Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s Coup de Nah.”

Transcript

“Trump’s Coup de Nah.” · Pod Save America

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is a life-changing election. This will determine what America
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: is going to look like for a long, long time.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: This is the most important election in the history of
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: our country.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Later in the pod, I'll talk with Senate Minority Leader
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer about how the Senate Democrats will handle the
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court nomination fight. We'll also cover Donald Trump's refusal
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and the
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: latest issues around mail-in voting, and why Republicans are now
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: running ads that appeal to supporters of the dangerous QAnon conspiracy.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Another bright and cheery day here at Pod Save America, Dan.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Democracy is healthy and thriving.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: We do want to start with some good news about
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: what you all accomplished on National Voter Registration Day. You
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: helped contact over 1.2 million young people who were either
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: unregistered or needed to update their registration. And you helped
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: raise over $ 1 million for Register to Vote, which has
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: sent over 360,000 registration forms and other materials to people
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: who aren't yet registered in key battleground states. Just incredible work.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Keep it up. Registration deadlines start coming next weekend. You
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: can check yours on votesaveamerica.com. I believe we had 40-something
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: thousand people use the tool on Votes Save America on
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: National Registration Day to either update their registration or verify it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: So that's very exciting. Quick programming note, With Friends Like
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: These is back with a new season about good intentions,
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: where Annamarie Cox will dig into what makes us want
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: to do good and what doing good does to our brains.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: The first episode is out tomorrow, so make sure to
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: check it out and subscribe to With Friends Like These
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, before we get started
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: with the rest of today's news, our colleagues over at
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: What A Day did an outstanding job this morning covering
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Wednesday's announcement that No officers will be charged directly in
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: the death of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: police officers earlier this year in a botched drug raid
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: on her home. A grand jury instead indicted just one
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: of the officers connected to the case with wanton endangerment
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: for firing shots that went through Taylor's apartment and into
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: a neighboring home. Whataday spoke with Kentucky State Representative Charles
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Booker about the case this morning, and here is a clip.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: You know, the reality is that justice has been failing
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: us for generations. And so as hurtful as this moment
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: is in a lot of different ways, especially for the
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: family that Ms. Palmer, they're dealing with a lot of trauma.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: And this is really just another devastating chapter in what's
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: going to be a lifetime of pain and distress for them.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: And in the midst of all of that, I feel
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: a very um, heavy sense of resolve that this is
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: why we fight. This is why we lead. This is
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: why we show up. And, um, I feel our community
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: as a whole, um, is clinging to that sense of
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: urgency and responsibility right now.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: It's a horrific and infuriating outcome. Um, but it's, you know,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Charles Brooker was excellent in that interview. So really encourage
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: everyone to, um, listen to the interview and for more
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: on the Breonna Taylor case, check out the rest of
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: today's what a day. and be sure to subscribe to
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the show. It is outstanding.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: Always.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Akilah and Gideon are fantastic. All right, let's get to
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: the rest of the news. Over the last several weeks,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump has become increasingly transparent about his desire to
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: cheat in an election that he is currently losing. On Tuesday,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: the president said that he wants his Supreme Court nominee
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: confirmed before the election because, quote, with the unsolicited millions
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: of ballots that they're sending, you're going to need nine justices.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: On Wednesday, The Atlantic reported that a Trump legal advisor
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: said that mail-in ballots counted after election night will be
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: challenged as, quote, fraudulent. And at least in Pennsylvania, the
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Trump campaign has discussed, quote, contingency plans to bypass election
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: hold the legislative majority. And on Wednesday night, when Trump
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: was asked at a press conference whether he would commit
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: to a peaceful transfer of power, here's what he said. Mr.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: President, real quickly, win, lose, or draw in this election.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: Will you commit here today for a peaceful transfer of
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: power after the election? There has been rioting in Louisville.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: There's been rioting in many cities across this country. Red
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: and your so-called red and blue states. Will you commit
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer of
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: power after the election?
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Well, we're going to have to see what happens. You
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: know that I've been complaining very strongly about The ballots,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and the ballots are a disaster.
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: I understand that, but people are rioting.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Do you commit to making sure that there's a peaceful
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: transfer of power?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: We want to get rid of the ballots, and you'll
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: have a very peaceful, there won't be a transfer, frankly.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: There'll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: You know it.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And you know who knows it better than anybody else?
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: The Democrats know it better than anybody else.
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: Go ahead.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Now, of course, what he's saying there is, you get
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: rid of all the mail-in ballots and you won't need
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: a peaceful transfer of power because he will win. So
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: there will be a continuation. Of course, he is talking
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: about getting rid of mail-in ballots, which by the way,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: right before we started recording, he just tweeted, Florida, get
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: your mail-in ballots today and send them in. Vote for Trump.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: First question, what powers does Trump have to carry out
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: any of these threats? Can he, for example, get Republican
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: legislatures to appoint loyal electors?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Look, Trump is full of shit, right? I'm not going
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to tell people not to worry about things because as
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: we say, you worry about everything. But Trump has, I've
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: said this before, but Trump is not a particularly smart man.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: He's not particularly disciplined. He has a pretty short attention span.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: He has basically zero strategic sense. So the idea that
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: he is going to be able to engage in a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: coup in America is a pretty far-fetched, right? Does it
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: mean we should not monitor things? I mean, we should
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: be vigilant, we should push back. But I do think
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: as Americans, we have to manage our worries and we
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry about all outcomes with the same
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: amount of worry, right? So I kind of want to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: separate three things because this election is being stolen, but
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it's being stolen through more traditional means, which is Joe
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Biden is going to get more votes and he may
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: not win the presidency, which is That's a structural problem.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: That is our system, which is a particularly stupid system.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: But the way I'm trying to separate my own personal
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: worries is into three buckets. One is worrying about the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: things that are happening right now. So what is that?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That is the voter suppression laws on the books. That
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: is efforts to delay mail ballots. That is Trump trying
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to sow questions about the legitimacy of the election. That
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: is happening. things that have not happened yet, but could happen, right?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: That is a situation like we're going to talk about
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit later about Pennsylvania and the naked ballots,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and then a Republican Supreme Court putting their thumb on
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the scale in favor of Trump. Like that is something
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: that is possible. We know it's possible because that's what
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: happened in 2000. And then there are the things that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: are possible, but unlikely, right? And that is this example
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that has been going around ever since Bart Gelman, who
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: was a very smart guy, wrote an article in The
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Atlantic that says the Trump campaign is thinking about Republican
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: legislatures appointing loyal electors who will vote for Trump in
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the Electoral College, even if the results of the election
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: suggest they should vote for Biden. And there are a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: number of, and people panicked about that, but we shouldn't,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: we should worry but not panic. But what I think
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: that article was missing was that that is a very,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: very hard thing to do and a very complicated thing
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to do. And it would require them to upend state
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: laws in a number of battleground states that have Democratic governors,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: which make that virtually impossible. And so as we're moderating
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: our worries here, That is one that I am worried
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: least about, and we should focus more on the things
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that are right before us, if that makes sense.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: It does make sense. There's this effort among a lot
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: of people who come from a very good place and
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: are rightly concerned to make sure that everyone is as
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: alarmed as possible by this. My view on this is, like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: of course Trump is trying to cheat. to win the election.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Like this should not be news to anyone. Of course,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: we're in a national emergency where Donald Trump is an
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: extremely dangerous president to have. Like, we know all this.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: The question is, like, we're all sufficiently alarmed. The question is,
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: what are you going to do about it? What can
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: you control versus what do you have to just like
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: game out for, you know, some, you know, disaster scenario
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: that you have to like, what can you change?
