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Democrats' Closing Argument (with David Axelrod) · Pod Save America

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:23
Speaker 2: Heading into any big election, there's always a handful of
0:26
Speaker 2: people I want to hear from most, and one of
0:27
Speaker 2: them is my good friend and mentor, David Axelrod. Ax
0:32
Speaker 2: and I worked closely together for nearly a decade, from
0:35
Speaker 2: when Obama was a senator through his first term in
0:37
Speaker 2: the White House. He is the rare political strategist with
0:41
Speaker 2: a heart as big as his brain and understands the
0:44
Speaker 2: power and the craft of storytelling better than anyone I know,
0:48
Speaker 2: other than maybe our old boss. He founded the Institute
0:51
Speaker 2: of Politics at the University of Chicago, currently serves as
0:54
Speaker 2: CNN's chief political analyst and host of the excellent podcast
0:58
Speaker 2: Hacks on Tap. Two of us had a great conversation
1:01
Speaker 2: about the state of the midterms a few weeks out.
1:03
Speaker 2: We reacted to the highlights and lowlights of this week's
1:06
Speaker 2: big Senate debates and talked about what Democrats need to
1:09
Speaker 2: do to close strong in November and then win back
1:12
Speaker 2: the White House in twenty twenty eight. Before we get
1:15
Speaker 2: to our conversation, the midterms are less than 30 days away,
1:18
Speaker 2: and CrookedCon is too. It is November 5th through the
1:22
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1:25
Speaker 2: you there. We just announced 24 different conversations and debates
1:29
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1:36
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1:40
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Speaker 2: to add to the lineup in the weeks to come.
1:58
Speaker 2: Up next, David Axelrod. Ax, welcome back to the show.
2:05
Speaker 3: Always good to be with you, brother. I'm always happy
2:08
Speaker 3: when I'm with my old buddies from the, writer's room
2:13
Speaker 3: at the White House.
2:14
Speaker 2: I know we haven't talked in a while. I guess
2:15
Speaker 2: we have to schedule interviews in order to catch up
2:20
Speaker 2: on our respective podcasts.
2:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:23
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad to be here.
2:24
Speaker 2: So we haven't got a chance to talk midterms in
2:26
Speaker 2: a while. I want to get into some of the
2:29
Speaker 2: individual Senate races with you and play some clips from
2:33
Speaker 2: all the Senate debates this week.
2:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are fun.
2:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of debates this week. But just to start,
2:39
Speaker 2: at this point, it seems like Everyone's in agreement that
2:42
Speaker 2: the political environment is bad for Trump and the Republicans.
2:46
Speaker 2: And the only real question is how bad. Personally, I
2:51
Speaker 2: feel like between the economy and the war and Trump's approval,
2:56
Speaker 2: if Democrats can't win at least some of these red
2:58
Speaker 2: states with a midterm electorate, it ain't happening for a long,
3:03
Speaker 2: long time. But what do you think?
3:05
Speaker 3: And with some good candidates, you know, first of all, Fabs,
3:09
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know if you're having flashbacks, but
3:12
Speaker 3: I sure am, from 2010. And I watched the Republicans,
3:18
Speaker 3: and they're doing what we did, which is to try
3:20
Speaker 3: and rationalize that what is obviously happening isn't going to happen.
3:26
Speaker 3: I think that the climate is bad for Republicans and
3:33
Speaker 3: getting worse. The president is not helping. I mean, I'm
3:36
Speaker 3: not saying that Donald Trump is trying to to lose
3:40
Speaker 3: the election for Republicans. But if he were trying, he
3:44
Speaker 3: would not do anything differently than he's doing. I mean,
3:47
Speaker 3: it's really quite remarkable how much he has undermined them.
3:52
Speaker 3: And boy, I'll tell you what, there's going to be
3:55
Speaker 3: a whole lot of rage after the fact if this
3:59
Speaker 3: goes down as it could. One of my questions about
4:01
Speaker 3: these red states that I've been thinking about is we're
4:04
Speaker 3: measuring these states at, you know, we say Iowa's a
4:08
Speaker 3: 13 point Republican state because that's what Donald Trump got
4:13
Speaker 3: last time. You know, more than a small, more than
4:16
Speaker 3: a small portion of that 13% were people who didn't
4:20
Speaker 3: like Donald Trump, but were really upset about the economy.
4:24
Speaker 3: Didn't think that Biden had, you know, got it and
4:28
Speaker 3: was handling it. Kamala was the number two in that operation.
4:31
Speaker 3: And they just, you know, Trump was the economy guy, right?
4:35
Speaker 3: That's how they remembered him. And they said, let's, all right,
4:37
Speaker 3: we'll go take a shot on this. I don't think
4:40
Speaker 3: that Iowa's 13 points. You know, I don't think Ohio's
4:46
Speaker 3: 13 points necessarily. But they're certainly red states. So that's
4:53
Speaker 3: point number one. Point number two, the environment is so,
5:00
Speaker 3: I mean, Trump, is more unpopular, I think, than any
5:03
Speaker 3: president has been going into a midterm election since like
5:07
Speaker 3: Harry Truman, who also didn't do very well, by the way.
5:11
Speaker 3: And I think the House is gone and it's just
5:13
Speaker 3: a question of margin. But so much of this is
5:17
Speaker 3: about Trump because midterms are always about the guy in
5:21
Speaker 3: the president. It's always been a guy so far, the
5:23
Speaker 3: guy in the White House. And if people are unhappy
5:25
Speaker 3: with the direction of the country and particularly the economy,
5:29
Speaker 3: It's a really rough go for that party. And their
5:32
Speaker 3: play now is to try and just spend, spend, spend.
5:37
Speaker 3: I did a thing with Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio
5:41
Speaker 3: at Arizona State University at the beginning of the year.
5:43
Speaker 3: And I asked them about the midterms. And they said,
5:46
Speaker 3: we studied the midterms. We understand where things have gone wrong.
5:49
Speaker 3: We were outspent by Democrats the last couple of elections.
5:52
Speaker 3: We're going to make sure we vastly outspend them this time.
5:56
Speaker 3: We're going to make, at that time it was Mamdani.
5:59
Speaker 3: He's become a little too, you know, when Trump is
6:02
Speaker 3: embracing him, it makes it a harder target. But we're
6:04
Speaker 3: going to make these lefties the face of the Democratic Party.
6:08
Speaker 3: And we're going to make it about them. And we're
6:09
Speaker 3: going to make it about, you know, immigration and taxes
6:13
Speaker 3: and crime. But the third thing they said was end.
6:20
Speaker 3: we had this big beautiful bill and we front loaded
6:22
Speaker 3: all these tax cuts and people, you know, our bet
6:25
Speaker 3: is that people are gonna be feeling better about the
6:27
Speaker 3: economy come the fall. That did not work out because
6:34
Speaker 3: they did not know at that moment that Trump was
6:36
Speaker 3: gonna declare war on Iran and Canada for crying out loud.
6:41
Speaker 3: And you know, those, the decision to go to war
6:45
Speaker 3: in Iran and the decision The tariffs generally from Liberation
6:50
Speaker 3: Day on have been so punishing to the midsection of
6:56
Speaker 3: this country. Those red agricultural states have been absolutely pummeled.
7:02
Speaker 3: When you look at the states that are most punished
7:05
Speaker 3: by these two things, the war and the tariffs, you know,
7:11
Speaker 3: Iowa's at the top of that list. Kansas is at
7:13
Speaker 3: the top of that list. Nebraska's at the top of
7:17
Speaker 3: that list. And so, and the war has another impact.
7:22
Speaker 3: So people say, our costs are way up. You know,
7:26
Speaker 3: diesel is killing us. And there's one guy responsible for that.
