Latest / Pod Save America / The Trump Voters Who Are Sick of Trump (Ep. 2)

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The Trump Voters Who Are Sick of Trump (Ep. 2) · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: They are, in a sense, January 6th Republicans. People who
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: may have been staunch Republicans for a long time, they
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: may have voted for Trump twice, but now they have
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: this deep feeling that he's crossed the line, that he's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: lost it, that he is broken with them in a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: way that they can never accept again.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: You may recognize that voice as Ben Wickler, chair of
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the Wisconsin Democratic Party and one of the country's best
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: political organizers.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I called up Ben.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Earlier this week so we could talk about a group
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  Speaker 2: of people who may decide the election in Wisconsin and
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: all across America. Trump voters who no longer like Trump.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Of course, in a close election, there are many groups
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: of voters who could decide the outcome. And we'll be
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: talking to a lot of them over the next few months.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters, people who aren't even
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: sure if they're going to vote at all. The anti-Trump
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: coalition we're building has to include as many voters as possible.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Whoever they are, wherever we can find them.
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  Speaker 2: In 2020, a small percentage of people who voted for
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Trump in 2016 switched to Joe Biden. And that made
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: all the difference in a state like Wisconsin that was
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: decided by about 20,000 votes. In 2024, not only do
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: we have to keep these voters, we also have an
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: opportunity to pick up some two-time Trump voters who just
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: don't think they can bring themselves to support him again
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: for all kinds of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: There are different flavors of soft Republicans, different types of folks.
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  Speaker 1: They're often very different from most swing voters. They're often
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: high information voters. There's a lot of military veterans and
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: military families, like people who put their lives on the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: line and wrap their whole family around service to this country,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: who feel a sense of deep betrayal from Trump, both
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: from January 6th and what he said about our troops.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: There are some voters who are Dobbs voters who voted
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Republican for economic reasons, but they don't like the idea
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of the government making private medical decisions in their families.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: The voters who have made it a part of their
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: identity that they're Republicans and now walk away, these are
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: people for whom it's often a big deal. It's a
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: big deal in their kind of soul and in their
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: lives that they've decided that he's gone too far and
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that they can't go there with him.
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  Speaker 2: I realize that for some of you, it might be
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  Speaker 2: hard to understand this kind of voter. How is it
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  Speaker 2: worth our time and energy to persuade people who might
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: want to vote for Donald Trump again after all that
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: he's said and done over the last eight years? But remember,
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  Speaker 2: These aren't MAGA diehards. They aren't going to Trump rallies
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: and posting crazy shit online. They are genuinely wrestling with
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  Speaker 2: the decision. We don't have to understand why they voted
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: for Trump. We just have to convince them not to
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: do it again. Maybe you have one of those voters
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: in your life, a family member or a neighbor. Maybe
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you don't know anyone like this, but if you volunteer,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: you might end up talking to one of those gettable
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Trump voters. So in this episode, we're going to help
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  Speaker 2: you figure out what to say and how to say it.
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  Speaker 2: And to do that, we've brought in my two favorite
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Never Trump pals, former Republican strategist Tim Miller and longtime
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Republican pollster Sarah Longwell, who's constantly doing focus groups with
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: these voters as part of a project she runs called
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Republican Voters Against Trump. You'll hear our conversation next, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: then Ben Wickler will help us wrap things up with
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: more advice about what it'll take to get these Biden-curious
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Trump voters off the fence.
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  Speaker 3: Let's get into it. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to the wilderness.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: All right. Excited to kick things off.
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  Speaker 2: With my two favorite Never Trumper pals and two of
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the smartest political nerds I know, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, guys.
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  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 4: What's up?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for doing this.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously, we all have a lot of work to do
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  Speaker 2: with a lot of different groups of voters who aren't
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  Speaker 2: yet sold on casting a ballot for Joe Biden. But
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  Speaker 2: today we're focusing on a group that's near and dear
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  Speaker 2: to your heart, Republicans and Trump voters who don't like Trump.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So you guys talk about these voters all the time
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  Speaker 2: on your various bulwark pods. Sarah, you're hearing from these
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  Speaker 2: voters in focus groups as part of a separate campaign
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  Speaker 2: you're running called Republican Voters Against Trump. Can you start
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  Speaker 2: by talking a bit about that campaign and what your
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  Speaker 2: strategy is?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, look, we did this campaign in 2020. When it
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  Speaker 5: came to the center-right, right-leaning, independent, soft GOP voters, getting
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: them to not vote for Trump and vote for Biden,
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  Speaker 5: it wasn't enough to do these kind of hard-hitting ads
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  Speaker 5: that went viral on Twitter. In fact, Twitter virality is
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  Speaker 5: often inversely correlated to actual persuasion of your target audience.
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  Speaker 5: Because if a bunch of progressives are smashing the share button,
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  Speaker 5: there's a pretty good chance that it doesn't land persuasively
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  Speaker 5: with swing voters. And so we were really trying to
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: figure out what would move because we heard from so
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  Speaker 5: many voters who were Republicans and didn't like Trump and
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: didn't want to vote for him again. But they just
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: they weren't Democrats and they didn't quite know how to
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  Speaker 5: get over the tribal hurdle of voting for a Democrat.
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  Speaker 5: And when it comes to trust with voters, one of
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  Speaker 5: the other things you heard very clearly was they didn't
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  Speaker 5: trust any institution. They didn't trust Democratic messengers. They trusted
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  Speaker 5: people like them. That was their main trusted source of information.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: And so we went and found people like them, Republican
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: voters who weren't going to vote for Trump. And we
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  Speaker 5: got them to make little video testimonials explaining why. And
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: so they just hold up the phone and they'd say,
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: I'm John from Texas. And because I'm a Christian, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: cannot vote for Donald Trump again. And they talk about why.
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  Speaker 5: And the ones that actually were the most persuasive were
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: the ones where the person would talk about why it
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: was hard for them to vote for Joe Biden. But
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: they were going to do it. Like the more difficult
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: it was for them, the more persuasive it was, because
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  Speaker 5: that's what a lot of Republicans were doing. They were
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: grappling with it.
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  Speaker 6: And so.
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  Speaker 5: We took these testimonials, we turned them into TV ads,
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: into radio ads, into digital ads, into billboards. And we
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: create these surround sound campaigns where you don't just see
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  Speaker 5: one voter saying it. One of the things that really
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: work about this campaign is that we have hundreds of
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  Speaker 5: voters who, and in 2024, were focused on people who
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  Speaker 5: voted for Trump twice, or at least have voted for
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  Speaker 5: him once, but really voted for him twice, explaining why
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: they can't vote for him again. because you are trying
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: to peel off voters who have voted for this guy twice,
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: but because of the coup, because of January 6th, maybe
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: because of abortion, they refuse to do it again. And
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  Speaker 5: even if they just leave it blank, that's okay. We
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: are trying to diminish enthusiasm and pull people off. So
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: that's the campaign.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Tim, do you have a sense of who these voters
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: are demographically, where these voters are? And can you explain
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: to all the potentially skeptical libs out there why these
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: voters are worth trying to win over?
