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Donald Trump: Bible Salesman · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah Longwell.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Sarah Longwell for joining me today. She's the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: executive director of Republican Voters Against Trump, publisher of The Bulwark,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: host of the Focus Group podcast, and one of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: smartest people writing, talking, and working in politics today. Sarah,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: thank you for doing this.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: That was a nice intro. Thanks.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you co-host.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: We, uh.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We'll flatter you, that's for sure. But seriously, thank you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: for doing this. This should be a very interesting conversation.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Great to be here.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: On today's show, a cash-strapped Donald Trump prepares to become
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the first former president to be criminally prosecuted. He hawks
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: some Bibles to pay his legal bills, turns his back
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on Nikki Haley voters, and then Democratic strategist Liz Smith
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: joins to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's bizarre
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: vice presidential choice. But first, let's start with some good news.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Ever since his fiery State of the Union performance, Joe
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Biden has been on offense, barnstorming the battleground states, running ads,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and taking Trump on directly. Yesterday, he and Vice President
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Harris were in North Carolina to talk about health care
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and point out that if elected, Donald Trump would repeal
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act, kicking millions of people off their
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: health care. And it seems like, just maybe, all that
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: good work is starting to pay off. There have been
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a number of polls in the last couple of weeks
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that have shown Joe Biden with a slight lead. And
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: then yesterday, the Bloomberg Morning Consult swing state poll showed
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Biden making gains everywhere and pulling into a virtual tie
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, three pretty important states. Now,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of the data nerds and party poopers are
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: saying this might just be statistical noise. Sarah, what do
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you think? Do you think Joe Biden has a little
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: wind in his back right now?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, if it's going to be noise,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: you want the good kind of noise, right? You want
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to see noisy in your favor.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Look, I think that some of this probably has to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: do with everybody. We've been waiting. We've been waiting for
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the post State of the Union pickup here. People seeing
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a little bit more of Biden. They're also seeing a
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: little bit more of Donald Trump.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: This is what happens now when people have to enter
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the acceptance phase of their five stages of grief over
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: the fact that these two are running again against each other.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: And once you hit acceptance, right, you start having to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: make real choices. And you realize that you can't sort
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: of I listen to a lot of voters in the
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: camp of but Nikki Haley could still pull it out.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Something could still happen. And once you hit the point
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of like, nope, guys, it is Trump again. I do
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: think and have always thought that that would start to
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: shift the dynamic because look. A lot of these voters
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: aren't that pumped about Biden, but they're really not pumped
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: about Donald Trump. And so I just that's what I
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: think we're starting to see is a very slow. But ultimately,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I do think my hope is obviously that this is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the way it starts trending. And look, movement when the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: movement is consistent. And this is where I have not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: been willing to dismiss the polls that we've been seeing
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: that show bad news for Joe Biden because they are
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: directionally consistent. We're starting to see a directionally consistent shift.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: That's how I take it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Look, I think the first step for Biden is to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: win back some of the people who voted for him
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in 2020, Democrats who ideologically align with him, who are
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: currently not supporting him in polls, either because they're saying
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: they're not going to vote, they are open to third-party
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: candidates for whatever reason, right? They're just not happy. Those
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: are the people you win back first. That's how you
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: get this back to a very close race. The one
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: other thing I think is important is prior to the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: State of the Union, I think it's hard for people,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: probably people who listen to this podcast or listen to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: your podcast or read the things we write, to just
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: realize how absent politics is for most people's lives, and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: particularly Joe Biden. Joe Biden has just been, people don't
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: see him. They don't hear from him. He's just not
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: really part of the conversation. To the extent politics is
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: breaking through, it's largely about Trump, right? Trump winning primaries
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: or Trump getting indicted for things and surviving it or
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: whatever else. And since the State of the Union, Joe
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Biden gave a speech for 30 million people to see.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: He's been in the battleground states. He's been making news,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: attacking Trump, going after him. And they're running a million
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: dollars of ads in a lot of these states a week.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And so that helps, right? There has been this just
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: like cyclone force winds of negative Biden conversation. And now
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: there's some pushback. And that's got to help somewhat with
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: some voters, right, who are favorably aligned to Biden. And
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: so- You're not going to, one, say the union's not
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: going to win this thing, but it's good progress. And
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it's been a while since we've seen progress. So that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: is great. How much of this do you think is
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: related to the economy? Are you hearing anything in your
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: focus groups that show people that the dark clouds are
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: starting to part? What do you think?
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: So green shoots. I won't go super far because what
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I've seen are basically people saying, I feel like things
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: are starting to get better. And I want to tell
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you in the focus groups, two of the biggest comments
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I get, one speaks to your earlier point, which is
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: you'd ask them about Joe Biden. People would say, what
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: is he even doing? I don't see him. They'd say,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I don't see him. They say that about Kamala Harris too,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: this idea of they are invisible. I don't see them.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: That has been, I think, a big problem. And it
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: has allowed sort of the dimension narrative to fester when
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: people only see Joe Biden in Republican sort of montages
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of him looking old and feeble. And I think That
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: is what the State of the Union really did. It
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: cleared that dementia bar, and Joe Biden being out there,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: that really helps. So people are seeing him. And then
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: there's the economy. So what people have said in the
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: focus groups now for months is they really catastrophize about
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the economy. The opening question in every focus group I
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: do is just, how do you think things are going
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: in the country? And people tend to say pretty bad.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And it's almost entirely related to the cost of food,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: the cost of gas, cost of rent, and the cost
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: of trying to purchase a home. But in the last
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: handful of groups that we've done, and we do at
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: least one a week, sometimes two, you're hearing a lot more,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: especially from swing voters. And these tend to be these
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: college-educated suburban voters starting to say things like, I don't know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's starting to get better. And that's
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: where Biden should be. Not the economy is amazing. Not
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: you guys don't feel the hit of inflation. You guys
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: don't feel the hit of higher prices. But hey, we're
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: turning things around. It is getting better. Let's continue that momentum.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And so that's the main green shoots I've seen.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I think one of the takeaways I had from the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: State of the Union was that in addition to just
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: people seeing Biden being energetic and active, which is incredibly important,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I think he nailed his economic message the best there
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: than he has in any other point over the last
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: couple of years here. We had the Bidenomics period. We
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: had these members of Congress tweeting out hashtag Biden boom
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: every time there were good jobs numbers. It was just
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: like a lot of Democrats, not just the president, he
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: was actually cut better than most, but we're sort of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: missing where voters were. And I think there's been this
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: alignment of better messaging from Democrats and Biden in particular
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to sort of say, look where we started, look how
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: bad things were when I got here, look how much
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: progress we've made, and the other guy is going to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: take us back. And then people being more open to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: that because they are feeling optimistic, like the numbers are
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: still terrible, right? I just saw a Navigator poll that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: came out today, I think, that showed two-thirds of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: country is still pessimistic. And that's improvement. That's how bad
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: things have been. But just the idea that we're headed