7:32
Speaker 3: And it's the guy who said, we're not going to
7:35
Speaker 3: get into any endless wars in the Middle East.
7:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:40
Speaker 3: And so they feel there's a sense of betrayal there.
7:43
Speaker 4: Yeah.
7:44
Speaker 2: I can't remember a time where people have felt this
7:47
Speaker 2: bad about the economy and been able to so directly
7:51
Speaker 2: connect it to the actions of the president. Like usually
7:54
Speaker 2: the president suffers from bad feelings about the economy, but
7:57
Speaker 2: it's not often the president's out there bragging about the
8:01
Speaker 2: things that people are most angry at.
8:05
Speaker 3: This is another important point. And you remember this from
8:08
Speaker 3: when we were at the White House. We at the
8:11
Speaker 3: beginning of our administration, we came into office right at
8:14
Speaker 3: the beginning of the Great Recession. We walked into the
8:17
Speaker 3: worst economic situation since the Great Depression. And we thought
8:22
Speaker 3: we were making progress, but people were not feeling that progress.
8:28
Speaker 3: And when we tried to claim progress too overtly and
8:33
Speaker 3: did not really project empathy and advocacy for people who
8:37
Speaker 3: were struggling in that economy, We were punished for it.
8:42
Speaker 3: And we corrected that. And I'm sure you and I
8:45
Speaker 3: had that discussion many, many times. You had that discussion
8:48
Speaker 3: with the other speechwriters. We always pulled that back because
8:53
Speaker 3: we knew that it was insulting to people to try
8:57
Speaker 3: and jawbone them into feeling that the economy was better
9:00
Speaker 3: when their lives were not. Joe Biden made that same mistake.
9:06
Speaker 3: and paid a big price for it, toured the country
9:09
Speaker 3: in the summer of 2023, talking about the wonders of Bidenomics,
9:13
Speaker 3: the worst branding mistake since New Coke. And so what's
9:18
Speaker 3: really unbelievable is that Trump, having benefited from Biden's mistake,
9:25
Speaker 3: is now repeating it. And I think it has to
9:27
Speaker 3: do with personality type. I think Biden, they're very different people,
9:30
Speaker 3: and Biden's a much better person. But But there is
9:36
Speaker 3: a little bit of narcissism in both of them that
9:39
Speaker 3: they want credit for what they have done. And remember,
9:43
Speaker 3: even back in the day, Joe Biden used to say,
9:45
Speaker 3: if we just go out and tell people what we've accomplished.
9:48
Speaker 2: Just got to tell a better story.
9:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it turns out that the
9:53
Speaker 3: cash register is a better storyteller than us. The gas
9:58
Speaker 3: pump is a better storyteller. than us. And the story
10:02
Speaker 3: they're telling right now, and particularly in those Republican regions
10:06
Speaker 3: that we've spoken about, is a very negative story. So
10:11
Speaker 3: I think that here's, you know, the thing that's spooking
10:14
Speaker 3: everyone is this whole idea of the hidden Republican vote.
10:20
Speaker 3: You know, that pollsters don't, that the non-responding Republicans who
10:26
Speaker 3: are going to come out and vote. Now, that's really
10:29
Speaker 3: been an effect in elections when Trump was on the ballot,
10:33
Speaker 3: first of all. But secondly, pollsters are not stupid. They
10:38
Speaker 3: read this crap too. And they, so I think they're
10:41
Speaker 3: all adjusting their models. And I think they may be
10:44
Speaker 3: adjusting their models too favorably for Republicans. to offset the
10:49
Speaker 3: possibility of this. So, you know, it could be, these
10:56
Speaker 3: are close races, they could tip the other way, but
10:58
Speaker 3: generally when you have a wave, it's not selective, it's,
11:03
Speaker 3: you know, there are, you know, we ran in 2010,
11:07
Speaker 3: we had a big wave against us, but we also
11:09
Speaker 3: had a woman running for Senator in Delaware who, you know,
11:14
Speaker 3: thought she was a witch. And had to do an
11:17
Speaker 3: ad denying that she was a witch. That is a bad,
11:21
Speaker 3: that's a bad path. You know, you had a very
11:25
Speaker 3: flawed candidate in Indiana. So, you know, we were able
11:28
Speaker 3: to win seats even in the midst of the wave.
11:32
Speaker 3: But there are so many states right now that are
11:34
Speaker 3: in play that you would not have guessed would be
11:36
Speaker 3: in play six months ago.
11:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:40
Speaker 2: Let's go through some of the big Senate races, and
11:42
Speaker 2: let's start with Michigan, where our friend Abdul debated Mike
11:46
Speaker 2: Rogers for the first time this week. Maybe one of
11:48
Speaker 2: the most heated debates we've seen so far.
11:50
Speaker 5: Yes.
11:51
Speaker 2: Just to give everyone an idea of how personal it got,
11:53
Speaker 2: here's a clip of the two candidates fighting over their mothers, yachts,
11:58
Speaker 2: and who's better for Michigan. Let's open up this can
12:01
Speaker 2: of worms. I'll tell you what my mother did. She
12:03
Speaker 2: was a small.
12:06
Speaker 3: You going after my mom?
12:07
Speaker 2: I'm not going after your mom. What your mom was
12:09
Speaker 2: working at, I was going after that organization that was
12:11
Speaker 2: indicted for funneling money to Al-Qaeda.
12:14
Speaker 3: $ 2.
12:14
Speaker 4: 7 million in Florida, my guy.
12:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll talk about it. You know what?
12:18
Speaker 3: Did you sell your yachts?
12:19
Speaker 2: I never owned a yacht in Florida, brother.
12:21
Speaker 3: Oh, really? What was your yacht?
12:22
Speaker 4: You had two of them.
12:23
Speaker 5: He wanted to make this about him or me. But
12:25
Speaker 5: the question is about you. Can you afford your gas?
12:28
Speaker 5: Can you afford your groceries? Under this guy who's going
12:30
Speaker 5: to rubber stamp everything Donald Trump tells him to rubber stamp,
12:33
Speaker 5: you're going to continue to pay way more out the
12:35
Speaker 5: nose because he works for corporations and Donald Trump.
12:38
Speaker 2: So that was a flavor of the debate. You know,
12:40
Speaker 2: Rogers tried to define Abdul as extreme. Abdul tried to
12:43
Speaker 2: define Rogers as a corrupt Trump toady and also then
12:47
Speaker 2: turn it back to voters. Who do you think succeeded?
12:50
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I think the big winner of
12:52
Speaker 3: that debate may be the libertarian candidate who wasn't in
12:56
Speaker 3: the debate, but because it was really kind of I mean,
13:00
Speaker 3: it was a food fight in many ways. Um, but
13:05
Speaker 3: that closing, the closing comments from Abdul, I think are
13:09
Speaker 3: really pertinent. I mean, the bet that the Republicans are
13:12
Speaker 3: making is that they can turn him into a scary
13:16
Speaker 3: kind of, um, closeted, uh, terrorist, um, and, uh, that
13:22
Speaker 3: enough voters will be off put by that, that, that
13:25
Speaker 3: they will ignore, uh, their very real grievances about the
13:29
Speaker 3: direction of the economy and the direction of the country.