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: And I think What we can change, what we can
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: control right now, there's a couple things. There's obviously like,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: you know, we have Mark Elias who's been on the
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: show and a bunch of other Democratic lawyers in court
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: every day challenging all of the shenanigans from the Trump campaign.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: So there's a legal strategy. There is a public education
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: campaign about mail-in voting that we're going to talk about,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: about when we're going to know the results of the election,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: that it's not just going to be necessarily on election night,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: that it could be election week or it could be
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: election month. It's important to educate voters about that. And then,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: of course, there is the most basic thing we can do,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: which is organize our asses off and register enough voters
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: so that Joe Biden wins by a large enough margin
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: that these things aren't It doesn't get to the kind
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: of close margins where Trump can pull all of his shit, right?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Like these are the things we can control. So there's
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: this like back and forth whether you should be alarmed
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: or not alarmed, but it's not a fucking barometer here
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: of like your level of alarm. Like that doesn't help anyone,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: whether you're very alarmed or medium alarmed or not alarmed
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: at all. What helps is what you can control, which
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: is to go out and talk to some fucking voters
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: and register voters so we can win by a big
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: enough margin. That's the only thing we can do. That
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: is the only thing we can do.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: That's right. And I think how we talk about this
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: matters because the polling is pretty clear and it can change, right?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying things can't change. We've got some pretty
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: big debates coming up, but right now, if you were
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to say, what is a more likely way for Trump
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: to win? Is it to persuade people who are currently
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: supporting Joe Biden to vote for him? Or is it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: to persuade people who are currently supporting Joe Biden to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: not vote? It is clearly the latter, right? And there
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: is a lot of political science research and polling, and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: we talked about this with Anat Shankarosario in last week's podcast,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: that people are less likely to vote if they think
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: their vote won't count, which is what undergirds so much
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: of what Trump is saying about the mail-in ballots. It's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: why he's screaming, With one side of his mouth, mail-in
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: balloting is illegal. It doesn't count. It's a mess. And
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: then the other side, he's saying, hey, Republicans, send in
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: your mail-in ballots. He's trying to convince people who are
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: skeptical of the political process, who are more likely to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: be Democratic voters than Republican voters, that their vote won't matter.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: And voting is an expression of political power. And if
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you think your political power does not count, does not matter,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you're less likely to do it. And that's true in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: every election. let alone one where going to the polls
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: could put you at risk of contracting a deadly virus.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And so what I think we have to do here
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is not talk about this in the context of Trump's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: strength as authoritarian instincts. We know that that actually helps
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: him with some voters. Here's to point out that Trump
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is trying to cheat because he is a weak loser.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: He is losing the election. He has failed at almost
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: everything in his life other than stumbling ass backwards into
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the presidency in 2016. and he's likely to fail at
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: this too, but that's up to us. We have the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: power to stop that. There are more people who oppose
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Trump than support him. And if we turn out and vote,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: we can send him home. And talking about this in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the context of our power to stop Trump, not Trump's
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: power to stop us is absolutely essential.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: And look, there's a lot of qualitative research about this
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: that Anat has done, that other pollsters and researchers have done.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: And again, it's not, you know, Democratic partisans are going
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: to vote. Republican partisans are going to vote. We're talking
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: about a universe of people who are the infrequent voters
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: that we talked about last time in our change research survey. And,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: but aside from the research, it's sort of just common sense.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: If you're someone who doesn't pay a lot of attention
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: to politics and you're someone who is not sure if
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: you're going to vote and you hear that Donald Trump
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: is a scary authoritarian who's not going to leave office anyway,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: why would you think that your vote matters? Why would
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: you think it matters? It's just, it's common fucking sense.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: So like, You know, Anand had some good advice on this,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: and I know you guys talked about it last time,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: but just to reiterate, you know, in terms of phrasing
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: to use in language, we should talk about swearing in
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: new leaders versus electing new leaders because we're going to
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: talk about it's going to go all the way to
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: swearing in. We're not going to have any discrepancies where
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: we elect someone and then they don't leave and they're
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: not going to get sworn in. So we talk about
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: swearing in people. Like you said, Trump is trying to
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: cheat because he knows he's losing as opposed to saying
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: he's stealing it. He's an authoritarian. He's already rigged it.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: People need to have confidence that voting is an act
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: worth taking. And then it also helps to say that
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the United States has always held elections and upheld the results,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: even in the midst of war and depression, to give
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: people confidence that we've been through tough challenges before and
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: overcome them. And we can do that again if we
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: turn out. Julie Oliver, who's running for Congress in the
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Texas 25th, she's a very inspiring candidate. She's running for
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: the House. She tweeted yesterday, Donald Trump doesn't decide whether
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: or not he leaves office.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: We do.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: That is the exact right way to talk about this.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Empower people. Let them know that if we turn out,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: if we organize, we can make sure he leaves office.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: It is up to us. It is not up to him.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: You've got to empower people about it. Let's talk about
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: some of the obstacles to overcome with regard to mail-in voting,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: because there are many. In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: has ruled that mail-in ballots can be thrown out if
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: they aren't placed in what's called a secrecy envelope. which
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: is then placed in a larger postmarked envelope that the
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: voter signs and puts in the mail. Philadelphia's top election
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: official has warned that this could lead to an estimated 100,000
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: votes being thrown out. In this year's primaries alone, 534,000
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: mail-in ballots were rejected across 23 states for various reasons.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: And an additional problem is that they're not rejected uniformly
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: across demographic groups. Young voters and voters of color have
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: their ballots rejected at higher rates than older and whiter voters. So,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about what we can do about this,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: but first I want to get your reaction to a
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: tweet from Politico's Tim Alberta yesterday who wrote, Given all
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: we know about this president delegitimizing the electoral process, historians
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: are going to look back and wonder why the hell
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Dems invested so heavily in the one thing, mail voting,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: that could cause delays, mass qualifications, and mass chaos. I
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: also saw a story in Axios this morning that Democrats
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: are now pivoting to urging people to vote in person
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: away from mail-in voting.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Is this the tweet that Tim Alberta deleted after everyone
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: pointed out that he was excusing Republican voter suppression?