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: towards recession, the number of people saying that is going
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: way down. The number of people who say we're in
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: recession is going way down. The number of people who
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: say that we are losing jobs, which is obviously factually absurd,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: is coming down. So there is just, I think, a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: little more openness to this progress message, which is what
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: is just much better than triumph. And I think that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is that has been good for them. And I think
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it's starting to help a little bit. All of this
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: is on the margins, right? Like that's all we're talking
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: about here. But people are, I sort of, you know,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you say the five stages of grief when it comes
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to dealing with sort of coming to acceptance and making
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: your decision in this election. I sort of feel like
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: there are these various, there are a lot of voters
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: who do not want Donald Trump to be president. And
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: there's like various obstacles that are preventing them from taking
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the action to stop Donald Trump from being president. And
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: one of those is immense frustration and anger on the economy.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: And when that just that hurdle tumbles down a little bit,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: that helps Joe Biden. I think that's sort of happening
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: here too.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: But I also want to say there's two economies. There's
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the real economy and there's the vibes economy. And the
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: vibes economy has been incredibly out of sync with the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: real economy. And part of that is, and look, I'm
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: not an economist, and so I'm not going to go
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: deep on this, but there are some of the economic
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: indicators like unemployment, which should be, it's just boom times
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: for Biden on unemployment. But there are other things like
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the high interest rates, which maybe don't get thought of
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: as much when people, economists are thinking about how the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: economy looks. But it is keeping people from leveling up
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: their homes. It is impacting people's choices. And so that
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: genuinely has, you know, some real impacts. But there's also
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: like Donald Trump, when he had when his when the
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: economy was doing anything good, he would run out and
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: all of his surrogates would do the same thing. And
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: they would be like, best economy for black people. best
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: economy for women. Hey, buddy, how's your 401k doing? And
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: they would just pump in the positive vibes. And I
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: do think that Democrats really worry about saying anything about
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the economy that might strike as, you know, out of
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: touch with where voters are. And so they do a
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: lot of sort of hand wringing. But there is a
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: way and I think you just you said it for
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Biden to really, you know, say, look, we're moving in
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the right direction. Let's talk about where we were. that
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: allows him to be optimistic and start putting out those
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: good vibes. Look at, we're going in the right direction.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Look how we're moving. And you've got to send your
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: surrogates out there with a positive message because you can
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: have an impact on vibes. Part of what I hear
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: in the focus groups and people are like, I feel
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: like it's getting better. Some of it's because voters are
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a lagging indicator in terms of how the economy affects
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: their real lives. And so they start to feel certain
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: things themselves and start to say it feels better. But
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: they also just hear economic news like in the world,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: like and Republicans were pumping the negative vibes about the
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: economy so hard. And I think that Democrats countering that
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden starting to push that out and drive
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: those narratives is really important because you got to be
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: on the vibes as well.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I'm really torn on this one because obviously I bear
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the battle scars of helping try to get Barack Obama
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: reelected in the middle of the Great Recession. And I
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: We would do focus groups and try to talk about
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: positive movement in the economy, including the use of term
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: green shoots would cause focus group participants to turn on
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the moderator like you have never seen. They had been
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: through a truly traumatic economic experience with the Great Recession.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: One day, things are great. The next thing, their house
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: is underwater, and millions of people have lost their jobs.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Even if you had your job and you had your house,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you were still Locked into that house for as far
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: as you could see, you know, how you thought if
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you were lucky enough to own a home, how you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: thought of your net worth had gone way down because
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: housing prices had collapsed and you were afraid you were
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: going to lose your job, right? And so it's just
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: this very hard thing about trying, you know, it was
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: very easy for Trump at a time of incredibly low unemployment,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: zero interest rates and no inflation to say those things.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Biden's obviously not in that position right now. And Trump had,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: as annoying as it is, this, you know, bullshit business
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: person patina because of the celebrity apprentice that gave him
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: some additional credibility. I think the right thing for Biden
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: here is what he's saying. It's just like, we're making progress, right?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And the other guy is going to make it worse.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And you know, he's gonna make it worse because he
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: wants to give more tax cuts to the rich to
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: pay for cuts to social security, right? And just like,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: leave it that way. But I think that is there
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: was just too much triumphalism. And then we switched to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: too much doomerism. And I think we've kind of gotten
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: to the Goldilocks version of economic messaging now. And it's
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: pretty good.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, agree.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. On Monday, New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Marchand announced that Trump's hush money trial will begin on
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: April 15th. The former president seems to be taking it great.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: He spent much of the last two days ranting about
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: how unfair it is, comparing himself to Jesus, and to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: pay his legal bills, he is now hawking Bibles in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: partnership with country star Lee Greenwood. Yes, that's actually happening.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: people's favorite book. This Bible is a reminder that the
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: biggest thing we have to bring back America and to
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: make America great again is our religion. Religion is so important.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: It's so missing, but it's going to come back and
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: it's going to come back strong, just like our country
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: is going to come back strong.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the important stuff, what is up
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: with the Bible thing? Do you think voters could possibly
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: find this unseemly or is it just something for people
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: like you and I to laugh about?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: No, it's stuff for you and I to laugh about.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, every now and then, remember when
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: he held the Bible upside down after he tried to
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: clear those protesters, the peaceful protesters with the smoke bombs
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, that in swing voter world. And
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I'll talk, this is a specific kind of swing voter
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: where they're pretty tapped in. They are right-leaning independents. They're
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: soft GOP voters. They're Nikki Haley voters. Those are the
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: people where they're, they like listen to the news and it,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: grinds their gears that this guy is such a fake
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: and a phony um but in terms of like his
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: base or in terms of the majority this is where
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: donald trump you talk about the celebrity thing this was
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the big thing that i missed and until i started
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: doing focus groups all the time i didn't understand just
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: how much the celebrity just that's the teflon part because
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: people expect him to sell stuff they expect him to
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: be fake on these things um they don't think for
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: a second that he's religious but they think that he
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: is fighting for them if they're religious. They think he
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: is injecting this into the conversation, putting religion back. I
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: hear people unironically say that Donald Trump brought religion back
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: all the time, his two-time Trump voters. And that is, like,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: you look at it, we look at it and think, man,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: this is so shameless. Not only First of all, guys,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the Bibles are free most places. Like, if you want
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to get your hands on a Bible, you go to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: a church and they'll give you one. Like, if you
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: want the Book of Mormon, they'll just come to your
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: house and give you one. Like, these are the kinds
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: of books that people give away for free. But, Dewey,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: this one comes with, I don't know if you saw this,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: it comes with the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: all sort of Declaration of Independence, they're in there too.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And so instead of separation of church and state, you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: can now get sort of the church state bundle for $ 59. 99
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: from Donald Trump.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. This is a very important point you're making, right?