13:31
Speaker 3: Trump is, you know, more than 20 points underwater in
13:35
Speaker 3: that state. And I think that's a really hard thing
13:39
Speaker 3: for Rogers to overcome. Rogers is also a sort of
13:43
Speaker 3: prototype of the kind of Washington Republican at a time
13:47
Speaker 3: when I think people are throwing off the establishment and
13:51
Speaker 3: looking for people who are agents of change. So, but, Um,
13:57
Speaker 3: you know, I don't underestimate, um, you know, I've heard
14:01
Speaker 3: about focus groups in Michigan where people say that I
14:05
Speaker 3: don't like the way Abdul looks. I don't like the way,
14:08
Speaker 3: you know, and they're going to try. What that debate
14:13
Speaker 3: said to me last night was that this is going
14:15
Speaker 3: to be a very brutal three weeks, uh, in which
14:18
Speaker 3: they are going to try and scare the hell out
14:20
Speaker 3: of people, uh, about Abdul and, uh, I liked our
14:26
Speaker 3: old boss's reaction when people asked why he was going
14:30
Speaker 3: to Michigan to campaign for Abdul. And, you know, how
14:34
Speaker 3: could he? He said, well, you know, he wants health
14:38
Speaker 3: care for everyone and he wants a higher minimum wage
14:40
Speaker 3: and put money in people's pockets. So it sounds pretty
14:42
Speaker 3: good to me.
14:43
Speaker 1: I don't know.
14:44
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about that because obviously
14:45
Speaker 2: Obama dealt with plenty of ugly insinuations about his identity
14:51
Speaker 2: loyalties when he ran. What would your advice be to
14:55
Speaker 2: Abdul in these final weeks about responding without letting Rogers
15:00
Speaker 2: dictate the entire conversation.
15:02
Speaker 3: I think his closing comments there were where he should
15:06
Speaker 3: go all the time, all the time. This is, you know,
15:09
Speaker 3: this guy wants to scare you, uh, about me, but
15:13
Speaker 3: the scariest thing that everyone in the state is facing are, uh,
15:18
Speaker 3: their bills every month. They're the price of gas of,
15:23
Speaker 3: You know, groceries, the inability to get health care, the
15:27
Speaker 3: price of housing and mortgage interest rates. And he has
15:30
Speaker 3: rubber stamped all those policies. You know, I grew up here.
15:34
Speaker 3: I love this state. And I love the people of
15:37
Speaker 3: this state. And I want to be their advocate. He's
15:40
Speaker 3: going to be an advocate for Donald Trump and the
15:42
Speaker 3: special interests in Washington. That's where I would go. I mean,
15:45
Speaker 3: I don't, you know, Abdul, who I know and I like,
15:49
Speaker 3: he was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at
15:51
Speaker 3: the University of Chicago that I founded. Um, he's incredibly bright.
15:55
Speaker 3: I think he's well-motivated. Um, he, he also is the
15:59
Speaker 3: former captain, uh, you know, quarterback of, of the football team.
16:03
Speaker 3: And when it gets into these kind of like, you know,
16:05
Speaker 3: whose dick is bigger contests, he just can't help but
16:08
Speaker 3: jump in.
16:09
Speaker 2: I know he's gotten better, I think, but he has,
16:12
Speaker 2: he has, he has, but, uh, I, I.
16:15
Speaker 3: You know, it's, it's, he's, he's like the little girl
16:18
Speaker 3: with a curl in the middle of her forehead when
16:20
Speaker 3: he's good, he's great. And when he's bad, eh. And
16:24
Speaker 3: when he's bad is when he kind of submits to that,
16:28
Speaker 3: you know? Yeah. And there was a little of that
16:30
Speaker 3: in that debate last night. But whenever he's talking about
16:33
Speaker 3: people's lives, he's very compelling.
16:36
Speaker 1: Very.
16:36
Speaker 3: And that's where he should live.
16:46
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19:06
Speaker 2: Speaking of Obama, so he's going to Michigan, he's going
19:09
Speaker 2: to Detroit with Abdul and Jocelyn Benson, who's running for
19:12
Speaker 2: governor in a few weeks. What do you think is
19:14
Speaker 2: the most useful thing Obama can do and say in
19:19
Speaker 2: Michigan with Abdul?
19:20
Speaker 3: I think that he has to say a version of
19:23
Speaker 3: what we just said. He has to say that people
19:28
Speaker 3: across Michigan and people across the country have real life concerns.
19:32
Speaker 3: They're struggling and the system's let them down. And we
19:39
Speaker 3: need agents of change who want to make government more
19:42
Speaker 3: responsive to the needs of people. That's who this guy is.
19:45
Speaker 3: Don't be distracted. Whenever you see these hollow type commercials
19:51
Speaker 3: on the air, that's the sign of a campaign that
19:55
Speaker 3: is trying to change the subject. There should be one
19:59
Speaker 3: subject in this campaign, which is how we rest our
20:03
Speaker 3: policy away and government away from special interests and frankly,
20:09
Speaker 3: a president whose policies have taken us, you know, are
20:15
Speaker 3: not in the interest of everyday people. Now, he'll say
20:17
Speaker 3: it more elegantly, but that's the essence of it. I
20:21
Speaker 3: think reassurance is important. And he may want to say, listen,
20:25
Speaker 3: I know, I recognize some of the stuff that's being
20:30
Speaker 3: run against him. You know, some of those things were
20:33
Speaker 3: said about me. You know, there were people who wanted
20:36
Speaker 3: to scare you about me. Uh, and you know, I
20:40
Speaker 3: put my faith in you.
20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:43
Speaker 3: Uh, and, uh, I think Abdul is putting his faith
20:46
Speaker 3: in you as well.
20:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that'd be good.
20:49
Speaker 5: Yeah.
20:50
Speaker 2: What do you, I mean, I assume that Obama will do, um,
20:53
Speaker 2: other events as well in the midterms. What do you
20:56
Speaker 2: think just like writ large, his, his value is at
21:00
Speaker 2: this moment. And it's always like a tension between, you know, um,
21:05
Speaker 2: he wants a message that is relevant to now. He
21:09
Speaker 2: doesn't want to just get people thinking about, you know,
21:11
Speaker 2: the Obama years, but he also wants to be like
21:13
Speaker 2: useful and say something that's, you know, useful to people
21:18
Speaker 2: in the moment.
21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:20
Speaker 3: The thing that he is so good at is sort
21:23
Speaker 3: of lift and like lifting us above the trees a
21:28
Speaker 3: little bit. I mean, I think people, the big issue
21:32
Speaker 3: across this country, the everyday cost of things is a
21:36
Speaker 3: huge issue. The bigger issue is people feel like they're
21:39
Speaker 3: losing control of their lives. They're losing their agency. And
21:45
Speaker 3: I think that's a lot of what, Favs, the AI
21:49
Speaker 3: issue is. The data centers have a specific issue, specific
21:53
Speaker 3: issues relative to the cost that they will bring to communities.
21:57
Speaker 3: But people feel like these things are being inflicted on them,
21:59
Speaker 3: and they feel like AI is being inflicted on them. Now,
22:03
Speaker 3: I'm one who believes, you know, AI could help solve
22:06
Speaker 3: some of the greatest problems we face, and it could
22:07
Speaker 3: also destroy us. And I'd like to go through door
22:10
Speaker 3: A and not door B. But I think the biggest
22:15
Speaker 3: thing is, I think, I was just talking to someone
22:17
Speaker 3: about this this morning. I think now and going into 2028,
22:21
Speaker 3: one of the great, I think, issues of our time
22:28
Speaker 3: or whether we're gonna regain control of our own lives
22:32
Speaker 3: and whether the algorithms run our lives or whether we
22:36
Speaker 3: run the algorithms. And just to kind of like seize
22:41
Speaker 3: control back and put it where it belongs in our democracy,
22:46
Speaker 3: which is in the hands of people to help shape
22:51
Speaker 3: that future. So I hope there's a little of that
22:55
Speaker 3: and a little of the... Now, this is therapeutic for me,
22:59
Speaker 3: so you can send me a bill for this when
23:01
Speaker 3: I'm done, but I'm feeling really good talking about it.