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: Well, I'd start by saying our voters are the ones
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: that are the most solid at this point. So, you know,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you're having us on the wilderness, but we
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: really need to do more work with young voters, working
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: class Black and Hispanic voters. If you just look at
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: the numbers, I was just looking at analysis right before
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: I got on. And right now, again, and some of
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: this is a little fuzzy because of polls, but like,
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  Speaker 4: you know, directionally speaking, if Biden is doing a little
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  Speaker 4: bit better among rural voters than he was in 2020,
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  Speaker 4: a lot of these are some of the people Sarah
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  Speaker 4: was just, I think, referencing. which are maybe two-time Trump
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  Speaker 4: voters that are not evangelical Christians, that are not Fox
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  Speaker 4: News watchers, that rural communities like being for Trump is
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  Speaker 4: just sort of part of the water they swim in.
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  Speaker 4: I'm stealing a Sarah phrase there. And the abortion thing
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  Speaker 4: really matters to them. A lot of these people are women,
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  Speaker 4: but not all. And they can be moved, you know,
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  Speaker 4: off of Trump. Some of these are the infamous Obama-Trump voters,
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  Speaker 4: and we're moving them back, you know, over abortion, right? So,
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  Speaker 4: That's one category of people that I think get underappreciated
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  Speaker 4: in the media. The other category of people who Biden's
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  Speaker 4: lost a little bit of ground with is suburban college
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  Speaker 4: educated voters. That's more of the, you know, me and
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  Speaker 4: Sarah types, the Mitt Romney Biden voter, as opposed to
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  Speaker 4: the Obama Trump voter. And the Mitt Romney Biden voter,
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  Speaker 4: huge gain with them. The increase offset is why Biden won, frankly.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: It's like the Atlanta suburbs. And it turned out among
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  Speaker 4: black voters, if you just look at Georgia, right? Why
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  Speaker 4: did Biden win Georgia and Hillary didn't? Well, did better
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  Speaker 4: among black voters, did better in suburban Atlanta. Like it's
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  Speaker 4: like that simple. It's not like these are new people
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  Speaker 4: that appeared out of nowhere. There are people that used
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  Speaker 4: to vote for Republicans and switched. And so those are
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  Speaker 4: kind of the two groups that are in our bailiwick.
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about that because I do think
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  Speaker 2: there's a couple categories of soft Republicans that we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about here. They're sort of the Romney, Clinton, or, you know, Trump,
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  Speaker 2: Biden voters.
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  Speaker 4: Romney, Gary Johnson, Biden types. Yeah, that whole type.
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  Speaker 2: And then we're going to talk more about the two-time
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  Speaker 2: Trump voters who are considering maybe not voting for him
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  Speaker 2: in 24. Sarah, how much backsliding are you worried about
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: with the, specifically the Trump-Biden voters, the people who switched
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: over to Biden in 2020?
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  Speaker 5: I'm super worried about it. I hear it in every group.
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  Speaker 5: It's not the majority of people in every group, but
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  Speaker 5: let's say we just did this. So we had a
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  Speaker 5: group last week and five of them were going to
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: stick with Biden and three were going back to Trump.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: Or they were kind of RFK curious. I will say
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  Speaker 5: it's not just that they're going back to Trump. It's
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: more that they are turned off from Biden. Like they
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  Speaker 5: got there for him in 2020 and they can't get
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: back there. And this is why, you know, when I
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: talk about the persuadables this time around, I talk so
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: much about the double haters because the double haters can
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  Speaker 5: be across all kinds of demographics.
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  Speaker 7: Right.
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  Speaker 5: But a lot of them are these sort of Trump
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  Speaker 5: to Biden voters who took a flyer on Biden because
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: they really didn't want to go with Trump again. But
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: now they're mad at Biden after four years of Biden
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: because they're not Democrats. So that's why they're more like
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of them are these RFK curious types. And
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: that's OK if there are people who are going to
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: vote for Trump and they vote for RFK. It is
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: bad if you could get them there on Biden and
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: they're going to go for RFK. Because as I talk
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: about all the time, The biggest coalition in American politics
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: is the anti-Trump coalition. It's not a probe Joe Biden coalition.
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: It's an anti-Trump coalition. And anything that splits the anti-Trump
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: coalition is bad. But if RFK is going to be
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: in this race, you better make it work for you
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: because there are a lot of natural overlaps between RFK
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: curious voters and people who were willing to vote for
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Trump because he's not a regular politician, but are now
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: kind of out on Trump.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Is there a difference between or how much of a
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: difference is there between the Trump-Biden voters who are now
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: thinking of going back to Trump and the two-time Trump
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: voters who are like, I might be moving on from
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Trump altogether.
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: They're not that different, actually. The two-time Trump voters who
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: are out on Trump are just people we just didn't
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: get over the line in 2020. They always were holding
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: their nose voting for Trump. And like their line just
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: happened to be January 6th and the coup attempt.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: My dad finally got him over the line in 2021.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: So there's one.
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: There we go.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Your dad.
• 10:47
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: That's a one-person focus group.
• 10:49
  Speaker 9: Hey, dad.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: And actually, let me tell you about this group because
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: it's a little counterintuitive. They are old and they are
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: white and they are Ronald Reagan Republicans who came for
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: a different reason, who they do care about the constant.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: It's funny because people don't care about democracy per se,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: but like Donald Trump's coup attempt matters a great deal
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: to these voters. And it is a non-starter. Even if
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: you can't get them there on Joe Biden, I'm going
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: to bet that one of the things we see as
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: a trend in 2024 is is a shocking number of
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: people leaving the top of the ticket blank from these
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: Republicans who just refuse to vote for Trump but can't
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: get there on Biden. And if they were two-time Trump voters,
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: that's good.
• 11:28
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about these two-time Trump voters who are
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: now pretty down on Trump. You've done several focus groups
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: with these voters. As you mentioned, one of the most
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: common reasons they're questioning their support for Trump is January 6th.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Let's listen to what one group of two-time Trump voters
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: said about that.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: I think he, you know, really kind of got off
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: on the whole situation.
• 11:53
  Speaker 9: That he had to be convinced later in the day
• 11:55
  Speaker 9: to even issue a statement about it just made my
• 12:01
  Speaker 9: blood boil. And do I think a lot was made
• 12:04
  Speaker 9: out of, out of what actually happened in the building?
• 12:06
  Speaker 9: I do think a lot was, was, was exaggerated about
• 12:10
  Speaker 9: what happened in the building, but they were concentrating on
• 12:12
  Speaker 9: a couple events. I mean, People died one way or
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: the other. They died. I don't care how they died.
• 12:18
  Speaker 10: I just think there's so much more he could have
• 12:20
  Speaker 10: done on that day, you know, to kind of, you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 10: I think we've said it before, but to be the
• 12:24
  Speaker 10: adult in the room to try to calm things down.
• 12:26
  Speaker 10: I think, you know, the large majority of the people that,
• 12:30
  Speaker 10: you know, stormed the Capitol that day probably, I think,
• 12:33
  Speaker 10: would have listened to him. You know, but that being said,
• 12:38
  Speaker 10: I do think the coverage of it was, you know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 10: over the top.
