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Transcript

“Melania’s Last Christmas” (Holiday mailbag!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Welcome to our annual holiday mailbag episode. Thank you to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: everyone who sent in questions. We will try to answer
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the ones we know, make up the rest. Let's dive in,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: shall we, Dan?
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Sure. I love a mailbag episode. It's my favorite part
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: of the year.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Me too. Me too.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: All right. Do you want to know why, though? Here's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the key.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We are offloading the work of doing the outline onto
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the listeners.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, we recorded this last week, which
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: meant that I've recorded four pods this week.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: That's been a lot of podcasting going on right now.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: We got a series of questions from Colin Tobias, Marie Stevenson,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and someone on Twitter named Patches. They were all about
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: which Trump appointments and executive orders can and can't be
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: reversed by Biden. They specifically mentioned all of Trump's last
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: minute appointments to the Department of Defense and the Defense
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Policy Board, Federal Elections Committee. Someone's very incensed about Kellyanne
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Conway's appointment to the United States Air Force Academy Board
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of Visitors. which is something that happened. What do you think, Dan?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I'm against Kellyanne Conway being on the board of the
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Air Force Academy. Was that the question?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, it's a three-year appointment by law. I looked this up.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So I'll tell you, I looked up also what the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: United States Air Force Academy Board of Visitors does. And
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: it seems like they just talk a lot about what
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: happens at the Air Force Academy a couple times a year.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately... what should happen is that Kellyanne Conway
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and the rest of these people will be drummed out
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: of polite society for engaging in some of the worst governance,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: biggest lies, incredible corruption, enabling of crimes, all of the above.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: But there is like, put Kellyanne Conway aside for a second,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: but there's been this big concern.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Happily.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. Done.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: The people of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Thank you
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: so much in Wisconsin. Sorry. Um, You see a lot
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: of concern around these people being put on the defense
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: policy board. Does that mean they get to command troops
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: so they can have access to drones?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. He's installing Corey Lewandowski so that Corey can
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: pull off a military coup in the last couple of weeks. Yeah,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that's what's going to happen.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: The way to think about these is they have no
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: actual operational influence. Basically, what Trump did was he gave
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie the opportunity to make more
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: money selling access in the swamp, because now they get
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: to add this to the website of their completely sketchy
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: lobbying firms.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so all of the, so there was, there
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: was two sets of defense department of defense moves. There
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: was the defense policy board, which is just like a
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: board of advisors that advises the defense department doesn't have
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: any real power. And Trump fired all the people who
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: are on that board. They were like Democrats and Republicans,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: former secretaries of state, like just fired them all, put
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: all of his cronies on and, Biden can instantly fire
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: all those people too when he gets in. He can
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: also change all of the appointments to the Department of
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Defense that Trump made at the very end immediately. Basically,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: any political appointee from Trump, Biden can remove as soon
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: as he gets into office. The only exceptions are, you know,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: there's a practice known as borrowing. I think we talked
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: about this on the pod before, where you convert someone
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: who's a political appointee to a civil servant, so then
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: it's harder to fire them. That happens from time to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: time between every administration. Or like when an administration's leaving,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: they try to do that sometimes. Trump has been trying
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to do it a bit. So there's a few appointments
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: there that might be hard. Appointments to the Federal Reserve,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Post Office Board of Governors are all appointments for a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: set number of years or a term. I mentioned the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: post office because someone asked if Biden could fire DeJoy.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Remember that villain from the election, Louis DeJoy? He can't
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: because the post office board of governors chooses the postmaster general.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And that board is filled for a little while with
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a Republican majority that Biden can't really change. So those
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: ones that are often like Senate confirmed positions that have
