Latest / Pod Save America / "It’s Midnights In America (with AOC!)"

Transcript

"It’s Midnights In America (with AOC!)" · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Democrats deliver their closing argument, Trump and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: his goons get ready to screw with another election, and then...
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We sat down with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: talk about the midterms and more.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And midnights.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And we talked about midnights as well.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you did ask some Taylor Swift questions. Yeah,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: we went to UC Irvine for a get out the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: vote rally.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Go land heaters.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Tommy was part of the program. He spoke. Tommy revved
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: up the crowd before AOC.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think we're putting it in this pod, but
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: there was a moment where there was a bunch of
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: MAGA protesters and I was like, oh, they're going.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: To boo Tommy.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I cannot wait.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It's going to be great. I went after them in
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: my room.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: You did.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: You did.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: He engaged.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I engaged them.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: He engaged.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I singled them out. And then I did a let's
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: go Brandon at the end.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Worked out well.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: But first, before we get to the news and Tommy
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and AOC, election day is November 8th, but the voting
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: has already begun. And everyone who's out there trying to
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: save democracy needs your help. They need you to volunteer
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: at phone banks, remind your friends to vote, read up
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: on all those ballot initiatives, send people texts that aren't
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: as annoying as those automated ones that come from the campaign.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So we need your help. So sign up to do
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: all of this at votesaveamerica.com. We'll have plenty for you
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: You got to do it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You just have to do it.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Couple weeks.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Couple weeks. We're 15 days out. All right, let's get
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to the news. 15 days. The worrisome polling trend that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: shows a lot of tightening midterm races hasn't changed all
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that much from last week. But the Democrats' strategy apparently has.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: The 538 average has Republicans up about a half a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: point on the generic ballot after a slew of polls
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that show inflation and economic concerns are once again voters'
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: top priorities.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Polls are really putting the wine in wine, mom.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, why? Like complaining?
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: No, no, like drinking. Like they're getting drunk.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know if that was... Could have been
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a little sharper.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Do you think the generic ballot's ever like, I'm special too?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. Jesus Christ. Anyway, if you're still listening, if you're
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: still listening, in response, every Democrat from Nancy Pelosi to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden has been delivering a closing
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: argument focused on Republicans' extreme economic policies. Here's the president
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: speaking at the White House on Friday.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: They're going to do big farmers bidding to repeal my
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: plan to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drugs prices. We
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: pay the highest in the world. And in doing so,
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: it's going to raise drug prices.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: And they're going to.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Raise big farmers' profits. They're doing fine, big farmers. They're
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: not hurting at all. And they're going to raise your
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: health insurance premiums. It's mega, mega trickle-down. Mega, mega trickle-down.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: The kind of policies that have failed the country before
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: and will fail it again. And it will mean more
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: wealth to the very wealthy higher inflation for the middle class.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: That's the choice we're facing. That's why I think that
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: we're going to do just fine.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Mega, mega trickle down, rolls off the tongue. What do
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you guys think?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I think the broader argument is good and necessary. You know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: I was curious about why they did the event sort
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: of focused on the deficit versus other issues, but I'm
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: sure there's some polling somewhere that's driving the decision. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: think they're speaking to the reality that huge chunks of
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the electorate is worried about the economy, inflation, and gas prices.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: We see it in polling. We see it in focus groups.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: hear about it on the wilderness. We see it in
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: anecdotal evidence from events and stories. It has been showing
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: up in the wilderness. You have to.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Quite a few times.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Biden, all Democrats need to speak to that. The anger,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the anxiety, and make the argument that Democrats will fight
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: for you, Republicans will make things worse. Some of that's
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: going to be policy-based, like we're going to re-up the
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: child tax credit, we're going to reduce the price of
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: drugs like Biden was talking about there. But the more
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: important piece is that contrast about how Republicans, they're going
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: to fight for their donors, big pharma, fossil fuel interests
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: are going to make it worse. I'll trust them on
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the mega, mega trickle-down. I totally don't. Look.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: MMTD. That's what we're calling it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Again, they probably have data that I don't have. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: my challenge with it is just sort of on its own.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know that everyone knows what it means because
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: trickle-down economics is kind of like a buzzword from the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Reagan era. I'm not sure what Mega Maga means more
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: than Maga, but whatever. Hopefully it's catchy. We're talking about it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: We're talking about it.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It's Ultra Erasure. What happened to Ultra?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: What happened to Ultra Maga? Ultra Maga.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: You think she trademarked Ultra and then they sent a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: cease and desist to the White House?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I also thought when I first heard that Rachel Maddow
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: was doing a podcast called Ultra, I was like, oh,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: this is going to be about MK Ultra, but it's not.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: So I like, I'm going to say this.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: I'm going to say this. I like Mega Maga. You know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I like it better than Ultra Maga, which did sound fun,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Right i just like mega i think that's it that's
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: all you need.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Bad enough it's bad i do think trickle down is
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: in the category of like voodoo economics but you know
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: what it was catchy it gets the message out you
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: know there was a the thing that was more interesting
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: to me than mega mega mega mega mega maybe the strategy.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Was just get everyone glitching guys glitching uh happens every election.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: But uh what i was more interested in is the
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: you know like What I was realizing in seeing this speech,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: and also obviously reading where I get all my opinions,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Message Box by Dan Fiverr, is Democrats did get behind
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: this very clean idea. Give us two more senators, keep