23:04
Speaker 3: But I am so concerned that we have this perverse
23:08
Speaker 3: set of incentives in our media and in our politics
23:12
Speaker 3: that makes it profitable to divide people, to demonize people,
23:18
Speaker 3: to separate us as Americans, to make us believe that
23:22
Speaker 3: our neighbor is actually our enemy. And I think we
23:26
Speaker 3: have to... I think we have to make that part
23:29
Speaker 3: of what we're running against. And frankly, these tech platforms
23:33
Speaker 3: bear a lot of responsibility for that because that's their
23:35
Speaker 3: profit model. Yes.
23:37
Speaker 2: I think that is a huge... Well, and it also
23:39
Speaker 2: speaks to the earlier point you made about AI and
23:43
Speaker 2: data centers, which is people feel like they don't have agency. Yes.
23:47
Speaker 2: And they feel... And there's this feeling that because so
23:51
Speaker 2: much of our politics is mediated through these platforms, that
23:55
Speaker 2: yelling and arguing about politics is an end to itself
23:59
Speaker 2: and so that if you like win a fight online
24:01
Speaker 2: yes that's great but like what did what did that
24:04
Speaker 2: do how many people did that cause to change their
24:06
Speaker 2: minds or vote or join an organization or run for
24:09
Speaker 2: office right yes so we've had this we have this
24:12
Speaker 2: false sense of what it means to be active in
24:15
Speaker 2: politics and to participate in.
24:16
Speaker 3: Politics yes and part of it is you know people
24:20
Speaker 3: feel i mean and part part of the shame of
24:23
Speaker 3: or the challenge of uh the media environment is that
24:29
Speaker 3: people are just so jaundiced about what government can do
24:34
Speaker 3: and what we can do about what we can do together.
24:39
Speaker 3: But the other thing that they should be deeply worried
24:42
Speaker 3: about is we are back to a period in our
24:45
Speaker 3: history where there is this tremendous concentration of wealth. And
24:49
Speaker 3: with that concentration, this isn't about resentment. If Jeff Bezos
24:53
Speaker 3: wants to float around on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
24:56
Speaker 3: God bless him. Good for him. This is about whether
25:00
Speaker 3: these people have too much influence over policy decisions in Washington.
25:05
Speaker 3: Are they steering policy in their favor and against the
25:09
Speaker 3: interests of everyday people? In 2024, there was an online
25:16
Speaker 3: kids safety act that was passed in the United States.
25:18
Speaker 3: And I think it had 93 votes, a rare bipartisan bill.
25:22
Speaker 3: The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, never called it,
25:26
Speaker 3: never called it for a vote because he knew it
25:27
Speaker 3: would pass. And he and Mark Zuckerberg spent tens and
25:32
Speaker 3: tens and tens of millions of dollars lobbying for that.
25:35
Speaker 3: How many decisions are being influenced in Washington in that way?
25:40
Speaker 3: I think people suspect a lot. So we got to
25:43
Speaker 3: run against that too.
25:44
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Maine, where Troy Jackson and Susan Collins
25:47
Speaker 2: debated twice this week. Thursday night got pretty testy as well.
25:52
Speaker 2: Let's listen.
25:53
Speaker 7: When Donald Trump wants something, Senator Collins will not stop him.
25:57
Speaker 7: And when she doesn't stop him, it hurts Mainers. Senator
26:00
Speaker 7: Collins and her husband are making money more off of
26:03
Speaker 7: this war, and so is a whole bunch of other people.
26:06
Speaker 7: And that's why this doesn't stop, because they got us
26:10
Speaker 7: in another forever war that we're never going to get
26:12
Speaker 7: out of, and people in this state are feeling the
26:13
Speaker 7: effects of it.
26:14
Speaker 1: That is absolutely outrageous, and you owe me an apology.
26:20
Speaker 7: No, you owe me an apology.
26:21
Speaker 6: That is outrageous.
26:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely outrageous.
26:25
Speaker 7: That's what this campaign is about. It's about people that
26:28
Speaker 7: know that this government is fundamentally flawed and Susan Collins
26:31
Speaker 7: won't do anything about it. She's powerful toward an election time,
26:35
Speaker 7: but she's weak every time that we need her to
26:37
Speaker 7: stand up and fight for us.
26:39
Speaker 2: So on the war profiteering hit, Jackson was referring to
26:43
Speaker 2: the stock that Collins and her husband own and a
26:45
Speaker 2: couple of oil companies and military defense contractors.
26:48
Speaker 3: I thought that was a bad hit.
26:50
Speaker 2: I was going to say, it's quite a bazooka to unleash.
26:54
Speaker 3: There's plenty to say for Troy Jackson to say. And
26:58
Speaker 3: I thought in the first debate earlier in the week,
27:01
Speaker 3: he made a really strong case against Susan Collins. I'll
27:06
Speaker 3: talk about that in a second. But I don't think
27:12
Speaker 3: Mainers who've known her for all these years, they have
27:15
Speaker 3: a lot of complaints about her, the idea that she's
27:17
Speaker 3: only bipartisan when it doesn't count. and so on. But
27:21
Speaker 3: I don't think any of them believe that she's motivated by,
27:24
Speaker 3: you know, for corrupt purposes. And I thought that was a,
27:28
Speaker 3: I thought that if I were advising him, I would
27:30
Speaker 3: have said, hey, stick that in your pocket and don't
27:33
Speaker 3: say that. I thought it watered his argument down. Did you, Favs,
27:37
Speaker 3: in the first debate though, he said, you know, he
27:42
Speaker 3: pointed out that she brags about voting against the big,
27:45
Speaker 3: beautiful bill, but she actually allowed it to get to
27:48
Speaker 3: the floor of the Senate because she's the chairman of
27:51
Speaker 3: the Appropriations Committee. And then he talked about healthcare. And
27:55
Speaker 3: he said, she's been a government employee all her life.
27:57
Speaker 3: She's never had to worry about paying for healthcare. And
28:02
Speaker 3: she objected vehemently. She said, that is not true. In 1994,
28:07
Speaker 3: when I was running for governor, I had no healthcare.
28:11
Speaker 2: There was a few month period 30 years ago where
28:14
Speaker 2: I was briefly not insured by the government.
28:16
Speaker 3: Because I was running for governor. Yes. I mean, that
28:21
Speaker 3: was such a revealing exchange, you know. And I think–
28:25
Speaker 3: and he said, look, there are a lot of people
28:28
Speaker 3: in this state who don't have those advantages, who have
28:32
Speaker 3: to worry every day about how they're going to pay
28:34
Speaker 3: for an illness if it happens, who can't see a doctor. And,
28:40
Speaker 3: you know, I'm one of them. You know, I'm one
28:42
Speaker 3: of those people who worked 80 hours a week to– and,
28:45
Speaker 3: you know, one of the things about this, Favs, is–
28:48
Speaker 3: you know, there is a kind of Forrest Gump, kind
28:52
Speaker 3: of Ralph Cramden quality to Troy Jackson. And there is
28:57
Speaker 3: a kind of elite element to her argument, which is
29:01
Speaker 3: a guy like this doesn't belong in the United States Senate.
29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. She seems offended by having to be on stage
29:08
Speaker 2: with him. Yes. And also like that anyone's challenging her,
29:11
Speaker 2: you know, seeking another term.
29:13
Speaker 3: So the question is, are college educated voters and college
29:18
Speaker 3: educated women going to walk away from him? The data
29:22
Speaker 3: doesn't suggest that. But is he going to chip away
29:26
Speaker 3: at a bunch of working class people in that state
29:29
Speaker 3: who think, I mean, I think it's a pretty good
29:31
Speaker 3: argument that maybe the Senate would work better if there
29:34
Speaker 3: were a few people who actually know what's going.
