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Making Sense of Trump's Win · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:22
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor. So guys, tough day.
0:28
Speaker 1: Emotional support animal on my lap right here. Leo's here.
0:31
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. Donald Trump won. He won all
0:34
Speaker 1: seven swing states. He's projected to win the popular vote
0:37
Speaker 1: by about one and a half points when all the
0:39
Speaker 1: counting is finally done. Republicans will take control of the Senate,
0:44
Speaker 1: maybe with 52 seats when all is said and done.
0:46
Speaker 1: Melissa Slotkin, Tammy Baldwin, and Ruben Gallego. Seems like they're
0:50
Speaker 1: going to hang on in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Unclear
0:53
Speaker 1: if Jackie Rosen in Nevada will be able to hang on.
0:56
Speaker 1: The House looks extremely close and will not be decided
0:58
Speaker 1: for a few weeks until they count all the votes
1:01
Speaker 1: here in California, which often takes a few weeks. Trump's
1:05
Speaker 1: win was quite broad. He improved on his 2020 performance
1:10
Speaker 1: in almost every county among every demographic. So a majority
1:16
Speaker 1: of the country that includes all ages, races, genders, religions,
1:22
Speaker 1: and political beliefs chose four more years of Donald Trump.
1:26
Speaker 1: either because they like him or they like his agenda,
1:28
Speaker 1: or they don't see him and his agenda as enough
1:31
Speaker 1: of a risk, or they voted for him based on
1:34
Speaker 1: battery and complete information.
1:35
Speaker 4: Those are the options. Or they hated Democrats.
1:37
Speaker 1: Or they hated, yeah. And it's probably a different mix
1:41
Speaker 1: for each voter, but we just don't know yet. One
1:44
Speaker 1: thing we do know is that since the pandemic and
1:47
Speaker 1: the record inflation it caused, incumbent leaders all over the
1:52
Speaker 1: world have been losing. Incumbents of all political persuasions, on
1:56
Speaker 1: nearly every continent. And I just say that as a
2:00
Speaker 1: factual background for context in the political environment we're in
2:03
Speaker 1: right now. With all that said, what are your thoughts
2:07
Speaker 1: on what went wrong in this election? Who wants to start?
2:11
Speaker 4: Dan?
2:12
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
2:14
Speaker 1: You were about to speak, so I.
2:16
Speaker 4: Figured let's go.
2:17
Speaker 3: That was me trying not to speak, but we're going
2:20
Speaker 3: to get to this moment anyway, so here we are.
2:23
Speaker 3: I think you hit on the most important point, which
2:26
Speaker 3: is a brutal political environment. And the polling was telling
2:30
Speaker 3: us this for years now. Three quarters of voters think
2:34
Speaker 3: the country's on the wrong track. Two thirds are unhappy
2:36
Speaker 3: with the economy. In the exit polling, 45% of voters
2:40
Speaker 3: said that their family's personal financial situation was worse off
2:43
Speaker 3: than it was four years ago. The incumbent president has
2:46
Speaker 3: an approval rating of about 40 or 41%. Those are
2:48
Speaker 3: all of the elements in which an incumbent party loses
2:54
Speaker 3: an election. And then you add to the fact that
2:57
Speaker 3: our nominee, who I believe ran an incredible campaign under
3:03
Speaker 3: incredibly difficult circumstances, has been the nominee for about 110 days,
3:06
Speaker 3: I think. It was introduced to the public as a
3:09
Speaker 3: largely unknown figure, despite being the vice president of the
3:13
Speaker 3: United States, with 110 days to go against a former
3:15
Speaker 3: president who was running his third consecutive presidential election. He
3:20
Speaker 3: has been running for almost 10 years now straight. And
3:23
Speaker 3: she had to try to mount a campaign in 109 days.
3:26
Speaker 3: And the country shifted to the right across the board, right?
3:31
Speaker 3: And as you point out, in every state except Washington
3:34
Speaker 3: state and Utah, Donald Trump did better than he did
3:38
Speaker 3: in 2020. He cut the margins by double digits in
3:42
Speaker 3: places like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, the
3:45
Speaker 3: bluest of states. And so this is a very big thing.
3:49
Speaker 3: And there will be a ton of second guessing and
3:50
Speaker 3: nitpicking and all of that. But we have to recognize
3:53
Speaker 3: the political environment we're operating in and the changes in
3:56
Speaker 3: the country politically over the last four years. And it's
3:58
Speaker 3: really the changes have been going on since 2016, that
4:02
Speaker 3: we were able to win in 2020 by a tiny bit.
4:05
Speaker 3: But we've been moving in this direction for a while now.
4:07
Speaker 3: And it came home in a really brutal way last night.
4:12
Speaker 4: Tommy?
4:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:14
Speaker 4: I mean, I think Dan put it well.
4:15
Speaker 5: I mean, the, the, the one thing I just wanted
4:16
Speaker 5: to tell folks is just to be, I really want
4:19
Speaker 5: to know what happened because I want the, to do
4:21
Speaker 5: some personal soul searching and the party do soul searching
4:23
Speaker 5: to fix this and to do better next time. But
4:27
Speaker 5: I think we just have to tell everyone that we're
4:30
Speaker 5: going to do our best to sort through the information
4:32
Speaker 5: that's available, but it's kind of exit polls that are
4:36
Speaker 5: spotty at best. It's County by County data. Um, And
4:40
Speaker 5: in a few months, there's going to be much more
4:41
Speaker 5: granular data that will almost certainly upend a whole bunch
4:44
Speaker 5: of the narratives that you see in the next few
4:47
Speaker 5: months about why Kamala Harris lost. And so, you know,
4:50
Speaker 5: everyone just approached this with some humility, um, and, and
4:54
Speaker 5: realize that anyone who tells you they know exactly what
4:56
Speaker 5: happened or why Kamala Harris lost or that it was
5:00
Speaker 5: the VP pick or Gaza that did it, or he
5:03
Speaker 5: did Joe Rogan and she didn't write like those are
5:06
Speaker 5: be skeptical of those people. Um, I think Dan's point
5:11
Speaker 5: about the fundamentals is probably the most important one, which
5:14
Speaker 5: was you had a right track, wrong track number that.
5:16
Speaker 4: Was historically bad.
5:17
Speaker 5: You had Joe Biden's approval rating that was very bad.
5:20
Speaker 5: You had a candidate with 100 days to introduce herself
5:24
Speaker 5: to the country. And those are very difficult headwinds. And
5:29
Speaker 5: Trump was able to take the mantle of the anti-establishment
5:32
Speaker 5: candidate at a time when voters were really, really mad.
5:37
Speaker 5: And he could also point to the economy in his
5:39
Speaker 5: first three years in office and say, things were better then.
5:42
Speaker 5: Why don't we go back to that? And that was
5:44
Speaker 5: a powerful, simple message.
5:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:46
Speaker 2: I mean, what I was thinking about this morning is, okay,
5:51
Speaker 2: the case we made against Donald Trump was true.
5:55
Speaker 1: The truth is the truth.
5:56
Speaker 2: That was a strong and valid case, both against laying
6:01
Speaker 2: at the feet of Kamala Harris and the frustrations people
6:05
Speaker 2: have with inflation, which was global, which was following a
6:08
Speaker 2: once-in-a-generation pandemic, and the risks that Donald Trump would pose
6:13
Speaker 2: in a second term. That case was valid. It was
6:16
Speaker 2: a case made broadly. And what I think we have
6:18
Speaker 2: to figure out now is millions and millions of Americans
6:22
Speaker 2: who agree with our concerns about Donald Trump, who agree
6:27
Speaker 2: that he has terrible character, that he has terrible traits
6:30
Speaker 2: for leadership, decided that their concerns about the economy, their
6:37
Speaker 2: anger at the establishment was enough to justify taking that chance.
6:41
Speaker 2: And there'll be a lot of reasons for that. There'll
6:43
Speaker 2: be a lot to unpack about why that happened. But
6:46
Speaker 2: what I was thinking about this morning is only as
6:50
Speaker 2: Democrats made that case, a lot of people didn't listen.
6:53
Speaker 2: They may not listen because they don't trust Democrats. They
6:55
Speaker 2: may not listen because the media environment is so fractured
6:59
Speaker 2: that they either don't hear it or they hear it
7:02
Speaker 2: translated through a propaganda apparatus that makes it unintelligible. Whatever
7:07
Speaker 2: the reasons, those are the places where I see places
7:11
Speaker 2: where we have to figure out how to sort of
7:13
Speaker 2: attack problems.
7:15
Speaker 4: Because if the.
7:16
Speaker 2: Case against Donald Trump was true, we all continue to
7:18
Speaker 2: believe that, millions of Americans didn't buy it. And I
7:22
Speaker 2: think that points to the importance of investing in progressive media.
7:25
Speaker 2: I think that that will cause some reflection about how
7:29
Speaker 2: Democrats speak to voters and who are our messengers, but
7:33
Speaker 2: I think the details of that and how we think
7:35
Speaker 2: about that will take time to unpack.
7:38
Speaker 4: That's where I'm at.