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a term just like judges, which have a lifetime term.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Those are things that Biden can't change, but all of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the political appointments and sort of board appointments he can
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: get rid of pretty fast. Cody Hudson asks, how quickly
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: can Governor Newsom replace Senator Harris? Is it possible to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: appoint and install someone on January 20th? Not only is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it possible, he has to. He's got to pick an
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: appointment or replacement by January 20th. So it will be soon.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And he will pick someone and then that person could
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: be sworn in five minutes later. He could be dispatch
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: someone to DC, announce that they could walk into the Senate,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: and Mike Pence would be forced to swear that person
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: in up until January 20th, and then it would be
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Is it true that you're on the shortlist to replace
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It is not. It is not.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: It is not. Okay, we're confirming that here. Good. I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: No one has informed me of that, but I would
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: not expect it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: You would not expect it. Okay, well. Josh asks, if
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Georgia elects two Democrats and the Senate is split 50-50,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: will Schumer become majority leader and determine which legislation gets
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a vote? Yes. Yes, he will. That's the whole point
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I've gotten a lot of questions about this, about what
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: the 50-50 means and how that gets picked. And so
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: everyone knows the tie-breaking vote is the vice president. The
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: vice president come next month will be Kamala Harris. And
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: so the Democrats will be in charge. They get to
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: do 50-50 with the vice presidency is operationally the same
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: as 70-30. You are the majority leader. You pick what
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: goes to the floor.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: That's how fucked up the Senate is.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: But if we do our job in Georgia, it's going
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: to work to our advantage. And so everything that McConnell's
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: been able to do to block Democrats and bring things
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: on the floor or jam judges through all those things,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Democrats will have that power if we win Georgia, if
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: it's at 50-50.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: It's such a big deal. It's as much as everyone's
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: talking about Georgia. I think it's still an undercovered race
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: because like the next four years in a scenario where
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Democrats win Georgia versus one where they don't is like
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to say night and day is an understatement.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: The fate of the planet, the economy, the judiciary, health care, everything.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a big deal. Speaking of which,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Bethany Mager asks, will we know the outcome of the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Georgia races on January 5th or wait longer for all
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: votes to be counted like the general? What do you think?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I think it's unlikely we'll know that night because I'm
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: presuming these are close, which I think is a very
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: safe assumption given how close they were and how close
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Georgia was even at the presidential level in November. There
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: will be fewer number, even if turnout seems like it's
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: going to be quite high for a runoff, it's going
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, I assume significantly less than the presidential.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And so it'll, it will not take us long to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: count votes, but it will still take time.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it could. When would, when did we know that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Biden was ahead in Georgia? It was like the next
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: day or the day after?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: No, it was the same day that he, the same
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: day about of Pennsylvania. So I think it was Friday. Wow.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. So it could be, it could be a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: little while and turnout already seems, we don't know. I mean,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: The first two days of voting in Georgia, we're recording
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: this on Wednesday, the week before, have already been bigger
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: than the first two days of early in-person voting in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the general. That said, something like 98% of the voters
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: voted in the general, so it's not like a bunch
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of new voters yet. But I think it's going to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: be a pretty, pretty big turnout.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there's a half a billion dollars of
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: ads on the air there, so I don't think anyone's missing.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: No one's going to be caught off guard that there's
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a Senate election happening.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Adam Kellman asks, what are the Dems' chances in the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Senate in 2022? Both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania seem like a
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: good shot to win. CC John Fetterman. I guess Adam
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: wants the Lieutenant Governor to run for Senate in Pennsylvania.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: That's not a bad idea. I support that.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Did you just endorse him?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Dan, I think primaries are healthy, so everyone get
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: into the primary. That's my position. What do you think? Well....