29:37
Speaker 2: On in people's lives.
29:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:38
Speaker 2: This to me is another race. And it's a little
29:40
Speaker 2: like Michigan in that he's got two objectives, right? He's
29:44
Speaker 2: got to tie her to Trump or at least make
29:47
Speaker 2: the best argument about her that is, as you were saying,
29:50
Speaker 2: believable to the people in Maine who have voted for
29:54
Speaker 2: her many times and many of whom like her even
29:56
Speaker 2: though they vote for Democrats for president. And– He, for
29:59
Speaker 2: some reason, has like the highest unfavorables of any Democratic
30:03
Speaker 2: Senate candidate running in one of these really competitive races.
30:06
Speaker 2: So he's got to tell a story about himself that
30:10
Speaker 2: reassures people. And I wonder how you think about the
30:13
Speaker 2: balance and the tension between making the case about Collins
30:16
Speaker 2: and then also making the case for himself.
30:19
Speaker 3: Well, the thing about, you know, I've seen ads, I've
30:21
Speaker 3: seen the attack ads and I've seen ads about him.
30:24
Speaker 3: And I think that they're both important and both credible
30:27
Speaker 3: and they match each other, uh, because, uh, his is
30:33
Speaker 3: very much about a lifetime of, in the, in the
30:36
Speaker 3: working class and as an advocate for the working class, um, and, uh,
30:42
Speaker 3: framing her as a, you know, as a creature of Washington. And, um,
30:49
Speaker 3: you know, I, I think that is the, the place
30:52
Speaker 3: that he, that is the place he needs to be.
30:54
Speaker 3: This notion of her as someone who, um, You know,
30:58
Speaker 3: I think she will say, I cast a deciding vote
31:04
Speaker 3: to save the Affordable Care Act. And honestly, I'm grateful
31:07
Speaker 3: to her for that. She also voted against the Affordable
31:10
Speaker 3: Care Act. You know, and there are so many examples
31:14
Speaker 3: like that. You know, I voted against the Big Beautiful Bill.
31:17
Speaker 3: But as chair, she enabled it to get on the
31:20
Speaker 3: floor of the House. You know, she tends to stray
31:26
Speaker 3: from the leadership when they don't need her vote.
31:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:30
Speaker 3: And, you know, the ACA was an admirable exception to that. So,
31:35
Speaker 3: you know, the one thing I don't know, I saw
31:40
Speaker 3: a video of her from 2000, from 1996 when she
31:44
Speaker 3: first ran, almost unrecognizable, honestly. But she said, if I
31:50
Speaker 3: can't get what I want done for, I'm here for
31:52
Speaker 3: two terms and two terms only. And if I can't
31:54
Speaker 3: get that done, I shouldn't. be here. And then I
31:58
Speaker 3: saw her being interviewed on Fox and they said, what
32:01
Speaker 3: about that? And she said, well, I found out that
32:03
Speaker 3: seniority is really important. But she had been working in
32:06
Speaker 3: the Senate for six years before she ran. She was
32:09
Speaker 3: like chairman of a subcommittee staff. And she did not
32:12
Speaker 3: know that seniority was important. So, I mean, I do
32:16
Speaker 3: think there's an element of enough's enough. And I think
32:20
Speaker 3: I'd work that a little in the final stretch here, too.
32:23
Speaker 2: And one of these where because you know that a
32:26
Speaker 2: lot of Mainers like her to sort of give them–
32:30
Speaker 2: like give people who voted for her an.
32:31
Speaker 3: Exit, right? Yes, a permission structure.
32:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, and be like– The gold watch strategy. Right. Yes, exactly.
32:36
Speaker 5: Yeah.
32:37
Speaker 2: Thank you for your service. That's great. But you know what?
32:40
Speaker 2: You say you've gotten all this stuff from Maine and
32:41
Speaker 2: thank you for everything you have brought to Maine. But
32:43
Speaker 2: we're still hurting. Costs are still high. We're still worried
32:46
Speaker 2: about our health care and like you haven't done anything
32:48
Speaker 2: about that.
32:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's sort of a little bit of why
32:51
Speaker 3: I was uncomfortable with the– with the attack that she
32:56
Speaker 3: was profiting off of the war. I mean, that goes
33:01
Speaker 3: in the opposite direction of what you're suggesting. But I
33:05
Speaker 3: wouldn't be surprised if he's smart, he'll close with an
33:07
Speaker 3: ad of Maynard saying, I voted for Susan Collins and
33:11
Speaker 3: I like her, but it's time for a change. And
33:17
Speaker 3: they can articulate some of the arguments that will give
33:19
Speaker 3: people the ability to say, that's me. I feel that
33:23
Speaker 3: way too. I don't have to hate Susan Collins not
33:26
Speaker 3: to vote for her.
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35:02
Speaker 2: We talked about some of the red state races earlier. Yeah.
35:07
Speaker 2: Texas looms large. And I think Ken Paxton is maybe
35:10
Speaker 2: the worst Republican candidate of the cycle.
35:13
Speaker 3: Incredible cycles.
35:14
Speaker 2: Um, So that's obviously a big reason Tallarico may win.
35:19
Speaker 2: But how much do you attribute what's happening in Texas
35:21
Speaker 2: to his appeal as a candidate, Tallarico's appeal? And what
35:25
Speaker 2: do you think he's done right that Democrats may be
35:28
Speaker 2: able to learn from?
35:29
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I think that he is the anti-Trump in
35:36
Speaker 3: some ways. He is appealing to people's common humanity. I
35:41
Speaker 3: think the qualities Favsett Trump lacks are going to be
35:45
Speaker 3: very much in demand, uh, in the next few years. Um, empathy, humility, um,
35:53
Speaker 3: you know, um, uh, well, obviously integrity, but, uh, an
35:58
Speaker 3: impulse to bring people together and so on. Um, Tallarico
36:02
Speaker 3: believes that.
36:03
Speaker 7: Yeah.
36:03
Speaker 3: And he exudes that and it's wrapped in his faith,
36:07
Speaker 3: which is obviously quite, um, is quite sincere. And I
36:12
Speaker 3: think that's been good. He's also, you know, an incredible communicator.
36:17
Speaker 3: And he's benefiting from the snapback among Hispanic voters who
36:22
Speaker 3: Republicans thought somehow had pledged their fidelity to the party,
36:26
Speaker 3: regardless of what they did. Regardless, I mean, this is
36:29
Speaker 3: a community of working class people and small business people
36:32
Speaker 3: who are getting killed in the economy, but also Hispanic
36:36
Speaker 3: Americans who now are being targeted by simply because they
36:42
Speaker 3: are Hispanic by ICE and they've seen all of these
36:47
Speaker 3: stories unfold. So he's benefited from that as well. And
36:49
Speaker 3: he's getting the kind of vote among Hispanic voters that
36:54
Speaker 3: he will need to win this race. But he's also
36:57
Speaker 3: getting a pretty good vote among white voters. I think
37:00
Speaker 3: what's going to happen in this race is that you're
37:03
Speaker 3: going to see a much larger than normal group of
37:06
Speaker 3: Republican voters who just skipped the race, who there's going
37:10
Speaker 3: to be a big undervote, uh, for Paxton. And then
37:13
Speaker 3: on top of that, I think the libertarian candidate there
37:16
Speaker 3: who got 2.4% in the last Senate race, it's going
37:19
Speaker 3: to do even better than that. And I think it's
37:20
Speaker 3: going to most, almost all be, uh, people who want
37:24
Speaker 3: to register a protest against Paxton, but can't get all
37:27
Speaker 3: the way over to vote for Tallarico. That will lower the, uh,
37:32
Speaker 3: the threshold for Tallarico to win. He doesn't need to
37:34
Speaker 3: win 50% of the vote. Yeah.