7:39
Speaker 1: I want to echo what Tommy said about sort of
7:42
Speaker 1: definitive takes right now. The truth is, like, even when
7:46
Speaker 1: we get, so just so everyone knows how this works,
7:50
Speaker 1: there's two organizations, one called Catalyst, one called Pew, and they,
7:55
Speaker 1: in a couple months from now, they will have the
7:57
Speaker 1: whole voter file And they will match up the voter
7:59
Speaker 1: file to the actual results. And you'll be able to
8:02
Speaker 1: get like a really granular look at who voted and
8:05
Speaker 1: why they voted. And you can dive into the demographic
8:08
Speaker 1: groups and stuff like that. Those are almost always different
8:11
Speaker 1: than the demographic splits in the exit polls that we
8:13
Speaker 1: got for last night, which is why we're being cautious.
8:16
Speaker 1: Even when we have that data, by the way, it's
8:18
Speaker 1: still hard to untangle all this shit. It's not going
8:21
Speaker 1: to give us any easy, simple explanations. So again, caution,
8:25
Speaker 1: don't buy a simple explanation here. Exit polls are, I think,
8:28
Speaker 1: useful not for which demographic voted which way. They're good
8:32
Speaker 1: for sort of the broader questions about the attitudes among
8:35
Speaker 1: the electorate, right? Which is, you know, Dan was mentioning
8:37
Speaker 1: how people only, I think, 45% said that their financial
8:41
Speaker 1: situation is worse. Only 25% said their family's financial situation
8:45
Speaker 1: is better than four years ago. Also, 75% said in
8:50
Speaker 1: the last year, inflation has caused them either severe or
8:54
Speaker 1: moderate hardship. So there was this big You know, you've
8:58
Speaker 1: heard us debate this for years now, where it's like, well,
9:02
Speaker 1: maybe people think that the economy's bad because the news
9:05
Speaker 1: is telling them the economy's bad and Republicans are telling
9:08
Speaker 1: them the economy's bad, but really their financial situation is great.
9:12
Speaker 1: Not true. Not true. Most people, at least according to
9:16
Speaker 1: the exit poll and almost every other poll that we've
9:18
Speaker 1: seen in the last several years, are saying, I've faced
9:21
Speaker 1: financial hardship because of inflation. Just a few other stats
9:25
Speaker 1: from the exit polls that jumped out to me. So
9:27
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris's approval rating in the exit poll, 48-51. It's
9:32
Speaker 1: a pretty good approval rating in American politics today. Donald
9:36
Speaker 1: Trump's approval, 44-54. So she was more popular than him.
9:41
Speaker 1: And were Harris's views too extreme? 46% said yes, 51%
9:44
Speaker 1: said no. Were Trump's views too extreme? 55% said yes,
9:46
Speaker 1: 43% said no. So likability, favorability, extreme ideology, These were not, what,
9:59
Speaker 1: defined vote choices? for people. Joe Biden's approval rating, 40%. Disapproval, 58%.
10:06
Speaker 1: And then the second most important candidate quality, who can
10:09
Speaker 1: bring needed change? Donald So again, we don't know exactly
10:19
Speaker 1: what the explanation is, but a lot of it is
10:20
Speaker 1: pointing to, you know, you had an unpopular president because
10:24
Speaker 1: of inflation and she couldn't overcome it.
10:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that, like, you know, there are
10:31
Speaker 2: a lot of, and I hope nobody's paying attention, a
10:34
Speaker 2: lot of people kind of, just as on the left,
10:37
Speaker 2: I think it is worth discounting people who are talking
10:39
Speaker 2: about how much this result confirms their priors. I think
10:42
Speaker 2: we see a lot of people on the right doing
10:43
Speaker 2: all kinds of victory laps and ascribing this victory to
10:46
Speaker 2: their personal set of issues and reasons for their own involvement.
10:50
Speaker 2: But as of right now, and again, we will see
10:53
Speaker 2: this looks much less like a vote for Trump than
10:56
Speaker 2: a vote against people's frustrations with the current administration and
11:00
Speaker 2: the current economic conditions than it does like any kind
11:03
Speaker 2: of embrace of Trumpism or Trump remaking America or any
11:06
Speaker 2: of the grand and sweeping conclusions that some would like
11:08
Speaker 2: to draw.
11:10
Speaker 1: One place you can look for early demographic shifts is
11:14
Speaker 1: the county by county results. Because even if a subsample
11:16
Speaker 1: and an exit poll isn't enough to make judgments, you know,
11:20
Speaker 1: if there's a county that is heavily Latino, young, it's
11:23
Speaker 1: a college town, right? You can start drawing some inferences. Dan,
11:26
Speaker 1: it does seem that the trend that happened between 2016
11:29
Speaker 1: and 2020, which is Trump gaining ground with Latinos, as
11:33
Speaker 1: he did between 2016 and 2020, has also accelerated again.
11:36
Speaker 1: And that's, again, not just from the exit polls. That's
11:38
Speaker 1: just looking at these heavily Latino counties all across the
11:42
Speaker 1: United States. What's your take on that?
11:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems clear. I want to be very skeptical
11:47
Speaker 3: of the exit poll top line numbers for any of
11:50
Speaker 3: the demographic groups and be particularly skeptical of either the
11:53
Speaker 3: subgroups because there are these numbers going around about you know,
11:57
Speaker 3: how Trump did with Latino men or how he did
11:59
Speaker 3: with black men.
12:00
Speaker 1: In a state.
12:01
Speaker 3: In a state. And then the second part is then
12:02
Speaker 3: when you get to states, you'll be very skeptical of
12:04
Speaker 3: that too. But if you look at, as you point out,
12:06
Speaker 3: you look at the county data, it is very clear
12:08
Speaker 3: that Trump made some gains over 2020. You look at
12:11
Speaker 3: Osceola County, Florida, which is right outside of Orlando, it
12:14
Speaker 3: is 50% Latino, 33% Puerto Rican, and Trump gained about
12:16
Speaker 3: 14 points over his 2020 margin. You look all across
12:23
Speaker 3: the heavily Latino counties in the Rio Grande Valley, huge shifts,
12:28
Speaker 3: double-digit shifts in those counties. Same thing in New Mexico.
12:31
Speaker 3: And so all across the board, you're seeing it. I
12:33
Speaker 3: don't want to say, though, that we know the magnitude
12:35
Speaker 3: of that. We're going to have to wait for the
12:37
Speaker 3: Pew and Catalyst data to truly understand that. But it
12:40
Speaker 3: seems very clear that he made significant gains. And that's
12:43
Speaker 3: why you're seeing these Latino-heavy states. Texas, huge shift. New Jersey,
12:47
Speaker 3: huge shift. New York, huge shift. We'll see what happens
12:49
Speaker 3: in California. But if you look at the performance of
12:51
Speaker 3: the other states... reason to be worried about a shift there.
12:53
Speaker 3: And so it is very real. We spent a lot
12:56
Speaker 3: of time debating this over the course of the last
12:59
Speaker 3: couple of years, like what was real, what wasn't. He
13:02
Speaker 3: made huge gains in 2020. He clearly made more gains
13:04
Speaker 3: in 2024. And that is electoral checkmate if those trends continue, right?
13:09
Speaker 3: Absolutely at a presidential level and really a Senate level too,
13:12
Speaker 3: because it puts states that we need like Arizona, Texas,
13:16
Speaker 3: eventually Nevada, if the trends continue out of reach. And
13:19
Speaker 3: there aren't enough states to get anywhere to even sniff
13:21
Speaker 3: 50 Yeah.
13:22
Speaker 4: A friend of mine sent me some details from Lawrence, Massachusetts, right?
13:27
Speaker 5: So Massachusetts, obviously not a competitive state, not a lot
13:30
Speaker 5: of ads running there, not a lot of field programs,
13:33
Speaker 5: not near the border, not part of the complicated multicultural
13:36
Speaker 5: Florida political scene.
13:38
Speaker 4: Clinton got 82% of the vote in 2016. Biden got
13:40
Speaker 4: 74% in 2020. Harris got 57% of the vote in Lawrence, Massachusetts,
13:48
Speaker 4: this cycle.
13:49
Speaker 3: 80% Latino.
13:51
Speaker 5: My cousin's a teacher there. Lawrence is 80% Latino. So
13:55
Speaker 5: that tells you the sort of story. And then, you know,
13:57
Speaker 5: the CNN exits found 7 in 10 Hispanic voters said
14:01
Speaker 5: the economy was not so good or poor. And 40%
14:05
Speaker 5: said the economy was their top issue. So it seems like,
14:07
Speaker 5: you know, again, you're right, Dan, we don't want to
14:10
Speaker 5: take too much from these subsamples, but there's clearly a
14:12
Speaker 5: problem of erosion of Latino support in the party. Generally,
14:17
Speaker 5: And there was a particular emphasis on the economy in
14:20
Speaker 5: the exits.