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the House, and we'll codify Roe. There was not as
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: clean of an economic story. Do this, do that, and
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: we'll do these things. And getting back to the child
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: tax credit and some of this, making it more of
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a choice on the economy. Because for the last couple
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of weeks, everybody's been talking past each other. You've had
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Republicans running nonstop. crime, economy, immigration ads. And then you've
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: had Democrats running Republicans or extreme abortion ads. And I'm
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: not saying a lot of Democrats aren't talking about cost
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: and inflation on the trail. They are, and maybe their
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: ads are about it too. But for the most part,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: there wasn't that clean choice on the economy.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It's a really good point.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: I haven't said that in fucking weeks.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I would say years.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: But.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Here we go. You don't know when John sends you
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a well, comma. That's when you know you're in big trouble.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: It's actually a good point.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It's making me wonder why they didn't propose any kind
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of economic agenda, the Democrats. I'm guessing it's probably because
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they passed the Inflation Reduction Act. And then everyone, and
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: so then they celebrate that. Look, we fixed everything. Then
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: everyone freaked out about inflation. So I'm guessing they probably
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: thought if we start proposing more spending.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: We'll just total it up.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Then everyone will total it up. But I don't know
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: if that's a reason to like not have an economic
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: agenda for the midterms and beyond, you know?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say two points. One, I would say
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: that democracy is like a sexy baby and inflation is
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: a monster on the hill. That's point number one.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, wait. You have to spell that out. I
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: don't think I do. Okay.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think everyone knows that.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: At this point. And then, but the second, in 2006,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: when Democrats were running to win the House, the Senate women,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Democratic women, had a caucus and they came out with
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: their checklist for change. And it was a list of
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: very clean, simple policies.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And I remember the, we can do better.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, the checklist for change was more of a
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: kind of like acoustic set that didn't, that they weren't
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: really doing on the road. It was a smaller thing.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: It was more for touring, but the, um, didn't sell
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: as well. But, uh, uh, Hillary Clinton was going to
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: speak at some kind of a, of, of a rally
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: or something. And I wrote a whole speech and she
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: threw it out and she just read the checklist for change.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: And then when I got back to my desk, I
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: was like, what the fuck just happened? And then I
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: had missed an email from Hillary Clinton saying, I'd like
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: my speech to focus on the checklist for change. Did
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: you seriously?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I swear to God.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: It just reminded me of that one that like, you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: 2006 was a lot about the failures of the Bush administration,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: but there was a clean, simple set of things Democrats
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: were getting behind.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: While you were telling that very succinct story about the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: checklist for change. I started thinking.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Couldn't have been more than 90 fucking seconds. I know
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: you bring your fucking phone to the urinal, but some
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: people have an attention span.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: It wasn't that bad.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Well, no, the good news is I thought of an idea.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Instead of like, you didn't have to propose a whole
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: bunch of spending. You could have done the child tax credit,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: which they didn't get done. And you could have said, oh,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and we're going to have it fully paid for by
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: taxing rich assholes.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Minimum wage increase, something like that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Or, you know, all the loopholes that Kyrsten Sinema made
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: you take out. of the inflation reduction act. Put them
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: back in. That's your agenda.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of online conservatives have been giving
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom shit for talking about these gas credits in California.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: But you were talking about this, that people, that's simple.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: That's something people can latch onto. That will help me.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: A bunch of 20-somethings who didn't even know a midterm
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: election was coming were all talking to me about, when
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I asked them what Democrats they liked, they talked about
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom giving them gas cards. I didn't even know
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that was a thing.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Turns out free money is popular.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So you guys both like this overall strategy of closing
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: by focusing on the economy. Is there anything you change
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: or add to the message? Anything else you guys?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I imagine that most Democrats are going to
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: do some sort of combination, right? It's not binary. Like
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: they'll have some negative spots focusing on their opponent's record
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: on abortion, some general sort of oppo hits, some attacks
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: on the economic record. But I do think like ABC Ipsos,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: that poll found that Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: to handle like almost every economic problem, inflation, gas prices,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the economy broadly. So I do think you have to
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: go at that strength to win those people back.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: What do you think about this debt ceiling issue? I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: realize that the Republican threat to hold the debt ceiling
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: hostage for entitlement cuts is complicated. It seems like it's
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: a tomorrow problem because it's going to happen in 2023.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: As we know all too well, it's extremely difficult to
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: explain the intricacies of the debt ceiling to anyone. But
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I do think if you're just being honest about what
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: might happen if Republicans take the House, there's going to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: be a lot of investigations. There's probably going to be
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: impeachment of Joe Biden. There's going to be a lot
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of nothing that happens. They're not going to be able
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to pass anything because Joe Biden's still president and can
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: veto anything, right? But they will actually be able to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: hold the fucking economy hostage with the debt ceiling unless
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: they get their cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: actually something that could very easily happen next year if
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans take the House. And I just wonder if that's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: something that you really hit in your closing message. What
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: do you guys think?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It's tough.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: You know, it's oddly, in some ways, it's similar to
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: like our struggle to make this argument around Republicans as
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: a threat to democracy. You know, threats to democracy, the
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: debt ceiling on some level require imagination in a way
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: that inflation doesn't. You see it, you feel it. And