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's selling Bibles, he's selling sneakers, he's selling NFTs,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: he used to sell wine, steaks, merch. And The celebrity
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: thing works for him in several ways, right? It's a
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: permission structure to do all this ridiculous stuff because it's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: what celebrities do, right? He has been selling stuff to
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: America since the moment America got introduced to him in
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the 80s, right? He's selling his books. He's showing up
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: in comics. He's everywhere. But the celebrity thing also helps
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: him– and I remember just being so struck by this
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: in an episode of the Focus Group podcast that you
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: did a while back on– The religious voters, they don't
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: think he's religious, but they think he fights for them.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And then voters who are more socially liberal think that
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is also socially liberal like them. I think
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I remember you saying that voters will, when talking about
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: abortion and focus groups about Trump, will laugh at the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: idea that he's actually anti-choice and will volunteer that he
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that he paid for abortions probably, right? He's getting it
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: both ways here. Now, his base is never going to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: leave him. And I think the other thing that liberals,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: myself included, often miss with Trump is that a lot
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of his voters are in on the shtick, right? They
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: get it, right? As you said, they're not running around thinking, oh,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: he's a true Bible believer, and then we're going to
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: unmask him as not being a Bible believer, and the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: evangelicals are going to back away from him. That's just
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: not how it is. But the way that I think
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: we can use this to argue is that– I've come
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to think that just one of the best arguments about
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Trump is just he's in it for himself. He's not
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: in it for you. He wants to get out of–
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: he's running for president, get out of his legal troubles
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to reward himself and his rich friends and make a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: bunch of money and seek vengeance on his enemies. And
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: here's one example is he's just selling shit to you
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: all the time. And the fact that he's raising money
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: to pay his legal bills is another example of that.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: But it's not that people are going to be like,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: oh my God, he's just a cheesy salesperson who doesn't
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: really believe in God. That's not the argument here. But
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: if we get to laugh about it, great. But now
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: let's get to the more serious part of this stuff, Sarah.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Trump is obviously worried. Whenever he starts rage-truthing all the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: time and playing victim, it's clear that he's evincing some
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: insecurity about his position. You talked to more voters probably
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: than anyone else in politics in recent years, and particularly
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the exact voters that Donald Trump can't afford to lose.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: How big a deal are these trials and a potential
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: conviction in this specific trial for Trump?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Well, right now, I mean, I think the reason he's
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: freaking out right now is a little less about the
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: conviction and a little more that they're not sure that
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the money is going to line up. Like, I think
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: he's been pretty worried about the money, not just because
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: of paying it, but because of what it means about
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: who he is to voters. Him being a rich guy,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how much that is both important
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: to him as his brand, but also important to voters
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: who see Trump weirdly as aspirational, right? One of the
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: reasons he gets high marks is the economy. You said
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: this before about him being a businessman, but it's also
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: like he's rich and they would like to be rich too.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And they would like him to run the economy in
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: such a way that they get to be rich. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: so I think he's genuinely freaked out because even if
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: he makes this sale, which it seems like Jeff Yass
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: and other, you know, Republican billionaires are lining up to
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: try to help make happen to get him out of
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: these financial problems. I'm not sure he can sell like
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: his stock is up, you know, for this, the truth
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: social stuff, but I'm not sure that he can sell
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: it in time to make his bond. So I do
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: think he's worried about the financial stuff. I also think that,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I think they've been banking on the fact that once
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: he's the presumptive nominee, that the judges are going to
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: start to get really icked out by prosecuting and trying
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a guy who is running for president. It's never happened before.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: We've never been here before. And I do think they
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: thought at some point, that's why the delay tactics are
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: all about getting people to be like, We're getting so
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: close to an election. He's now the Republican presumptive nominee.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: You put gag orders on him. Any of this stuff
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: now suddenly comes with a big tinge of, hey, you
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: are keeping him from talking to voters. This is a
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: threat to democracy. I'm not sure that the judges are
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: blinking the way that they thought they would in terms
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: of they seem to just be moving forward and they're
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: trying to delay and it's working to some degree. But also, like,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it looks like the New York thing could, have, you know,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: is going to start on April 15th. And so I do,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: and they're these, the, the, look, I've always felt a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: couple of different ways about the stormy Daniels trial. It
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: is an election interference trial. It's about passing bad checks.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It's about hush money. But also, you know, when everybody's
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: talking about porn stars and you got two old dudes
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: and and Donald Trump gets to be talking about porn stars,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I do think that that sort of helps him with
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a certain amount of voters because it seems like such
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: an unserious case. But he does have to be worried
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: about these swing voters for whom convictions, and by legal convictions,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: make a difference. And look, there's been a lot of
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: people have been polled on this, and there's roughly 30%
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: of Republicans who say that if Trump gets convicted of
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: a crime, that makes them less likely to vote for
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: him or they won't vote for him if he's convicted
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: from crime. Now that number is way too high because
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: once the conservative media, right-wing media starts working on him,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: that number is going to go way down. But his
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: baggage with swing voters has always been a huge problem.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: The indictments are a problem for him with these voters.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I talk to them all the time. And so, you know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: this is where, and there's analysis. I've been on TV
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: with people and they've been, they're failing to make the
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: turn between the analysis with base voters and where the
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: legal troubles help him endlessly. That is true. Rally around
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Trump effect, very, very real. But everybody's saying, oh, well,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: if you convict him, you know, the Americans are going
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to elect him. That is not true. Especially the college
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: educated suburban swing voters, they still have a lot of
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: faith in the legal system. And if Donald Trump is convicted,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: it is going to hurt him. So I do think
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: he is worried both about like just the sheer volume
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: of the penalties that could be headed his way. Now, look,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: he's not going to jail before the election. He's not–
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: there's a bunch of these cases in which– like the
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: docs case, that's not going to go before the election.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Like there's the January 6th case. It's not going to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: go before the election.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: That sound you hear as people– as listeners deleting this
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: podcast and throwing their phone into the ocean right now
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: on that news, like this is what liberals are hoping for.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm sorry.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Like these are complicated cases where– like classified materials, it's hard.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: But– He's also he is very likely going to listen.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: This is this is a good listen to split screen
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: right now. The other thing that's driving him crazy, Joe
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Biden is barnstorming swing states. Donald Trump is sitting in
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: courtrooms and then he is trying to raise money to
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: pay the legal fees for the courtrooms. And for right now,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: he can feel OK about that because he's been running
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: hot in the polls. But as things start to shift.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: if they start to shift, which as we talked about earlier,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I think they're starting to turn just a little bit,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: you will see him start to freak out more because
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: he can't do the things. He doesn't even have enough
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: money right now to hold his big rallies because they're
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: expensive to put on. Don't throw your phones in the ocean.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: It's too late. The phones are gone. So there's only
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a small percentage of people are still listening to this.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Just out of curiosity, why do you think he's having
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: so much trouble raising money relative to Joe Biden? He
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: has been a cash machine in previous elections. What's happening here?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Number one, he's been asking his voters for money now
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: for a really long time. A lot of them gave
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: till it hurt during the stop the seal.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Like a decade, basically.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right? And so I think some people might be
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a little bit tapped out. Certainly with big donors, they
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: know they're footing his legal bills. They just do. And
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: so there's a lot of people who don't want to
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: foot his legal bills. That's not how they want their
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: money to be spent. And so I think.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: And look....