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: That's the one, Dan.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: OK.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: But I have heard a number. There's been a, you know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: not to just pick on Tim. There have been a
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: number of people on Twitter the last couple of days
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: questioning the Democratic strategy of pushing mail-in voting.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Per usual, it's always just a little more nuanced
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and complicated than comes through in the tweets of reporters
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: paying one-third attention to what's happening. For example, this Axios
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: story you talk about says John Hickenlooper is pivoting away
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: from mail balloting. John Hickenlooper is running for Senate in Colorado.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Colorado has an all-mail election. The only way to pivot
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: away from mail balloting is to not vote. And it
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: has run– Colorado has run all-mail elections since 2014. All
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: John Hickenlooper suggested was because Donald Trump is trying to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: politicize the postal service is that you should turn in
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: your mail ballot in person in a Dropbox if you can,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with the broader issue of
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: mail-in votes not being counted because of signature matching and
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: other things. It's still counted the same way as one
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that arrives in the mail. It's just ensuring it arrives
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: there on time. The Biden campaign and the Democrats have
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: encouraged people to vote mail-in, but they've also encouraged people
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: where it is possible, where it is healthy for them
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to vote in person, right? So- It is still true
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that the likelihood of your vote not being counted is
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: slightly greater if you vote by mail than if you
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: vote in person. That is true. But like on a
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: state by state basis, and this is all talked about
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in Votes of America and some other places, there are
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: ways to ensure that you do it right. And it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: is incumbent upon us, the Biden campaign, Democrats, people with platforms,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: volunteers to give people the information they need to do
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: it correctly. But the idea that Republicans are suppressing the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: vote and trying to prevent people from voting and Democrats
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: are at fault because Republicans are doing that is just
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: an absurd proposition where you've already bought the premise of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the argument that democracies are things that are supposed to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: be game for partisan edge.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I will also say that as soon as the pandemic
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: began and it became clear that this might be an issue, Democrats,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Democrats in Congress, Mark Elias, who, you know, does a
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: lot of this Democratic legal stuff, us, like, we made
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: pretty clear that what we wanted to do is to
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: ensure that there were safe options for people to vote.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: We did not say everyone should vote by mail in
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the whole country, no matter what we wanted. We said
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: safe options because we wanted to preserve in-person voting locations
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: for people who could safely vote in person. And by
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: the way, what we really wanted to emphasize was early
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: voting options, right? Because again, one way to avoid crowds
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: at a polling place is to have a week or
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: two of early voting where people can go to voting
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: locations and not have be a lot of crowds. And
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: so it's less dangerous. And so you're less like, so again,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: if there are many options for you to vote, you
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: can vote in person on election day. You can vote early,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: which is the preferred option. You can either vote early
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: in person or Or you can take your mail-in ballot
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: to a drop-off location. Or you can send in your
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: ballot by mail. If you do that, you have to
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: be extra careful that you follow everything to the letter
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: of the law and every rule so that your ballot
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: is counted.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And you send it in early.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: And send it in early. But there are many options
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: for people to vote. And if you feel like you're
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: really worried about the mail and all that kind of stuff,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: then go in person. If you're young and healthy and
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: you feel like that's okay, then go in person. Try
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: to go early. Again, All of this is on Vote
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Save America. You can find all of the deadlines, all
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: of the states where they have early voting locations, when
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: early voting begins, where there are drop boxes for your ballot.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: All that's on the website, so go check it out.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: To talk just purely about the naked ballot issue in Pennsylvania,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: what can we do about that?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Educate people, right? I think that the fact that we
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: are having this big conversation, and it's getting a lot
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of coverage in Pennsylvania itself, which is where it truly matters,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: This far from the election is incredibly important because where
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you run into problems is when people discover a problem
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: with how votes are counted or how ballots are designed
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: on election day, right? That's what happened in Florida in 2000.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: That's what happened in Florida in 2018 that led to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: an undercount in the Senate race that was very detrimental
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to Bill Nelson's chances of getting reelected. And so knowing
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: this now gives us an opportunity to make sure that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: people are aware of it. educate people. And there's plenty
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of time to do that. So this is another thing.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Don't panic. Just go about the work of educating people.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And there's a very good video out today that I
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: saw one of the DNC staffers tweet out that is
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: from the DNC of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party teaching people
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: how to do it. I'm sure there are going to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: be lots of videos and lots of other instructional efforts
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: from influencers and political organizations to ensure that people do it. Now,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it is a stupid fucking ruling from the state Supreme Court.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: It makes zero sense. It is just another example of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: how fucked up elections are in America, where we try
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to put as many hurdles as possible as if we
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: were trying to... This was a steeplechase, not a way
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: to pick our elected officials. But we can teach people
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: how to do this. And this is why vote by
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: mail is still good in this situation, is now we
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: have six weeks to do it, where... Or however many
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: weeks are left. How many weeks are left?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Six?
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: A hundred?
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: I think it's six.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: Either way.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Every day is a month. So forever.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Three years.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But the naked ballot issue relates to the question of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: whether mail balloting is good or bad. Yes, mail ballots
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: are rejected at a higher rate than regular votes. That
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: is a fact. But what that doesn't take into account
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: is you have a chance in many states to correct
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a rejected mail ballot. And it doesn't take into account
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: all the complications that come with voting on election day
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: with your own life, like within the context of your life,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: let alone getting a virus, because we make voting so
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: hard in this country where you are registered to vote
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: at a precinct near your home, but election day is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: not a holiday. So you have to go to work,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: which is often far away. And there are all kinds
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of things that prevent people from having the time and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: capacity to vote because of life. And so having this
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: longer period of time is very good. And it gives
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: us the opportunity to educate people on this naked ballot issue,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: which is a great name, I guess, because it'd be
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: very naked ballot is something that people will fucking remember.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. But you know, like if, that's the
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: content to share, right? The Pennsylvania Democratic Party has created
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: a video. I tweeted it. You tweeted it. Everyone's been
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: tweeting it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Then it's problem solved. We have tweeted.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: We tweeted it. That's good. But, you know, put it
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: on fucking Facebook where all your relatives are. Send it
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: to your friends in Pennsylvania. Everyone knows someone in Pennsylvania.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Go send it to them, right? Like sharing content about
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: how people can deal with the naked ballot issue is
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: going to increase the chances that Donald Trump loses more
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: than just screaming that Donald Trump is trying to steal
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: the election. We know that. We all know he's trying
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: to cheat. But like, let's help people figure out these
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: very annoying and very unfair ballot issues, but we can
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: overcome them if everyone is careful and everyone is educated.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: So that's what we should be focused on. All right,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: let's talk about the Supreme Court. Donald Trump will be
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: announcing his nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 5 p.m.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Eastern on Saturday. And Mitch McConnell already got more than
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: 50 Republican senators to say that they're willing to vote
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: on the nomination before the next president takes office, including
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Senators Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander, Cory Gardner, and others who
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: are considered potential no votes. Dan, at this point, can
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: you game out a possible scenario where four of these
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Republican senators vote against Trump's nominee?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That's a hard question, John.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I'm asking you because I know you have a lot
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: of faith in Republican senators sticking to their principles and
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: just listening to their conscience.