14:32
Speaker 1: In an effort to not just seek out explanations that
14:36
Speaker 1: confirm my priors here, can you guys think of another
14:40
Speaker 1: explanation aside from the pinch of inflation and the fact
14:45
Speaker 1: that wages have not outpaced inflation in most parts of
14:49
Speaker 1: the country over the last four years when Trump shift
14:53
Speaker 1: is so uniform, like every kind of county, rural, urban, suburban,
14:59
Speaker 1: like what other explanation are you guys thinking about? Are
15:04
Speaker 1: there any other explanations that we're missing here? Because I just,
15:07
Speaker 1: the fact that it's so uniform and that it was
15:08
Speaker 1: in so many counties and so many across so many
15:11
Speaker 1: demographic groups just makes me think that it's hard to
15:14
Speaker 1: pinpoint like one single issue that doesn't affect every person.
15:18
Speaker 5: The only one is anti-establishment. We hate Washington, and that
15:22
Speaker 5: guy seems like the one who's going to burn it down.
15:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. And yes, I believe inflation
15:28
Speaker 3: is the major driving force here. We're seeing it replicated
15:31
Speaker 3: all over the world. It's obviously happening here as well.
15:34
Speaker 3: There's a way to make that a crutch that allows
15:36
Speaker 3: us to avoid some of the tougher conversations, because just
15:39
Speaker 3: the mere presence of inflation does not mean that we
15:41
Speaker 3: should lose on that issue. We have better policies for it.
15:45
Speaker 3: And so we have lost trust as a party across
15:49
Speaker 3: a wide swath of issues. And we have to address
15:51
Speaker 3: that part of it. Because if the idea is inflation
15:53
Speaker 3: has come down significantly, it will continue to come down.
15:58
Speaker 3: We can't just bet on a lower price of eggs
16:00
Speaker 3: in 2026 as our strategy to take the Senate back.
16:02
Speaker 3: We're going to have to confront why people found Trump
16:06
Speaker 3: such a compelling solution to that problem. If we had
16:08
Speaker 3: just won in a we've lost a point here in
16:12
Speaker 3: the battleground states, points here, that would have been one thing.
16:14
Speaker 3: But when you see this shift, particularly in the parts
16:17
Speaker 3: of the country where there was no campaign, where we
16:19
Speaker 3: actually waged a campaign and ran ads, it moved.
16:22
Speaker 1: I have the stats here, yeah. In the battleground states,
16:25
Speaker 1: Harris underperformed 2020 by 1.6 points. In the non-battleground states,
16:31
Speaker 1: she underperformed by 3.9 points on average in the state.
16:36
Speaker 1: Which just goes to tell you something that like, the
16:39
Speaker 1: campaign worked well didn't work well enough, but like it, it,
16:44
Speaker 1: the campaign mattered in the places where she campaigned, where
16:47
Speaker 1: they spent money on ads, where they organized, where they
16:48
Speaker 1: knocked on doors, they did better, which tells you how
16:52
Speaker 1: bad the national political environment is.
16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think that's important. And then I also
16:57
Speaker 2: think you look at like the Delta between Kamala Harris
17:01
Speaker 2: and some of these Senate candidates and how they ran
17:04
Speaker 2: their races, even races where you lost like Dan Osborne
17:06
Speaker 2: or how, how far ahead John Tester ran against Kamala Harris.
17:10
Speaker 2: And you start to see, okay, There is, to Dan's point,
17:13
Speaker 2: I mean, this is what I was talking about earlier,
17:14
Speaker 2: like there is this, you know, there are millions of
17:19
Speaker 2: people who are just not listening to Democrats.
17:21
Speaker 4: They don't either.
17:22
Speaker 2: I think like years of correct anger and fear about
17:29
Speaker 2: Trump becomes kind of the noise of Trump. I think
17:31
Speaker 2: that is a problem. And then, yes, like how are
17:34
Speaker 2: we the messengers on inflation when people simply don't believe
17:38
Speaker 2: that we'll deliver? And that's a vicious circle, right? Because
17:42
Speaker 2: we've now lost power. We're now even less of a
17:44
Speaker 2: position to deliver on what we claim would be a
17:46
Speaker 2: better agenda. But that's, I think, the hard work we
17:49
Speaker 2: now have to do to find places where we can
17:52
Speaker 2: build power and demonstrate a reason to put trust in Democrats.
17:57
Speaker 5: Just off that point you made, John, I did want
17:59
Speaker 5: to address the elephant in the room here for Crooked
18:01
Speaker 5: Media and Pod Save America, which is the entire goal
18:04
Speaker 5: of this company after 2016 was designed to encourage people
18:08
Speaker 5: to get more engaged in politics and and run for
18:10
Speaker 5: office and knock on doors and volunteer. And after a
18:13
Speaker 5: result like last night, it is easy to feel like,
18:16
Speaker 5: did any of that matter? And I certainly feel it too.
18:20
Speaker 5: And in my darker moments, you know, like wonder if
18:24
Speaker 5: anything a campaign does matters in an environment like this.
18:27
Speaker 5: But I do think it's, again, worth pointing out that
18:30
Speaker 5: Trump did better in non-battleground states than battleground states.
18:34
Speaker 4: Which suggests that this stuff matters on the margin. But
18:36
Speaker 4: more importantly, look down ballot.
18:38
Speaker 5: Because where you see Democrats winning by very small margins,
18:42
Speaker 5: like Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan or Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin,
18:46
Speaker 5: that is where years of organizing really did matter. All
18:50
Speaker 5: of our donations to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, that really mattered.
18:54
Speaker 5: And so, you know, I think it sucks right now.
18:59
Speaker 5: I understand people want to throw up their hands and
19:02
Speaker 5: never be a part of the political process again. But
19:05
Speaker 5: I do think that people fighting made an impact.
19:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:09
Speaker 1: And I think that's another piece of evidence that this
19:13
Speaker 1: was an economic problem and people blame the top of
19:17
Speaker 1: the ticket for bad economic conditions. And they don't necessarily
19:21
Speaker 1: blame their senator, their house member, their governor, because we
19:25
Speaker 1: have popular Democratic governors across the country. We had a
19:28
Speaker 1: bunch of Democratic Senate candidates who did well. We have
19:31
Speaker 1: a bunch of Democratic House candidates. Both the Senate and
19:34
Speaker 1: the House candidates outran the top of the ticket, right?
19:37
Speaker 1: And so there are definitely questions we need to answer
19:40
Speaker 1: as a party to like regain trust with people, but
19:42
Speaker 1: we have, we have democratic candidates in tough states who win,
19:46
Speaker 1: you know? So Harris had a great, convention. She won
19:52
Speaker 1: the debate, impressed undecided voters and focus groups. She closed
19:56
Speaker 1: strong rallies were packed. Any lessons about the campaign or,
20:02
Speaker 1: or thoughts about her campaign, things they could have done
20:05
Speaker 1: better assessments of the campaign that, you know, either hold
20:09
Speaker 1: up in light of this result or don't?
20:12
Speaker 3: I kind of want to try to hold two independent
20:14
Speaker 3: thoughts in my head. One is that the political environment
20:17
Speaker 3: was such, and the scope of Trump's win was such,
20:20
Speaker 3: that the idea that some sort of tactical or strategic
20:23
Speaker 3: miscalculation is why this happened is an absurd proposition, right?
20:26
Speaker 3: I think she ran, it wasn't a perfect campaign, but
20:28
Speaker 3: she ran a hell of a campaign, right? They were
20:30
Speaker 3: very smart people. They did the best they could under
20:32
Speaker 3: impossible circumstances. Having said that, I think... We should take
20:38
Speaker 3: a step back, not just look at the Harris campaign,
20:39
Speaker 3: but the last three presidential elections and recognize that as
20:43
Speaker 3: a party, we are struggling mightily to communicate and persuade
20:48
Speaker 3: less engaged voters. We crush in.
20:52
Speaker 1: Terms- Who happen to be the most economically vulnerable.
20:54
Speaker 4: Yes.
20:55
Speaker 3: But we are not reaching them. And that's actually borne
20:57
Speaker 3: out by the fact that on a day-to-day basis in life,
21:01
Speaker 3: they are getting in the states where they're not seeing
21:03
Speaker 3: a billion dollars of democratic eds, they are clearly getting
21:07
Speaker 3: Republican messaging. So I think we have to look at
21:09
Speaker 3: two things, right? And I don't have answers to it,
21:11
Speaker 3: but we should be willing to have the tough conversations,
21:13
Speaker 3: question all of our priors. One is, it's just worth
21:17
Speaker 3: noting that we've invested all this money in field, right?
21:20
Speaker 3: We have put together massive operations run by the best
21:22
Speaker 3: people in the party in three consecutive elections. Trump has
21:26
Speaker 3: done no field, none, right? The idea that, I will
21:30
Speaker 3: not for one second believe that Elon Musk and Charlie
21:32
Speaker 3: Kirk put together like a real plan. They didn't. Just
21:35
Speaker 3: they had organic turnout. I'm not saying that we did
21:38
Speaker 3: anything wrong, but we should just like look at how
21:40
Speaker 3: things may have changed over the years, like what we
21:42
Speaker 3: could do. And the other one is communication, right? Like
21:44
Speaker 3: how do we reach these voters, right? In Trump's bizarre
21:48
Speaker 3: rambling speech last night, you know, Dana White gets up
21:51
Speaker 3: there because why wouldn't the head of the UFC speak
21:54
Speaker 3: at the presidential acceptance speech and talks about all the
21:57
Speaker 3: podcasts that Trump went on, the Milk Boys, Aiden Ross,
21:59
Speaker 3: all these people. I'm not saying we should do all
22:01
Speaker 3: those things. This is not about Rogan, but... we are
22:04
Speaker 3: not on a day-to-day basis, we are not reaching voters
22:07
Speaker 3: or a certain set of voters organically. And we should
22:09
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time trying to figure out why
22:10
Speaker 3: that is and what we can do about it.
22:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:13
Speaker 5: To Dan's point, I mean, my primary concern is just
22:15
Speaker 5: how we're able to take back the mantle of being
22:18
Speaker 5: the party for the working class, because I'm worried that
22:20
Speaker 5: we've lost it. And the Democrats too often talk about
22:23
Speaker 5: politics as like an intellectual exercise and not a thing
22:26
Speaker 5: that impacts people. But to your point about, you know,
22:29
Speaker 5: Dana White's speech last night, I do think sometimes Democrats
22:32
Speaker 5: view campaigns and elections as like a math problem where
22:35
Speaker 5: you stitch together coalitions and field and policy and then
22:38
Speaker 5: you win. And like Trump did some of that, right?
22:40
Speaker 5: Like no tax on tips was like a discreet, savvy
22:42
Speaker 5: thing to reach an audience. And we know it was
22:44
Speaker 5: smart because Kamala Harris then stole the idea. But I
22:46
Speaker 5: think big picture, Trump views politics as an exercise in
22:50
Speaker 5: dominating the narrative at all times. And he's found a
22:54
Speaker 5: savvy way to do that that creates no friction for him,
22:56
Speaker 5: which is constantly talking to these right wing influencers, podcasts,
23:01
Speaker 5: YouTube stars, whatever they may be. And there was a
23:03
Speaker 5: lot of conversation about Joe Rogan or no Joe Rogan.
23:05
Speaker 5: I think that's a little bit secondary to the fact
23:08
Speaker 5: that he is doing constant care and feeding to shows
23:13
Speaker 5: that people who are listening have probably never heard of,
23:16
Speaker 5: like Dan Bongino or PPD or whatever these shows are called.
23:20
Speaker 5: But they have big audiences. They keep his base motivated
23:23
Speaker 5: and fired up. Fox News is the elephant in the
23:25
Speaker 5: room here. But he helps them over time build out
23:29
Speaker 5: a massive, powerful right-wing organization media ecosystem that the Democratic
23:34
Speaker 5: Party just does not have. We run our stuff through
23:38
Speaker 5: the mainstream media, traditional filter. We're getting better at talking
23:42
Speaker 5: to influencers, Instagram lives, YouTube, sports podcasts, etc.
23:47
Speaker 4: But Trump basically only did.
23:49
Speaker 5: That and managed to reach the people he needed to meet.
23:52
Speaker 4: We need to think about communications in a new way.
23:56
Speaker 1: When you were talking about, as Democrats, we try to
23:58
Speaker 1: stitch together different things, I thought you were going to
24:00
Speaker 1: go this place, which is Trump has put together the
24:06
Speaker 1: most diverse coalition that a Republican president has had in
24:10
Speaker 1: our lifetime in this win. And if there's one thing
24:15
Speaker 1: that we are seeing, and we saw it start happening
24:17
Speaker 1: a little bit in 2020, and it's happened more now,
24:20
Speaker 1: people's racial, ethnic, gender identity are not the most salient
24:25
Speaker 1: factors in their politics. They're becoming less salient over time,
24:29
Speaker 1: I'll say. And I think that we as a party
24:31
Speaker 1: need to stop treating them that way. This party cannot
24:34
Speaker 1: be the sum of its identities and interest groups. There
24:38
Speaker 1: has to be a bigger message about improving people's lives.
24:42
Speaker 1: The idea for a while that Latinos only care about
24:46
Speaker 1: immigration or black voters only care about criminal justice reform
24:49
Speaker 1: or women only care about reproductive freedom, it's patronizing. And
24:56
Speaker 1: it's just wrong. And we've got to have a message
25:00
Speaker 1: that reaches everyone, that everyone can see themselves in. Because
25:05
Speaker 1: if you're just piecing different things together, different groups together,
25:08
Speaker 1: and you're targeting every single different group here and there,
25:11
Speaker 1: you know, the message is going to get lost.
25:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I actually think it goes to what Tommy
25:16
Speaker 2: was talking about as well. Because really, I think Tommy's
25:19
Speaker 2: describing kind of two now connected but distinct ecosystems. One
25:25
Speaker 2: is the right wing ecosystem. purposeful political media apparatus. And
25:31
Speaker 2: Republicans have invested in that. Conservative billionaires and wealthy backers
25:35
Speaker 2: have invested in that. Republican politicians are like supporting that
25:39
Speaker 2: right-wing information system. And we at Crooked have been trying
25:45
Speaker 2: to build something of a countervailing force to that, but
25:48
Speaker 2: there is just no equivalent to the scope of what
25:51
Speaker 2: the right has. Then beyond that, you have this sort
25:54
Speaker 2: of right-wing adjacent, less political Set of shows the Theo
26:00
Speaker 2: Vaughn's and the Joe Rogan's and a whole host of
26:02
Speaker 2: other shows and I think it's worth thinking about Okay.
26:05
Speaker 1: Wow.
26:05
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was smart to go on those places because
26:07
Speaker 2: those were friendly places. I think it's worth asking Why
26:09
Speaker 2: are they so friendly?
26:11
Speaker 1: Right?
26:11
Speaker 2: Why did those become places that were much friendlier to
26:14
Speaker 2: the right that that feel like they are part of
26:17
Speaker 2: some kind of a counterculture? How did we give up
26:19
Speaker 2: that mantle right like that is an incredible trick that
26:22
Speaker 2: the right has pulled right they are somehow both counterculture
26:25
Speaker 2: and and rebellious while pursuing some of the most old
26:28
Speaker 2: fashioned and traditional norms and social values that most people
26:33
Speaker 2: find puritanical and actually reject in their daily lives. And
26:36
Speaker 2: so like, how do we have that space that is
26:39
Speaker 2: a place where everybody feels comfortable, everyone wants to be
26:43
Speaker 2: a part of that doesn't, especially kind of younger people.
26:46
Speaker 2: And yeah.
26:48
Speaker 1: We've talked about appearing on these kinds of podcasts and
26:51
Speaker 1: these spaces that Trump and, but I think it's also
26:54
Speaker 1: a matter of like, what Democrats say and how they
26:57
Speaker 1: say it. And I think it's telling that we could probably,
27:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, list on like two hands, the number
27:05
Speaker 1: of democratic politicians that we'd feel comfortable sending on Joe Rogan.
27:09
Speaker 2: One hand.
27:09
Speaker 1: I was being generous. I was being generous. And I
27:13
Speaker 1: think that's a big, look at Donald Trump. He got
27:17
Speaker 1: through all those podcasts. He was, he was the best
27:19
Speaker 1: version of Donald Trump for sure. Like JD Vance, you know,
27:22
Speaker 1: I saw some of the clips on him on, uh,
27:24
Speaker 1: Our next vice president is pretty mid.
27:25
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to give him a swirly
27:28
Speaker 3: in the middle of the thing.
27:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was pretty terrible. But he was terrible in
27:30
Speaker 1: a different way. Like there's still we still have a
27:32
Speaker 1: talking point thing because we're all so Democratic politicians are
27:35
Speaker 1: still on message, which is a good thing.
27:37
Speaker 4: Right.
27:38
Speaker 1: But the way it comes across in a setting like
27:41
Speaker 1: that is like you have to be able to mix
27:42
Speaker 1: it up and you can't be afraid that you're going
27:44
Speaker 1: to say something that the rest of the party is
27:46
Speaker 1: going to come down to you because you said it
27:47
Speaker 1: the wrong way.
27:47
Speaker 4: Right.
27:49
Speaker 1: And I think that's that is something that the Democrats
27:51
Speaker 1: have to think hard about as well.
27:53
Speaker 3: Well, people hate politics right now and we sound like politicians.
27:56
Speaker 4: Yeah.
27:57
Speaker 1: And well, that's the other, this is the other big
27:59
Speaker 1: challenge I think that the party faces. And I think
28:01
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily just a challenge of our own
28:03
Speaker 1: making because we are facing, you know, an authoritarian movement
28:09
Speaker 1: in our country. And so when you fight an authoritarian movement,
28:14
Speaker 1: the instinct is to defend democracy. But, and Dan, you've
28:18
Speaker 1: talked about this too. Like, If we are always in
28:21
Speaker 1: the position of defending democratic institutions that most of the
28:25
Speaker 1: people in this country do not think are working for them,
28:28
Speaker 1: then it's not going to work. Then we're going to
28:30
Speaker 1: be the defenders of a broken system. And Donald Trump
28:34
Speaker 1: and his folks are going to be the ones who
28:35
Speaker 1: are going to, they want to burn it down. We
28:37
Speaker 1: should at least be the party that doesn't want to
28:40
Speaker 1: burn the system down, but wants to fix it and
28:42
Speaker 1: wants to reform it.