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: I feel like right now, Democrats, we're paying in two
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: different ways. Like, On the one hand, we're paying because
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: people really don't believe there's a lot of cynicism. People
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: don't really think things can get better. But even after
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Trump and even after the pandemic, even after our financial crisis,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: there's still not so much pessimism that things act. People
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: actually believe things can get much, much, much, much worse.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: They just it's hard to really explain to people. I
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: don't think we've successfully I think we've done a really
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: I think the hearings have done a really good job
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: of making the case that January 6 is connected to
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: a broader effort by Trump. but it's still seen as
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: quite acute as opposed to the broader threat to democracy.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: And I think the same thing on economic issues. We
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: haven't done a good enough job of explaining to people
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: what Republican extremism actually will result in. And so two
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: weeks before the election, making this argument around a debt ceiling,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: a concept they never fully grasped the last time we
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: went through this fight, and how bad it could be,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: even though we had that argument, and we said how
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: bad it could be, and then it didn't happen a
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: couple times in the past.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I just think, I'm not saying it's a bad idea.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's hard. But the politics were pretty bad
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: for Republicans last time they tried to do it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Of the shutdown, yeah.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And the dead ceiling thing.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: That was a great, I remember that moment.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It was bad for us too, but it was bad
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: for the, they ended up blinking.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, they did blink.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: They did blink, of course.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: But I'm just saying, you have to find a way
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: to tell that story that's sort of they will hold
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: the economy hostage to cut social security and cut taxes
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: for rich people. It's more about the policies, not the
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: hostage taking.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It may be easier to hit them for what people
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: have preconceived notions on the Republican Party, which is, you know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: even if you're not a partisan, what do you think
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: about the Republican Party? They help the rich and they're
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: pretty extreme on social policies, like their abortion bans, right?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And so you think they want to, I still think
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it goes back to oh, you want to solve inflation?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: They're not going to solve inflation. They're going to help
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: their rich friends and ban abortion everywhere. That's what they're doing.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they'd rather, they'll threaten the whole economy to cut
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: taxes for rich people.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: So tell me, Stan Greenberg, who's a longtime Democratic pollster,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: who has always argued for more populism, recently told Politico
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that the worst performing message he's tested is Democrats touting
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: their accomplishments. What'd you make of that interview with Politico?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tough message from Stan. I mean, I do, Intuitively,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: it made sense to me. A huge percentage of the
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: country thinks the country is on the wrong track. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: think I saw 71% in some polls over the weekend
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: think we're on the wrong track. If our message comes
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: through to those voters sounding like, look what I did
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: for you, as opposed to a more nuanced, look, we
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: got a lot of work to do. Here's our track
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: record so far, but this is what we'll keep fighting for.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And this is who's in the way. I can understand
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: how that would land wrong and maybe annoying. So I
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: do think it's maybe a little nuanced, although Stan's full
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: quote was stark. Yeah.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a good example of something that sounds
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: like a big note, but it's actually a small note,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: which is that in framing... And Biden actually does that
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: quite well. Sometimes he goes a little ham on just,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: look what we did, look what we did. But a
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: lot of that speech is about framing it as a
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: forward-looking choice. Here's what we're doing and here's how it
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: will help you. Here's how we'll keep doing that. Here's
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: why Republicans would want to undo it. I think it's
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: really about It's like the idea of taking what we've
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: done and making it a story about how things will
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: can get better if you stick with us and how
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: they'll make everything worse is obviously, I think, right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the accomplishments basically only serve as credibility
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: for when you say, I'm going to take on the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: drug companies, the insurance companies, the oil companies, because, look,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I've already been taking them on over the last couple
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of years.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Like that they can serve as that beyond that, I think.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Well, so a lot of things we did take are
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: going to take years to go into effect. You know,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: like the climate spending is not helping anybody out right now.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: The Medicare negotiation of drug prices doesn't happen for years. Right.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, what are we telling people we did
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: for them? We hooked you up in 2026. That doesn't work.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that people are sitting around being like, oh, well,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I thought that the price of gas is expensive right
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: now and the costs are pretty high. But then you
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: just told me the gas prices have gone down for
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of days in a row. So I'm sorry.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I stand corrected.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I think there's like a mood music. I get why
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: the White House is always pushing, like Ron Klain specifically,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: retweeting the like the gas price buddy guy and trying
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: to like sort of push the narrative that prices are
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: going down. I think that's more of like a media
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: narrative thing because they are so quick to freak out
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: when the Saudis and OPEC announce a production cut, nevermind
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's not clear that it'll make any
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: actual material impact on the amount of gas or oil
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: on the market right now. But like prices go up,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the media freaks out and they overreact. So he's trying
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to push back and overcorrect to that. And that impacts
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: sort of the mood music around an election. And I
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: get it.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a difference between working the refs on Twitter
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and like what you put in your campaign ad.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Or saying a speech, I'm sure.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we've also, we've seen this movie before.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Obamacare took a number of years to become popular and
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to become cemented in people's kind of brains as something
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: good that they wanted to keep to the point where Republicans,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: even when they had the votes, couldn't repeal it. Just
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: we had to lose a thousand seats to get there.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Anything else you guys have seen in the polling
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: or early vote numbers that stuck out at you?