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: Well, look, there.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Are there are there bad apples in the bunch? Of course.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: But on the whole, these are people who care about America.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: They're patriots, institutionalists. They prize norms. I mean, it is sad.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I went through all the roster of Senate Republicans to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: see who could possibly do it. And it is like.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Once you get past cynical weather vanes trying to hold
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: on to their election, like Susan Collins, who would definitely
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: have voted for this Supreme Court nominee, were it to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: come in a year in which she was not up
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: for re-election, just to be very clear, and someone who
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: could possibly have maybe considered a Mitt Romney and maybe
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a Lamar Alexander, there is no one. These are all–
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: it's just hack central, right? It's just a party of hacks.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So it's very– We don't know what's going to happen.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Nothing is impossible. There could be hiccups along the way.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: There could be problems we don't know about in the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: record of this nominee, whoever she may be. But obviously, Republicans,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in a situation where you're depending on the good faith
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of Republicans to do the right thing, it's never a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: situation you feel pretty good about.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The problems in the nominee's record for Republicans would
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: be like, oh, she once said that maybe a woman
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: should have the right to choose or that she thinks
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: that health care is good. Like those are the kind
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: of problems in the records for these Republicans. Like I
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: don't know what other problems they're going to find unless
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: it is, again, like, you know, we went back through Kavanaugh.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: There's like a scandal sort of thing.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Even that, that won't matter.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, yeah, I'm just trying, but yeah,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: The only thing that could possibly matter is if something
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: in This nominee's record gave them reason to believe this
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: person would vote for women's right to choose, the Affordable
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Care Act, voting rights are saving the planet. All the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: other stuff, right?
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Those are the real deal breakers.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Any cheating in law school, impersonation, supporting QAnon, any of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: those things would be totally fine. Kavanaugh violated every structure
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of how you think a nominee should, the temperament, Questions
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: about personal conduct. Kavanaugh lied under oath in front of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: everyone and the Republicans supported him the next day. And
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: we also know that Trump is going to ask this
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: person for a loyalty pledge on all of these issues.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: He's not going to leave it to chance. So we
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: kind of know where this is likely to end up.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And there are things Democrats could do here that are
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: very important that I think we'll talk about. But Ultimately,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: this is why having control of the Senate matters, because
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Republicans decide whether this nominee is confirmed.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: In terms of timing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: he's looking at scheduling a confirmation hearing for the week
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: of October 12th, a committee vote near the end of
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: the following week, and a final floor vote right before Halloween,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: which is just a few days before the election. This
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: entire fight seems like it's clearly set up to give
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Trump a giant win and a bunch of really good
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: headlines just days before the election. Um, so if Republicans
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: have the votes to push this nomination through, how should
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Democrats handle the nomination process? Is there anything we can
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: do to push the vote until after the election?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: That we have some limited tools at our disposal, right?
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: There are some procedural things we can do to slow down.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Limited tools, the story of the Democratic party.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Well, it's limited tools, the story of the Senate minority, right?
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Like I cannot wait for Mitch McConnell and these people
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: to have limited tools next year, right? As we just
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: start passing $ 15 minimum.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Wage, uh, yeah. They're just whining on the Senate floor
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: the whole time about norms and procedures and process.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yes. It's going to be quite enjoyable.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: I will love if, yeah, let's hope.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Give to get Mitch to make sure that we get Mitch.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Give to get Mitch so we make sure that we
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: get Mitch those limited tools.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Cool.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: But ultimately they can change the rules. They can, by
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: brute force, push this through. The timing is interesting, I think,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: because I think that they want this to be as
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: close to the election as possible. Because one of the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: hardest periods in a political campaign is maintaining momentum from
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the last debate to election day. And that's where, think
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: about how devastating that period was to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Now,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that had a lot more to do with Jim Comey's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: bizarre desire to unburden himself on fairly trivial matters in
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that period. But you can see a world in which
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the Republicans try to frame this as a gigantic win
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and a boost of momentum to Trump as he heads
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: into election day. And you see the coverage, a devastating
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: blow to Democrats whose last ditch efforts to stop this
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: nomination failed. What does this mean for Joe Biden, who's
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: not even in the Senate, right? And so that is
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: where this is headed. The good news is we know
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that's where this is headed. So we have some time
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to figure out what to do about it and to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: mitigate effects of that if they were able to push
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: this nomination through in that time period?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: So one of the tactics I've heard being proposed is
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: that Democrats should perhaps boycott the hearings. And the argument
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: there goes, if Democrats are saying that this nomination is illegitimate,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: then it doesn't really matter who Trump chooses as the
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: nominee or what their record is, because what we're saying
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: is you shouldn't be able to rush through a nomination
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: while people are voting in a presidential election. And if
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: that's what we believe, shouldn't we boycott the hearings? And
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: if we boycott the hearings, then perhaps a couple of
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: things will happen. One, they won't get as much press
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: coverage because there won't be as much drama in the
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: hearings because you'll have the opening statement from the nominee.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: And then Republicans will basically lob softball questions for a
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: couple of days. And that'll be that. The other thing
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: that will happen is there won't be any drama around
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Could Democrats possibly win this fight? And then when the
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: hearings are over and the Democrats lose because the Republicans
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: have the votes, it'll seem like a bigger loss for
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Democrats at that point. What do you think about the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: potential to boycott the hearings?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: This sounds like a cop out, but I don't really care.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: Interesting.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: Interesting.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I can see the arguments for it. I observed an
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: argument about this topic between you and one of our
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: other friends who also hosts a podcast on Crooked Media.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Argument's not even the right term. A debate about the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: merits of this proposal. I don't think it matters that
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: much either way. I don't think it's particularly consequential. What's
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: really going to matter is how everyone from Joe Biden
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: on down helps manage the expectations about this and frames it.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I'll make the case against, I guess, which I think
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I probably slightly lean towards. What is it that AOC
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: said about the convention? Not every disagreement's a fight.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I think something like that.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I feel about this. They're like, yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I kind of disagree, but I don't care that much.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: The argument against is the polling is pretty clear that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the best arguments against the Supreme Court actually buttress the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the best arguments we have against Trump, which is that,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and Senate Republicans writ large, including a lot of Senate
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Republicans who are going to be intimately involved in this
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: process who are up for reelection. Um, you know, one
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: is that the Republicans are trying to jam through this
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: nominee to, uh, help overturn the affordable care act in
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic. The Republicans are jamming through
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: this nominee when they are not, uh, focused on helping
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: us deal with the coronavirus and passing economic relief. Um,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: They are focusing on what helps them politically instead of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: what helps the country. They would rather protect the Republican
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Party than protect America. We know that these are very
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: powerful messages. And you could deliver those messages in a hearing, right?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And it may matter less for how Trump does, how
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: that plays itself out, than how it does for some
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of the Republican senators who are up for re-election who
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: are going to have to participate in those hearings.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I had this debate with I'll just say Tommy,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Tommy took the other side. But again, I was more