• 12:43
  Speaker 11: It was Trump's responsibility to stop that kind of mob
• 12:47
  Speaker 11: mentality that pushed forward. But on the other hand, I
• 12:52
  Speaker 11: also blame a lot of the media for portraying the
• 12:58
  Speaker 11: events as they did.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: Definitely a Republican group. No doubt.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So you can be mad at Trump for how he
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: acted on January 6th, even as you might think the
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: media exaggerated its importance as some of these people did,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: or you can be so mad that you think it
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: makes Trump unfit to ever hold office again. What's your
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: sense of whether the salience of January 6th can become
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: a deciding issue for these two-time Trump voters?
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: I think it can be. Here's one of the key
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: elements of January 6th. It happened after they voted for
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: him the second time, right? So they don't have to
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: go back and say, I was wrong. Like with the
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: information they had, they felt like they made the choice.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: This is new information since they voted for him last time.
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: And I think that one of the things right now
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: in like this very moment that is a struggle for
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: really getting those people to get their blood back up
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: against Trump is that him being in court talking about
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: Stormy Daniels is incredibly backward looking. I'm not saying it
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: helps him the way some people do. I'm just saying
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: that it is not allowing people to look forward to
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: And what you need is to sort of take January
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: 6th as your jumping off point, and then you need
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: to paint a picture of the future of Donald Trump,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: a lunatic surrounded by lunatics. But January 6th has to
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: be at the center of why you cannot trust this
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: guy in office again, because there are a lot of
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: people for whom when they see that footage and when
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: that salience is high for them, they go, oh, yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: I can't do it again.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: If you're struggling to convey the stakes of 2024 to
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: someone in your circle, this show is perfect for you.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: But for those persuadables in your life, it might be
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: best to give them an actual book they can follow
• 14:43
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• 14:45
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• 14:48
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• 14:50
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• 14:54
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  Speaker 2: to pre-order your copy. Tim, I was going to ask
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you that, too, because you hear from a lot of
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: like pundits and pollsters, especially Democrats, who say that, you know,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: January 6th is backwards looking and it's already baked into
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: people's views about Trump and what most people care about
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: is the future and what's going to affect them. Like,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: how do you make Trump's actions on January 6th an
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: issue that is something that could affect people's lives in
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the future if he wins again?
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Just really quick, though, I think this offers a psychological
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: misunderstanding of these voters. These people just want to have
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: excuses to come back home to being Republicans. These are Republicans.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: They watch Fox, obviously, as you could tell by that group.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: We'll get into a little bit of their media diet more,
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I think. They, though, when they get reminded of things
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: about Trump that make their blood boil, it moves them again.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: They have to get re-reminded. I've lived through this for
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: nine years. People in my life.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: Will like message me when he does something terrible. He's like,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: that's it. I'm done. I'm sick of it.
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: You were right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Like, I don't get you were right as much.
• 16:33
  Speaker 8: So I'm like.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: In your head, that's what they're saying.
• 16:35
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 16:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: The subtext was that I was right.
• 16:37
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: And then a couple of weeks go by. Something else happens.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: They go to the grocery store. Butters costing a lot.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: They get annoyed. And like they're back. You know what
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: I mean? They're back to like not liking Trump. Like
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: these aren't MAGA people, but they're back to like, oh, well,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: the Democrats and socialism and all that. So, yeah, you
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: have to be constantly reminding them about why they hate him.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Like he's got to be in their face. And I
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: think this is a big difference in 16. You know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: in 16, he was like out of their face last
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: two weeks because of Hillary, you know, the emails. And,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: you know, we don't need to trigger everybody with that.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So I think that just using opportunities. to remind people
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: of the nature of the threat of him, but also
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: about what they hate about him. Some of that can
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: be future looking, right? Some of that can be like,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: remember that thing you really don't like? Like that could
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: happen again. Something similar to that could happen again. That
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: could have a real impact on your life. I think
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: that that is worthwhile in doing. I understand why like
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: logically you're like, why would you do an ad about
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: January 6th on Halloween of 2024? But it's like the people,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: they need to be triggered. We got to trigger them
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: into not voting for him.
• 17:41
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It makes me think of, you know, in that long
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: interview with the New Yorker, Mike Donilon, who's Biden's chief strategist, said,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: you know, it's all about like what you want people
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: to have in their mind when they go to the polls.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: And we want them to have Dobbs and democracy January
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: 6th in mind as they go to the polls.
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Sarah, do you agree with that?
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: I 100% agree. And I talk about this with abortion
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: a lot. When we do the focus groups, we always
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: open with the same question, how do you think things
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: are going in the country? And people are always like, bad.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: And they talk about inflation and And they talk about
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: the price of their houses and they talk about crime
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: and they talk about immigration. And then you ask about abortion.
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, this happens every time, especially
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: the women in the group, suddenly people are talking about
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: the abortions that they had. They're talking about their own
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: catastrophic pregnancy. They are crying and bonding with one another.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: And you're like, make abortion, put it at the top
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: of their minds. The salience of these things, the salience
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: of January 6th, the salience of reproductive rights, If you
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: take your foot off that, if you let this be
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: about Biden and you let it be about the economy,
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: even if the economy is good, like that is not
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: good for Biden. If you make it about Trump, if
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: you make it about abortion, if you make it about
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: January 6th and you raise the salience of those things
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: so that that's what people are thinking about when they
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: go into the voting booth, like, I just we just
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: can't have that again. That's where you got to get people.
• 18:58
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So the issue that precipitated January 6th is Trump's attempt
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: to overturn a free and fair election that he still
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: says he won. He even says he won states like Minnesota,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden won by 7%. Sarah, you guys have
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: done groups with two-time Trump voters who don't believe the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: election was fraudulent.
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: Let's listen.
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: Maybe this is a bit cynical or a lot cynical
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: that at a federal election level, we've been doing this
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: for 200 years and we've been, people have been dead.
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: People have been voting for more than 200 years. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: I don't know that that's going to change to be blunt,
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: whether you've got to show a driver's license or not,
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: or whatever the technology leads us to in that regard.
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: So I think there's always some amount, but I don't
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: think it was enough to swing at any particular state,
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: maybe a precinct, maybe even a municipality. But I don't
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: think enough to, change the election itself.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: RAOUL PAL.
• 19:50
  Speaker 8: Up bundled or people get a couple of copies of
• 19:55
  Speaker 8: mail-in or what have you. I don't think that's fraud.
• 20:00
  Speaker 8: I think that's just bureaucracy. That's just what happens. We're
• 20:04
  Speaker 8: not very good at that. Nobody is. All the paperwork.
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: So I don't think there was an effort to throw
• 20:09
  Speaker 8: the election. And I don't think there was enough that
• 20:12
  Speaker 8: did throw the election.