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: In the ABC poll that we were just talking about
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that has a bunch of really bad news, it says
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: if a candidate in this November's election says they believe
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, are
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: you more likely to vote for that candidate?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: 52% said no.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: So there is still this desire to vote against these
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: fucking people.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: It's out there. It's there.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: It has to stay in people's minds. It has to
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: be connected to these other issues that feel more tangible.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And that's the That's the struggle.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I think you have to believe that if you vote
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: for these Republicans, then, like, it's going to negatively impact
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: your life in a whole bunch of ways. And you
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: have to see what those impacts are and know what
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: they are, right? Like, I think it is, I think,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: for example, you know, Josh Shapiro is very far ahead
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of Doug Mastrano in Pennsylvania. I think the, knock on wood.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Knock on some goddamn wood.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But now he's, you know, it's a greater margin in
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: that race and most of these polls than the Federman-Oz race.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And I think Shapiro did a very good, has done
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a very good job saying, like, we're talking about abortion.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It's very simple in this case. Josh Shapiro's governor, abortion
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: is legal in Pennsylvania. Mastriano's governor, it's not. And people
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: get that, you know? And so I just think like
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: drawing these connections about what, these aren't just like Republican
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: extremists who are scary. If they are elected, this is
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: what will happen that will impact you.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was, you know, we've been having this conversation.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: We asked AOC about it. We asked President Obama about it,
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: which is, you know, we believe correctly that democracy is
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: under threat. We yet that doesn't seem to be driving
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of people in their final decision. Like enough
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: people are so worried about some of these other economic concerns.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: And there was a poll that reminded me of from
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: earlier in the year, which said that 64% of Americans
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: agree that American democracy is in crisis, but more, 70%
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: feel America itself is in crisis. And I feel like
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: in that you feel this you feel the connection between
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: these economic issues and these concerns about day-to-day, the day-to-day
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: experience of just trying to get by and the crisis
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: we're trying to draw people's attention to in democracy, which
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: is one way in which people really feel democracy is
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: failing is it's just not delivering. And like, that's the
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: kind of cynicism that we're kind of entering into this fight.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: And it's, it's tough.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You know who is delivering? Who? Hashtag Democrats.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Hashtag Democrats deliver. It's been a while since the Democrats
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: did that hashtag.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Tommy, anything you saw? Anything you saw in the polling
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: or the early vote numbers?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: No, and I'm also just going to not let myself
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: read about, think about, worry about early vote numbers because
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: we're coming off a pandemic. We're still somewhat in one.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. All the rules are changing in different states.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: You can look at the early vote numbers and the
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: mail-in ballot numbers we've seen, and you can blur your
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: eyes and say it looks good. You can blur your
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: eyes and say it looks bad. Nobody fucking knows.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah. I would say that by the end of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: next week, Uh, we look at John Ralston's blog in
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Nevada and he updates with all the early vote numbers.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: It's too early now. And he's, as he says, when
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: he updates it, but like by two weeks in, you
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: get a good sense. Yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: If you want to feel bad for a full two
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: weeks about the results rather than just on election day,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: check out Ralston's blog.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And if you just want to like cut yourself every, yeah,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it's just sort of, that's, that's a nice thing. Anyway,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: speaking of the not enough people identifying threat to democracy
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: as their top issue, as Lovett was just saying, over
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the last few days, we got a few more reminders.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: about why this isn't great. In Pennsylvania, Rolling Stone and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Semaphore report that Trump is already laying the groundwork to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: challenge the midterm results in that state. And he's also
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: trying to get their Republican legislature to ban mail-in ballots.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: In Arizona, multiple reports of voter intimidation have been sent
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: to the Department of Justice after armed vigilantes said started
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: patrolling drop boxes. Very cool. And in Nevada, the Washington
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Post reports that election officials and supervisors in most counties
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: have left their jobs over threats and abuse, while the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: guy who's leading the race to become Secretary of State,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Jim Marchant, just ran this ad.
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: George Soros is helping to elect anti-American politicians, and these
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: same politicians keep winning re-election. How is that possible?
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: It's not.
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: Elections have consequences, and rigged elections have catastrophic consequences. Help
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: save America. Vote for Jim Marchand for Secretary of State.
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: It's time to take our elections back.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Now, you can't see it because this was audio, but
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the politicians in that ad that he was saying weren't
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: elected or were elected improperly, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, and Nadler.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Well, do we know that they were elected properly?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: That's who he's saying was the beneficiary of rigged elections.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He's going as far back as.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a great style of politics if you
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: can get it. I won or else if you won,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: it was illegitimate. Heads I win, tails you lose.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Right. That's where he is. Do you guys think that
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: stories like these are just not getting through to voters
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: or do you think they're getting through? but that these
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: voters just aren't prioritizing democratic threats over economic concerns.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think fundamentally that like the three of us,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: people who listen to the show are space aliens compared
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: to most of the country and the amount they pay
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: attention to politics. So they're probably just not paying attention.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: They're probably paying even less attention to down dollar races
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: and what a secretary of state does, what a County
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: clerk does. Um, you kind of have to explain what
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: these jobs even do before you can really describe how
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Republicans are screwing it up. There's also probably a bit
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: of a boy who cried wolf thing. You know, I mean,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: we were laughing before we started recording that. And we're
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: as guilty of this as everyone, when every election is
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: the most important election of our lifetime. Maybe you tune
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: that out. They stop believing you. The hyperbole goes a
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: little too far, but I do think like, like I,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: we criticize the media a lot. I do think they
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: need to do better here because when votes came in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: late in Pennsylvania and that led to people questioning the
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: validity of the results and that was a deliberate Republican strategy.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: They voted to ensure that those votes weren't counted until
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: after polls closed on election day. So it looked suspicious.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: That's why Donald Trump gave us those fun quotes about
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: the big late night dump. We all remember that fondly.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Less fond now, he's going to try to get rid
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: of mail-in voting and do it again.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I thought that then the media did a pretty good
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: job like explaining to viewers that night what was going
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: on there and like why what trump was trying to
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: do and what republicans are trying to do i do
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: think that it's going to happen again in these midterms
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and now is the time we're a couple weeks out
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: where the media should probably let people know yeah that
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the same thing is going to happen again.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: That night sure but like look where we are today
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: where you know you have like half the country questions
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the validity of these elections.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: We, you know, we've spent time on the show talking
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: about the media and where we think it is not
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: up to snuff, I would say, from time to time.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: And we talk about the way in which they kind