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: just making the argument for the other side. I'm not
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: sure where I am actually, because I do think if
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: they boycotted the hearings, I would like do events with
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: people who are about to lose their healthcare because a
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court nominee could strike down the Affordable Care Act, right?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Because this nominee could strike down the Affordable Care Act.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: So you still get coverage of the healthcare message, which
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: I think is incredibly important. I do get that if
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Democrats decide to boycott, like the press universally will be like,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: they're whiny, they're taking their toys and going home. It's
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: an extreme move. Republicans break the institution and now Democrats
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: are breaking the institution too. There will be a lot
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: of both sides. And you may lose the opportunity to
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: get the nominee under questioning to admit that she would
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: be likely to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Particularly,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Amy Coney Barrett has said that she believes that the
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act Now, nominees
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: are also trained to say nothing interesting and to give
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: no good answers at these hearings. So the idea that
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: you're going to have some gotcha question that nails Amy
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Coney Barrett or Barbara Lagoa or whoever it may be.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: and then changes the whole thing, I think is unlikely.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: I'm having a little PTSD to the impeachment hearings where
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: we saw it, I certainly saw it as a messaging
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: opportunity for Democrats to move the needle. I think Adam
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Schiff and all the Democrats did a fantastic job during
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: the impeachment hearings. It did not move the needle. It
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: did not change any Republican minds. None of us remember
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: it anymore. You know, so like I might end up
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: sort of with you where I don't really care either way,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: but I don't know. I think it's an interesting idea
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: to boycott it.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like it should be further explored. I wouldn't be
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: angry if they did it. I don't think, like I said,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's of, this is a minor tactical
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: consideration in a much broader strategic conversation.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: If they don't boycott the hearings, what should Democrats' strategy
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: be at the hearings, do you think?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I think it is basically to say over and over
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: again that they are doing this to overturn the Affordable
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Care Act. Like healthcare.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And choice. I would put choice in there.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: Of course. Yes.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a set of things. There is choice.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Basically everything that a majority of Americans care about is
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: at stake here. And that this person is being nominated
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: by a president who got a minority of votes, being
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: confirmed by a Senate majority that represents a minority of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: votes to oppose policy positions supported by a majority of Americans.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: That is healthcare. That is choice. That is workers' rights, climate,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a whole host of things. And it And framing it
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: in the context of that minority opinion with some specific
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: issues that we know move different groups of voters is,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I think, the best way to use that limited tool,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: if you will, that we have in a hearing.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: So the ultimate political ramifications of the nomination fight are
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: still unclear, but let's talk about where things stand right now.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Our friends at Data for Progress released a poll on Monday.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: that voters think Ginsburg's seat should be filled by whoever
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: wins the presidency by a margin of 53 to 39 percent,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: and that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: the Supreme Court increases their motivation. They also released, with
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: our friends at Indivisible, a brand new set of Senate
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: polls today that showed Democratic Senate candidates in positions to
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: win in states that weren't even on the map last year.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: In Georgia, John Ossoff is tied, and Reverend Warnock is leading.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: In Kansas, Barbara Boyer is tied. In Kentucky, Amy McGrath
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: has cut her deficit with Mitch McConnell to seven points.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: They also show that Gary Peters continues to lead outside
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: the margin of error in Michigan. You can read full
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: results in an op-ed by Charlotte Swayze and Marie Urbina
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: at Crooked.com. Dan, we also had some new New York
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Times Siena polls in Georgia, Texas, and Iowa today that
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: also showed sort of the Democratic Senate candidates very much
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: in the hunt, also showed basically no difference before RBG
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: had died and after. In the polling, the poll was
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: taken both before and after. What's your reaction to how
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: the politics of the nomination fight is playing out so far?
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Well, like we always say, that is something we're going
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to control in the long run. We don't know who's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: going to fare better in the politics. Republicans obviously have
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the upper hand when it comes to deciding whether the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: justice is confirmed. But Democrats start this process, according to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the polling, with the upper hand politically in a couple
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of ways. As you mentioned in that initial data for
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: progress poll, people side with the Democrats on the idea
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that we should wait and the voters should have a voice,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: that they are, for the first time in American history,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: agreeing with Mitch McConnell on something Mitch McConnell previously said
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: four years ago. And there's a whole bunch of polling,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: including a Marquette University poll that was conducted right before
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the death of Justice Ginsburg that shows that Democratic voters
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: are actually much more concerned about and focused on the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court than they were previously and are now more,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it is more of a central concern to Democratic voters
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: than Republican voters, which is a 15-point reversal of from
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: what was found in the 2016 exit polls. And so
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the idea that this is somehow a boon for Trump,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: this is going to help him win this election and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: all of that, that is conventional wisdom that actually flies
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: in the face of the limited data we have. Now,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: that can change as the process plays itself out and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: how both Republicans and Democrats play their hands. But right now,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Democrats start in a very strong position. As we say,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: how we talk about it matters. The polling I referenced
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: about the Affordable Care Act, also shows that the least
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: effective arguments Democrats make about this are process arguments, right?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy, all of that does not really move
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: voters because voters are pretty... Process arguments rarely work, particularly
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: with the voters we most need to persuade, which is
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: why the policy ones do. But Trump may or may
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: not confirm this justice. Like I said, we have limited
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: control over that. But This could end up being a
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Pyrrhic victory for him politically because it can hurt him
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: at the polls if we make the right arguments at
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the right time to the right voters.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the challenge is we all know
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: that the overturning the Affordable Care Act, overturning Roe, these
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: are the most popular arguments. The question is, can we
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: be all disciplined enough to make sure that those are
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: the arguments and the messages that break through during a
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: nomination fight? Again, Trump is going to celebrate this person's character,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: this nominee's character on Saturday, whether it's Barrett or Lagoa
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: or potentially someone else, but it seems like it could
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: be those two women, one of those two women. They
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: will try to bait us into attacking the person's character,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: attacking all kinds of different parts of the person's record.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: And perhaps there will be many things in the person's
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: record to attack, right? There'll be many objectionable things, but
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: we have to sort of pull this out of the
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: drama of the nominee herself and into the realm of
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: What does this person taking a seat on the Supreme
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Court mean for the lives of most Americans? That is
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: the question that we have to make sure we ask
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again. And that's the message
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: we have to get out.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Biden's speech, which you guys talked about on Monday, hits
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: all of these points exactly right.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: He focused primarily on the Affordable Care Act, which is
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a very good sign. Democrats are saying the right things
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: right now. But it's also what are all of us
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: going to say, right? What are we going to tweet about?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I wrote up a little strategy guide in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: my newsletter with the message box yesterday, which has the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: very specific language that people can use to talk about
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act and Republican priorities here that is
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: poll tested and we know works. So as you were
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: tweeting about this, talking about it, you know, arguing with
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: your MAGA uncle or your persuadable cousin, like there are
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: specific words to use that are right there for us.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Last thing that we unfortunately need to talk about today
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: is the fact that the Republican Party is trying to
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: appeal to supporters of the QAnon conspiracy, a dangerous cult
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: that believes there's a global Satan-worshipping cabal of deep state