• 20:14
  Speaker 13: It was like 62, I think, different lawsuits to prove
• 20:19
  Speaker 13: that there was something wrong with the elections and he
• 20:23
  Speaker 13: lost them all. So there was no evidence. There was
• 20:27
  Speaker 13: only evidence of him tinkering around and trying to do
• 20:32
  Speaker 13: illegal things to change, you know, I need 11,780 votes.
• 20:42
  Speaker 13: There's always a little bit of, I don't know if
• 20:45
  Speaker 13: it's on purpose or if it's mistakes or if it's whatever,
• 20:50
  Speaker 13: but the number was so small. It was something like 0.002%
• 20:54
  Speaker 13: that happens all the time.
• 20:57
  Speaker 14: I think they will involve a challenge to all elections
• 21:01
  Speaker 14: in the future. And I also believe that groups of
• 21:05
  Speaker 14: individual citizens will always strive to disrupt the certification of
• 21:12
  Speaker 14: the elections because it's proven that that can be tested.
• 21:17
  Speaker 14: And the only mistake that they made was they didn't
• 21:19
  Speaker 14: have enough military might to go in and actually make
• 21:26
  Speaker 14: it more severe.
• 21:27
  Speaker 15: Yikes.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So it seems from the polling that there's roughly 30%
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: of Republican voters who believe the truth about the election
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden won. Tim, similar to what I asked
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: about January 6th. Well, I guess what I want to
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: know is like, do you think those both those issues
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: are just the same January 6th and him trying to
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: overturn the election in the minds of these voters? Or like,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: how would you make that a big issue for people?
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Or do you think it will be a big issue
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: for people? The idea that he continues to say that
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: he won the election?
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: I think that this is more of, you know, effect
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: than cause. It's sort of inverse. I don't know that
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: like him talking about it matters more, but these voters
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: reveal themselves as potentially gettable, right? Like the people that
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: believe that the truth about the election, I think are
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: a right target for Biden, at very least to get
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: them off of Trump. And then I think that, you know,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: the democracy and the January 6th elements are arguments that
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: you can use with those groups. I love hearing that
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: because 30%, like on one hand, it's like shockingly low, right?
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: 30% of Republicans believe the truth about the election. That's
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: like pretty alarming. That's a ton of people. That's like
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: 30 million people, right? And so I love hearing from
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: these groups. It's a reminder. It's like, oh, yeah, here
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: are people that believe that bureaucracy is bloated, dead people vote.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: There are a lot of fraud in elections, but Donald
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Trump's still a liar.
• 22:48
  Speaker 16: Right.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Like you don't think about that person in your mind's eye.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: The person you're thinking about is either like I think
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump's a liar or I'm wearing the red hat
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: and like listening to Maria Barrett Romo.
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: And so like that type of person, I think if
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: you keep them in your mind's eye, they can be
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: persuaded on this stuff because they've lost trust in him.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: And at minimum, they can be moved off of him
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: into this anti-Trump coalition Sarah is talking about. I think
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: that then there's other challenges related to how you can
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: then persuade them conceivably to come to the other side.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Sarah, what else have you heard from these voters about
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: how they view the salience of Trump's election lies?
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I've been obsessed with this 30 percent, both
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: the number because it shows up in other places. Like
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: a lot of the polls that ask, would you vote differently?
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: Would it impact your vote if Trump's convicted of a
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: crime among self-identified Republicans? Roughly 30 percent in states where
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: Nikki Haley was actively contesting the election. self-ID'd Republican, she
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: was getting about 30% of the vote. So like, this
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: is the persuadable people. So I live with these people
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: in my head. Who are they? What do they think?
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: And as I was digging in on the election stuff
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: in particular, you know, it was a little disheartening because
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: you sort of wanted to hear them say, yeah, this
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: guy's insane. And of course the election was free and fair,
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: but like, that's not what they say. They say dead
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: people vote. Of course there's fraud, but they basically say
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: like not enough to really turn this over. But what
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: was interesting is that this 30% of people or these
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: people who don't think it was stolen have so few
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: things in common. One, they've got a diverse media mix
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: that they ingest. And by diverse media mix, I don't
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: mean Fox News and then Steve Bannon and then Tim Pool.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: I mean that they flip around from Fox and CNN
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: and their local news. And local news is really big.
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: And one of the things we've just found is people
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: who are in this persuadable category tend to be less
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: plugged into cable and a little more plugged into their
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: local channels and what's going on in their home state,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: which has an advertising opportunity. I think about that when
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: I think about how to reach these folks. The other
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: thing that's jumped out is that if they really believe
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: the election was free and fair, they tended to have
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: either proximity to people who worked on elections. They're like,
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: I know somebody who worked on the election. One guy
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: was in Maricopa County. He'd worked on the election himself.
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: Or they'd had states with these recounts. The ones where
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: they'd had a ton of recounts, which are in the
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: contested swing states, They were like, I don't know. They
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: looked at this a hundred times. There was no fraud.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: Nobody could find it. The cyber ninjas didn't catch anybody.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: The bamboo wasn't there. And so they're like, I think
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: that it was fine. And then the third thing that
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: was interesting about them is they just had a higher
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: level of trust in the system overall. They tended to
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: talk about checks and balances. Like, I don't know, this
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: is America and we do elections okay. And it probably
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: aren't switching the votes with the machines. And so that
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: is sort of something that they all have in common.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: that I think is an interesting picture of who our
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: voter is to persuade.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I saw you quoted in this Bloomberg piece this week
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: about the possibility of Trump serving a third term or
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: maybe forever. And that's something that's coming up in different
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: focus groups that different people are doing from undecided voters
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: who are actually, that's like one of their big concerns
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that either he'll stay forever or there'll be a Trump
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: family monarchy and we'll be doing this till Barron's president. Um,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: do you, uh, what's your sense of how salient that
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: could be as an argument, how effective that could be?
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, because people are, I mean, it is coming
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: up in groups where they're just like, I'm not sure
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: he'll leave or like he might run again. And sometimes
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: there's actually some people who say that and it doesn't
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: matter that much to them. Like, it's fine.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: They're like, okay.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: And cool. Trump forever. But for a lot of people,
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: this idea of he won't leave, he won't abide by
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: the rules matters. And that is a January 6th argument.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: And this is what I mean about like January 6th salience.
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: It's not just about January 6th. It's not just about
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: the visuals of the cops getting hit and things we've
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: seen sort of over and over again. It's this is
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: the kind of guy he is. He is a lunatic
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: who will be surrounded by other lunatics and he won't leave.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: And you tell people that and they're like, yeah, that's
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: that'd be a real problem if he just didn't leave.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: Maybe I shouldn't vote him in.
• 26:52
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like like liberal alarmism to be like, oh, God,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: this could be your last election and the last time
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: you get to vote and he'll be there forever. But
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: it does feel like it has the benefit of being
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: potentially true. And B, we do have some evidence that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: he tried to do that last time.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: What do you think, Tim?
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: And this is where I think the RVAT project is important,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: having this come from regular people's voices rather than Barack
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Obama's spokesperson. I probably don't think you're that compelling of
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: a messenger. We won't want to put you on TV
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: in Maricopa County. Excuse me, speech writer. Sorry, that was Tommy.