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: This is an interesting question that is, I think, a
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: little bit bigger than just the Senate. But we have
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania is an open seat. Wisconsin could
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: be an open seat because Ron Johnson has not yet
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: said whether he's running. I think we would be better
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: off running against Ron Johnson than some other generic Republican
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: because Ron Johnson is currently, as we were doing this,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: having a complete insane conspiracy-fueled meltdown during his Senate hearings
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: on election integrity.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Although- Conspiracy-fueled meltdowns are what excites the Republican base these days.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. That's true.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That is what gets them going. It used to be–
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in the old days, it was tax cuts and cutting regulations.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I will say, because it is relevant here, is
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: that the primary conspiracy-fueled meltdowner underperformed generic Republicans across the country.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: So maybe a generic Republican might do better. But so
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: you have Pennsylvania, Wisconsin– North Carolina open seat because Burr
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: is retiring. And then you have Florida where Marco Rubio,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: perhaps in a primary challenge with Roger Stone and a Trump.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: But if that happens, we may have to just go
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: down to Florida for the last couple of months and
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: just none of the general of the Republican primary and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: just watch it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Just hang out and hang out in Florida. I mean.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So that is two states the Democrats won, narrowly, but won,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and have won at the presidential level in almost every
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: election other than 2016 in recent memory. Florida, which just
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: breaks our hearts all the time, and North Carolina, which
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: has been very, very close every year since 2008. And
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Democrats reelected their governor by a pretty big margin. So
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: a Democrat can win there. The downside argument is– presidents
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: normally struggle in their first midterm. As it was described
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: to me by someone the other day is the other
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: side thinks the president is on the ballot and the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: president's side doesn't. Like in 18, we thought Trump was
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: on the ballot. The Trump voters did not really think
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Trump was on the ballot enough to turn out. But
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I do think there is a different one, potential different
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: circumstance here is I don't think we have full– you
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: sort of think like historically it's going to be a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: tough economy. Biden is going to be in– even if
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: we get to the Senate, going to be in trench
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: warfare with Republicans. His approval ratings, which are higher than
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Trump's but not sky high, like it's not like he's
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: got a lot of room to give here, are going
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to struggle. But I don't think we are thinking fully
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: about how much euphoria there could be in this country
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: when things return to normal and the economy approves. Just
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: imagine a 2022 where we're going to baseball games and
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: you're going to movies and you're traveling and your restaurants
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: are opening again. And that could have some effects on
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the political environment.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And just as if you're president and there's a recession,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you get blamed for that. If you're president and things
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: are going better and things start improving, you get credit
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: for that, whether you had something to do with it
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: or not. I mean, I think All those states that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you mentioned where we have pickup opportunities, it's like we're
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: right back to the 2020 election. They're just incredibly close states.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: The interesting thing about Wisconsin is, so in 2016, we
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: had an incredibly close presidential race. Hillary Clinton narrowly, narrowly
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: losing that state. In 2018, Tony Evers wins Wisconsin. the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: governorship against Scott Walker. Again, extremely narrow victory, 2020, extremely
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: narrow Biden victory in Wisconsin. So it's just a very,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: very tight state. And then in 2018, you have Tammy Baldwin,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a very progressive senator in Wisconsin, win by 11 points.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It just sort of like sticks out. So like there's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: clearly a path for a candidate in Wisconsin. And I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: imagine this is true about Pennsylvania as well for a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: candidate that like, regardless of political ideology, just really knows
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the state and is a good fit for that state.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And I do think that nominating candidates in those races
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that are like just really good fits for their state
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: is incredibly important. Now, what does a good fit mean?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: That's sort of for the people in those states and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the voters in those states to figure out because they
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: know the states best. But it's interesting to me that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: even in close states, you have some senators that like,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: no matter what their political ideology is, are just like,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: just end up outperforming sort of other Democratic candidates in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that state consistently.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Jessica Oppenier asks, hello from insanely gerrymandered Wisconsin. Just talking
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: about that state. What's the timeline for redistricting following the census?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Is it different for each state? Will this help or
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: hurt us in picking up future seats and holding the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ones we've got?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, the timing is different for every state. The gating
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: issue here is you need the census count to be finished,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: and then they reallocate congressional districts in the electoral college
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: based on population shifts. Some states will gain seats. Some
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: states will lose seats. Most states will stay the same.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Every state has a different process, and it is tied to,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: in some cases, there's an independent commission, like California's independent commission,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: where it meets and makes decisions. Bipartisan is the right
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: way to do things. The states that don't do that,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: it is tied to their legislative session. They need to