37:36
Speaker 2: In that case, there's a real path there. I mean,
37:39
Speaker 2: he's close.
37:40
Speaker 7: Yeah.
37:41
Speaker 3: But Texas has broken the hearts of many Democrats many times.
37:45
Speaker 3: So I think this could be different. And Paxton is
37:49
Speaker 3: a mess. A mess.
37:51
Speaker 2: One more debate from this week I want to get
37:52
Speaker 2: your thoughts on. Mike Collins versus John Ossoff in a
37:55
Speaker 2: race that Ossoff has just dominated from the start despite
37:59
Speaker 2: Georgia being a state that swung back to Trump in 24.
38:03
Speaker 2: Let's watch a few clips.
38:04
Speaker 1: This is a man who cheered on a group of
38:07
Speaker 1: young men who were mocking a black woman on a
38:09
Speaker 1: college campus with monkey sounds. If John Lewis were marching
38:14
Speaker 1: today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing
38:18
Speaker 1: a billy club. His office has been in cahoots with
38:22
Speaker 1: some of the most notorious white supremacists on the country.
38:25
Speaker 1: He himself has amplified neo-Nazi propaganda. He's never apologized for it,
38:32
Speaker 1: and he should tonight. Mike Collins voted to take that
38:34
Speaker 1: money out of your pocket and out of your community.
38:38
Speaker 1: and give it instead to data center developers. And that's
38:41
Speaker 1: the problem, Mike. It's not just that you've hired half
38:43
Speaker 1: the Third Reich to staff your congressional office and you
38:46
Speaker 1: have promoted neo-Nazi content online. It's that you're robbing your
38:50
Speaker 1: constituents to subsidize your donors. I want to know if
38:53
Speaker 1: you will commit to voting to repeal that data center
38:55
Speaker 1: tax scam that you voted for.
38:57
Speaker 4: Let's hear an answer.
38:59
Speaker 3: This debate was like the most brutal thing I've ever seen.
39:04
Speaker 3: It was so You would teach off of this debate.
39:09
Speaker 3: You would teach off of it. I mean, I thought
39:11
Speaker 3: they were going to have to remove Collins on a
39:13
Speaker 3: stretcher after this debate.
39:15
Speaker 2: I mean, here's what my reaction was. Like this whole campaign,
39:19
Speaker 2: Ossoff's been doing these rally speeches that go viral. And
39:22
Speaker 2: one of the reactions has been, sure, he's good at
39:25
Speaker 2: the set piece teleprompter speeches, but what about when there's
39:28
Speaker 2: no prompter? And you know this well, for all of
39:31
Speaker 2: Barack Obama's many talents, landing debate zingers and memorable debate moments,
39:37
Speaker 2: not really one of them. What'd you think of Ossoff's
39:40
Speaker 2: performance and like what that says about his skills as
39:44
Speaker 2: a politician and potentially a presidential candidate if things go
39:48
Speaker 2: well and he decides.
39:49
Speaker 3: Look, I think that he is a star. You know, he's,
39:53
Speaker 3: the speeches that he's given, and they've been very artful
39:57
Speaker 3: at packaging them in vertical videos that have gone viral.
40:02
Speaker 3: It's helped him raise a lot of money, but it's
40:05
Speaker 3: also raised a lot of excitement among Democrats. And here
40:10
Speaker 3: he shows, and you saw some of it in committee hearings,
40:13
Speaker 3: but here he shows an incredible facility for just completely
40:18
Speaker 3: controlling a debate from start to finish. And, you know,
40:23
Speaker 3: obviously he's got a good memory and he rehearsed those interventions,
40:29
Speaker 3: but it came across as very conversational and he completely
40:36
Speaker 3: dominated the terms of the debate. I think, look, Asaf's
40:40
Speaker 3: going to win and he's going to win by more
40:42
Speaker 3: than a few. And what's going to happen next is,
40:46
Speaker 3: is going to be a stampede of people down to
40:49
Speaker 3: Atlanta to try and persuade him to run for president.
40:56
Speaker 3: My view of him is he's really exciting, interesting, and talented,
41:04
Speaker 3: and young, which I think is hugely important. He's a
41:07
Speaker 3: member of the Senate, but he seems like an outsider.
41:10
Speaker 3: He seems like a guy who's trying to hold the
41:12
Speaker 3: Senate to account, the government to account, Uh, I think
41:15
Speaker 3: that's very important. Um, I haven't seen him smile. I've
41:19
Speaker 3: never seen him smile. I've never seen him. He's always
41:22
Speaker 3: very severe. Um, you know, so there are other elements
41:27
Speaker 3: of campaigning, you know, that I would like to see, uh,
41:31
Speaker 3: you know, I, I mean, even, I mean, you must've
41:34
Speaker 3: had him here. Um, but I don't know how he
41:38
Speaker 3: is sort of just basic conversation.
41:40
Speaker 2: He, yeah, it's not like he's, um, It's not like
41:44
Speaker 2: he's stiff, right? It's that he doesn't give you much.
41:48
Speaker 2: He's very- And you know what?
41:50
Speaker 3: You know how I feel about this. Campaigns require, I
41:55
Speaker 3: call them MRIs for the soul, presidential campaigns. People need
41:59
Speaker 3: to know who you are and they'll find out who
42:02
Speaker 3: you are. One of the things about Obama was he
42:04
Speaker 3: could do all the events very well. He was very
42:07
Speaker 3: comfortable in conversation. He was comfortable in any room he
42:10
Speaker 3: walked in. even when cameras weren't there, he'd go through
42:16
Speaker 3: the kitchen on every time we arrived somewhere and spend
42:20
Speaker 3: time with people in the kitchen and talk to them
42:22
Speaker 3: about their lives. And he'd retain a lot of the
42:25
Speaker 3: stories that you ended up using in your speeches were
42:28
Speaker 3: stories that he retained in his mind from conversations with people.
42:33
Speaker 3: I don't know. We'll see about that. The campaign will
42:37
Speaker 3: test that if he runs. There's one element of this though,
42:43
Speaker 3: that we should mention, which is if Democrats only win
42:47
Speaker 3: 51 seats and assuming that Senator Fetterman doesn't flee, which
42:55
Speaker 3: seems a little bit more likely than not these days,
42:58
Speaker 3: I guess, that Senate seat in Georgia is going to
43:03
Speaker 3: be really important. And who is the governor of Georgia
43:06
Speaker 3: is going to be really important because the governor of
43:08
Speaker 3: Georgia is going to have to appoint a replacement until
43:11
Speaker 3: a special election. uh, which would come, I think in
43:15
Speaker 3: two years. Uh, I think that's the way it works.
43:20
Speaker 3: So they're actually, well, Keisha Lance Bottoms is, is running
43:24
Speaker 3: a very strong race. She's in neck and neck, uh,
43:27
Speaker 3: with Rick Jackson. I think his name is Rick Jackson,
43:30
Speaker 3: the candidate there. Uh, but, um, uh, if, uh, You know,
43:36
Speaker 3: her winning would be, I think, make it easier for Ossoff.
43:40
Speaker 2: Certainly. But if not, yeah, it's kind of.
43:42
Speaker 3: You know, so that's a side like this. But look,
43:45
Speaker 3: you know, I'm always excited by young, dynamic leaders who
43:52
Speaker 3: can make appeals to idealism. And in that, even though
43:57
Speaker 3: I said what I said earlier, he did evoke in
44:02
Speaker 3: his comments throughout this debate the experience of people. I mean,
44:06
Speaker 3: it wasn't like he was divorced from that. It wasn't
44:09
Speaker 3: so clinical.