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: So I think messenger matters here.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: And I think that.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: A compelling persuasion message is more like risky. It's like,
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: think about how Nikki Haley talked about this chaos, risky,
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: like mighty stay. I don't like, isn't the fact that
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: we're talking about this ridiculous that you might be worried
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: about this? Like, isn't this a risk that's not worth taking?
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: And so I think if you kind of combine that
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: with maybe somewhere in their periphery, they like, they're seeing like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: ads on social media that feature Donald Trump making jokes
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: about this, like sticks in their head. I think that
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: could be a potent kind of one-two combo to try
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: to just make the pitch to these voters that this
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: isn't worth the risk and make it really back to
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: being an election about Trump, right? Not like a choice,
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: not a Biden-Trump choice election. And I think that also
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: goes back to the salience.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: And not democracy. Like, saying democracy doesn't mean anything to people. But, like,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: dude won't leave means something to people. Like, they get that.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Like, we might, yeah. The Capitol might get charged. Like,
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: who knows? Like, he might put his family in charge
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: of the military. Like, you just don't know. Like, risky. Like,
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: it's just like, is this worth it, right? Like, less
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: than these, you know, high-minded principals, you know, John Meacham.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: Love John Meacham, but you know.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't think he's going to be a
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: persuasive messenger to these voters either.
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: No.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: All right, so we are on the verge of a
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: verdict in what.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: May be the only Trump criminal trial that happens before
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the election. Polling suggests that most voters aren't paying close
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: attention and the fact of Trump being on trial for
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: felony charges hasn't really changed many opinions. Though there's also
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: a good deal of polling that suggests that may change
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: if he's found guilty. Sarah, you guys asked some Trump
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: voters who supported Nikki Haley in the primary about these trials.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Let's hear what they had to say.
• 29:12
  Speaker 17: The most damaging case will be trying to overthrow the election.
• 29:17
  Speaker 17: That is hard to prove. But all the other cases
• 29:22
  Speaker 17: are just overreaching. And I don't think it's going to
• 29:25
  Speaker 17: go anywhere. And I don't think you're going to get convictions.
• 29:29
  Speaker 17: It's just a waste of taxpayer money.
• 29:32
  Speaker 15: When he became president, there were Democrats in Congress saying
• 29:36
  Speaker 15: they wanted to impeach him before he'd even served one
• 29:39
  Speaker 15: day in office. And there's been nothing short of that
• 29:44
  Speaker 15: effort to muddy the waters and make him look bad
• 29:49
  Speaker 15: from the very beginning. Of all the cases, the one
• 29:53
  Speaker 15: that I think probably is the most serious is the
• 29:56
  Speaker 15: classified documents one. But then Biden had classified documents and
• 30:01
  Speaker 15: even Pence ended up with saying, oh, wait, I found
• 30:03
  Speaker 15: one in my house, too, which just makes me think
• 30:06
  Speaker 15: they're all rather careless.
• 30:08
  Speaker 7: It seems to me like liberals in the country are
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: saying Donald Trump's a criminal. Let's find a crime to
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: pin him with. Let's throw all this stuff against the
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: wall and see what sticks.
• 30:21
  Speaker 16: Because I think it's all politically motivated, clearly. You look
• 30:26
  Speaker 16: at the platforms of the state prosecutors and attorney generals
• 30:29
  Speaker 16: who ran and won and who ended up prosecuting him,
• 30:33
  Speaker 16: that was their platform.
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: I'm going to get Trump. Vote me in. I'm going
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: to get Trump.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you do this, Sarah. I just
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: honor you every day.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: Kidding.
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: I love it.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I do too.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I think it's so fascinating.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Um, all right.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Let's say blood pressure is going up 20 points in
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: the last minute. I can feel it.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Let's, let's live in a, a wonderful world where, um,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Trump is found guilty in the Manhattan case. We got
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: a convicted felon running for president. Is that not an
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: argument we should be making to those undecided voters? Like,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: what do you guys think?
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: 100%. 100%. People are doing a weird thing right now. So,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: first of all, if he is acquitted, it is an
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: actual disaster. Like, the downside of acquittal, so much bigger
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: than upside of a conviction, which is just the terrible
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: world that we live in. However, a conviction matters... And
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: one of the things that I'm kind of pushing people
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: on on TV, there's this like way that people say, well,
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: you know, this is all just helping Trump. All helps Trump.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: If he even if he's convicted, it helps Trump. That's
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: primary analysis.
• 31:36
  Speaker 18: Yes.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: With base voters, this stuff who think that it is rigged,
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: who thinks it's a two tier justice system and thinks
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: that they're out to get Trump helps them. Those people
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: are all going to vote for Trump anyway. Doesn't matter.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: These swing voters and the people who are on the
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: fence who have to hold their nose, him being a
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: convicted felon will matter. And it does matter. And look,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: you can tell me that it's marginal and I'll tell you, cool,
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: because margins are going to decide this entire ballgame. So
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: I'll take marginal as a marginal effect.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Tim, what do you think?
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: I got no fucking idea. I honestly just don't.
• 32:08
  Speaker 15: I don't know.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: It's not what I'm supposed to do, but I just,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I've got no idea. I could see
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: it making a difference. I could see it not. These
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: voters don't know either, right? Like the focus groups actually
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: don't tell us anything on this really. And you learn
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: a little bit about how they think, which I think
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: is important, but like The specific question, like you heard
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: that guy, he was like, I don't even think he's
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: going to be convicted. So like, what is that? What
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: does it, do they, do any of them, again, not
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: the MAGAs, do any of the people that have a
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: media mix, most of these folks are college educated, you know,
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: like the types, most people have people in their lives
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: that are not Republican. Like, does that group, do any
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: of them start to see him differently when he's a felon,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: start to think about it differently? Maybe, I don't know,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: maybe not. I really, I think it's very hard to say.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: And it's annoying. It's frustrating. I mean, you know, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: there was some really damning testimony here in this thing,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: like about how Stormy Daniels talking about how he like
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: essentially coerced her into sex with a security guard standing outside.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: Like you would think people would not want that person
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: to be president. But I don't know. I don't think
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: we have a lot of evidence for that at this point.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But part of this is he's, let's say there's a
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: guilty verdict. It's all over the news for a couple
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: of days. it even filters down to local news, right?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: It breaks through everywhere. And then the question is, do
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Democratic campaigns, does Sarah's campaign to other groups, do you
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: keep pushing that message to keep reminding people of it
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: between now and November? Because then by September, it's like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, he's just a convicted felon, but we don't
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: really talk about that anymore because we've all moved on.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And that's sort of the question that I have.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Sarah, what do you think?
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Well, we would be making a mistake if we failed
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: to mention it. If he's a convicted felon and we're
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: not talking about that, that's on us. You absolutely should
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: be talking about it. Joe Biden should be talking about it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: A lot of good material in this guy. A lot
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: of orange jokes, orange jumpsuits. I mean, I'm just.
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, but....