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: of are biased towards treating every fight like a political
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: food fight between Democrats and Republicans. I think sometimes we
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: forget that that's a bias people have, too.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: And it's especially true amongst independents who are paying attention
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: less and are more likely to just be cynical and
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: dismissive about Democrats and Republicans. There was a poll out
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: of Arizona. Forty one percent said they want election officials
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: who say Joe Biden won. 18% say they want officials
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: who said Biden didn't win. And the remaining 41% don't
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: care either way. And that's even bigger for independents. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: it really tells you that, like, I don't, that's, that's,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: of course, where, how is this information mediated through terrible
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: political coverage? But there really is, like, Republicans have successfully made,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: did Joe Biden win the election, a partisan question. And
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: people now view that as a partisan question that they
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: think that it is more nonpartisan, like, oh, I don't
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: want somebody who thinks about that issue either way. And
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I just think we're paying for the ways in which
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: this has become a right-left divide.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And I think to be fair to the non-MAGA media,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: they've been pretty, pretty clear who won the election, who
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: was lying. They use the phrase big lie all the time.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: They talk about election deniers all the time. And the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: reason it's not getting through to people is, I think,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: originally what Tommy said, which is it's just most people
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: aren't consuming that information. Most people aren't fucking New York
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Times readers. They're not Washington Post readers. They're not watching
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the big three networks. It's just not happening. Yeah.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, this did manifest. There's some reporter on reporter
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: violence on Twitter last night about this topic, about whose
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: job it is to talk about. I mean, there is
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a piece of this. Remember, democracy dies in darkness. I mean,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: it didn't. Did it? The Washington Post slogan, it wasn't
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: democracy dies in darkness if Democrats say it does. And
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: in response, a Republican spokesman said, no, socialism killed the democracy.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: And then a political science professor said, both.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Sides have flaws. Which would have been a very long tagline.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: You know, that's not how, I think, you know, it's
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: very frustrating for me. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: No, they put a stake in, they said, we're going
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to do, democracy dies in darkness.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: The Washington Post is on, Great reporting. I'm not criticizing anyone.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: The piece we're talking about for this segment is actually
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: by Dana Milbank, an opinion columnist at The Washington Post.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But I think there is this this argument happening about
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: whether Democrats should be the one educating voters about these
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: threats to democracy. And my view on that is, no,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: our job is to win elections, period. I do not
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: think it's our job. Oh, I think it's our job
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: to be the one carrying the message and educating people
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: at every single issue. We can talk about it. But
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: if it's at the expense of talking about something that's
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: more likely to make us win, fuck that. We should
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: talk about what makes us win. You go to war
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: with the media you have, not the media you wish
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you had. They're the media.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: They're going to run stories about it or not run
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: stories about it. If they're not educating people about the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: threats to democracy, then really we have no other choice.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: But if the threats are not what are motivating people
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: to turn out and vote, like the poll Lovett just read,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: then I think our— then we should fight on economic
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: grounds or on abortion or whatever.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: It takes to win. I'm just saying that I don't
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: think we should be counting on that.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: No, of course not. I'm not counting on them. I'm
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: shadowboxing Twitter in my own head.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I love fucking complaining about the media.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I think they're doing a great job on this. Okay,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: let's not lose our heads. I would say two things. One, yes,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: it is Democrats' job to win elections. The most important
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: thing Democrats can do to defend democracy is not convince
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: people democracy is under threat. The most important thing we
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: can do is win.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: That said.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: It is, I think, absurd for reporters who are not
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: supposed to care who wins or who loses to say, oh,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: if if the American people don't understand the threat to democracy,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: which when we're talking at a bar, when I'm not
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: writing this in the newspaper, I share completely in your
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: concern about if that fails to resonate. And that means
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: that there are a bunch of electioneers who win and
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: then we have a bunch of elections thrown into chaos.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: too bad the Democrats didn't have a better strategy. It's
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: not my job to do their job for them. It's
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: everybody's job. It's everybody's job. And like everybody kind of
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: wrings their hands of this.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: But it all comes down, but it does come down
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to convincing voters of this. And if the voters are
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: not paying attention to the media, which most of them
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: are not paying attention to political news, then who's job,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: because they get a lot of people who are like, oh,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: people are just pissed about high gas prices at a
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: moment when democracy is under threat. And it's like, yeah,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I wish that wasn't the fucking case either, but they are.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And the only way that you have a democracy is
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to actually convince people who are pissed about high gas
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: prices to vote for your person. That's how you save democracy.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And to convince them, I mean, look like. Democracy and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: also it's like democracy is about like people like self-governance.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: These people are feeling like they're not being governed well.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: So listen to them.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: We have grown pretty complacent. I mean, this is actually
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: when we were talking to Obama last week. You watched
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: his speech in Stockholm, and one of the points he
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: made is that Western democracies have grown pretty complacent. And
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: one of the ways we've grown complacent is we take
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: for granted that, oh, obviously democracy is the best way
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: to solve problems. But when you have polls after poll
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: that show people they don't believe in the system, they
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: don't believe things will get better, they don't believe Democrats help,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: they don't believe Republicans help. If you're listening to this,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: you know how much we know There are structural disadvantages.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: We know how the filibuster has stood in our way
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: and gerrymandering and the electoral college and the courts and
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: all of that. All of that is true, of course.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: And yet we are still inside of that system trying
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: to convince people that it works. And when they care
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: about these other issues and they don't see a democracy delivering,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: of course they're not.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Believing this is the big threat we face. This is
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: why it's just an asymmetric fight because Democrats fundamentally believe
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: that government should exist and help people and Republicans want
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: to drown it in a bathtub. And that's why Republicans
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: can prevent any immigration reform from happening. And then Ron
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: DeSantis can do this stunt and fly people to Martha's
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Vineyard and it's a news cycle for a week and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: it hurts us because of a problem his party is perpetuating.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's why And everyone's like, oh, Republicans are
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: so smart. Why are they so smart and we're not?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Why do they play dirty and we're not? It's like, no, no, no,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: they just have an easier job. They're just trying to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: tell you that government doesn't work.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: And people don't have faith in institutions.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: And it's not just a political problem. I mean, people
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: like conspiracy theories. They like feeling like there is some
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: grand plan that only they understand and know about. I
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: kind of feel like you're pushing on an open door
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: by telling people that, oh, yeah, of course, elections are
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: rigged and stolen. Like, people kind of want to believe
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: that stuff.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories at