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: get the maps done in time for people to run
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: on them. In 2022, it is more complicated in states
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: that lose seats because there's a game of musical chairs
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: and one member of the congressional delegation is going to
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: be standing when the music stops. And in states where
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: you have a party split in government, where Democrats control
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: either the governorship and not the legislature or one house
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of the legislature. And you're forced to have some pretty
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: tough and brutal negotiations over what the map looks like,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: because obviously everyone has an interest in how this looks
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: and there are winners and losers in both sides. And
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: so it is, this is an incredibly important thing that
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: we have to pay a ton of attention to next year.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And we can have some influence on it by it,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: particularly in the States where you have that split, where you,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: draw attention to it. You buck up and support the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Democrats who are fighting back against a Republican governor or
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: a Republican governor who's fighting back against a Republican legislature
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: where there's not a veto-approved majority. But this is going
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: to be the big, huge political issue of 2021 that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: will have consequences for a decade.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: What happens in those states where there is a split?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: What could public pressure affect in those states if there's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a Democratic governor in a Republican legislature, say?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I just think sunlight is helpful here where Republicans
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: want to do their voter suppression and their anti-democracy in
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the dark. And so if you just shine a light
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: on it and talk about it and argue about it
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: and you provide support to the Democrats who are going
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to be, in some cases, tremendous pressure to give in
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: to Republican demands. And like, look, the best way to
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: have influenced this would have been to flip all those
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: state legislatures. A month ago, we did not do that.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: So we're playing– with a less than ideal hand, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: we still have some agency here. And I think even
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: more broadly, a huge imperative for the democratic party is
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: to make the Republican anti-democracy agenda part of our message.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And here you're going to have real concrete.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: We'll have plenty of chances.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Yes. It'll be a target rich environment.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: M who asks what lessons for funding candidates to the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: DNC takeaway from this election. how much is enough funding
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: given that Sarah Gideon hasn't even been able to use
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: all she got. Should the model change? I believe Sarah
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Gideon ended her race with 13, $ 14 million in the bank,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: which is a lot of money.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: It was a 15. Oh, it was 15.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah. So what do we do about that? That's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of money. Now, usually candidate, we should say
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: that I think Susan Collins ended with almost 3 million
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: in the bank and candidates on average and their campaign with, um,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Senate candidates with $ 2 million in the bank, which is
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: still just a lot of money.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: I will say one caveat on that is that is
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: very much skewed by the number of non-competitive Senate races
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: there are where donors and PACs and others pour money
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: into safe seats for influential senators for access, which speaks
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: to another flaw in the system. And so someone who
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: has a non-competitive race often gets way more money than
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: they need and then has no reason to spend it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: And they carry that over to their next election. You
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: can be transferred to a presidential campaign. Kirsten Gillibrand had
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: $ 10 million, I think, left in her Senate account and
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: used it to fund her presidential campaign. Sarah Gideon could
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: theoretically run for president and use that money in that
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: campaign or in another federal campaign for Congress or Senate
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: or whatever. I think there are a couple important points
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: made by this. One is No one person or one
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: entity decided that Sarah Gideon should have all this money
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: or Jimmy Harrison should have all this money.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say like just– you see this in
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: just the way that this person framed the question too.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Like what lessons for funding candidates did the DNC take
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: away from this election? The DNC is just– it's really
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: not this sort of all-powerful organization running things behind the scenes,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: pulling strings. It's just not. I'm not going to be
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: critical of the DNC. It's just not. And so it's
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: not about... Look, I think party committees, they have some
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: responsibility here. They certainly make mistakes. There are a million
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: different ways to criticize both the DCCC and the DSCC,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: which is the Senate Campaign Committee. It's not the DNC
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that has to do with Senate races.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: But.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: This money situation is not a party committee issue as
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: much as it just a lot of money came in. Yeah.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: All this money is grassroots. And even when you look
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: at the DSCC, you can look at how the DSCC
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: spent money it raised and where it spent it and say,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: they should have spent more here. They should like Iowa,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: for instance, was never as close as we thought. That
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: was a mistake. And you're going to have that in
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: every cycle. But what happened here was there was a
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: huge wave of enthusiasm to run against Trump anyway. Sarah
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Gideon raised millions and millions of dollars before she even
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: was officially the nominee because people poured money into funds
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: two years ago when Susan Collins voted for Brett Kavanaugh
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: in a fund like our Unify or Die fund at
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Kirk Media that would go to the eventual nominee. And
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: then on top of that, You had, after the passing