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Go get your phones out of the ocean because I'm
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: going to say something that's going to make you feel
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: good that I even hesitate to say because I don't
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: like to be overly optimistic because I'm not a poll denier.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I do think that people have been super tired. Like
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: there's real fatigue among the voters. But when I saw
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: that 20% of self-ID Republicans in Arizona still turned up
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: to vote for Nikki Haley, even though she wasn't on
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: the ballot and Donald Trump was the nominee. People are
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: sitting around being like, I'm not I know.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Who these guys are.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I don't care about I don't like Joe Biden. He
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't get he doesn't get my mark when I'm doing
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: approval ratings. But you give me just tell me when
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the Tuesday is when I get to go vote against
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump because I want to go vote against Donald Trump.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: And so I think that there is I think there
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: remains intense enthusiasm from people to keep Donald Trump out
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of office. And I think that the enthusiasm to put
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump in office has been waning. Like, I just
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: think people are, I don't think he's got the, look,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: he's got his hardcore people. They're in there. He can
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: win any primary he wants. But like, can he get
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: people to keep chipping in their $ 10? I mean, you
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: aren't on these Republican lists. I don't know if you
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: get them. But I, because I have given to Republicans
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: in the past, I cannot get off the Trump text.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: And his texts are insane. It's like they're taking Trump
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Tower from me. And they're just like they're bananas. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: at some point you run into a ceiling of how
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: many people that that appeals to. And look, I could
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: what could also happen is that there's a lot of
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: people who just go, I'm going to vote for Trump.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I don't care about all the nonsense. I just want
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: the economy to be good. And I think he won't
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: get us into wars. There are a lot of people
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: like that, a lot of people like that. But I
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: don't think they want to give Donald Trump money. I
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: don't think people are as invested in him winning. I
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: think he's going to have an enthusiasm problem as time
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: goes on. And I think that the Democrats, it's not
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden's going to have enthusiasm for him, but
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I think the enthusiasm to vote against Donald Trump is
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: still there. I just don't think people can sustain it
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: all the time the way they could last time.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. I think Trump has definitely
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: burned through his list with some of the sketchiest tactics.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Every text feels like it's the last text they're ever
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: going to send. I'm not on the list, but I
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: see a lot of them from reporters and circulating on
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Twitter and such. These lists have a half-life, and you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: burn them to the ground. If you're not adding new
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: people to them all the time, then part of this
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: will happen. You're right about the rich people who don't
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: want to give their money. He's going to have enough
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: money to run this race. I think that's an important–
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Biden will have more money and his money will be
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: more valuable because Biden will certainly have– as Democrats often do,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: will have more money on the hard side or the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: campaign side where your dollars can go further than all
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: these super PAC dollars. But there is something happening there
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, while winning a race under 91 felony
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: indictments or being ahead in the RCP polling, however you
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: want to characterize it, is not able to raise even
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: a good amount of money, let alone a great amount
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of money. I think that is notable and does speak
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to something because what kept him afloat before was the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: $ 5 and $ 10 donations, and that is a proxy for something.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: It really is. The billionaire money, that doesn't tell you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a ton other than maybe how some billionaires feel about
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: their tax rates or their level of political engagement, but
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the small dollar stuff does say something and usually correlates
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: to some measure of enthusiasm and success in the race.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: All right. A couple of quick things before we go
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to break. First, if you're currently listening to this episode
• 27:01
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• 27:04
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• 27:07
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• 27:18
  Speaker 5: And.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Women's History Month is almost over, but no matter the month,
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• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to these shows wherever you get your podcasts. Moving
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on here, it's been three weeks since Nikki Haley dropped
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: out of the primary. And the New York Times reports
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: that Trump has yet to even call her or even
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: court her supporters. And it should be said that though
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: she's out of the race, she's managed to pull in
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: a pretty big number of votes in the primaries, which
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: could end up making a difference in the tight race
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Biden. I know it's very on brand
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: for a guy who thinks the biggest asshole always wins.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: But are you surprised that even Trump is being this
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: stubborn about Nikki Haley and her voters?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: No, I think that they have a theory of the case,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the Trump folks, which is and I criticize them for this,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: but and I'm glad they're doing it. But this is
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: what they think is going to happen. They want to
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: actively kick out the Mitt Romney rhinos and permanently bar
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: the Nikki Haley voters.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: They want to make a show out of saying you
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: establishment Republicans are gone because they think that is going
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: to help them with. they don't feel like those are
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: their people anyway. They feel like those people hate them.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Those people drag them down. And so they want to push,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: actively push them out as a show in order to
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: pick up more Hispanic voters, black voters, um, other, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: the sort of, there's this weird unholy alliance with kind
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: of the barstool sports bro, uh, heterodox, you know, whatever the,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: the Elon's the.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Um, Joe Rogan.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: The Joe Rogan. That's exactly right.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: So I think that this is on purpose. Um, I
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: think that like the idea that like Nikki Haley was
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: ever going to be as vice president, I don't think, uh,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: that was there. I do think they want to do
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: something about suburban women. Like I do think they might
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: give that, uh, some thought at some point, but right now, um,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not surprised he hasn't called her. And if, if it,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I understand why she did this, but if she thinks
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: he's going to come groveling to her, uh, I think
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: that is not going to happen. And my hope is,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: is that Nikki Haley learned through the process of running
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: that she didn't understand the Republican party or its voters
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and where they are now. And that now that she does,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: she opts, she understands that she doesn't have a future
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: in the Republican party because people like her don't. And
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: just like Mike Pence, she opts not to endorse him.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I get Trump being so petty as to not call her.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: That is a very Trump power dynamic move. I'm not
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: going to call her. She calls me, right? That sort
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of thing. But for all the talk of how much
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: smarter and more savvy and more professional the Chris Lasavita,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Susie Wiles version of this campaign is than the you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: fricking dregs of the Fox news green room who ran
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the last two. It does seem insane in a race
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that you lost by 50,000 votes over three States to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: specifically say, you don't want those votes as Trump has
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: done in the past and to not try to get
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: them on board. It is, I mean, it is, it
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: is so self-defeating. Is it on brand for Trump?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: You know, is there a world in which they think they're,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's a zero sum between trying to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: win over some people who voted for Trump in 2016
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and didn't vote for him in 2020 and maybe voted
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: for Nikki Haley in the primary, and also trying to
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: activate some set of new voters through, as you say, barstool,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: toxic internet stuff or whatever it is. You can go
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: find some other voters, but you don't have to stick
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: your thumb in the eye of someone who is getting
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: whose vote is getting 30% of the vote and 20%
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: even after being out of the race. That seems like
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: some voters who would try to get. So I think
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: that's kind of crazy.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's also like right now, they don't feel
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: like they need anybody, right? I think they are shocked
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: by their own success and they're kind of high on
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: their own supply. I think, look, if it's really tight,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Biden's up by a couple of points in all the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: swing states and they know that where they're bleeding as
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: suburban voters come September, then maybe he calls.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's, yeah, that's fair. You know, who are
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: these Haley voters, right? There's Nate Cohn in the New
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: York Times has a piece out today looking at precinct
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: level data in Georgia, which says that a lot of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the Haley voters in the Georgia primary were Biden voters
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in the past. Who are they from what you've seen?
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've run into a lot of them in
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: your focus groups, or maybe not a lot of them
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: given how the primary went, but some of them. And
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: can they really make a difference in this election?
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course they can make a difference. I think
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: they're the margin makers, and I think they're the people
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: that lost it for Trump in 2020. And look, you
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: can tell me if you think I'm right about this,
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: but the way I think about it, just to keep
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: it simple, is that there's kind of two kinds of
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: swing voters, right? There's the Obama-Trump voters, which tend to
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: be more working class, maybe less sort of tapped into
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: following the news every day. I don't like to call
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: them low info because sometimes I think people who opt out.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Of politics- It's different info, yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: They're the same ones. God bless them for not having
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: to follow everything. And then there's the college educated suburban set, right?