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a time when they don't have faith in institutions, right? Like,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: those things go together as well.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: And when they're drowning in a bunch of fucking noise
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: on their social media feeds and then the local news
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: has been co-opted by Sinclair and, oh, there's Fox News and, oh,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: you know, liberal billionaires want centrism and we're conservative billionaires
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: want to burn the fucking country to the ground. Like
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: they're a headwinds people.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And look, this is, this is not to be all
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: like nihilistic about shit. It's just to say that like
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: when there's a whole country of people out there who
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily agree with you, do not assume it's because
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: they've been like brainwashed by right wing media and Donald
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Trump or assume that it's just because they don't give
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a shit about your issues. Like, people are complicated, their
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: lives are complicated, they're not consuming the same media you are.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the bigger mistake the pundit class sometimes
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: makes is to like scold people based on their own
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: hierarchy of needs. It's like, I don't know, maybe if
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: you couldn't, literally couldn't afford to put gas in your car,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you would care about that more than democracy. I get
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: that one is bigger and existential and a longer term
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: risk to all of us. But, you know, sometimes when
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with something right now, that's what you care about. Yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It's like, wish everyone thought the way we did. Of course. Yeah.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Given they don't. So what do we do now? It's not.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: And it also, you know, it's like, uh, we also
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: pay in part because it's like the, the conservative elite
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: is driving, is like funding and driving this massive propaganda apparatus.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: And the vast majority of, uh, of news anchors of
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: like of talk show hosts of all of them, like
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: They are they are not connect. They're in a couple
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: of cities and they are not connected to the material
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: needs of the vast majority of people. And it's why,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: like you turn on like what's supposed to be the
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: like the liberal version of fucking Sean Hannity, someone like
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Bill Maher. It's like happy episodes about Democrats being terrible
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: and the other half's about cancel culture. It's like there's
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: very few places to go where this where like the
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: actual substance of what like the the the actual substance.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: lived experience people are having with the state of the
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: economy meets a actual rational conversation about what would help
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: and what wouldn't. It just simply doesn't exist in our
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: political media system at all.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Carrie Lake is a local anchor for 20 years.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That seems like a flaw in the whole thing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Shooting her videos through two inches of fascist gauze.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: That was my nice thing that I said about her.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: What was it? Good camera angles?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: In the last episode of PSA when Hallie had us
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: play that game, Where Dan and I each had to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: say something nice about the candidate. My thing with Carrie
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Lake was her sepia toned.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: That's fantastic.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does work.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Anyway, this is all why all of this is to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: say that these elections are close. All these races are
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: very close. They're all fucking margin of error races. And
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the conversations you have between now and election day really
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: will matter.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: I will say. sitting in a studio and talking about
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the state of democracy can feel dark. Yesterday, getting out
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to Irvine, being with hundreds and hundreds of young voters
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: who were fired up, talking with AOC, like getting on
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: the trail, that feels really good. So I highly recommend
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: people do that.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And then seeing all the assholes screaming, fuck Joe Biden,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: that felt less good.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I found them kind of funny. It made me
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: have a sort of a pro wrestling vibe. vibe to
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: the whole thing you.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Do realize they could have a heel they do bore
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: themselves out pretty quickly you know they're sort of it's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: like they start they start and then like halfway through
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the second speaker they're just like we're just gonna chant
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the same thing now it's not much.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Else although there was one there was one um there
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: was one woman who was walking around with a flag
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: that said like american christian something and with like and
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: just shouting bloody murder. And then all of a sudden
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: she like disappeared for 30 seconds. She came back and
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: she had a different flag, which was all lives matter.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: And it's like, so you were switch flags, mid rally,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: switch flags.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Mid rally.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Everyone knows that.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Anyway, if you got a ballot sitting at home, uh, vote,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: save America has you covered. Our ballot tool has been
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: updated with all the information you need about what's on
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: your ballot, when and where you can vote. And you
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: can get reminders to do it. It's all in one
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: convenient location. Now just head to vote, save America.com slash
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: be a voter. B-A-Voter. That's the... B-A-Voter.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Wait, was that the website?
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Just go to votesavementor.com and hit enter after.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Enough of these bespoke URLs. You're fine. You'll figure it out.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Sign up.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: When we come back, our interview with AOC.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: We are so excited to welcome on to the pod,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. It's great to meet you. Great to see
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: you in person.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Thank you. It's great to be here.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: We're sitting here at UC Irvine because we're all Katie
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Porter fans. We're about to go to a rally hosted
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: by the Orange County Young Democrats. I just want to
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: talk about the midterms because our listeners are freaking out, maybe.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: They probably refresh 538 too often, too many Nate's in
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: their lives, they're not loving what they're seeing the last
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks. How are you feeling about the elections?
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And like, what's your pitch to our audience, to everyone
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: about why we need to turn out in midterms and
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: volunteer and kind of how you're feeling about things? Yeah.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think polling data, it's, it's a data point,
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: but it's really not the end all be all. And
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: if anything, it should act as just a motivator.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: The, The stakes of this midterm are so incredibly high.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: If Republicans take the House, they have stated in no
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: unclear terms that they intend to support a national criminal
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: abortion ban, that they want to hold the United States
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: economy hostage in order to gut Social Security and Medicare.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: And I mean... like the list goes on, climate change,
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: criminalization of everything, all this stuff, not to mention just
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: trying to put a halt to any of the progress
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: that President Biden has been trying to make and the
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: progress that he has been making. But if anything, I
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: think that the discontent is that we need to be
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: doing so much more, not so much less. But the
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: stakes are really high right now. It's very serious. I
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: was on a flight on the way out here. And
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: the flight attendant just kind of came up to me
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: and she just started getting tears in her eyes. And
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: she just said, I'm just so scared. I'm just so scared.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: Are we going to be okay? And what I had
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: to really tell her was, listen, I'm not going to
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: tell you not to worry. I think we need to
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: work really, really hard because we are still very much
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: at this very critical precipice of fascism in this country.
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: And that's very, very real.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I noticed you, you led off with the
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: concern about abortion access in this country and then, you know,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: the gutting of social security and Medicare. So, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I noticed Bernie Sanders has been talking about sort of
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: warning that, Hey, Democrats, we need to make sure we
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: get the right balance and talking about both of those issues,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: not just talking about abortion access. I'm wondering like, Do
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you think there is an imbalance currently in the messaging?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And if you do think there is one, what's the
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: right balance in talking about obviously critical issues?