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Republicans jamming through Amy
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Coney Barrett, more money poured in at the last minute,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: like an incredible amount of money. And it's all people
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: individually giving money to the candidates they care about and
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: not necessarily Sarah Gideon's campaign or Jimmy Harrison's campaign saying,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I need $ 70 million to run in this state. The
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: broader lesson, I think, for all of us, people encouraging donations,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: people making donations, the party writ large, is we need
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: to take some of that money that we give in
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: large amounts on aggregate in election years and start moving
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: it into non-election years. How can you invest in sustainable,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: progressive infrastructure? Like Ben Wickler in Wisconsin has been encouraging
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: people to become recurring donors now so that the party
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: will always have a source of funding, even in odd years,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: so they can do the organizing in 2021 that will
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: help them win that Ron Johnson seat in 2022. That
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: is how New Georgia Project and all those groups flipped
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Georgia over the long term was having a steady source
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of money and organizing in the off years. And so
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I think that is part of the lesson is we
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: as a party have to break the boom or bust
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: cycle where we give all of our money to campaigns
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: that disappear the day after election and think more about
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: how we do things in a sustainable way.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Look, I think some people could be listening and still
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: think like, well, then why did we all give all
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: those donations after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died to all those
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Senate candidates if they didn't really need them. And the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: answer is we didn't know that they didn't need them
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: because the one thing you don't, like money doesn't guarantee
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that you're going to win an election, but you really
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: don't want to get outspent. And what was happening towards
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the end of 2020 was there was a lot of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: really rich Republican donors and super PACs that were just
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: pouring money into these Senate races and and threatened to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: sort of bury some of these Democratic candidates under an
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: avalanche of last minute big money donations. And so we
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: were forced to sort of keep up, even if at
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, both the Democratic candidate and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidate in some of these races had more
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: money than they could spend. Right. I mean, that was
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the problem. It was not, it's not Sarah Gideon's fault
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that she spent like every dollar she could possibly spend
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and still had more money left over. It's not like
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: she was not reserving as much time as possible for
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: her television ads or spending money on get out the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: vote operations or whatever it may be. Like there's diminishing
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: marginal returns to money in campaigns at some point, which
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: is one reason why, by the way, as we've been
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: urging people to give in Georgia, we've been urging people
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: not just to give to Ossoff and Warnick, but to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of these organizations on the ground, grassroots organizations
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in Georgia that have been working on voter registration, getting
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: out the vote, fighting voter suppression. And they've been on
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the ground for a while because I think, like you said, Dan,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it's both about making sure this money is spread out
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: over multiple years and not just around an election and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: making sure the money is spread out to as many
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: sort of grassroots organizations on the ground that are doing
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: really good work as possible. So it's not just in
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the hands of the candidates and the committees themselves.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: And I think spending and fundraising on the Democratic side
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: is never going to be as logical as it is
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: on the Republican side because we are a grassroots funded
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: party for the most part.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Which is a good thing.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: It is definitely a good thing. And this is what
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: we're up against, is Democrat, when all that money poured
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: into the coffers of these Senate Democrats, Mitch McConnell's super
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: PAC went to Sheldon Adelson, and Sheldon Adelson's wife wrote
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: a $ 75 million check. When Republicans, I think, assumed or
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: hoped that enthusiasm on the Democratic side was going to
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: diminish after the election, and there wouldn't be all this
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: grassroots fundraising in Georgia, that continued. So Mitch McConnell's super
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: PAC in order to compete, went out and raised $ 40
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: million in the first month. I'm sorry, I take that back.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: They raised $ 77 million the first month in increments of
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: $ 15 million from hedge fund tycoons. That's what we're up against.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: And so it's never going to be as precise as
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: we would like it to be. I think it's incumbent
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: on people like us to talk to people about other ways,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: in addition to keep making sure our candidates can compete,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: other ways in which we can ensure their victory with
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: things like the Every Last Vote Fund and some of
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: that other stuff.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, on the flip side here,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Martha McSally did not outspend Mark Kelly and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Mark Kelly won in Arizona. We have a new senator
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: from Arizona, partly because he all of those grassroots donations.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Same thing with John Hickenlooper in Colorado. Gary Peters, by
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the way. Gary Peters in Michigan. Same thing, by the way,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: with Joe Biden winning Arizona and Georgia, two states that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: he was able to compete in because the Biden campaign
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: was incredibly well funded, probably more so than they thought
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the campaign. And some of the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: stuff we did in Vote Save America, too, like in Arizona,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: we worked with groups on the ground who were registering