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: These are Romney voters. These are McCain voters. They liked
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: George W. Bush. They tend to be, you know, they
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: like low taxes and they're also kind of social moderates.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And they follow the news sort of generally. They're kind
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: of like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, regular news followers.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: And they've never liked Donald Trump. And I think that
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: that 30 percent. So I've read Nate Cohn's piece today
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: about Georgia. And I think that there's a difference in
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: different states where you saw the mobilization of the anti-Trump
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: coalition and where there was just kind of a vote.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Like I think that where Nikki Haley in New Hampshire
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: and in South Carolina, where she had a chance to
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: mobilize voters. the self-ID'd Republican voters who voted for her
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: was roughly 30%. It's very similar to the percentage of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: voters who do not think that the election was stolen,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Republican voters who do not think the election was stolen,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and who say that they won't vote for Trump if
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: he's convicted with a crime. I have been kind of
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: obsessed with this 30% number because I do think that
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: that is the percentage of people who want to move
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: on from Trump. And I think some percentage of those
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: people are going to vote for Trump. They're Republicans and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: they're going to go home and they read the Wall
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Street Journal and they are persuaded by the argument that
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats are worse. That is one subset of that 30%.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Another subset already voted for Joe Biden. However, that doesn't
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: mean that they weren't important. They voted for Joe Biden,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: not because they're Democrats. They voted for Joe Biden because
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: they hate Trump. And as you noted earlier, holding onto
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: that coalition is like step number one, because I've watched
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: some of these people in the focus groups backslide, right?
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Who have voted for Biden because they hated Trump, but
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: now they're like, oh, the economy's so bad. I might
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: just close my eyes, turn off the news and you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: support Donald Trump. So that's another kind. And then you've
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: got the Nikki Haley voters that I call the double haters,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: the double doubters, or the pox on both their housers, right? Again, right-leaning, independent,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: soft GOP voters. They're not Democrats. They're not Democrats. And
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: that makes them want to support a Republican if you
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: give them a good one, but they also will not
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: vote for these extreme Republican candidates. They won't vote for
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Blake Masters. They won't vote for Carrie Lake. They won't
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: vote for Donald Trump. They won't vote for Hershel Walker.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that Joe Biden... That's why he runs
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: the campaign. That's why the next eight months matter so much,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: because he has got to take people who right now
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: are frustrated with him over the economy, over immigration, and
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: he's got to make them hate Donald Trump more. It's
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: going to be a nasty campaign because the epochs on
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: both their housers, the double haters, it's going to come
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: down to, man, the phrase that I hear all the
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: time in focus groups, if it was a drinking game,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: we'd be dead, which is lesser of two evils. It's
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: just that's what people say, right? That's how they think
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: they're evaluating this. And I think Joe Biden can win.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: On lesser of two evils, head to head. You can
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: talk to Liz Smith about the third party stuff, though,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: because I think that's incredibly perilous. When people say that
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: lesser of two evils and you give them some third
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: place to put their vote, that becomes really difficult. But
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: head to head, I think Biden can really win over
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: those double haters. And that's who I think the rest
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: of that cohort is.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's 2016, Oliver. You go back to
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: 2016 and you look at focus groups from that year,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: it was lesser of two evils all the time. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: then the people who– the double haters, they– heading into
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: that election, they largely vote for Trump if they voted
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: for either Trump or Clinton. And a bunch of them
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: voted for– enough of them voted for Jill Stein or
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Gary Johnson that Donald Trump became president with like less
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: than 47% of the vote. I think you made a really,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: really important point here, which is when this has been
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a– I have been very– much like you, very bullish
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: on these Haley voters, Haley's showing in these primaries as
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: evidence of some real potential weakness for Trump as a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: general election candidate was swing voters. And the thing you
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: get back all the time is these people are– they
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: voted for Biden. They voted for Biden. They're Biden voters.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And that is interpreted by some people as these are
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Democratic mischief makers who registered to– who voted in these
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: open primaries. And that's– there are some of that. I'm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: sure there's a handful of people who do that. But
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: really what they are is they're swing voters, right? They
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 20, and Biden
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: has to keep them. And Trump has to win them over.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: We often talk about this, how Biden has to keep
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: all these voters. Trump has to persuade some of these
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: people to vote for him if he wants to win.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And he is not trying to do that. And so
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: these are the voters who can decide the election. And
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Biden is making a pitch to them, right? When Nikki
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Haley dropped out, he made a pitch to their voters.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm confident they're going to be advertising to them.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: They're going to be using some of the footage of
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Trump saying the rhinos are not welcome, only MAGA folks,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff to make these people feel uncomfortable
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: with being in being with Trump in the end. And
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I think this is, we could look back on his
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: approach to this. And yeah, you're right. He has eight
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: months to change, but we could look back and say,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: this was a fundamental strategic error born of Trump's absolute
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: stubborn assholery, right? This is like, this is who he is.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: This is what he has done. And this is why
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he lost. All right. Speaking of persuading these voters, Republican
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: voters against Trump, the group you started recently launched a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: $ 50 million ad campaign targeting, you guessed it, Republican voters,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: The campaign will highlight the voices of over 100 people
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: who voted for Trump once or twice before, but now
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: refuse to do so again. Let's listen to some of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the testimony you've gathered. I'm Ethan.
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: I live in Wisconsin, and I voted for Donald Trump
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: in 2020. January 6th was the end of Donald Trump
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: for me. I could not believe what was happening before
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: my eyes, watching what was an insurrection at the Capitol.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: which was, in my mind, unquestionably led by Donald Trump.
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: I think what Donald Trump did on January 6th was
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: dangerous for multiple reasons.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: In 2020, your targets for people who voted for Trump
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: in 2016, who are you targeting this time? Is it
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: the 6% or so of Republicans that voted for Biden
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: in 2020? Is it independents? Is it even some of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: these two-time Trump voters?