28:43
Speaker 3: I would say I 100% agree with that. This is
28:46
Speaker 3: something we've all been screaming about since 2022. The Harris campaign,
28:50
Speaker 3: to their credit, did not adopt. They abandoned the Save
28:53
Speaker 3: Democracy messaging that was so prevalent in the Biden campaign.
28:58
Speaker 3: But you have to go one step further. And this
29:00
Speaker 3: was probably an impossible decision for her to be in
29:02
Speaker 3: as the sitting vice president to the incumbent president taking
29:05
Speaker 3: over the reins with 100 some days to go. is
29:08
Speaker 3: we have to become a party who wants to reform democracy.
29:11
Speaker 3: And that is getting money out of politics. It's getting
29:15
Speaker 3: money out of politics. It's dealing with lobbyists. It's dealing
29:18
Speaker 3: with the influence of corporations. We have to take that on.
29:22
Speaker 3: And that becomes easier in the opposition, which is where
29:25
Speaker 3: we now are.
29:26
Speaker 2: That's what Bernie, when I interviewed Bernie, that's one thing
29:29
Speaker 2: I said, what do you wish Democrats were saying more
29:31
Speaker 2: here in the home stretch? He's like, I wish we
29:32
Speaker 2: were talking more about money and politics. I don't think
29:34
Speaker 2: we're talking enough about the corporate influence. What I had thought,
29:37
Speaker 2: we talked about this in the pod right before, which
29:39
Speaker 2: was that, well, if the polling error looks like 2020,
29:42
Speaker 2: Donald Trump could win all seven states. If the polling
29:45
Speaker 2: error looks like 2022, Kamala Harris could win all seven states.
29:48
Speaker 2: I did think that the connection between, you know, freedom
29:51
Speaker 2: and democracy as an abstract concept, that you could connect
29:54
Speaker 2: that to reproductive freedom and abortion, and that that would
29:58
Speaker 2: be real and tangible enough I did. That's what sort
30:01
Speaker 2: of my hope was, at least. I don't think I knew,
30:03
Speaker 2: but that was my hope. I just think about our
30:05
Speaker 2: experience knocking on doors. You talk about we can't just
30:08
Speaker 2: be the party of democratic institutions. We have to talk
30:10
Speaker 2: about reforming them. I just remember having this feeling, we
30:13
Speaker 2: all talked about it at the time, that when you're
30:16
Speaker 2: knocking on somebody's door in a working class neighborhood in
30:19
Speaker 2: a suburb of Las Vegas and they open the door,
30:22
Speaker 2: you don't say, like, hi, we're here because we're trying
30:24
Speaker 2: to defend freedom and democracy and we're trying to reform
30:26
Speaker 2: our institutions. You say, Donald Trump is for a national
30:28
Speaker 2: sales tax. He'll make things cost more. Kamala Harris will
30:30
Speaker 2: make things cost less. And you get, you realize in
30:33
Speaker 2: that moment, just how, how simple and to the point
30:36
Speaker 2: and kind of, uh, and non-abstract you have to be.
30:40
Speaker 2: And like, I think Democrats collectively on some level, we
30:44
Speaker 2: know that, but I think that our instincts, because I
30:46
Speaker 2: think our party is now the party of an educated
30:50
Speaker 2: cosmopolitan minority. It's also a place where people, I think instinctively, uh,
30:56
Speaker 2: are intellectual and intellectualized politics. And I think that is
30:59
Speaker 2: very dangerous. And I think it comes across in a
31:00
Speaker 2: lot of how we sound. I think that's been true
31:02
Speaker 2: for a long time. We've talked about it before. It's
31:04
Speaker 2: not new. But I think now we're facing in stark
31:06
Speaker 2: relief the effect, at least in part, of that problem.
31:10
Speaker 5: Just a quick data point on the money thing. A
31:14
Speaker 5: new set of super PACs revved up by the crypto
31:16
Speaker 5: industry spend $ 130 or $ 135 million this cycle, including dumping
31:21
Speaker 5: $ 40 million worth of negative ads on Sherrod Brown's head.
31:27
Speaker 5: That is an unbelievable amount of money, a disgusting distortion
31:31
Speaker 5: of our politics by a few crypto billionaires like the
31:36
Speaker 5: Winklevoss twins were talking shit about it on Twitter last night.
31:39
Speaker 5: It's a couple of the venture capital firms. I mean,
31:42
Speaker 5: like that kind of thing, I think, would offend everybody.
31:46
Speaker 5: You know what I mean? Like 99% of the country
31:48
Speaker 5: is like, that is gross and wrong. And I do
31:50
Speaker 5: think that's something we need to run on and run against.
31:52
Speaker 5: I mean, Barack Obama, I think, very effectively ran against
31:54
Speaker 5: money in politics in 2008. Fixing it will be a
31:57
Speaker 5: much bigger problem. The other just last sort of piece
32:00
Speaker 5: that I worry about for the Democratic Party is we
32:02
Speaker 5: have to get back to being the anti-war party again. Again,
32:06
Speaker 5: this is my hobby horse. 4% of voters in exit
32:09
Speaker 5: polls said foreign policy made their decision, right? So people
32:12
Speaker 5: who say this was just a Gaza vote, That's not
32:15
Speaker 5: true nationally. It's very true in some precincts in Michigan
32:19
Speaker 5: where you saw Donald Trump winning Arab American and Muslim
32:23
Speaker 5: American voters and Jill Stein get in second place and
32:25
Speaker 5: Harris taking third. But I mean, people were offended not
32:29
Speaker 5: just by the war in Gaza, but also concerned about
32:33
Speaker 5: the amount of money the U.S. is spending on weapons
32:37
Speaker 5: for Ukraine. And we need to either think about a
32:40
Speaker 5: new way to talk about why that's important or why
32:43
Speaker 5: we're doing it. or refocus our foreign policy priorities. But
32:48
Speaker 5: I think, you know, you heard a lot of people
32:51
Speaker 5: say Donald Trump is going to be the guy who
32:52
Speaker 5: keeps us out of World War III. And that is
32:56
Speaker 5: the opposite of the conversation in 16.
32:58
Speaker 4: Yeah.
32:59
Speaker 2: I also, again, it's like Democrats talking about, you know,
33:02
Speaker 2: protecting freedom around the world. And then people are like,
33:05
Speaker 2: but like, I, who is going to bring costs down?
33:08
Speaker 1: Right.
33:08
Speaker 2: Like, like we're, So to me, the point I'm only
33:12
Speaker 2: making is like, yes, I think that what Tommy's talking
33:15
Speaker 2: about is absolutely true. But again, a party that has
33:18
Speaker 2: trust on these economic issues is a party that doesn't
33:20
Speaker 2: necessarily feel unable to make the case about why democratic,
33:25
Speaker 2: why supporting democracies abroad and standing with our allies abroad
33:28
Speaker 2: is ultimately in America's interest.
33:30
Speaker 1: I think it's worth, because you just say like, oh,
33:32
Speaker 1: it needs to be about the economy. more about the economy.
33:34
Speaker 1: And it's so broad and ill-defined that it's almost useless
33:37
Speaker 1: to say that because I think the challenge here is
33:39
Speaker 1: like Kamala Harris did talk about the economy a lot,
33:42
Speaker 1: but there's a way to talk about the economy. And
33:44
Speaker 1: I think that, and this is a problem that the
33:46
Speaker 1: democratic party has had, like that predates Harris, Biden goes
33:50
Speaker 1: since we started in politics, right? Which is all the
33:53
Speaker 1: pollsters and the message testing people, they test an economic
33:56
Speaker 1: policy and it tests really good. And they're like, all right,
33:59
Speaker 1: this policy, talk about this policy. It's going to test
34:00
Speaker 1: really well. And they can So then a candidate talks
34:02
Speaker 1: about the policy. It's one line about one issue. And
34:05
Speaker 1: we tend to think that our economic agenda is like
34:07
Speaker 1: a collection of like lines and policies that poll really well.
34:12
Speaker 1: And it's not a theory of the case. Like, and
34:15
Speaker 1: the theory of the case can be, it doesn't have
34:18
Speaker 1: to be ideological in one way or the other. Like
34:20
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, like, you know what he's about when he's
34:22
Speaker 1: talking about the economy, right? He's talking about the billionaires
34:25
Speaker 1: and the millionaires and the corporations. Barack Obama came up
34:28
Speaker 1: with a theory of the case, you know, the middle class,
34:30
Speaker 1: was like the defining issue, and there's wealth inequality, and
34:33
Speaker 1: we're going to take on corporations who aren't playing by
34:35
Speaker 1: the rules, right? Elizabeth Warren has her version of it.
34:38
Speaker 1: You could go on and on and on. But you
34:40
Speaker 1: do need a story to tell. Even Joe Biden, I think,
34:43
Speaker 1: in 2020, I think, had a good economic story that
34:47
Speaker 1: he told as well. But you've got to have that story,
34:51
Speaker 1: and like a collection of policies that look good in
34:54
Speaker 1: an ad that tests well is just like, it's just
34:56
Speaker 1: not going to cut it.
