problems. And again, Twitter has tried to solve
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: some of these problems for a very long time with
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: mixed results. Basically.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: There has been a sense over many years that because
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: of tremendous dysfunction at Twitter pre even pre Elon, right? Seven,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: a million CEOs.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: They basically had like a person running the company halftime
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: for many years.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Yep. That it was, you know, there was this time
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: when they thought Twitter was going to surpass Facebook. You know,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: there was the real fear of the Facebook folks. And so,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: There's always been this belief that you have this global
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: platform that drives attention. The president of the United States
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: was on it, yet it was this middling business that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: never really got to the sort of advertising that Facebook
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: did or use their data in that way. And so
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: it seems now that as a lot of people see
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: are fleeing Twitter, maybe Twitter is collapsing, maybe it's going
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: to end, that there's this huge market opportunity for someone
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: to do this. And there was a report the other day,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: there've been a couple of reports that Facebook and is
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: looking at a Twitter alternative. And I think they revealed
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: something called Instagram Notes or something. Anything, I know you
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: cover Facebook incredibly closely. And you can tell us about
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: how some, either Facebook, some of these other companies are
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: thinking of trying to take advantage of Twitter's weakness right now.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean, it's classic Facebook to see someone
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: either succeeding or floundering.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: It's the other stuff.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: And have Mark go in and copy it.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: That's what he does.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: And he does it without compunction. And you can argue
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: the benefits or the merits of that or whatever, but
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: that's what he does. I think Facebook is actually in
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: a pretty rough place right now. And what I have
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: heard is that they're minimizing the number of sort of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: projects that are outside of their core importance. Like before
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: when they didn't care and they were just like printing
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: money every quarter and like, it was just like checking
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: a box, like, yep, we're doing great. Mark could be like, yeah,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: go chase that, go do this, go spin up this
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: whole org that creates new products, which didn't create a
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: single popular product its entire time. And now as you've
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: seen this downturn, you know, like hiring issues in Silicon Valley,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: layoffs at Facebook, you know, in mass, Um, there are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: big companies who are having to sort of really prioritize
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: what is important to them and fix, um, fix their
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: problems with ads, you know, uh, Facebook versus Apple and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: Apple's sort of like cracked out on tracking. So I'm skeptical.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: And also just frankly, whenever Facebook closed something, it doesn't
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: always work, you know, like people have real, um, have
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: cast dispersions on how they feel about Facebook, you know,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: and don't necessarily flock to their products. I think there
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: is opportunity for startups that are new and don't have
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: overhang on like reputation or, you know, some things that just,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: can take off if you've seen i don't know if
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: you've used be real that that new app that's.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: I am way too old for that but i am
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: familiar with how it works.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know if your children use yes i have
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: to i'm the old guy on these apps who has
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: to use them but um it's taken off very quickly
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: and i still think there is you know as dominant
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: as a lot of these companies are i think it's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: There is the ability for certain companies to grow really
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: popular really quickly, and they still can. And so we're
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: seeing a few different startups that are basically Twitter-ish pop up.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think really any of them have nailed it.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: This Macedon thing got a lot of attention, but it's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: just way too difficult for the average person.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Nothing that calls it toots is going to succeed. I'm sorry.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe the service won't succeed, but I think they're going
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: to have to rebrand there.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a joke when someone was like, oh,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go toot on masses.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: No, that is a real joke. Do that in private.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: That is an interesting point you make about Be Real
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: or those sorts of things because we have been stuck
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: with these small handful of social media platforms for a
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: number of years because basically anytime anyone started to grow,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: they either got bought or got crushed. And now the...
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: The institutional players do not have the cash to necessarily
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: do that. Facebook cannot just throw billions of dollars at
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: the next Instagram or anything. They just can't do it.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: And they certainly, as you point out, that's interesting.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: Or Lena Kahn will be like, nope, you're not doing that.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Acquisition stuff. Mike, Isaac, this was fascinating. My heart goes
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: out to you and having to cover these stories on
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: a regular basis.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: I have Elon alerts on my phone and it's straight
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: up PTSD.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: I think it seems wrong that you have had to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: cover both Uber and Twitter under Elon, but that's for
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: you to raise with the higher ups of the New
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: York Times. So Mike, Isaac, thank you so much for
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: joining us. We will talk to you soon.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: All right. Thanks to Mike Isaac for joining us. Everyone
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: have a great holiday and we'll see you in 2023.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: Happy holidays.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.