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: So it is exactly the Nikki Haley voters, right? And
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: it's the double haters because And sometimes people take this
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: as a negative on Joe Biden when I make this point,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: but it's not how I mean it. But I tell
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: people all the time, I am not building a pro-Joe
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Biden coalition, okay? Democrats, you go build yourself a pro-Joe
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Biden coalition, okay? I'm going to build an anti-Trump coalition
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: because that is the largest coalition that you have access to.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: These right-leaning independents, these soft GOP voters, even these two-time
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Trump voters, or the people who voted for Biden holding
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: their nose last time and, you know, have, you know,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: are struggling to stick with him. you got to keep
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: those people and you got to go get a few
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: more because you're losing some other places, right? And so,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: you know, you need to offset some of your losses
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: with Black male voters and with Hispanic voters. And so
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: I think you can get them from, I think there's been,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: it's not a full political realignment, but there's been a
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: political shift and that accelerating can occur. And I'm going
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: to say something that actually might sound a little bit
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: crazy to people, but white voters over 65, you think
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: of those people and you think, man, that's the MAGA target.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: That's the people that Trump, that love Trump. Actually, a
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: lot of those people are the people who became Republicans
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: under Ronald Reagan. They're the ones who saw Trump as
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: maybe an aberration the first time, but voted for him
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: holding their nose because they're like, I don't want a Democrat,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: who after January 6th were appalled. And I want to
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: make it clear, we don't just have 100 testimonials. We
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: launched with 100 testimonials. We now have almost 200 testimonials.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: But in 2020, when we were doing this, we had 1,000
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: by the time the campaign was over. And I hope
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: we get there again this time. We want to go
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: after people who are really uncomfortable. Look, You can't talk
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: about COVID to these people. You can't talk about Stormy Daniels.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: You can't talk about anything that they already voted for
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Trump for in 2020. This is for people who saw
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: what happened on January 6th, saw Trump's lies about the election.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: And man, for a certain kind of swing voter, the
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: way that Trump talks about himself all the time, his
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: own grievances, the election being stolen, even if they think
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: there was something weird about the election, they're like, shut up, man.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Who cares? Just like move on. And those people who
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: hate Donald Trump, right? We are trying to appeal to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: the anti-Trump coalition and peel those people away, even if
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: some of them who voted for him twice stay home
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: or don't vote at the top of the ticket, which
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of Republicans did this in 2020. They left
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: the top blank and they voted for Republicans down ticket.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: It's why the undercard of Republicans outperformed Trump in the
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: 2020 election. And so our goal is to try to
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: hold the people that we moved in 2020 who are
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Republicans who were against Trump and keep them and then
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: peel away that other crowd of folks who say, I
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: don't want a Republican party that's dominated by Donald Trump.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And also I thought what happened on January 6th was awful.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And like, again, shift your analysis from what base voters
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: are doing, which is saying January 6th was good. Let's
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: like all lionize the January 6th people who broke into
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: the Capitol and now have a choir and are martyrs
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: or whatever. And think about sort of your average person
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: voter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, or Maricopa County in Arizona.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: They're 45 years old. They've got a couple of kids.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: They've always been kind of slight Republicans, but they're socially moderate.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: They don't want Trump again. Or even your older Republicans
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: who are like, what is happening to this party? Because
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: it's not just Trump anymore. This is the other thing
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: that's happened since 2020 is they've watched a whole coterie
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: of mini Trumps. Like it used to be that there
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: was a sense of, okay, Trump's an aberration, but the
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: rest of the Republican party is normal. Nobody thinks that anymore.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Like that, you know, they were running on sort of
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Republican fumes for a long time of like normality. And
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: those are, those have been going away cycle by cycle.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I love, I not just cause I'm not saying it's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: just cause you're here. Cause I said it, uh, on
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: political experts react with your colleague, Jonathan last, uh, a
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. I love this ad campaign for
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: so many reasons, but you know, people are only listening
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to the podcast who aren't watching it on video. These
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: are basically selfie videos that people are taking, right? It
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: is raw, uh, It's just people looking in their camera,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: speaking just honestly and forthrightly. And I think that's very
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: powerful because it reflects how communication has changed in recent years.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Political ads, as we commonly know them with their voiceovers
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: and their graphics and all of that, were originally developed
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: to be able to air on linear television between an
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: ad for laundry detergent and an ad for McDonald's.
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to look like that format. And that's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: just not how a lot of people communicate anymore. And
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: especially with people cutting the cord and being able to
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: fast forward through their commercials or anything else, like, especially,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and this is why it was so powerful in 2020
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: is because we were all locked in our houses for
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the pandemic. That's how people were communicating right on FaceTime
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: and zoom and all of that. And so that's reason one,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I love the format too. I think this is just
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: so important is that in a world where there's so
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: much distrust of institutions, of the media, of politicians, that
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: hearing from people whose life experiences seem like yours is
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: so much more influential, right? You're a Trump voter who
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: is wrestling internally with voting against him. And that is
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: part of your identity, right? And given how geographically polarized
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: we become, you may live in a community of primarily
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Trump voters, right? People you go to church with may
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: be mostly Trump voters. The folks on your softball team
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: may be mostly Trump voters. And so to break with
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: that requires a feeling of community somewhere else, right? And
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: seeing someone who is having that same struggle and cross
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: the Rubicon to do it is very powerful. So I
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: absolutely love this. I think it's really good. And I
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: said this when I was talking to Jonathan, but it's just,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: there's a version of this. This is not your project.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: You have a different project. But for folks on the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party side, this is how you go get young voters, right?
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: There's a version of this for Gen Z voters. There's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: a version of this for black voters who are frustrated
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: with Biden or Latino voters or, you know, who, whatever
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: your group is, where you're just letting people hear from
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: people whose life experiences are for them, who are like
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: trusted messengers for them. So this is just great stuff. Sarah,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: if people want to support this effort of yours, how
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: can they do that?
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: You can go to rvat.org. Um, and I'm not sure
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: you've got a lot of Republicans maybe who are listening,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: but if you know a Republican who wants to make
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: a testimonial, uh, you send them there, you can upload
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: it on your own. But Dan, can I just say
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: what I appreciate about you? Cause you're a, a political
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: and an advertising nerd, like, you see me, you see
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: this campaign, like, for real, for what it is. And
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: the thing that you just said, like, I think a
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: lot about tribalism. Like, doing the focus groups, I just
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: think about how we live as tribes and how important
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: it is to us as a community. And people underestimate
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: this about Trump. Those rallies that he does, man, those
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: are Red Solo Cup parties. They are about people getting together.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: They like each other. They have an in group. They
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: have an out group. There's an out tribe that they
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: don't like that they can all make fun of. They
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: have in jokes. That's what Let's Go Brandon is all about, right?
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: And so you need to make your own tribe. And
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: that identity is still important to them. A lot of
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: these voters, they still want to say that they're Republicans.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: They just want people to know they're not those kinds
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: of Republicans, that they're against Trump, that he's anathema to
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: their values. And the videos that are the most persuasive
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: And people are always like, why don't you, you know,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: we want them to highlight how much they like Joe Biden.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: That's not these voters. Like the reason these voters work
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: authentically is because it shows Republicans who are struggling with
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: their vote for Joe Biden. They say things like, I've
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: never voted for a Democrat before, or I can't believe
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: I have to vote for Joe Biden, but I will.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And that resonates with the people that we are trying
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: to get to because they are never going to love
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, but they might hate Donald Trump enough to
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: vote against him.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I think that is exactly right. I'm so glad you're
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: doing this. When we come back, Liz Smith joins the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: pod to give us a reaction to RFK's pick for
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: VP and tell us more about what the DNC is
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: doing to counter the threat of third-party candidates. Joining us
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: now to talk more about what the Biden campaign is
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: doing to counter third-party candidates like RFK Jr. and his
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: new running mate is Democratic strategist and longtime friend of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: the pod, Liz Smith. Liz, welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Dan. It's great to be back.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: All right. You are the perfect person to have as
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: our guest today because you have been advising the Democratic
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: National Committee on their efforts to push back against third-party candidates.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: And today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his vice presidential pick,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and it was not Aaron Rodgers. It was not Jesse Ventura.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: It was not even Mike Rowe. So Liz, I think
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: perhaps the most important question I can ask you is,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: who the hell is Nicole Shanahan, and why did RFK Jr.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: announce her as his vice president today?
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: Well, that's a good question, and I think it's a
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: question that a lot of people are asking themselves right now.
• 47:53
  Speaker 7: Nicole Shanahan is a very, very wealthy Bay Area lawyer,
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: biotech entrepreneur, and it seems like she was chosen for
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: two reasons. One, everyone else that RFK Jr. asked to
• 48:08
  Speaker 7: be on his ticket said no. You know, people including
• 48:11
  Speaker 7: Aaron Rodgers, disgraced self-help guru Tony Robbins, Tulsi Gabbard.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: And two, she is very, very wealthy.