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: operatives and Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: who are working with sex traffickers and pedophiles to sabotage
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's presidency. That is real. According to Media Matters,
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: there are now 22 Republican candidates on the ballot in
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: November who publicly support QAnon. including a few House candidates
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: embraced by the National Republican Campaign Committee, which has recently
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: released multiple ads trying to tie Democratic candidates to pedophiles
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: and sex offenders. One ad says that New Jersey Congressman
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Tom Malinowski, quote, tried to make it easier for predators
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: to hide in the shadows. Another says Michigan Democratic congressional
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: candidate John Hoadley is a, quote, pedo sex poet. And
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: another accuses Missouri Democratic candidate Jill Schupp of, quote, letting
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: sex offenders on playgrounds. Of course, none of these ads
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: are true at all. Dan, I realize that accusing your
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: opponent of being soft on sex predators is a tried
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: and true tactic of Republican candidates, but it does seem
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: fairly obvious what's going on here, right? The NRCC dropped
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: the ad against Malinowski the day he announced a forum
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: on QAnon and after he introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't need to be a master detective to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: figure this out, right? The clues are all there. And
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: they probably, the smoking gun is when Donald Trump and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House, endorsed the QAnon-supporting
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: congressional nominee in Georgia. And when Donald Trump, under repeated
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: questioning last month, refused to disavow the QAnon movement. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: there is a political logic for why they are doing this.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Republicans depend on a rapidly shrinking base of voters. And
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: every election, that base gets smaller and they need to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: get more, a higher percentage of that shrinking base out.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And so there are no voters in which they can
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: turn away. And so the idea that they're going to
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: turn away this growing conspiracy movement flies in the face
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of the strategic decision they've made to not appeal broadly,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: but to appeal narrowly to this base of voters. And
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: so they are hamstrung by their incredibly high dependence on
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: this base of shrinking white voters.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: There's another reason, too, like the the Republicans and Donald
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Trump have not been able to make Joe Biden the
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: kind of enemy that inspires passion against him.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: And like they did to Hillary. And we saw it
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: pop up in our change research poll. We've had volunteers
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: say this has popped up when they've done text banking
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: or phone calls. The number of Trump supporters who are
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: calling Joe Biden a pedophile is growing and it is
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: out there. It is not in the news cycle. It
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: is in Facebook. It is on WhatsApps sent to the
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Latino community in Florida. We're seeing all of these dark
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: conspiracies all over the place. And they think that it
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: can sort of drive this anger against him. It's like
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: under the radar. And I think the question is like,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: how do Democrats handle this, right? Like it's easy to
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: knock down stuff that gets reported every day that's in
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: the media cycle. What about sort of, this QAnon stuff
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: that's like in the shadows on WhatsApp chains and Facebook posts,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: like kind of underground?
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I think you have to take it broader and you
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: have to call out the association between the Republican Party
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and this movement. Otherwise, you're just going to play conspiracy
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: theory whack-a-mole the whole time. And a lot of times
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: where this is happening is among a group of voters
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: who are not available to Democrats to begin with. But
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: If we try to do it at a micro level,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: we are going to fail. We need to talk, have
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: a bigger, broader conversation about the fact that Donald Trump
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and the Republican Party are embracing a conspiracy theory movement that,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: as you point out, the FBI considers a domestic terror threat.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: And if you have that conversation writ large and you
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: force Republicans to make a choice between disavowing this movement
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: or facing the political consequences for embracing a group that
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: is considered a domestic terror threat, it's going to be
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: easier to do than trying to do it on the sly.
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: And it's not just there are dog whistles about this everywhere, too.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Like there's Ivanka doing human trafficking events. And, you know,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump in some of his speeches keeps talking about
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: child abuse. But it's like it's in reference to keeping
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: kids out of schools and stuff like that. Like there
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: is you can tell that they are sort of nodding
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: to this in addition to just inviting QAnon supporters to
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: the White House, which is much more than a dog
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: whistle and more of a bullhorn. But I do think
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: you need to call it the motivation behind it, right?
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: Because that is the best way to attack a conspiracy
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: that like they are aligned with a movement that is
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: a violent movement, a violent and dangerous movement. And they're
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: doing it because they want the votes because they're losing.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: And that's why you're hearing this stuff about Joe Biden
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: or this candidate. And by the way, if you want
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: to donate to Malinowski or Hoadley or Shupp, like please
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: do that. Help some of these candidates who are getting
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: beat up by the NRCC with these just disgusting ads.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is, like some people, they are wrong,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: but some people will say this is unfair, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: because there are some exceptions to prove the rule here.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: You know, Mike Pence canceled that fundraiser that was being
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: hosted by a QAnon couple. But if you, you know,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: if you're one of these political pundits or reporters who
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: insist on believing that the Republican Party would never, beyond
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, right, that beyond Trump, the Republican Party would
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: never fully embrace this, or if Trump was not around,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: they would not do this. It's worth remembering that birtherism
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: was the QAnon of last decade, and Trump being president
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is the equivalent of Q becoming president. The Republicans went
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: through the same political exercise where after Barack Obama had
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: kicked their ass in 2008, they saw that the demographics
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: of the country were changing much faster than they imagined.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: It would have been so easy to get rid of Trump.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: He was a clown. He didn't really agree with most
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: of the things that they believed in. They could have
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: easily just said, shut up, Donald Trump. We disagree with that.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: You know, we disagree with Obama on lots of things,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: but he was born in America. But they couldn't do
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: it because they didn't want to lose members of the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: birther conspiracy theory. And because they were silent, and it's
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: not just a bunch of your typically worse Republicans like
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, they all made a
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: political calculation that even though they at the time believed
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was a clown, it was better to be
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: quiet and get the votes of birthers than to stand
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: up and do the right thing. And they're making the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: exact same mistake now. And this is only going to
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: get worse if passed as any precedent at all.
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Got to call it out. All right. When we come back,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: I will talk to Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: is a Democratic senator from New York and the minority
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: leader of the Senate. Welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: Good to be back. Good to be back. And thank
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: you for all you're doing.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: So Mitch seems to have more than the 50 votes
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: he needs to move forward with the Supreme Court nomination.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Do you have any expectation that anything will change the
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: minds of at least two Republican senators? Or is the
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Democratic strategy sort of all about delay at this point?
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: No, I think, look, I think, John, that we are
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: going to keep fighting. We have the arguments on our side.
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: And the best argument to make is the following. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: that is that this Supreme Court will take away your rights,
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: that it affects average people. At the top of the
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: list is health care. The bottom line is very simple.
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: There's a Supreme Court suit on November 14th that could
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: eliminate the ACA. What does that mean? It means 10
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: million people would fall off health care altogether. Tens of
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: millions of senior citizens would pay more on their drugs
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: for Medicare. And worst of all, 130 million Americans who
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: have pre-existing conditions and now they are protected could have
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: their insurance ripped away from them. And so this matters
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: to the American people. And we are reaching out over
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: the next few weeks as we have been and letting
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: people know this matters to them. But it's not just
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: health care. Women's health, a woman's right to choose. Roe v.
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: Wade could be at risk. And I was glad I
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: met with a group of younger women, 20 year old,
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: you know, 20, 30 year olds. They never existed. They
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: weren't alive when Roe v. Wade didn't exist. I was.