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: Being able to, and again, this is why I go
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: to like the acquittal is so much worse, like a conviction,
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: it does give you something to push. And also get
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: this guy out of the courtroom, get him out there
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: so that he is in people's faces. Tim was talking
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: about this before. I also think it's very important that
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Trump be high salience because if it's a referendum on Biden,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: Biden loses. If it's a referendum on Trump, Trump loses.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: And so we got to get Trump talking to us.
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: The media has got to cover him. They got to
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: take the insane things that he's saying at these Trump
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: rallies live. But get him out of court with a
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: conviction and he will be he'll be nuts about it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: He will be so upset and then push him on
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: it all the time. I do think it matters to
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: these marginal swing voters who are not paying attention. Listen,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: here's the thing about this. This is what I was
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: going to disagree with Tim about. Nobody's following this case,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: the court stuff. I mean, they're just like, and they
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: can't follow it. They don't know who these people are.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: They don't know the characters. I mean, unless you're, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: because they can't see what's happening in the courtroom, they're
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: getting the stuff filtered. And so one of the most interesting,
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: I was talking to a group the other day and
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: the woman was talking about how, well, I turn on
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: Fox and I think the case is going to get
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: thrown out. And then I turn on ABC and Trump's
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: going to jail. And like, she's like, what is even
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: happening here? What's going on? Because they're getting it through
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: these media filters. And so I think that people still
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: trust the courts and jury of your peers more more
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: than they trust other things. I'm not saying it's like
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: the highest thing, but they trust it. And to say
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: a jury of his peers convicted him of this on
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: top of the E. Jean Carroll stuff, but this is
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: like a real, you know, that was a civil case.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: This is a criminal case. And so like, I just
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: think it matters.
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: I do.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: I think it, again, not to everybody, but you are
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: talking about 10,000 votes one way or the other across
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: six states.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Before we move on from this group, these were voters
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: who cast their ballots for Nikki Haley in the primary.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: There's been a lot of excitement.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: In the anti-Trump universe about the, you know, even after
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: she dropped out, she's still getting like 15, 20% in
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: some places in some of these primaries. What's your sense of, okay,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: some of these voters could just be, I mean, there
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: is the like, yeah, Democrats just voted in the Republican primary.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: There's also, you know, a lot of these voters could
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: just be Republicans who already voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: And so they're just, you know, continuing with just voting
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: against Trump. What's your sense of like how many are
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: truly just like maybe these two time Trump voters who
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: were like potentially done with him?
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: And that was there.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And the signal for that is that they were voting
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: for Nikki Haley in the primary.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: Tim and I sort of disagree on this. We've been
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: fighting about this on our show for a while. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: here's what I'll say. Look, in that Nikki Haley cohort,
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: there are people who already voted for Joe Biden. There
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: are people who are going to go home to Trump.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: And the rest are the double haters.
• 36:45
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: That you are trying to get make. them hate Trump
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: more than they hate Biden, right? And not so you're
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: fighting over. Here's what I have found encouraging about it,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: is that in these states where they are closed primaries,
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: meaning that, you know, libs can't vote, no, there are
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: people who are motivated enough. Nikki Haley's not on the
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: ballot and hasn't been on, or she's on it technically,
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: but she hasn't been in the race for months. And
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: people are getting up to go out and vote against Trump.
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: They're not voting for Nikki Haley. This is not a
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: pro- Nikki Haley coalition, they care enough to go vote
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: against Donald Trump. And I think that that expresses something
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: about enthusiasm, meaning sort of enthusiasm against Trump. And I
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: think that that matters. I have found that encouraging. I
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: don't think that every person in that cohort, you can
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: just be like, oh, well, this means 150,000 people in Pennsylvania.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: You know, we've got our lock on. But I do
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: think it matters.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just I'm just not as excited about this
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: as everybody else. I'm sorry. I don't I hate to
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: be the Debbie Downer. Um, there's some good part. Here's
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: the good part about it. And this is what I'm saying.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: Our people are solid. My people, Sarah's people, like the,
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: the college educated, highly engaged, reading the news, anti-Trump Republicans.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Most of them already voted against him in 2020. Most
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: of them have been turning out to vote against Carrie
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Lake and Blake Masters and Doug Mastriano in the midterms. And, uh,
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: they're also, and they're turning up again to vote against
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump in the primary. And so like, that's good news.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: Like there is like one of the most highly engaged
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: demos against Donald Trump is our people. So, so like
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: our people do matter in that sense. I just like
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: the number isn't as big as it seems, right? Like,
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: so when you look at that 20%, it's like, well,
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: that's not 20% of the whole Republican electorate. That's 20%
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: of the people that turned out.
• 38:31
  Speaker 10: Right. Right.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: And, and as Sarah said, The anti-Trump Republicans are very
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: excited to turn out. So our people are turning out
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: at a disproportionate rate. And many of them already voted
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: for Joe Biden. Many of them already voted for Democrats
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: in the midterms. And so that's a good thing that
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: they're still motivated, right? It could be worse, right? They
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: could be not motivated. They could be mad about Joe
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: Biden because of student loan bailout or whatever. They could
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: be mad that Joe Biden hasn't been nicer to BB
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: or whatever and not turning out anymore. So it's good
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: news that they're still engaged. Um, but, uh, it's just
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: not quite as good news as it might like seem
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: on its face. I think that there are other people,
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: there are double haters in there. There are people that
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: voted for Trump twice in there that are gettable. I
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: think that the Joe Biden, um, like, like has this
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: awesome now group in all of these States of anyone
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: that voted by mail, you know, okay. We now know
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: that these are rational people. You know, like if you
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: looked at Pennsylvania, it was crazy. Like Nikki Haley got
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: like tied among the mail voters and then lost 90
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: to 10 on election day, you know, so now we know,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: you know, if you look at who requested a mail ballot,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: like that's somebody that Joe Biden people can go knock
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: on their door and think that these people, you know,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: don't believe that Hugo Chavez and like the pillow man,
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: you know, stole the, you know, like, we're part of
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: a plot to steal the election. So that's good. So
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: there's some good parts. It's just not quite as good
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: as I think that maybe it's made out to be.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: All right, let's wrap up with how to actually communicate
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: with these gettable two-time Trump voters. We've been talking a
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: little bit about media diet and how that differentiates them.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: let's play a clip of one of the groups talking
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: about their media diet.
• 40:21
  Speaker 9: I don't have a single source. I don't really trust anybody.
• 40:24
  Speaker 19: Usually what happens is I'll either hear of something. I've
• 40:27
  Speaker 19: deleted all of my social media because I'm just, I'm
• 40:30
  Speaker 19: tired of algorithmic news.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: And so if I hear something.
• 40:34
  Speaker 19: I'll look up, you know, information about it and try
• 40:38
  Speaker 19: to get multiple sources because there's usually a spin in
• 40:41
  Speaker 19: one way or the other. And so the truth is
• 40:43
  Speaker 19: somewhere in between there.
• 40:45
  Speaker 18: Primarily NPR. But I switch between different channels and just
• 40:50
  Speaker 18: compare the news. So I know that some media are
• 40:53
  Speaker 18: leaning toward Republicans, some leaning toward the left, and it's
• 40:57
  Speaker 18: good to listen to both channels and then formulate your
• 41:00
  Speaker 18: own opinion.