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Native Americans who hadn't registered to vote before and making
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: sure they were turned out. And the donations that helped
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: some of those local organizations, you know, Joe Biden won
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: by 10,000 votes in Arizona. So it made a huge difference.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So like people should still vote. have faith that their
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: donations matter. We all, like you said, we all need
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to do a better job of being more strategic about
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: when we give and where we give. Nick Meyer says
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Democrats have to do better in exurban and rural areas
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: in order to win congressional majorities and state legislatures. What
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: are the right messages and who are the right messengers
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: for this task? How should the party approach our brand
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: problem in those areas? I was talking last night. My
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in-laws are here. And I was talking about the mailbag.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And my mother-in-law was like, tell me some of the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: questions you have. Because I was like trying to figure
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: out which ones to pick. And I told her that question.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: She's like, well, that's sort of everything. That is literally
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: because if you can answer that question, you've solved all
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of our problems. So I'd love to hear the answer.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Is this the point where we inform everyone that
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: what's to come is not the definitive answer to that question?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: We have not solved all the problems?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Well, she's also, you know, lives in Ohio.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So it's a place with many ex-servants in rural.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: What is her answer, Charlie's grandmother?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Her answer, you know, her answer, Marty's answer is just
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to keep turning, you know, Cincinnati and Columbus blue, I guess.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know. That's what we've been trying to do
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: in Ohio for a while, but it's tough. No, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, there are, clearly that was the, essential
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: problem in the 2020 election for Democrats is we crushed
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it in urban areas. We crushed it in suburbs that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: are close to urban areas, but in many parts of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the country, most of the parts of the country and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: not just rural areas, but like places like Ohio with
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of small towns and small cities, which Republicans
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: keep winning. What do we do?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I think there are three things that we need to
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: work on as a part of this. One is we
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: need a populist economic message that speaks specifically to the
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: needs of those communities. And that is not just, here
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: are our white papers. We just tell them, here's our
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: job training plan, here's how we're going to teach you
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: how to code, and all this other stuff that makes
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: sense substantively, but is not viscerally evocative. So it has
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to be a populist economic narrative with good guys and
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: bad guys, and we have to firmly position the Republicans
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: on the side of the bad guys. The voters in
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: these towns, and frankly across the country, disagree with the
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Republicans on the core elements of their economic agenda. They
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: do not want to cut Social Security and Medicare to
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: pay for tax cuts for the rich people who have
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: been fucking over their towns for decades. They do not
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: support– I mean, it's the old chestnut. Tax cuts for
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: companies that ship jobs overseas. But you know who does
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: support that? Republicans. And it has to be a story
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: with populism. As I said, good guys and bad guys
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: has to be compelling. And we've got to work on it, right?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: The second thing is we have to organize, per the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: previous point, we have to organize in these communities 24-7, 365.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: This was even harder than normal because of the diminished
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: door-to-door canvassing and candidate travel. In a normal world, Biden,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I think, would have gone out of his way to
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: visit some of those smaller towns to make a point
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: of being there. That was part of Obama's great success
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: in 2008, 2012, was he always left the major media
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: markets and did things in not just the suburbs but
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the exurbs to prove a point and to be there.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And then the third thing is we have to recognize
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that national Democrats are not trusted messengers in these communities.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: We have to find people from the community, and I
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: mean that both geographically and culturally, who can speak to
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the concerns, who can vouch for Democratic politicians, Democratic policies,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: and our party. And that is a lot of work,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: and it's going to take a lot of fine-tuning and
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: a lot of investment. But we absolutely have to do
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: that because we will not ever be in charge of
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the Senate by more than zero votes, as far as
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I can see, if we do not solve that problem.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: One more thing on this. I think when some people
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: hear We need to reach out to Democrats, need to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: reach out to rural America with an economically populist message,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: they think, like white MAGA voters or white Trump voters
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: in rural America. And if you look at the results
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: of 2020, one thing that we've noticed is in rural
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: areas where there are heavy black populations, Latino populations, Native
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: American populations in some cases, There was a swing towards
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the Republicans. And we have to start
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: asking ourselves, what does it say if Latinos and black
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Americans in rural areas are starting to vote? more like
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: white Americans in rural Americans than they are black Americans
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and Latino Americans in cities and suburbs and white Americans
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: in cities and suburbs? And what does it say that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the geographic divide and the education divide is becoming perhaps
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: more salient politically than the racial divide. And when we
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: talk about an economic populist message, it's not an economically
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: populist message just for white Americans. It's an economically populist