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that we can speak more forcefully to
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: the intersection of class and identity issues. A lot of
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: times there's this accusation that's made that issues, if you're
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: talking about gender rights, if you're talking about race issues,
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: and racial inequities, that this is somehow separate or distinct
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: from focusing on what quote unquote really matters, issues like
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: class and inflation. And I think it's really important that
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: we send a message that is that, I mean, really,
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: it's not a buzzword, a message that is very distinctly intersectional.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: Abortion is a class issue. If you are working hourly
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: and you get pregnant and you are not prepared to
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: have this child you are really concerned about generational poverty
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: and you are really concerned about putting food on the table,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: not just for yourself or any children you may already have.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: And the other way around too, I think that we
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: can beef up and be more aggressive in talking about
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: root causes of inflation being corporate greed. This is not,
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: you know, inflation is kind of spoken about as this
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: really vague kind of floaty concept of, but that we're
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: all feeling, right? Prices of things are going up, but
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: we don't really talk about why. And we need to
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: have a real confrontation about the consolidation of market power
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: and the fact that increasingly the most basic goods that
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: we have, housing, food, et cetera, are concentrating into oligopolies
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: and that it is these huge corporations that are price
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: gouging just because they can, just because they want to.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: And it's not just, oh, prices are going up because
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: of supply chain issues. It's really a lot more distinct
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: than that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: You mentioned sort of the dangers of fascism and authoritarianism.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I think we all feel that. I know you feel
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: that acutely. You were in the Capitol on January 6th. Obviously,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: we had these hearings that we all paid super close
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: attention to. You ask most voters what they care about,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and inflation tops the list. Abortion access tops the list.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, in the New York Times poll,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: it was like 7% of people said threats of democracy
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: in the way that we think about it. Election denial,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. There was also like 40%
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: of people would be willing to vote for an election denier.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: How do you balance the need to make sure people
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: understand the threat that we're facing with also speaking to
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: people's immediate concerns, which tend to be about issues that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: immediately impact their lives in a way that they can see.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think we have two things here. We
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: have longterm arguments and longterm issues and how we deal
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: with issues longterm and a lot of these short term
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: arguments and issues. When I think about threats to democracy,
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: when we message that, that in and of itself can
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: seem like a vague message. We have to communicate in
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: our senses. Good storytellers communicate in their five senses. What
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: does it look like? What does it sound like? What
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: does it smell like, taste like, if that applies? And
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: so when we say threats to democracy, that doesn't give
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: a visceral sensory understanding of what that means. But if
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: you are, you know, if you don't feel safe to vote,
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: that I think is much more salient. And a lot
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: of people increasingly don't feel safe even voting in person
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: or acting as a poll worker or having a trans kid,
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: which is also part of our threats to democracy, whether
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: people's basic civil rights are protected. Do you feel safe
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: existing in public in society? whether you're black or a
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: woman walking down the street or whether you're trans or
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: whatever that may be, whether you're homeless. And so I
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: think when it comes to communicating that, that visceral case
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: outside of the hearings of January 6th, how that's put
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: into context and the threat that it is today, I
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: think we could do a better job of that. But
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: A lot of elections, a lot of times are driven
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: by very short term issues, thinking and priorities. And when
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: you see this jockeying over narratives, it's about what we
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: make urgent and how we respond to the urgent issues
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: in our society right now. I think a great example
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: of this in New York is public safety. I think
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: that if you actually look at, if you do look
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: at some of the public opinion polling, while public safety
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: is a high concern in a lot of areas, People's
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: conception of what makes us safe has also changed dramatically.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: And it has changed dramatically in the direction of activists
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: and advocates that really, you know, whose decades of work
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: just splashed out to the rest of the American electorate
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: in 2020. But we're seeing huge shifts in public opinion
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: on the fact that housing, access to mental health care, etc.,
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: keeps us safe. And not only that, it's not only
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: an opinion. We're starting to see the real public data
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: come out saying that too. In the Bronx, we, one
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: of the arguments that I've made is because I, there
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: is an election denier in, in New York. I mean,
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: they exist in New York city. Lee Zeldin is running
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: for governor. These are people who foundationally, you know, don't
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: believe in the peaceful transition of power, you know, I mean,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: that's really what this is about. And so he's running
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: on public safety, but one of the things that we've
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: done is that we secured a community project fund and
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: we started a pilot project in Jacoby Hospital to treat
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: people who are committing violence and who have been victims
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: of violence. And we've reduced reoccurrence of crime by more
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: than 50%. It's been more effective than any policing intervention.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: And so using that storytelling is really important because it's
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: not just about what issues are salient, but it's about
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: what we're saying about those issues.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: You, um, built a very successful multiracial coalition, a working
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: class coalition in the Bronx in your district a couple
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of times now, obviously the party has been having trouble with, uh,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: non-college voters for some time. Originally it was white voters.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Now it's starting to be Latino voters and even some
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: black voters as well. Um, Is this simply a matter
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of making a sharper economic argument? Are there cultural issues
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: at play? How can Democrats sort of win back working
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: class voters without a college degree?
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: I think there's a couple of things. One, I don't
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: think we are aggressive on corporate power enough. I think
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: our party is shy. We're too scared. We're part of
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: the same... Our entire political system is designed to be very,
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: very acquiescent to money. And the difference is that Republicans,
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: that is part of Republican ideology, is to support corporate America.
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: I think the Democratic Party, we really struggle because we're
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: supposed to be the party of the working class. But
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: in reality, there's a lot in our big tent. It's
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: highly segmented. And I think that there is a lot
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: of objections from that within our party, which prevents us
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: from being as forceful on these issues as we can be.