• 48:19
  Speaker 7: And we know that Kennedy's campaign is broke and he
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: needs money to hire staff to be able to get
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: on the ballot in states across the country. And she has,
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: you know, it looks like pretty unlimited wealth that she
• 48:31
  Speaker 7: can give to the campaign. She's already given four and
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: a half million dollars to the super PACs helping him.
• 48:36
  Speaker 7: So this might be the first case in history where
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: someone was able to buy themselves a VP slot.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: She helped fund, as I understand it, the Super Bowl
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: ad that his Super PAC ran. Is that correct? Yep.
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: She gave $ 4 million to run that ad and help
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: come up with the creative, which, you know, it was
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: creative at the time, but then it did sort of
• 48:56
  Speaker 7: have the effect of bringing a lot of the Kennedys
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: out of the woodwork to say how they thought that
• 49:02
  Speaker 7: was misusing the family name.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: And which also then led them to point out in
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: many ways that they are not supporting their brother, cousin, uncle,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: et cetera, to be president, right?
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: Calling his campaign an embarrassment, dangerous, all of that. The
• 49:17
  Speaker 7: people who know him best are not supporting him.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: His campaign needs money. Does his super PAC need money too?
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: And who is funding this effort? Other than now, Nicole Shanahan,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: but to date, right?
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Well, and this is really, really, really important.
• 49:32
  Speaker 7: The primary donor- behind a super PAC is this guy
• 49:36
  Speaker 7: named Tim Mellon, who is Donald Trump's largest donor this cycle.
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: He's given $ 15 million to PAC supporting Donald Trump. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: he's given $ 20 million to the PAC supporting RFK Jr.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: And that's really, really important.
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: And that's a message that we are trying to get
• 49:51
  Speaker 7: out there far and wide. Because realistically, RFK Jr. does
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: not have a path to victory in this race. And
• 49:59
  Speaker 7: he is therefore just playing the role of spoiler. And
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: he was recruited into this race by people like Steve
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: Bannon and Roger Stone, who viewed him as a useful
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: chaos agent. And now he is being funded by Donald
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: Trump's largest donor.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: And why is that?
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: Because they believe that he can play a spoiler and
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: help throw the election to Donald Trump in November. So
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: we are trying to scream to the top of the
• 50:22
  Speaker 7: rooftops so that everyone knows that he is being propped
• 50:27
  Speaker 7: up by Donald Trump's largest donor.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Do the polls show that RFK's presence on the ballot
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: does more damage to Biden or to Trump? Because on paper,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: he is a conspiracy theorist, has anti-vax views. Some people
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: have argued that he could actually hurt Trump more. What
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: are you seeing in the numbers?
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: So right now.
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: One, I would say that a lot of people say
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: they know where his voters come.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: From, and we don't really.
• 50:53
  Speaker 7: But if you look across the public polls, I would
• 50:56
  Speaker 7: say broadly, it looks like he takes from both candidates,
• 50:59
  Speaker 7: but a little bit more from Biden.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: And, you know, why is that? I think the Kennedy
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: name goes a really long way there.
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: But generally, one thing we've seen about Kennedy's voters is
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: that they tend to be lower information voters, less frequent voters. Today,
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: I saw some polling that showed that a third of
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: the people who said they're supporting Kennedy can't name anything
• 51:22
  Speaker 7: about him, anything he stands for. So that, to us,
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: signals that, you know, there's a big information vacuum. And
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: for the people who are just supporting him because of
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: his last name, it's really, really important for them to
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: know that his family members, his siblings, his children, his cousins,
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: his aunts, his uncles, that they support aren't supporting him.
• 51:45
  Speaker 7: And if the people who know him best aren't supporting him,
• 51:48
  Speaker 7: that speaks to a lot of who he is, both
• 51:50
  Speaker 7: as a person and a candidate.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: You know, he obviously has a lot of support from
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: high-level MAGA types, right? He's all over right-wing MAGA media,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: interviews with Tucker Carlson, and as you mentioned, Steve Bannon
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: helped encourage him into the race. What is he actually
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: running on? What does he stand for? And where does
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it overlap with some of the supporters like Tim Mellon
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and other MAGA types?
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: So I would say this is not a really big
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: issue-centric campaign.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: No, it's not. He's not a policy guy. Get out
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: of here.
• 52:26
  Speaker 7: And so– you know, generally he's trying to tap into
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: people who are dissatisfied with the two-party system.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: And that's pretty fertile ground right now.
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: You know, I don't think I'm breaking any news by
• 52:38
  Speaker 7: saying that there are a lot of people out there
• 52:40
  Speaker 7: frustrated with politics in general, frustrated with both parties.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: One, he's trying to tap into that. Two, you know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: he has a long.
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: History of spreading medical misinformation. And, you know, a couple
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: of decades ago, he hopped onto the anti-vaccine bandwagon and
• 52:57
  Speaker 7: he's made a lot of money pushing medical misinformation and
• 53:01
  Speaker 7: anti-vaccine information over the years. And so he does appeal
• 53:05
  Speaker 7: to people who are anti-vax. Yes, a lot of those
• 53:08
  Speaker 7: people are on the right, but there is not an
• 53:10
  Speaker 7: insignificant subsection of people.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: Like that on the left, you know, sort of in
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: the new age left.
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: And then when it comes to issues, well, I would say,
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: you know, the next big bucket in his campaign, the
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: guy has never met a conspiracy theory that he doesn't love.
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: He thinks that Wi-Fi gives you cancer, that chemicals in
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: the water and in fish turn kids gay and transgender.
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: He's questioned whether Al-Qaeda is behind 9-11. And, you know,
• 53:44
  Speaker 7: he's just spread a multitude of vaccine conspiracy theories. And
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: The most harmful of them of all is at the
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: height of the pandemic, he put out a documentary that
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: was really targeted at the black community, meant to undermine
• 54:01
  Speaker 7: trust in the efficacy and safety of vaccines. And that
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: shows why, you know, his policies and his language is
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: actually dangerous, because that was at a time when there
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: was already a lot of misinformation going around in the
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: black We saw low vaccination rates. Ultimately, those vaccination rates
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: came up to parity with the white community. But his
• 54:21
  Speaker 7: words and his actions do have consequences. And it's really
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: important that people understand it's not just him going out
• 54:28
  Speaker 7: there saying wacky things, that there are real-life consequences for
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: the dangerous conspiracy theories that he espouses. A couple things
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: just on issues. I would say he's gone back and
• 54:38
  Speaker 7: forth on abortion. He's said that he's open to supporting
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: a ban after three months. And on gun control, he
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: said that he does not support doing any more gun
• 54:50
  Speaker 7: safety measures and that mass shootings are the result of antidepressants,
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: not semi-automatic weapons. So, you know, this is a guy
• 54:58
  Speaker 7: who is generally pretty far outside the mainstream.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: All of this is for naught if he doesn't actually
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: end up on the ballot somewhere. Where is he getting
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: on the ballot and how is he doing that? Who's
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: paying for it, frankly?