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: I remember the back alleys and the hangers and all
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: that horrible stuff. but they knew it and they cared
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: about it. Other things, LGBTQ rights. We learned, this is
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: how it affects people. We learned of Ginsburg's passing, unfortunate,
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: terrible passing. What a great lady at our Russia Shana dinner.
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: And my daughter was there with her wife and immediately
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: they started talking. They wondered if their right to be
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: married would be taken away or curtailed. Labor union rights.
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: This court, this right-wing court would, I think, based on
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: the Janus case, would try to make America a right-to-work country.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: No unions.
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: What about climate? This court will eviscerate the Clean Water Act,
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: the Clean Air Act. So what we're doing here, and
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: I've been on the phone with all the groups from
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: the environmental community and the labor community and the women's
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: community and pro-choice, we are going to have, we want
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: millions and millions of phone calls, emails, picketing these senators
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: over the next few weeks. Because This court will actually
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: affect your life. This is not just a little fight
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: between Democrats and Republicans in Washington. And if we lambaste them,
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: you never know, things could change. You remember this, I think, John,
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: the ACA, when they tried to repeal it. Everyone said,
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: forget it, you'll never have the votes. But we kept
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: fighting and fighting and fighting, and we won.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: We beat them.
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: And one other thing, inspiration. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She fought
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: against all odds. When she first fought to end gender discrimination,
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: it went in this male-dominated legal profession that thought women
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: didn't even belong in the profession, so many of them.
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: She didn't stop. She never let herself be deterred. Well,
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: that's the determination of our caucus and of me. We're
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: going to keep fighting, fighting, fighting, because this is so important. And,
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: you know, sometimes you win, and that's what we're fighting
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: to do.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Let's talk tactics. How do you feel about denying unanimous
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: consent agreements to slow down Senate business or forcing Republicans
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: to come up with quorums on their own?
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, look, we're going to use every tool in the
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: toolbox to slow things down. Some of those, we already,
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: Tuesday night, stopped committees from being meeting. Tuesday, we stopped
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: committees from being meeting. We occupied the Senate floor till
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: late at night talking about the issues I'm talking about.
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: And there are other tools in our toolkit that we
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: are going to use. I don't want to disclose them all.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: I don't want to let the other side know what's coming.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: But we are going to use every tool available. Now, admittedly,
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: since McConnell's changed the rules, the number of tools is less.
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: They're less sharp. But whenever it makes sense to slow
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: things down, we are going to do it.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Have you and other Democratic senators had any discussions about
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: possibly boycotting the confirmation hearings altogether? If you believe the
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: nomination itself is illegitimate, why participate in the nomination hearings?
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: This is something we will discuss. So we're going to
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: wait for a nominee. And, you know, we have great
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: unity in our caucus. That's how we were able to,
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: you know, beat back so many of these bad things.
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: That's how we were able to force the Republicans to
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: do the CARES bill, you know, which had $ 600 for unemployment, PPP.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: They didn't want to do any of that. Their original
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: bill was just corporate oriented. How do we do it?
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: I'll sit down with the Judiciary Committee members. It's a
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: great committee. We have brilliant people on it, including Kamala Harris,
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: I guess, who will be participating. And then I sit down,
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: I have a leadership team, and it covers the whole
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: gamut of our caucus. We meet every Monday night, and
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: we discuss how we can come together and achieve things.
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warner are on it, and so
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: are Joe Manchin and Mark Warner and people in between.
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: So this is an issue we will sit down and
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: discuss and make a decision about once there's a nominee.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: Speaking of the Judiciary Committee, three Democratic senators went on
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: background to Politico questioning Dianne Feinstein's ability to manage the
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: nomination hearings as ranking member. Do you have confidence that
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Senator Feinstein is the right person for the job?
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: Let me say this. You know what I'm worried about?
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: I'm not worried about Dianne Feinstein the way I am
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: worried about Lindsey Graham. He is just a liar. He
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: says whatever pops into, he's a little like Trump. Whatever
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: he says and pops into his head and he thinks
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: sounds good, he can reverse himself the next day. This
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: is the guy in 2016 said, even if there's a
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: Republican president, you know, this was before the election of 2016.
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: Even if there's a Republican president in the last year
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: of his term, I will never be for choosing a
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: new Supreme Court justice. Use my words against me if
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: you do. Well, I have a feeling, getting to the
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: political side, that Jamie Harrison will, that's the guy, hence
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: Lindsey Graham, will do just that. And he does it
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: on everything. He just did it on offshore drilling. He
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: was all for the oil industry, took a lot of
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: money from him to do offshore drilling. All of a sudden,
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: a month before the election, he's reversing himself. Lindsey Graham
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: is the guy to focus on and be worried about.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: So Senator Feinstein will be leading the hearings as the
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: ranking member then?
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, again, yes, I believe she will.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: I believe she will. Do the final pieces of the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: debate around a continuing resolution to fund the government, does
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: that give you any leverage either on the court fight
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: or on the fight to pass more COVID relief?
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: Well, the fight to pass more COVID relief, it absolutely does.
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: And we are fighting very hard to get more COVID relief.
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: I think this is one of the big strikes against
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: the Republican senators. They came up with this bill. They
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: called it skinny. I called it emaciated. It has nothing
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: in it. No money for state and local governments. No
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: money to feed kids who need food. No money to
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: prevent people from getting kicked out of their houses. No
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: money to help the restaurants and others from opening up
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: who are closing. And on and on and on. No
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: frontline pay. No state and local. No mass transit. And
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: so we said, no, we're not voting for that. But
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: we are willing to meet them in the middle. And
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: they are feeling the heat. They go home to their state,
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: some of these senators, and say, oh, I want to
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: get a bill. And so I think the fact that
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: the CR is now done gives us a real pathway
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: to push hard for a big, strong COVID bill. You know,
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: the heroes bill that the House passed, which we collaborated on,
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: is a great bill and would solve a load of
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: the problems. We also believe in keeping the $ 600 for
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: unemployment insurance, which has kept 10 million people out of poverty.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: You've said that if Republicans jam through this nomination, nothing's
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: off the table next year. I know you're not going
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: to get ahead of yourself on the filibuster or the
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: court expansion right now. But let me ask you a
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: broader question about the future of the Senate.
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: Like over the next decade or so, you know, you're
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: going to have Senate maps that are good for Democrats
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: and maps that are less good for Democrats. But you
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: won't have a map. very likely you won't have a
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: map that gets you to 60 seats again, even if
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: we start doing well in places like Texas and Georgia.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: It's very hard to get all the.
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: Way to 60. You know, I'm more of an optimist
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: than you.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Well, how do you think, I mean, like, how do
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: you think long-term, how can Democrats pass any significant legislation
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: when the Senate is as rigged as it is right
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: now towards white, rural, Republican voters? It's always obviously been
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: a split, but it seems like with polarization in the country,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: it's worse.
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: Things are changing. For instance, let me give you an example.
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: Part of the country that was never democratic, you know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: 15 years ago, you take the Rockies and West, okay?