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: And we can see this play out over and over
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: across a lot of different issues. You look at insulin, right?
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: We're able to cap it at 35 if you're insured.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: What are we doing about the price of insulin for
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: people who don't have insurance? And that's where it It
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: really requires that at one juncture or another, there has
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: to be a reining in of what's happening here. And
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: I think that the sensing of that conflict is part
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: of the complications that we're seeing in some of this
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: working class support. I also think there's a conversation to
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: be had about men and male identity. Because when we
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: look into this, this.
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's not like, oh, we're shedding Latino voters
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: or we're shedding men. Yeah, young men too.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Men.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: And it is important that we don't paint this with
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: a broad brush because when we look into this, that
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: is what's going to help us inform a strategy. And
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: I can at least say with Latino voters, we've never
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: tried as a party. The Democratic Party has not tried
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: in terms of Latino electorates. And I mean, where's our
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: DREAM Act? Where is our immigration reform? And even recently
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: with President Biden's marijuana executive order, I very much applaud
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: that he went there, but he exempted people who were
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: convicted if they were convicted while they were undocumented. And
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: that is 90%. We're looking at the overwhelming majority of
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: people who have been convicted that would benefit from that
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: pardon have status, like they have status complications. And so
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: we really need to step up both in our efforts
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: on campaign, but also our efforts in governance. And I
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: see these conversations and it's tough because on the other side,
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: they have no qualms. They have no qualms about having
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: an anti-immigrant message. But I think we get scared of that,
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: and that segmentation prevents a clear message. And that lack
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: of clarity makes it hard to win people over.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think another brand challenge we have as
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: a party is I listen to you talk, and you're like,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: a few years ago when I was tending bar and
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: trying to make the rent, you've lived the experience that
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of voters have. And then you look at
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the Democratic leadership, and they may have lived that experience
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: 50 years ago, but they don't look like a lot
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: of the voters that we're trying to reach today, right,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: at this youth rally. How do you convince people you
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: talk to on the trail that Democratic Party gets their challenges,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: will fight for them when they don't necessarily see themselves
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: reflected in the people on TV all the time? Yeah.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm honest with people.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: I'm not here to sell people on this idea that
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: the leadership of the Democratic Party, which is overwhelmingly from
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: one generation, almost uniformly from one generation, and overwhelmingly from
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: a lopsided class perspective, is the same as me or
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: you or anything else like that. The Republican Party.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: Worse, but still, I think this is why I've put
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: a lot of effort into down-ballot candidates across the country.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: I started an organization called Courage to Change, and a
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: lot of it was motivated by our housing crisis because
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: it's one of the biggest issues that we have right now,
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: but also we can't just solve it federally. We need
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: city councils. We need municipalities. And so by having exciting
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: real deal candidates, especially on a local level, and we've
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: done this and it's been very successful in New York City,
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: Tiffany Caban, Zohran Mamdani, Jabari Brisport, Julia Salazar. People are like,
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: holy shit, there's like cool people in In my area
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: that like are actually saying things that I never thought
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: I'd hear a Democrat say.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Jamal Bowman. Yeah, there's like all these young, exciting people. Yeah.
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, I think party leadership is a
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: distinct conversation. But I think what actually matters more is,
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: are you excited to vote for anybody on your ballot?
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: Who's going to turn it out on your ballot? And
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: the more local you get, I actually think the more
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: flexible and exciting your candidates can be. Because the broader
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: your base is, those people need to appeal to, like, everybody.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: And it kind of can water things down a little. Yeah.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about some important things. Have you listened to
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Midnight's yet?
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: I have not listened to Midnight's yet.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: I need to.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: What am I doing? Just to be clear, we're recording this.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: It's Sunday.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: It's been out for 72 hours.
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: It took me, like, two weeks to listen to Renaissance, too.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: You've flown on a plane since.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: You've had a whole plane ride since.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Were we reading a briefing book? I had to listen
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: to the whole.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: Thing through, too. I'm not going to do the one song,
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: wait for a song on a.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Radio, either.
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd hope not. Eric Adams recently did a press
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: conference where he declared war on the rats. Do you
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: support that war? And more importantly, do you support hilarious
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: press conferences where they talk about the rats as the enemy?
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: And is it something that could unite New York City
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: and maybe the country?
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: Listen, I will say.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: I'm a huge Department of Sanitation stan. And so.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Sanitation.
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: Department of Sanitation. I am the secretary. And so I
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: am 100% biggest fan of New York City DOS, Department
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: of Sanitation. So, yeah, I think it's great. I think
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: it's wonderful.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Do you have a Halloween costume picked out?
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: I was shopping for them on the flight over.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: What were you thinking about?
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: I was thinking like, you know, if I could do
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: like tune squad with my dog, that would be fun.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: But I'm still taking suggestions.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: And while you're out here, will you be going to In-N-Out?
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: And is there anything you can do at a federal
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: level to take on the quality of the fries?
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: Thank you for saying this.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: People need to talk about it.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: Thank you for saying this because every time I come
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: out here, Everyone's like, oh, my God, In-N-Out, In-N-Out. And
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: I'm like, my controversial nonpolitical opinion is that it's overrated.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: But it's because, like, I'm a big fry person.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: What are they doing with these things?
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: What is this dry fry thing going on here?
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: There's other fries nearby they can sample and learn. I agree.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: And then the people say, order them well done.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: I got to do a special order.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Make them right.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you.
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, you said it all, so.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: That's all I had to say. Thank you, AOC, for
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: being here.
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: No, thank you. Thank you all. I really appreciate it.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks to AOC for joining us today. Thanks to everyone
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: in Irvine who talked to us. And we'll talk to
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you soon.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you live in Orange County, you better help
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Katie Porter turn on the polls. Help Katie Porter. Please
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: get to the polls.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: That whiteboard is for you.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: We need her. I don't know what that means.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.