34:57
Speaker 2: I think that's true.
34:58
Speaker 3: I also.
34:59
Speaker 2: think we are also suffering from a generation of Democrats
35:03
Speaker 2: saying we're going to tax companies that bring jobs to
35:06
Speaker 2: America and stop giving tax breaks for companies that ship
35:08
Speaker 2: jobs overseas and a set of populist economic talking points
35:13
Speaker 2: that we've been saying forever that people feel like haven't
35:16
Speaker 2: been delivered on. And so I guess what I, I
35:21
Speaker 2: think back to when we were talking about whether Joe
35:23
Speaker 2: Biden should step aside and we're seeing these polls and
35:25
Speaker 2: we're sort of We need a chance. We need a
35:28
Speaker 2: fighting chance to win this thing. And I think looking
35:30
Speaker 2: back on it, it was difficult to separate the flaws
35:34
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden had because of his liability around his
35:36
Speaker 2: age versus the flaws he was going to bring to
35:38
Speaker 2: this race as an incumbent. We just knew that both
35:40
Speaker 2: together probably spelled certain defeat. Over the past 100 days,
35:44
Speaker 2: we watched as Kamala Harris slowly fought back from those
35:48
Speaker 2: low numbers to put herself in a position to win.
35:51
Speaker 2: And we went into this seeing the numbers as being tied,
35:53
Speaker 2: and they were tied for the last couple of weeks.
35:55
Speaker 2: Turns out, looks like there was a polling bias. Similar
35:58
Speaker 2: to the one we saw in 2016, similar to the
35:59
Speaker 2: one we saw in 2020.
36:01
Speaker 4: Smaller.
36:01
Speaker 2: Smaller, but still a bias, right?
36:03
Speaker 1: But a point or two in the swing states and
36:05
Speaker 1: maybe a point or two nationally.
36:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's about two points nationally.
36:07
Speaker 2: And I think what we have now seen, right, is
36:09
Speaker 2: that like whatever story she was telling, I'm sure there
36:12
Speaker 2: are ways in which the campaign could have done slightly better.
36:15
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
36:16
Speaker 2: But ultimately, I don't know what you could have said
36:18
Speaker 2: to overcome that weight of incumbency. Because part of what
36:23
Speaker 2: we're talking about here is it doesn't matter what she said.
36:25
Speaker 2: People didn't trust it. They weren't going to trust Democrats
36:27
Speaker 2: right now. And so what I think what we had
36:31
Speaker 2: hoped to see is that could Kamala Harris overcome Joe
36:34
Speaker 2: Biden's liabilities? The answer is maybe she couldn't. And actually
36:37
Speaker 2: what we needed was somebody who wasn't an incumbent at all.
36:40
Speaker 2: That is not to say we didn't do everything we
36:41
Speaker 2: could and did the right thing in desperate circumstances to
36:44
Speaker 2: try to claw our way to some kind of a victory.
36:46
Speaker 2: But I think looking back on it now, I think
36:48
Speaker 2: that's what I'm starting to feel.
36:50
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris, when this race started, Joe Biden had a
36:53
Speaker 3: 20-point deficit on the economy. He had a deficit on costs,
36:57
Speaker 3: sometimes as high as 30% in the polling. By the
36:59
Speaker 3: time this was over, Kamala Harris narrowed Trump's lead on
37:03
Speaker 3: the economy to four points. That is stunning progress. And
37:07
Speaker 3: she did that in 109 days, or whatever it is.
37:10
Speaker 3: I keep saying 109. Maybe it's 109.
37:11
Speaker 4: I don't know.
37:11
Speaker 1: Basically, the number on who do you trust more in
37:14
Speaker 1: the economy is going to end up being the popular
37:17
Speaker 1: vote delta. It's like Trump wins 51-47. That's about what... Oh,
37:21
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. That's in some of these states.
37:23
Speaker 3: Some of these states.
37:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
37:24
Speaker 3: The thing with like... Maybe you're right. Maybe we don't
37:27
Speaker 3: know is what she was being asked to do was
37:29
Speaker 3: virtually impossible in the period of time when she did it.
37:33
Speaker 3: And so we just don't know if we would have
37:35
Speaker 3: had a better chance, right?
37:37
Speaker 4: Right. With.
37:38
Speaker 3: If she'd had a year to do this or two
37:39
Speaker 3: years to do it or nine months to do it.
37:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:41
Speaker 4: Or if.
37:42
Speaker 1: Again, the other counterfactual here, which we could, we'll be
37:45
Speaker 1: debating forever, uh, is like if after the midterms in 2022,
37:50
Speaker 1: Joe Biden announced that he was not running again, and
37:52
Speaker 1: then you had a real primary and you had a
37:55
Speaker 1: bunch of candidates and you did the whole thing and
37:57
Speaker 1: maybe Kamala Harris emerges, maybe someone else emerges. But I
38:00
Speaker 1: do think it is harder. It was harder for her
38:03
Speaker 1: to separate herself from Biden. Even you can talk about
38:05
Speaker 1: a tactically, the view answer, obviously like broke through to
38:08
Speaker 1: a lot of voters. We saw this in, in, in
38:10
Speaker 1: polls and she could have handled that differently. But even
38:13
Speaker 1: if from day one, she had tried to separate herself
38:15
Speaker 1: from Joe Biden, there's obviously a lot of reasons why
38:18
Speaker 1: that's hard to do. But she was the vice president
38:21
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden, to the unpopular incumbent. And if it
38:25
Speaker 1: was someone else, that other candidate would have had to,
38:29
Speaker 1: from the beginning in this primary, this imaginary primary reading,
38:33
Speaker 1: said that Joe Biden didn't do well enough, right? Which
38:35
Speaker 1: is also something that would be hard to imagine at
38:37
Speaker 1: the time. Joe Biden announces in 22, he's not running again.
38:42
Speaker 1: And then Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro and Kamala Harris,
38:44
Speaker 1: and they all run against each other. And who's going
38:46
Speaker 1: to take the first shot at Joe Biden.
38:48
Speaker 3: And say, we're from outside? 80% approval rating in the
38:49
Speaker 3: Democratic Party at that point.
38:50
Speaker 4: Right.
38:51
Speaker 1: So that's what's tricky.
38:52
Speaker 3: The thing, look, it's all counterfactuals. We don't know. I
38:55
Speaker 3: will go to my grave believing that in the situation
38:57
Speaker 3: in which we were found ourselves with 100 days to go,
39:01
Speaker 3: no one would have done a better job than Kamala
39:03
Speaker 3: Harris did in this race.
39:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:06
Speaker 3: That was not enough. That's because she was flying against
39:09
Speaker 3: tremendous headwinds.
39:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we did not grasp how how tremendous those.
39:14
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I mean. I think it was impossible
39:16
Speaker 2: to separate Joe Biden's unique liabilities from the broader conditions
39:19
Speaker 2: and the polls being just a little bit off made
39:21
Speaker 2: it harder to see as well. The other point, too,
39:23
Speaker 2: is there will be people that say, oh, she didn't
39:24
Speaker 2: do enough to separate herself from Biden. It is totally
39:27
Speaker 2: possible that we would have been sitting here right now.
39:28
Speaker 2: She had tried to run away from Biden. It became
39:30
Speaker 2: the story is, is she different from Biden enough? And
39:32
Speaker 2: then the story we're sitting here right now is people
39:34
Speaker 2: trying to claim, oh, it's because Kamala Harris tried to
39:36
Speaker 2: create distance from Biden and it divided the Democratic Party
39:39
Speaker 2: and that's why we lost. I just think these tactical
39:41
Speaker 2: explanations are going to be are just, people are going to,
39:44
Speaker 2: it's a choose your own adventure.
39:45
Speaker 3: I could, because I'm older than everyone else. I worked
39:47
Speaker 3: for Al Gore. I knew this was that he did
39:51
Speaker 3: too much to separate himself from Bill Clinton.
39:53
Speaker 4: Exactly.
39:54
Speaker 3: So no one fucking knows.
39:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:56
Speaker 5: I think the thing that is true is that it
39:57
Speaker 5: was a mistake for Joe Biden to run for reelection.
39:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
40:00
Speaker 5: And that everyone took the wrong lesson from the midterms
40:02
Speaker 5: in 2022, uh, or not everyone, the white house took
40:05
Speaker 5: the wrong lessons from the midterms in 2022. And they
40:08
Speaker 5: didn't listen to obvious voter concerns about Joe Biden's age.
40:13
Speaker 5: and anger at the economy. And that does not in
40:16
Speaker 5: any way guarantee that a messy, messy Democratic primary would
40:21
Speaker 5: have led to a better outcome last night. But the
40:24
Speaker 5: thing about primaries that's great is it's where the rubber
40:27
Speaker 5: meets the road in terms of your message and your
40:29
Speaker 5: policy and your candidate quality and voters get to tell
40:33
Speaker 5: you with their votes, not with polling, what they actually think. And,
40:38
Speaker 5: you know, I suspect we would have been in a
40:41
Speaker 5: better place. because if you're not the current sitting vice president,
40:45
Speaker 5: it's a lot easier for you to say, you know what?