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: There will be, if God willing, we win in Montana,
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. And in three of those seats,
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: we're way ahead. And in Montana, we're a tiny little
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: bit ahead. But if we win those four seats of the,
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: there will be, I think it is nine states from
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: the Rockies West that have two democratic senators, two. That
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: never happened before. The South is changing. We have a
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: good chance to win in North Carolina, but we also
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: have a good chance to win in Georgia. We have
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: a good chance to win in South Carolina. This map
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: is changing. You know, there are places we lost. At
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: one point, to show you how things change, we had amazingly,
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: I don't remember, about 10 years ago, North Dakota, South Dakota,
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: and Nebraska had six Democratic senators. Now they have six Republican.
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: My prediction is if you look at the West and
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: the South, particularly if we can do strong things on
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: voting rights and making sure poor people, African-American, people of
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: color are allowed to vote, I think you're going to
• 55:13
  Speaker 6: find that map changing. Arizona, look at Arizona. It was
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: a Republican state. It's now likely to be Democratic. A
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: lot of movement. A lot of people from California, younger,
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: more Democratic, more liberal, are moving to Arizona because it's
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: expensive in California. Same with North Carolina. North Carolina, the
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: center of the rural population used to be the largest vote. Now,
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: the Raleigh-Durham area is 35% bigger than the Charlotte area,
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: which is not as progressive as Raleigh-Durham. So it's all changing.
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: I'm not sure we would ever get to 60, but
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: the bottom line, let me just give you the bottom line.
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: And it's more immediate. We have to bring real change.
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: We have to bring real change. We cannot get this
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: majority and not bring the kind of change that's needed.
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: The three big areas we'd focus on are climate, economic inequality,
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: that wealth and income are driven to the top, and
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: democracy broadly defined, meaning, you know, making it easier to vote,
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: getting rid of Citizens United, getting rid of the Shelby decision,
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: and stuff like that. And we are going to figure
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: out the best way to get all that done. We
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: are going to figure out the best way to get
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: all that done, because not doing things, not getting things
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: done is not an option. That's the worst way to lose. Yeah.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Would you consider statehood for DC and Puerto Rico in
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: that democracy agenda?
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: I would consider it. It's in HR1.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: That's right. What's your favorite under the radar?
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: Just to let your viewers know.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: That's the democracy bill that has lots of these things
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: I mentioned that pass the House and we Democrats are
• 56:49
  Speaker 6: committed if we get the majority to try and pass
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: in the Senate. As you know, Mitch McConnell, anything good
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: the House passes, whether it's helping working people, uh, uh,
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: dealing with poverty, dealing with climate, dealing with rights, voting rights, uh,
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: women's rights, all kinds of gay rights. All of that
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: gets dumped into the file 13 garbage pail by McConnell.
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: We'll have a lot of things to do if we
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: get back the majority. And that's, that's why I want
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: to thank you for doing what you've done. Uh, the,
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: your pod save America, uh, broadcast way to have the
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: numbers here has raised $ 24 million in the, uh, in
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: your Ditch Mitch, in your Ditch Mitch.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: Get Mitch or die trying.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: Get Mitch or die trying. There you go. That is
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: so helpful to us. And it's raising money. And I
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: would ask your viewers, if I'm allowed to, I'm here,
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: I'm not in official territory. A, send those dollars in.
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: Our candidates are doing great. The candidates in states we
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: have to win, like Iowa and Montana and North Carolina
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: and Texas, are getting a lot of money. And secondly,
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: Make sure, I just want to say this, make sure
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: you vote. Don't let Donald Trump with all his BS, oh,
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: the mail ballots won't count. Oh, I'm not going to
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: let the election go forward. The best way to deal
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: with this guy who thinks he's a dictator. I don't
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: think America will allow him to be a dictator. I'm
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: certain of that. And we're fighting him in court to
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: make it harder for him to do the things he
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: wants to do right now. But the best way, the best, best,
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: best way to prevent Donald Trump from his evil schemes
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: is vote heavily. If we win by a lot, none
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: of his BS will ever matter. And so let's get
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: out there and vote.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about that. Obviously, voting
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: is the most important way to prevent him from trying
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: to hold on to power. Obviously, there's a legal strategy.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: Is there anything else that you and the Senate Democrats
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: and House Democrats are doing to prevent some of the scenarios?
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: There's that big Atlantic piece I'm sure you saw about
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: the Trump campaign's talking about legislatures sending slates of electors
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: into Congress. What's the plan to avoid it all?
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: There's lots of different aspects to the plan. As I said,
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: the best thing is win by a lot, and then
• 59:00
  Speaker 6: all this won't matter. Vote, vote, vote. Right now, Mark Elias,
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: who works for our Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, I think
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: he's in court in 27 states. He just won a
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: big case in North Carolina that's going to allow many
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: more younger people, people of color's votes. They won't allow
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: them to be discriminated. Won a big case in Pennsylvania
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: so they can count afterwards. And here's the good news
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: on that, John. Many of the states have Democratic governors
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: that he's contesting. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan has Democratic governor. Arizona
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: doesn't have a Democratic governor, but it has a system
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: that the governor can interfere with. And to a large extent,
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: Florida has the same system. So there are lots of states,
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: and North Carolina has Democratic governor. So there are lots
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: of states that he can't mess around with. And our
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: legal team is working with those friendly governors, secretaries of state,
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: attorneys general, to try and prevent all of this stuff
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: from happening.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: So I know this is like asking you to pick
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: between all of your children, but do you have a
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: favorite under-the-radar Senate race where you're feeling good about the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Democrats' chances?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: You're a bad boy. But let me just say, there
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: are a number of states that people didn't think we
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: could win that we're getting real close in, okay? And
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: they are Montana, Iowa. We've been ahead in North Carolina,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: but we got to stay there. Georgia, South Carolina, Texas.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: We're doing real well in those states. And those states
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: are probably the ones, certain states are getting a whole
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: lot of money because Amy McGrath is raising a ton
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: of money in Kentucky. Sarah Gideon's raising a ton of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: money in Maine, Jamie Harrison, South Carolina, because of the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: notoriety of the people they're running against, McConnell, Graham Collins.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: But some of these other states are less well-known. So
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: the other ones I mentioned, don't forget them. I'm not
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: saying don't give to the ones that are doing well,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: but give these. And a little plug. where we're getting closer,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: but we need some dollars is Texas, where MJ Hagar,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: a war hero, a veteran, and the woman who helped
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: lead the charge to allow women into combat is running
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: and has a good chance to win, decent chance.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and pull out this morning from the New York
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Times showing that's a pretty close race.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: Everyone should give.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senator from New York, thank you so
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: much for joining us on Pod Save America. We always
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: love having you and keep up the good fight.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: We have no choice if we love America.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Thanks to Chuck Schumer for joining us today. Everyone have
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: a good weekend and we'll see you next week. We
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: will have a pod on Monday and then we will
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: be doing a debate group thread Tuesday night. So check out, uh, youtube.com
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: slash crooked media. We'll all be on the group thread
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: throughout the debate. And then on Wednesday we will have
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: a pod. That's all four of us doing post debate analysis.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: Big debate on Tuesday. Big, big debate.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Bye everyone. Bye.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semel, Caroline Rustin, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: episodes as videos every week.