• 41:00
  Speaker 12: If I see a story that interests me out, if
• 41:03
  Speaker 12: it leads me to CNN at first, I'll go to
• 41:05
  Speaker 12: like Fox News after and maybe check like some of
• 41:08
  Speaker 12: the other ones like BBC or NPR or whatever.
• 41:11
  Speaker 20: The process I have to go through is to filter
• 41:14
  Speaker 20: the news from each source as to what their agendas are,
• 41:17
  Speaker 20: how thorough they are, how balanced, what agendas they have,
• 41:21
  Speaker 20: what the editorial bias is, and then you have to
• 41:24
  Speaker 20: filter that and form your own thoughts in addition to
• 41:29
  Speaker 20: some anecdotal things.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Sarah, you were talking about this a little bit earlier,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: but what does this tell you about their media diet?
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: What does that tell you about where and how to
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: break through to these voters?
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so can I just tell you, one thing that
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: I find to be a conundrum or an enigma about
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: these folks is that I don't know if they seem
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: more rational to us.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: I think that some of those people are lying about
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: their media consumption.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: So I will say the number of times that people
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: say BBC in the groups, I'm like, no way.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: Come on.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: No chance that this many people watch BBC.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: This happened at all the wilderness groups I did last season.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I heard BBC all the time. I was like, what
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: is going on?
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: It's so funny.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: It sounds good, I think.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: It sounds smart.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: Like the one guy said NPR, then the other lady's like,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: you know, I look at other things.
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: Like, whatever.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Like NPR. Like, you don't have to go to NPR.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry. So like there's some mistrust happening.
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: So I think that's true, Tim, that they are reaching
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: in this moment to be like, I want to sound
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: smart and like I, you know, whatever. That being said,
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: I think there is something about people who are, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: this is where I was going to say the enigma
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: is like the chicken or egg. Are they naturally curious
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: and therefore seeking out more, you know, disparate opinions and
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: I want to see things that might disagree with me
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: or are they changing their mind and because they go
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: around checking out other things. I sort of don't know
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: which is the driver of it. I suspect it's a
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: little bit of both that they are naturally curious people
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: who want to see what, okay, well, I know that
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: Fox News is biased to the right. I think MSNBC
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: is biased to the left. I'm going to go watch
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: both and see if I can figure it out for myself.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: That's good to know about a person though, because it
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: means that those are the types of people who are
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: open to persuasion. They pursue persuasion, right? They pursue alternate
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: set of details to like learn a lot about it.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: And so if you know people like that are sort
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: of watching local news or they're checking things like that's
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: good for knowing how to target them and how to
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: think about like we run a lot of ads now
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: on local news because I've been listening to voters talk
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: about a media diet that includes local news and that
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: that is like one of the number one things that
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: indicates they don't believe the election was stolen. Like I
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: watch more local news than cable.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: So Sarah, you've said before that we're not building a
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: pro-Biden coalition. We're building an anti-Trump coalition. So obviously it's
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: a win if we get someone to just leave the
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: top of the ballot blank. It's even better if we
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: can get someone to actually vote for Joe Biden. What
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: are the biggest reservations about Biden with a lot of
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: these voters? And what do you think is the best
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: way to help these voters overcome these reservations?
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: I'm going to blow your mind with this take. It's
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: because he's old.
• 44:08
  Speaker 18: I mean.
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: That's it. And left, right, and center, people talk about
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: just feeling like they can't connect with him. Like they
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: know he's old. They don't think he's up to the job.
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: And that's just what you hear. There's a reason the
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: media talks about it because that's what voters talk about.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: Even the ones who are deeply sympathetic to Joe Biden
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: do this thing where they like crouch and they say,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: I just get so worried when he talks and when
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: he walks. I want to make sure he's okay. I
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: want to help him. You can see them reaching for
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: him to steady him. And so, look, I think that
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: that's a big part of the problem, which is why
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: I do think it's much more about a negative campaign
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: on Trump this time. And I also think, here's the
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: other thing, though, that voters really understand. They understand the
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: president doesn't do it alone, which is why for Trump,
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: you have to make sure they know he is a
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: lunatic who will be surrounded by other lunatics, and that
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden... is an old but good man surrounded by
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: young and good people. Like you have to, I do
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: think that they're, I'm just a big advocate for a
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: much more robust surrogate game, a much more investment in
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: voters knowing who the people are who are around Joe Biden,
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: because voters talk about it all the time, that they
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: know it's not just him. And so you got to
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: sort of give them a sense that, because they're just afraid.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: Does he have it for the next four years? The
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: world feels dangerous. The economy feels precarious. Whether that's true
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: or not, that's how they feel about it. And so
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: they want somebody who can do the job. And even
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: though Trump is not that much younger... he does have
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: big lunatic energy. And so when people are just like
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: smelling the vibes, they see Trump and they think he
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: seems not sane exactly, but more up to it.
• 45:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Tim, is it pretty much just age or what else
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: are you hearing in your many chat groups with people
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: who are still Trump curious Republicans?
• 45:50
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that my, I think it's selection bias.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: And I think that there is a small but vocal
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: group of people that are upset with him about Israel.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know that that's very representative about what's happening.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And Arizona. I trust Sarah's focus groups on this more
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: than people that text me that used to work for
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: Mitt Romney or whatever. I don't think that's representative of
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: the mean voter. Look, I think this, the sister soldier
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: thing is so stupid and so overplayed, people don't even
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: remember what really happened. That's a side thing that folks
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: can Google the real story there. Joe Biden reassuring people
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: that he's not going to go in with the far
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: left would help. There's a weird like media driven view
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: that joe biden's big problem is with the progressive left
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: he's got some problems over there but like if you
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: just look at the data his problem is actually with
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: centrist black and latino people you know mostly that's like
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: the group.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Who some people don't even think exist right especially so
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: some liberals right they.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: Exist he's down like 20 with them like if you
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: look at where he was in 16 versus now you
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: just look at the again polls caveat but like he'd
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: Just based on all the data we have, like that's
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: the group, like center left, black and Latino people are
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: the ones that he's down with the most. So that's
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: also true about our people are mostly center folks. And
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: so just kind of reassuring that he's not, you know,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: going to be a socialist, I think would be helpful.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: We all know that, you know, we know that's kind
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: of silly to be concerned about that, but people need
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: to hear it. um and uh besides that it's just
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: anti-trump i'm sorry like like trump has to be disqualified
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: period people have to be too freaked out that's the
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: campaign i like winning people over for joe biden i
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: i think spending a lot of effort and energy on
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: that is probably a fool's errand and like almost all
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: of the energy needs to be on totally disqualifying trump
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: in these people's eyes and making them feel like they're
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: too scared to vote for.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Him all right final question uh you have someone in
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: your life who is a past Trump voter, either two-time
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Trump voter, or maybe they voted for him once and
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: then went to Biden, and now they're not sure what
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: they're going to do.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: They're still undecided.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: You got a couple minutes to persuade this person to
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: not vote for Donald Trump.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: What do you say? I've got a system. Sarah, you
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: can think about yours, because here's mine so far. We'll
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: see if, I don't know yet. I've been stress testing this,
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: but I say, what do you think the chances are
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: that Donald Trump won't leave? I'll let them answer the question.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: A lot of times people are like, come on. What
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: do you think the percent chances are? Zero percent? And
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: they'll say like, I don't know, maybe five. And I'll say,
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: that's too fucking much. Five is too high. We've never
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: had a five percent chance. That's too high of a chance.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: If you believe that there's anything more than a zero
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: percent chance that Donald Trump wants to become a dictator,
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: you cannot vote for him. Vote for every other Republican
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: that you want. Close your ears, progressive listeners. You know,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: things are like the Senate's going to be Republican next time. Sorry, guys.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: Close your ears. Close your ears. Vote Save America crowd. Like,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: you don't have to worry that socialism's coming. You do
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: have to worry that Donald Trump's going to be a dictator.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: That is my message. Again, now my group, people in
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: my life, this over-index is on, again, that kind of
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: college-educated Romney Biden crowd. I would probably make a different
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: pitch if it was, if we were talking about the
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: more working class Trump types. Sarah?