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: Well, this is by far the biggest obstacle that his
• 55:14
  Speaker 7: campaign faces. And this speaks to why he chose Nicole
• 55:18
  Speaker 7: Shanahan to be his running mate, because he needs the
• 55:21
  Speaker 7: money to fund his efforts to get on the ballot. Originally,
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: he had planned to have his super PAC, American Values 2024,
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: which is funded by Donald Trump's largest donor, Tim Mellon.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: He'd planned to have them.
• 55:34
  Speaker 7: Do the signature collection, but then they realized there would
• 55:36
  Speaker 7: be too many that they would run in violation of
• 55:39
  Speaker 7: either state or federal law. So now the signature collection
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: is going to be done by his campaign. Currently, they
• 55:45
  Speaker 7: are only on the ballot in one.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: State, Utah.
• 55:49
  Speaker 7: They say they've collected enough signatures to get on the
• 55:51
  Speaker 7: ballot in a number of other states. But just yesterday,
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: we learned that in Nevada, where they said they had enough.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Signatures to get on the ballot, that.
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: They had missed that you have to have a name
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: to vice president before you start collecting signatures. So we
• 56:09
  Speaker 7: have a team that is devoted to keeping track of
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: all this to make sure that they're playing by the
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: rules and that if they get on the ballot, it's
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: in a way that's legal and ethical. But this is
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: very much the biggest obstacle that his campaign faces. And
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: the fact that he chose a donor with the ability
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: to self-fund indicates that he understands that he's going to
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: need to dump a lot of money into this if
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: he's going to be able to make it onto the
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: ballots in these states.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: How much more time does he have in some of
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, et cetera?
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: So I think the earliest deadlines are in May, and
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: that's with some of the swing states like North Carolina.
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: Some of the deadlines stretch out till September. So this
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: is going to be a long slog. And it's going
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: to be something that we are keeping a close eye on.
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: But obviously, we're going to keep a close eye on
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada,
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: you know, the states where.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: Just randomly selected six states.
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Exactly.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I know that, as you said, you guys
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: are going to watch this. During his, what, seemingly seven-day
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: speech today at this event, RFK Jr. kind of took
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: an oblique shot at what I imagine was at you
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: guys at the DNC saying that the parties are trying
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: to keep him off the ballot. What's your response to
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: the people like RFK Jr. or others who say that
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: it's sort of anti-democratic to try to keep him off
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the ballot?
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: Well, like Trump, he's a guy that thrives on grievance.
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: He thrives on playing the victim. We're not trying to
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: keep anyone off the ballot. We are just trying to
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: make sure everyone plays by the same set of rules.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: And when there are a lot of people.
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: Very wrongly raising questions about the integrity of our elections.
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: We just want to make sure that everyone who is
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: on the ballot is on the ballot through ethical and
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: legal means.
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: And then, you know what? If he's on the ballot,
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: game on. We are ready for that fight.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I live here in the Bay Area.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: I run into kind of a surprising number of people
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: who are at least open to RFK Jr. They Maybe
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: they've seen some of his interviews on Instagram with wellness people.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: They've seen some of his YouTube stuff. What is your
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: best advice based on your polling and messaging to someone
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: who's trying to convince their cousin, friend, whoever else not
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: to support RFK Jr.? What are the best talking points? Yeah.
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: So if they are choosing between RFK Jr. and Joe Biden,
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: I think it's really important to make the point to
• 58:34
  Speaker 7: them that he has no path to victory.
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: He is playing the role of spoiler candidate in this race.
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: And he is being backed by Donald Trump's largest donor
• 58:43
  Speaker 7: with the purpose of siphoning votes away from Joe Biden
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: to throw the election to Donald Trump.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: One, that's really important.
• 58:51
  Speaker 7: The second point I'd make is that the people who
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: know him best, you know, Kennedy family members, are not
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: supporting him. And generally, these two points, I think, are
• 59:01
  Speaker 7: the most salient with Democrats who are leaning his way.
• 59:04
  Speaker 7: And third, to raise the stakes of what happens if—
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: he can play the role of spoiler. Do you really
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: want another four years of, you know, a con man
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: chaos agent like Donald Trump in the White House? It's
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: really important to raise the stakes, point out he's a spoiler,
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: has no path to 270, and that we really can't
• 59:26
  Speaker 7: afford another four years of Donald Trump.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: And if the person you're talking to is choosing between
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. and Trump, the talking points is obviously that
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. is a visionary leader who's really tough on
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the border. Is that right?
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: Right. Exactly.
• 59:38
  Speaker 7: Exactly. He's too conservative for America.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: That's right. He's just like six inches to the right
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: of Tucker Carlson.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: You know, as I mentioned at the top, you were
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: working with the DNC on a whole effort that is
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: focused on third-party candidates, not just RFK Jr., but- whether
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: that could include Green Party candidates, a no-labels candidacy, Cornel West,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: who's running. This is the first time in my memory
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: that the DNC has had such an effort. Obviously, because
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: of what happened in 2016, where the margin of some
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: of the third-party candidates was larger than Trump's victory margin
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: in some of the battleground states. It's kind of obviously
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: why you're doing it. But what are you guys working
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: on beyond RFK Jr.? What's the plan here?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: It's to really keep an eye on all the third-party
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 7: independent candidates running in 2024. And after 2000, when Ralph
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: Nader helped throw the election to George W. Bush, after 2016,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: where candidates like Jill Stein helped throw the election to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump, I think it's really, really important that we
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 7: do start to pay attention to candidates other than just
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 7: the major party candidates. Because even though third party and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: independent candidates might not be able to win, they might
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: be able to throw the election to the Republicans, to
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump. And frankly, I'm almost surprised that it has
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 7: taken us this long to do it, but it is really,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 7: really important. And so we're going to be watching who
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: gets on the ballot where. We're going to make sure
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: that we are communicating with voters who might be sympathetic,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: might be open to those voters. and laying out the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: choice ahead of them. That ultimately, this election is a binary.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: It's between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and that a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 7: vote for Jill Stein, a vote for RFK Jr. versus
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: a vote for Joe Biden ends up being a vote
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: for Donald Trump, and we cannot afford another four years
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: of Donald Trump.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, last question for you, Liz. You are famously a
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: huge Cincinnati Bengals fan. Were you a little disappointed recently
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: that Aaron Rodgers would be spending his fall on the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: football field instead of on the campaign trail with RFK Jr.?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: I grew up a Jets fan.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, no.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 7: My brothers have season tickets to the Jets, and last year,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: I think he lasted like 11 minutes into the.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: First game of the season.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: It ruined several of my fantasy teams, yeah.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 7: And it broke my brother's heart. So, you know, I
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 7: had really conflicted feelings about it, but I think overall,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: I am glad that we're going to see him on
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: the football field and not on the campaign trail. And
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: I hope, just for my brother's sake, that he has
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: a better season than the last season.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: But there's no doubt that.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: It would have been very, very entertaining to watch him
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: as a vice presidential candidate. But Again, this speaks to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 7: the type of campaign that Arthur Jr.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: Is running, right?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: That these were the people in line.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: None of these people were serious candidates.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: It seems like all that he was attracted to was,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 7: you know, celebrity and their willingness to embrace conspiracy theories. And,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: you know, this is not someone who is a serious
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: candidate for president.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Liz Smith, thank you so much. Always great to talk
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: to you, and we'll talk to you again soon. Yep.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Dan.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Sarah Longwell and Liz Smith, and we'll talk
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: to you all next week.
• 1:03:06
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