40:47
Speaker 5: I actually think the president's Gaza policy is really bad.
40:51
Speaker 5: And I will take affirmative steps to end this war
40:54
Speaker 5: or find other creative ways to put distance between yourself
40:57
Speaker 5: and the administration that is like, just frankly impossible when
41:01
Speaker 5: you were the VP and now you have 110 days
41:04
Speaker 5: to define yourself.
41:04
Speaker 2: And more broadly, someone would have said, all right, my
41:07
Speaker 2: lane is going to be the lane where I rip
41:09
Speaker 2: the shit out of Joe Biden for not doing enough
41:11
Speaker 2: about inflation. Oh no, look, maybe that caught fire with people.
41:13
Speaker 2: Maybe that resonated with people. Like we just don't know,
41:15
Speaker 2: but we were denied that opportunity to fight it out.
41:29
Speaker 1: Looking ahead, a lot of people are pretty scared right now.
41:33
Speaker 1: We're facing another Trump presidency. He, I, we believe in
41:38
Speaker 1: what we were saying about him this whole election. It
41:40
Speaker 1: wasn't bullshit. Uh, so we're, you know, we're all worried.
41:43
Speaker 1: People are worried. Could be a, it's going to be
41:46
Speaker 1: a Republican Senate, very likely to be a Republican house though.
41:49
Speaker 1: Hopefully we can hang on. We don't know. Do you
41:51
Speaker 1: guys have sort of parting thoughts on like what people
41:55
Speaker 1: can do? Cause you know, people are going to be
41:57
Speaker 1: coming out to be like, what do we do? Are
41:58
Speaker 1: we going to be okay? What should we do?
42:01
Speaker 2: You know, I lost a vote once. On a show
42:11
Speaker 2: called Survivor.
42:13
Speaker 1: There's literally an oh my God from the back of
42:16
Speaker 1: the studio.
42:17
Speaker 2: I think what I was going to say is only,
42:22
Speaker 2: this was going to be a joke, but basically I
42:25
Speaker 2: remember when I, no, I can't do it now. One
42:27
Speaker 2: step at a time, you know, like we don't have
42:30
Speaker 2: to face every one of our worst expectations or concerns
42:34
Speaker 2: at the same time. to figure out one day at
42:37
Speaker 2: a time. We have weeks now between this election and
42:42
Speaker 2: Trump's inauguration to think about the best ways to fight back.
42:46
Speaker 2: I remember what I said after Donald Trump the first time,
42:49
Speaker 2: and there are multiple places to put your concerns and
42:52
Speaker 2: anxieties that can make a difference. We have to think
42:55
Speaker 2: about how in the short term, we blunt the worst
42:58
Speaker 2: impacts of a second Trump term. We have to think
43:01
Speaker 2: about the ways in which we can support organizations that
43:03
Speaker 2: are protecting vulnerable people. and making sure that even as
43:07
Speaker 2: we try to fight Trump, we are doing everything we
43:10
Speaker 2: can to protect the people that might be hurt. And
43:11
Speaker 2: then the third is thinking about how to build political
43:13
Speaker 2: power over the long term to build a Democratic Party,
43:19
Speaker 2: a progressive movement that I think after 10 years of
43:23
Speaker 2: fighting Trump, look, Donald Trump winning in 2016 was a
43:26
Speaker 2: great shock and it lit a fire. And we've been
43:29
Speaker 2: stoking that fire for a decade and people are tired.
43:31
Speaker 1: I know you're tired.
43:32
Speaker 4: We're all tired.
43:33
Speaker 2: But you know, a friend of mine texted me this
43:35
Speaker 2: morning and said, hey, I need you to tell me
43:37
Speaker 2: what I'm supposed to feel this morning. And I said, well,
43:39
Speaker 2: I need you to tell me what I'm supposed to
43:40
Speaker 2: feel this morning. And that to me was sort of
43:43
Speaker 2: the answer. Like when we started, when we did this
43:46
Speaker 2: the last time, Crooked Media didn't exist. It was just
43:49
Speaker 2: the four of us. Dan wasn't there the day, the
43:51
Speaker 2: morning after we pushed my car to the side of
43:52
Speaker 2: the road. And when I came in this morning and
43:54
Speaker 2: I walked in, everybody was putting on a brave face
43:56
Speaker 2: for each other. Everybody was smiling and trying to be
43:58
Speaker 2: their model, what they hoped other people would see in them, right?
44:02
Speaker 2: And I feel like that's That's where I'm at right now,
44:04
Speaker 2: which is somebody's texting me, what do we do? And
44:07
Speaker 2: I need to help them find an answer. They need
44:09
Speaker 2: to help me find an answer. And day by day,
44:12
Speaker 2: we will start to figure out how to respond, but
44:14
Speaker 2: we don't have to take every single horror all at once.
44:17
Speaker 1: Dan?
44:19
Speaker 3: You asked me the first question here, which I objected to,
44:21
Speaker 3: but did answer it anyway. And I immediately defaulted to
44:26
Speaker 3: sort of an emotionally detached response. response, explanation for what
44:30
Speaker 3: might've happened, which is sort of- You?
44:32
Speaker 4: No. I know.
44:33
Speaker 1: Which is, I mean, that- That's why me and you
44:35
Speaker 1: get along so well.
44:35
Speaker 3: That's right. That's right. And so I do just want
44:39
Speaker 3: to say that I know everyone listening is angry and
44:44
Speaker 3: scared and heartbroken and frustrated and just in some state
44:49
Speaker 3: of shock and that we all feel the exact same
44:52
Speaker 3: way and are still trying to process how this happened.
44:55
Speaker 3: We obviously knew and said for months that that this
44:58
Speaker 3: was a coin flip election, anything can happen. But the
45:02
Speaker 3: scope at which Trump won and the way he won
45:06
Speaker 3: is shocking. And it's scary because it says something about
45:08
Speaker 3: our country that we don't want to reckon with. And
45:11
Speaker 3: we're going to spend a lot of time talking in
45:13
Speaker 3: the coming months about the dangers of what that means
45:16
Speaker 3: and the kind of president Trump will be and how
45:19
Speaker 3: we push back on it. But I just want everyone
45:21
Speaker 3: who's listening to know that we feel the same thing
45:23
Speaker 3: that you guys are feeling right now. And you're listening
45:25
Speaker 3: to us process it in real time on very little sleep.
45:29
Speaker 3: And we're going to be in your ears a lot
45:32
Speaker 3: in the future to sort of continue through that process
45:34
Speaker 3: with all of you.
45:36
Speaker 4: Yeah.
45:36
Speaker 5: I mean, it's going to fucking suck for four years.
45:38
Speaker 5: I mean, I, there's no two ways about it. And I,
45:43
Speaker 5: I go to some really dark places about this stuff
45:46
Speaker 5: in particular last night, you know, watching Trump's speech and
45:49
Speaker 5: then laying in bed and thinking about watching him for
45:54
Speaker 5: another four years and the goobers he's going to put
45:55
Speaker 5: in his cabinet and RFK handling healthcare. It's just like, it's,
45:59
Speaker 5: it's horrific. Um, and it reminded me of 2016 this morning.
46:03
Speaker 4: I got the same text. You did love it.
46:05
Speaker 5: If people are being like, what do we do? How
46:06
Speaker 5: do we fix it? And there again, then there was
46:08
Speaker 5: no easy fix and now there's no easy fix and
46:11
Speaker 5: there's no easy answer. It's just going to be a grind,
46:14
Speaker 5: you know? And in 2016 people were constantly saying like,
46:17
Speaker 5: this is not normal. You know, we're not like, this
46:19
Speaker 5: is not who we are. Well, it is who we
46:21
Speaker 5: are for another four.
46:22
Speaker 4: Years, at least.
46:24
Speaker 1: Um, a whole lot of people normalized them.
46:25
Speaker 5: A whole lot of people normalized them. And we're in
46:27
Speaker 5: a deep hole and we're gonna have to fucking battle
46:29
Speaker 5: our way out of it. Uh, and it's going to
46:31
Speaker 5: be awful. Um, but the country has done this before.
46:34
Speaker 5: You know, if you think about the sixties, like JFK
46:36
Speaker 5: was assassinated. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
46:39
Speaker 4: Robert F.
46:39
Speaker 5: Kennedy was assassinated. Like country went to a real dark place.
46:42
Speaker 5: Vietnam was raging. Like things have been really bad. Uh,
46:45
Speaker 5: and we've come through it. And so we just got
46:47
Speaker 5: to have some hope and keep plugging because, um, no
46:52
Speaker 5: other choice.
46:53
Speaker 4: Yeah.
46:53
Speaker 1: I will say to everyone, like we've all grieved. And
46:57
Speaker 1: if you've, if you've grieved a loved one, you know,
47:01
Speaker 1: that there's no wrong way to grieve. You can be mad.