44:10
Speaker 2: No, and then there's all these stories about his constituent
44:14
Speaker 2: services in Georgia and him calling just constituents all the
44:18
Speaker 2: time directly to see how they're doing. I can't tell
44:22
Speaker 2: what it is. He seems to be a very thoughtful
44:27
Speaker 2: person who, and I heard him say this in some interview,
44:31
Speaker 2: where he's like, there's just been so much silliness in
44:33
Speaker 2: politics that actually taking the time to think about what
44:36
Speaker 2: you're going to say and being careful about what you're
44:37
Speaker 2: going to say, I feel like is a, is a,
44:39
Speaker 2: is a skill that, or it was just something that's
44:41
Speaker 2: needed that.
44:42
Speaker 3: We haven't had in a while.
44:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
44:43
Speaker 2: It's a discipline. And I wonder if part of this
44:46
Speaker 2: is discipline for the race he's running and that, you know,
44:49
Speaker 2: maybe we'll see, we'll see more of him, uh, once, uh,
44:52
Speaker 2: once the race is over, but.
44:53
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it would be, I hope he gets
44:55
Speaker 3: out there. I think, uh, you know, and, and as
44:59
Speaker 3: I said, one of the things he's going to have
45:00
Speaker 3: to be alert to is that Obama, learned, is when
45:05
Speaker 3: you come out with this kind of ballyhoo, you don't
45:08
Speaker 3: get the advantage other candidates get to kind of work
45:11
Speaker 3: your material through in small groups. You open right up
45:14
Speaker 3: on Broadway and the critics are all lined up in
45:16
Speaker 3: the front row. And there's a lot of pressure associated
45:19
Speaker 3: with that. So everybody who runs for statewide office thinks,
45:24
Speaker 3: I'm good at this. I can run for president. And
45:26
Speaker 3: then they run for president, they realize, oh, this is
45:29
Speaker 3: a whole different thing. And it is. And it should
45:31
Speaker 3: be because you're running for the most powerful and important
45:35
Speaker 3: office on the planet.
45:44
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47:20
Speaker 2: You mentioned how people are often looking for, and this
47:24
Speaker 2: is one of your more famous axisms, that people are
47:27
Speaker 2: looking for the remedy and not the replica of the
47:31
Speaker 2: president who came before. What potential Democratic candidates do you
47:36
Speaker 2: think sort of embody some of the qualities that people
47:42
Speaker 2: are going to be looking for after the Trump era?
47:45
Speaker 3: Well, the hard part with Trump is that there are
47:47
Speaker 3: a lot of things to remedy. And the question is,
47:51
Speaker 3: what are the ones that are most important to people?
47:55
Speaker 3: I think almost all of them, though, fit in that
47:57
Speaker 3: character basket. Humility, integrity, empathy, I think is really important
48:09
Speaker 3: because he shows none. I think that's one of the
48:12
Speaker 3: reasons why Joe Biden... beat him in 2020 because Biden
48:17
Speaker 3: had preternatural empathy. And he seemed like a guy from
48:21
Speaker 3: small town America, from Scranton, who could relate to the
48:25
Speaker 3: experience of everyday people. I mean, some of that will
48:28
Speaker 3: be important. Secondly, I do think because of the unbelievable
48:34
Speaker 3: level of corruption we've seen, I think people want to
48:38
Speaker 3: give Washington an angioplasty and they want to hold it,
48:42
Speaker 3: you know, that our institutions to account. And, you know,
48:46
Speaker 3: there I think Ossoff has leaped ahead of the field
48:50
Speaker 3: because he has been such a strong voice on corruption
48:53
Speaker 3: and not just the corruption of Trump, but the corruption
48:57
Speaker 3: of the process by which decisions are made. So I
49:02
Speaker 3: think that will be really important. And I think youth
49:04
Speaker 3: will be important. I don't think this is, we've gone
49:07
Speaker 3: through the experiment with a couple of octogenarians. I don't
49:09
Speaker 3: think people are gonna be looking for more. And I
49:12
Speaker 3: think that's why the whole field's gonna be much younger.
49:16
Speaker 3: I think being from outside of Washington also will be helpful.
49:19
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the governors may have a bit
49:21
Speaker 3: of an advantage, although I think Ossoff, as I said,
49:24
Speaker 3: doesn't read like Washington. So he might escape that.
49:28
Speaker 2: One thing I've been thinking about the governors is like
49:31
Speaker 2: I feel like the ability to draw attention. to inspire people,
49:39
Speaker 2: to get people excited is even more important in this
49:43
Speaker 2: information environment where it's just so crowded and noisy. And
49:47
Speaker 2: sometimes I wonder if these governors who might be very
49:51
Speaker 2: popular in their states because they've governed really, really well
49:56
Speaker 2: are going to be adept at figuring out how to
49:59
Speaker 2: draw attention in a crowded national information environment like this.
50:04
Speaker 3: That is one of the The new tests, right? That's
50:07
Speaker 3: a relatively new test, but absolutely, I think that's going
50:11
Speaker 3: to be important. I mean, as I said, one of
50:14
Speaker 3: the reasons Ossoff has done well is because they understood this.
50:19
Speaker 3: And so, you know, yeah, he made these speeches, but
50:21
Speaker 3: they also knew how to cut them up and get
50:23
Speaker 3: them out and make them go viral. Honestly, my old
50:30
Speaker 3: buddy Rahm Emanuel and your old boss in the White House,
50:34
Speaker 3: been pretty he's been pretty uh creative about getting you
50:38
Speaker 3: know attention yep uh as well and you know i
50:42
Speaker 3: think he'll be a factor in this thing i mean.
50:44
Speaker 2: But it is like what i when i go through
50:45
Speaker 2: the it's like rom's good at that ossoff pete aoc
50:50
Speaker 2: newsome you can say whether the get where the attention
50:53
Speaker 2: all these folks are getting are helpful or not but
50:56
Speaker 2: like that's like a list of people who i think
50:59
Speaker 2: know how to sort of draw attention to themselves.
51:02
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, one thing we should say is
51:04
Speaker 3: I've always said authenticity is a coin of the realm
51:07
Speaker 3: in presidential races. So it's good to be viral. It's
51:10
Speaker 3: also good not to look like you're kind of full
51:12
Speaker 3: of shit. So that's, that's important. Yeah. So, um, you,
51:17
Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of those folks would, would,
51:19
Speaker 3: are not that way. Um, you know, uh, I know
51:23
Speaker 3: Ram has his fans and his, uh, and, and his detractors, but, um,
51:30
Speaker 3: you know, he, he does believe things, certain things, and
51:33
Speaker 3: he's telling, you know, he's very straightforward and he says it,
51:36
Speaker 3: you know, AOC is a great communicator on this level.
51:39
Speaker 3: I just, you know, you may know more than I, um,
51:42
Speaker 3: I mean, I just don't know if she's going to run.
51:44
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you because you, you asked
51:46
Speaker 2: her that at the IOP and that the answer kind
51:48
Speaker 2: of went, went viral. And then she talked to the
51:50
Speaker 2: times again and she, she, it was interesting that quote
51:53
Speaker 2: she gave them, which is, you know, life doesn't wait
51:55
Speaker 2: for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just
51:57
Speaker 2: makes things ready for you, which is, reminds me of
52:01
Speaker 2: what Obama was being told back in 06 and 07. And, um,
52:05
Speaker 2: but I couldn't tell which way she was leaning.