• 48:57
  Speaker 12: Yes.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: I would say, first of all, if I had to
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: make the pitch, I would make it not me. Like,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't be the one pitching. And my most fervent hope, actually,
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: is that one of the things that manifests as we
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: get closer is that people who worked alongside Trump, the generals,
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: that they come out and tell people what they saw.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: I think that those as surrogates would make an enormous
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: difference to kind of the Wall Street Journal crowd. And
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, don't go on background in the Atlantic. I mean,
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: hold a press conference and say with together with Kelly
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: and Mattis and say, we cannot do this. Like I
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: sent young men and women to die for this democracy
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: and I will not allow this election to happen without
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: me saying what I saw and how dangerous I think
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: it would be to return this man to power. And
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: so that I think would go a long way. I also,
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: there's a category of people who are making me though
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: particularly insane that I wanna fight with all the time.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: And it is the category, it's the anti-antis kind of,
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: that create the permission structure for normie Republicans to not
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: vote for Joe Biden. And they do some version of this.
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy, but I
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: can't vote for Joe Biden either. And so neither. And
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: I find this to be, this is a John Bolton argument,
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: or we've got many friends who kind of do this,
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, well, this is insane. If you believe
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy, you
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: vote for the one person, the tomato can, that is
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: standing between him and the White House. That's what you do. Otherwise,
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: you are a coward, and you don't care about the country,
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: and you are just not an adult capable of making
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: hard choices.
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: I love Sarah. I just want to interfere. I don't
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: think you should call the person in your life a coward, though.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: I don't think that, like Sarah was doing two things there.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: She gave a first strategy.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: I was talking to John Bolton.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: And then she was talking to John Bolton. I do
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: think if you have a pundit in your life. If
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: the person in your life happens to be Chris Sununu. Yeah,
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: that's right. Then call him a coward. Absolutely. But if
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: your person in your life is like an accountant or something,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: probably don't call them a coward. All the rest of that.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's good. That's good advice. Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for giving
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: us some of your insights and sharing some of the
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: focus groups with us. And appreciate you guys.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for having us.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: Sorry, Vote Save America people. I didn't mean to hurt
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: your feelings.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I'm still pulling for Sherrod and Tester. I think they
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: might be able to pull it out. I think they
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: might be able to.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, great. Sherrod, I hope it happens. I hope it happens. Bye, guys.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Before we move on, I just want to strenuously object
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: to Tim's prediction that Democrats will lose the Senate. We may,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: and it's certainly an uphill climb. but there's absolutely a
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: path for candidates in the toughest races like Jon Tester
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and Sherrod Brown. And the best way to help them
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: is by going to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to donate or
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: sign up for a volunteer shift. Then, if you feel
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: so inclined, go ahead and tweet a thank you to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Tim for encouraging you to sign up. And if you
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: want to walk away with some hope about the campaign
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: that Ben Wickler and other Democrats are building in Wisconsin,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: here it is.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: We just opened our 47th office.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: We have a presence all over the state, in every
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: region of the state, in rural areas and suburbs and exurbs,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: small towns and big towns and the cities of the state, everywhere.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: And that means that we're able to build these neighborhood
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: teams where folks are talking to people.
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: In their own communities.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: And when you talk to someone that you know from
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: church or from high school or from work or because
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: you're at your cousin's wedding together, then you can start
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: to have a conversation that goes off script.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: As you heard from Sarah, Tim, and Ben, these conversations
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: won't be easy, whether they're with perfect strangers or your
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: closest family members.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: But they're important.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: These should be longer conversations. This is not just checking in,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: making sure someone knows what the election is about. It
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: actually starts with eliciting, asking people questions, listening to them,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and asking follow-up questions, finding points of common ground, finding
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: values that they have in common.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe that seems a little scary to you. Maybe it
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: seems a little cheesy. Maybe it just seems exhausting. But
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: whether or not we keep Donald Trump out of the
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: White House depends on how many of these conversations each
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: of us are willing to have between now and November.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: And thankfully, Ben has a roadmap for us.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Well, the first thing is that it's okay to reassure people.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: You don't want to make people feel guilty for being
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: where they used to be. You want to make them
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: feel safe and celebrated and not judged for being where
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: they're coming to now. So having those conversations in a
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: tender and open and curious way can pave the way
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: for them to have further conversations with you, do not
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: immediately come in and impose a giant purity test where
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: you're asking them to agree with you about everything. Instead,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: really start with asking questions where you're trying to get
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: at the root of why someone came to feel this
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: way and go there and you can reflect back to
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: them the values that you're hearing and what you appreciate
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: about those values. But you're really looking for, you know,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: what is it that cracks this open for someone? What
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: happens ultimately for some of these voters is it's like
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: squeezing through a keyhole and then they come out and
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: suddenly feel like they're 3D on the other side of
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: it because they pop into themselves and feel like it's
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: okay to try on a bunch of different opinions that
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: didn't feel safe to try on before.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: I'll leave you with that.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, it'll be hard to go out there and persuade
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: the persuadables in your life. But hopefully, after what you
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: just heard, it may be just a little bit easier.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: The Wilderness is a production of Crooked Media. It's written
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. Our senior producer and
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: editor is Andrea B.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: Scott.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Austin Fisher is our producer. And Farrah Safari is our
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: associate producer. Sound design by Vassilis Fotopoulos. Music by Marty Fowler.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Charlotte Landis and Jordan Cantor sound engineered the show. Thanks
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: to Katie Long, Reid Cherlin, Matt DeGrotte, and Madeline Herringer
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: for production support. To our video team, Rachel Gajewski, Joseph Dutra,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: Chris Russell, Molly Lobel, and David Tolles, who filmed and
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: edited the show. If the wilderness has inspired you to
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: get involved, head on over to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: sign up and find a volunteer shift near you.