47:04
Speaker 1: You can be sad. You can be numb. You can
47:07
Speaker 1: be darkly funny at times. And I do think as
47:09
Speaker 1: you are talking to other people in your life, we're
47:12
Speaker 1: dealing with this, like giving everyone grace to sort of
47:15
Speaker 1: deal with this their own way. Um, I know for one, like,
47:18
Speaker 1: I don't want to spend a ton of time blaming allies,
47:22
Speaker 1: people who are on our side and like yelling at
47:24
Speaker 1: them and fighting with them. We're going to have a debate.
47:26
Speaker 1: We're going to disagree. I think we can do so respectfully,
47:29
Speaker 1: but we're all on the same team here. And if
47:32
Speaker 1: we want to figure this out, then I think we've
47:34
Speaker 1: got to, you know, we've got to be good to
47:36
Speaker 1: each other right now and in the, and in the
47:39
Speaker 1: months to come, because I think solidarity is important. I
47:42
Speaker 1: also want to be like very clear eyed about what
47:45
Speaker 1: voters want, what they chose and realize that Here in
47:50
Speaker 1: a democracy, you have every right, if you want, to
47:53
Speaker 1: blame or scold your fellow citizens for their political choices.
47:58
Speaker 1: But that is just not the best way to persuade
48:01
Speaker 1: them to join your side and build a durable majority
48:05
Speaker 1: to actually win. So part of this in the next
48:08
Speaker 1: couple of years and months is going to be talking
48:11
Speaker 1: with people and empathizing with people who do not share
48:15
Speaker 1: your views and in fact have views that you might
48:18
Speaker 1: find terrible. And it's not necessarily because you want to
48:22
Speaker 1: be nice. It's because you want to be smart and
48:24
Speaker 1: build a political majority. And that's what politics is fundamentally. Also, like,
48:29
Speaker 1: you know, if you guys want to take some time off, unplug,
48:32
Speaker 1: not listen to us for a little bit, that's okay.
48:38
Speaker 1: It's understandable.
48:40
Speaker 2: We need to listen.
48:41
Speaker 1: We need to listen.
48:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
48:42
Speaker 1: But I do hope that everyone gets back into the
48:44
Speaker 1: fight eventually, because that is literally the only chance we
48:48
Speaker 1: have to build the society that we want, is to
48:51
Speaker 1: get up every day and try to do better. And
48:54
Speaker 1: you know, love it, I think you like the saying,
48:57
Speaker 1: when we fight, we don't always win. But if we
49:00
Speaker 1: don't fight, we definitely win.
49:03
Speaker 2: Right, it was the fallacy of the converse. If we
49:07
Speaker 2: don't fight, we lose. We don't always win when we fight.
49:12
Speaker 2: And that's an important lesson today.
49:16
Speaker 1: What do you guys think happened to the 13 keys?
49:18
Speaker 4: You didn't see it.
49:20
Speaker 3: Happened?
49:20
Speaker 4: Yeah. He was doing a live stream and had a
49:23
Speaker 4: tough one.
49:24
Speaker 2: I just, you know, to John, there was one, I
49:27
Speaker 2: was thinking also about missing a key. We're missing a
49:30
Speaker 2: couple of keys.
49:30
Speaker 3: The punnies are going to be wild this year.
49:32
Speaker 2: I lost my keys. Anybody find a set of keys?
49:35
Speaker 2: The keys, set of keys found in the parking lot. Like,
49:38
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris talked about joy. And I do think part
49:40
Speaker 2: of what made the last 100 days give us a
49:42
Speaker 2: sense of hope was seeing that joy. And that is
49:46
Speaker 2: not invalid because we lost. If there's anything that I
49:49
Speaker 2: find noxious and awful about what Trump represents, it is
49:54
Speaker 2: the way he wants everyone to dislike everything and everyone
49:57
Speaker 2: except him. He turns his supporters not just against us,
50:00
Speaker 2: not just against Americans, turns them against Disney, football, baseball.
50:04
Speaker 2: I mean, just that he wants a country that is
50:08
Speaker 2: angry and at each other's throats. And I do think like,
50:11
Speaker 2: especially in the next couple of weeks, but even beyond,
50:13
Speaker 2: like we can't let Donald Trump make us the angry
50:18
Speaker 2: and awful versions of ourselves that he wants us to be.
50:21
Speaker 2: Not just because it is bad for our souls, but
50:24
Speaker 2: because we have to be a movement people want to join.
50:26
Speaker 2: And one of the ways we do that is not
50:28
Speaker 2: becoming kind of weird, online broken fucking weirdos because we're
50:32
Speaker 2: so sick of Donald Trump.
50:33
Speaker 1: And like, you know, let's be honest, obsess over him
50:36
Speaker 1: all the time, which by the way is going to
50:37
Speaker 1: be hopefully easier now that he is a lame, he's
50:40
Speaker 1: going to be a lame duck president.
50:41
Speaker 4: Yes.
50:42
Speaker 1: And so I think it's going to force Democrats to
50:45
Speaker 1: actually come up with a theory of the case that
50:46
Speaker 1: does not just revolve around Donald Trump. And it, you know,
50:49
Speaker 1: I just take it back to, there's gonna be a
50:52
Speaker 1: lot of takes already. Like, you know, is, is door
50:55
Speaker 1: knocking and organizing useless and all this kind of like,
50:58
Speaker 1: I do not regret at all. And we'll still look
51:00
Speaker 1: back fondly on the two days we spent in Arizona
51:03
Speaker 1: and Nevada just this last weekend, even though we are
51:06
Speaker 1: dealing with this horrific result today, because talking to all
51:09
Speaker 1: of you that have come out to these events, Vote
51:11
Speaker 1: Save America, everyone else who's volunteered and like just being
51:16
Speaker 1: with people in person, talking about politics, getting energized and
51:19
Speaker 1: then knocking on those doors, right? Like we knocked on
51:22
Speaker 1: doors of like middle-class folks in a suburban neighborhood in Vegas, like,
51:27
Speaker 1: working class Latinos, Asian Americans, and a like a working
51:31
Speaker 1: class part of Las Vegas, Mesa, Tempe. And it's like,
51:35
Speaker 1: you just realize when you're out there talking to people,
51:37
Speaker 1: like people, they just, they just want a government that's
51:39
Speaker 1: going to like make their lives better and just like,
51:42
Speaker 1: and like fight for them and all the bullshit. None
51:44
Speaker 1: of them knew about the Ann Seltzer poll. Ann Seltzer poll.
51:47
Speaker 2: May her memory be a blessing.
51:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. None of them knew about the Madison Square Garden thing.
51:51
Speaker 2: She's being distributed across Des Moines as predicted.
51:54
Speaker 1: Right? Some of them just didn't even know, like, okay,
51:57
Speaker 1: who's running? Donald Trump and that new woman. What's she
51:59
Speaker 1: stand for? Like, politics can be that simple. And it
52:02
Speaker 1: can be that. And also, like, in convincing people can
52:04
Speaker 1: be like that. That's how you win.
52:07
Speaker 2: Can't believe we're going to have to watch Donald Trump
52:08
Speaker 2: give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tony Hinchcliffe. That's
52:12
Speaker 2: a fucking bummer.
52:13
Speaker 4: Oh, but it's going to get worse from there. Don't worry. Yeah.
52:17
Speaker 3: Seems like a good.
52:17
Speaker 2: Place to end it.
52:20
Speaker 4: Think about the Elon Musk Medal of Freedom ceremony. I can't.
52:24
Speaker 3: I can't.
52:25
Speaker 2: All the worst people are having a great day. All
52:27
Speaker 2: the best people are sad.
52:29
Speaker 1: We're noting that... Ivanka Trump really hasn't been around the
52:32
Speaker 1: entire campaign, but she was up on stage last night.
52:34
Speaker 2: Fairweather daughter right there.
52:36
Speaker 4: It was a real warm moment between Trump and Ivanka, too.
52:38
Speaker 1: It was a collection of real goobers on that stage.
52:41
Speaker 2: I couldn't watch it. I couldn't watch it.
52:43
Speaker 1: That's why we're not playing a clip because it's just,
52:45
Speaker 1: you know what? You didn't miss much.
52:46
Speaker 2: I took a horse dose of Unisom. And the next
52:48
Speaker 2: thing I knew, I was in this chair.
52:51
Speaker 1: I'd like to take a horse dose of Unisom, but
52:53
Speaker 1: we're going to be on Jimmy Kimmel's show later today. Oh, yeah.
52:56
Speaker 2: We'll continue this processing on late night television.
52:59
Speaker 3: Can't wait.
53:00
Speaker 1: All right, everyone take care of yourself, get some sleep,
53:03
Speaker 1: and we will be back tomorrow.
53:05
Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
53:06
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53:10
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53:13
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53:15
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Speaker 1: a review to help boost this episode or spice up
53:26
Speaker 1: the group chat by sharing it with friends, family, or
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Speaker 1: randos you want in on this conversation. Pod Save America
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Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo
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Speaker 1: and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid
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Speaker 1: Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our
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Speaker 1: executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from
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Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
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Speaker 1: Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt
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Speaker 1: DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our
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Speaker 1: executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones,
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Speaker 1: Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel,
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Speaker 1: Kiril Pallaviv, and David Toles.