52:07
Speaker 3: There are other things she said that, um, make you,
52:11
Speaker 3: and what she said to me that make you wonder, uh,
52:15
Speaker 3: about whether she thinks this, this is the right time, uh,
52:19
Speaker 3: for her, you know, she's 36 years old. She wants
52:22
Speaker 3: to have a life. We now know she wants to
52:24
Speaker 3: have children, uh, because she's talked about that. Um, that's,
52:30
Speaker 3: you know, running for president makes those things almost prohibitive.
52:36
Speaker 3: And she has to feel like she's ready. You know,
52:40
Speaker 3: if others may feel she's ready, she has to feel
52:43
Speaker 3: that she's ready, just ready in terms of her level
52:48
Speaker 3: of performance and so on. And, you know, the Senate
52:52
Speaker 3: seat's sitting there in New York. I mean, I think
52:54
Speaker 3: if she decides she wants to run for the Senate,
52:57
Speaker 3: I don't know that. I think Senator Schumer probably isn't
53:00
Speaker 3: going to run anyway. I don't know that, but I suspect.
53:03
Speaker 3: And I think he certainly would not if she did. So,
53:08
Speaker 3: you know, and she would not be just another senator,
53:11
Speaker 3: you know. Right. I've said, you know, I don't want
53:14
Speaker 3: to disparage, but there are a number of senators I
53:17
Speaker 3: could think of who can walk down the hall in
53:18
Speaker 3: relative anonymity. She would not be one of those. Everybody
53:22
Speaker 3: would want to know what she thinks.
53:24
Speaker 7: Yeah.
53:25
Speaker 2: One thing she said. More recently that sort of raised
53:28
Speaker 2: some eyebrows is she was doing a fundraiser for a
53:31
Speaker 2: duel in New York. And she said, if a duel
53:34
Speaker 2: can win Michigan, it means anyone can win anywhere.
53:37
Speaker 3: Yeah.
53:38
Speaker 5: I don't know.
53:38
Speaker 2: And I thought about that for like what the argument
53:40
Speaker 2: is going to be just broadly post midterm as we
53:44
Speaker 2: head into 2028. You know, we'll get back to the
53:48
Speaker 2: there'll be some candidates who are more progressive and some less.
53:51
Speaker 2: And then we're going to get into electability again. And
53:53
Speaker 2: I wonder what you thought about that argument.
53:55
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, one of the other things she
53:59
Speaker 3: said to Shane Goldmacher of the Times was that essentially
54:08
Speaker 3: she didn't want to run a kind of Pyrrhic race.
54:12
Speaker 3: If she ran, she was going to run to win
54:14
Speaker 3: and she needed to know. So you fit those two
54:17
Speaker 3: together and that's interesting. Look, what I hope, primaries should be,
54:24
Speaker 3: a robust discussion within a party about the direction and
54:28
Speaker 3: what are the right paths. I find the whole discussion of,
54:33
Speaker 3: you know, will the center-right win? Will the progressives win?
54:36
Speaker 3: We are faced with such monumental challenges in this country.
54:41
Speaker 3: I think every year, and I've got a lot more
54:44
Speaker 3: than you, but every year, every election year, we say, well,
54:47
Speaker 3: this is the most important election in history. And it
54:51
Speaker 3: becomes a cliché. This really may be the most important,
54:54
Speaker 3: certainly in my lifetime, just because of the crush, you know,
54:59
Speaker 3: AI and the discussion of what to do about debt
55:02
Speaker 3: and climate. And of course, how do you build an
55:09
Speaker 3: economy that works for people and give people their best opportunity?
55:12
Speaker 3: I mean, all of these things are crushing in on
55:15
Speaker 3: us and we need wisdom and we need to have
55:19
Speaker 3: a bigger discussion than whether team A or team B
55:22
Speaker 3: triumphs in the intramurals and then whether they, who wins
55:26
Speaker 3: in the, you know, this should be more than about
55:28
Speaker 3: that kind of a discussion. We need thoughtful ideas. And
55:33
Speaker 3: the problem is that, you know, the incentives in politics
55:36
Speaker 3: are to weaponize differences rather than take the best from
55:42
Speaker 3: all of them.
55:43
Speaker 2: Last question about this, and I'll let you go. Like,
55:45
Speaker 2: what do you think the central question that the next
55:50
Speaker 2: Democratic nominee has to answer about the country and about
55:53
Speaker 2: the party?
55:54
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, and I know this wasn't a
55:56
Speaker 3: first of all question, but I just want to make
55:58
Speaker 3: two points about it. One is, I think the wrong
56:02
Speaker 3: impulse is to say, you know, Trump has done a teardown.
56:06
Speaker 3: There's no doubt about it. The blast radius from him,
56:09
Speaker 3: we're going to be feeling for, he is one of
56:11
Speaker 3: the most impactful presidents in American history for better and worse,
56:17
Speaker 3: mostly for worse. There are some things he has torn
56:20
Speaker 3: down that probably we should rethink anyway, because they may
56:24
Speaker 3: not have been working as well as they should. But
56:28
Speaker 3: the one thing I know is when he became president,
56:31
Speaker 3: because people weren't happy with the status quo and with
56:35
Speaker 3: our politics. So to say we're just going to restore
56:39
Speaker 3: everything that he destroyed and we're just going to put
56:42
Speaker 3: everything back the way they were is a losing game. argument.
56:47
Speaker 3: And it's a bad argument. It's the wrong argument. We
56:49
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to build something new that's more resilient
56:54
Speaker 3: to corruption, resistant to corruption, more responsive to the real
57:00
Speaker 3: life concerns of people, more able and agile to solve
57:04
Speaker 3: some of these big problems we're facing, more designed to
57:08
Speaker 3: bring us together than rip us apart. And so I
57:13
Speaker 3: think someone who speaks at that level is gonna be
57:17
Speaker 3: a more powerful candidate. This is a big moment for
57:25
Speaker 3: the country. And I hope, we've always had the genius
57:28
Speaker 3: to elevate people at the right moment. I kind of
57:33
Speaker 3: thought of our guy as one of them. And I'm hoping,
57:38
Speaker 3: I have a lot of, American people take such a beating.
57:42
Speaker 3: People think voters are stupid. They're not. And I'm hoping
57:48
Speaker 3: that they see in someone the depth and the wisdom
57:57
Speaker 3: that we need at this moment. And that's why I
58:01
Speaker 3: can't wait for this primary to start. I've been waiting
58:03
Speaker 3: since 2023 for a primary.
58:06
Speaker 2: Me too. Me too. I know. I'm very excited for
58:09
Speaker 2: it too. I look forward to it with trepidation, but
58:12
Speaker 2: also hope. that all the things you just said will
58:16
Speaker 2: happen and that someone will elevate someone who can actually
58:20
Speaker 2: meet the moment.
58:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you've written the word hope a lot of
58:22
Speaker 3: time in a lot of places, John. And the thing
58:26
Speaker 3: about you is that I know you also believe it
58:28
Speaker 3: and that you are an apostle of hope and possibility,
58:32
Speaker 3: which is why I love you and why so many
58:36
Speaker 3: people are interested in what you have to say.
58:39
Speaker 2: Well, same to you, my friend. I learned it all
58:41
Speaker 2: from you, so.
58:43
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks for joining. I'll talk to you soon.
58:46
Speaker 3: All right. Thank you.
58:47
Speaker 4: Bye, Axe.
58:48
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of Pod Save America. Thanks
58:50
Speaker 2: to David Axelrod for joining me.
58:52
Speaker 5: Love it.
58:52
Speaker 2: Tommy and I will be back on Tuesday. Michael Goldsmith,
59:00
Speaker 2: with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team
59:02
Speaker 2: includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffitt,
59:06
Speaker 2: Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrow, David Tolles,
59:09
Speaker 2: Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is
59:11
Speaker 2: proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.