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: message for black Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Americans, and
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Asian Americans as well. And that if we're the party
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that wants to build a true multiracial coalition and in
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a multiracial democracy that works, then we need a message
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that sort of unites people across races and geography around
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: an economic message where the villain in that message is rich,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: wealthy elites that the Republicans are fighting for.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: So two things on this, right? Because I just want
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to be clear about it. One, we are not arguing
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: for moving the democratic agenda to the right. I think
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: that would be a mistake. Second, Also not arguing for
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: ignoring race as the context for all of this. I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: think that is a gigantic mistake. You and I have
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: talked about the work of the race class narrative before.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I think you have to take that issue head on.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: And you're going to lose some voters for whom the
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: idea of a demographically changing country is the issue for them.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: We didn't get them this time. We're not going to
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: get them next time. We're never going to get them.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: But we have to explain why Republican politicians want to
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: divide Americans by race. We want to talk about why
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: corporations give their money to Republicans to divide Americans by race.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: And so I think we have to take that on.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But like you said, this is not easy. It's very hard,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: but it is absolutely essential. Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: There's a great piece in the Politico ran a couple
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago by Michael Kruse. about Robeson County, North Carolina,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: which is one of the more diverse counties in the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: country that Trump won, partly because of a heavy Native
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: American population there that voted for Trump in 2016, voted
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: for him by even more in 2020. And there's also
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a significant black population in that county as well. And
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the whole story kind of goes through how it is
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that Trump was able to increase his margin in that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: county between 16 and 20. And part of the answer is,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: showing up and organizing. I mean, the Trump campaign showed
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: up there early and kept going back and they got
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the president there too. And, you know, showing up matters.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Showing up really matters. This is, you hear Stacey Abrams
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: talk about this in Georgia. Beto talked about this in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: his 2018 race in Texas. Like Democrats need to, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: message is important, but just the first step is just
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: showing up in a lot of these rural and ex-urban areas,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: which again was hard during a pandemic. will not be
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the same in the future, hopefully. Two other questions along
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: these lines came from Elizabeth Hernandez and Ali Elliott. And
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: they basically were asking why Republicans are so much better
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: at communications and messaging and storytelling than Democrats and what
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: we can do about it.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: The question that has been asked in Every donor meeting
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I did in my entire career in politics.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: But mostly San Francisco, Hollywood, Manhattan. You get into those
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: fundraisers with those people, the first question is, why are
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they so much better at it than us?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, we should have just asked this question first
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and then talked about it for two straight hours because
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: we could.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Because I know we could do it. We could do
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: a whole show on this.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: So let's stipulate. the Democrats could be better at all
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: of these things. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely true. We could have
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: a tighter message. We could have better talking points. We
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: could have more people on more shows saying more smart
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: things and all of that would be good. It is
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: also really, really hard to do this well when you
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: don't have the white house, right? That like, that is
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: a creates the organizing principle for the party. You have
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a person with a very large megaphone who can set
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the stage. It is why, uh, when there were battles
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: between congressional Republicans and Obama over ACA, the debt ceiling,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Obama generally won those because he had a bigger megaphone
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: and the party could follow his lead. Having said that,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the problem is much more complicated than better talking points
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: or better surrogates or whatever. I mean, one is Republicans
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: are a ideologically, demographically, and increasingly geographically homogenous party. Yes. Democrats...
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: are incredibly diverse. It is our strength, but it is
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: also our Achilles heel when it comes to branding and messaging.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: We need something that encompasses everyone from AOC to Joe
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Manchin and everyone in the middle, because we need all
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: of those voters to have a governing majority in this country.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: And so what is our version of MAGA or lower taxes,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: smaller government? All of that is much more complicated when
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: you're trying to encompass all of that.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And what happens is, by the way, it's more complicated
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And because you are trying to get, remember, Joe Biden
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: got 80 million votes. And if 40,000 had gone the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: other way in a few swing states, Donald Trump is president,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: which means that you need to get like everyone who's
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a fan of the Justice Democrats and everyone who's a
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: fan of the fucking Lincoln Project on the same page
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: voting for the same candidates. So when you try to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: do that, you end up with lowest common denominator messaging.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: They can appease everyone, but excite very few. This is
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the central challenge.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Which is why Joe Biden outperformed Democrats and Republicans outperformed Trump.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Because Joe Biden can tell a story about Joe Biden, right?
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: They can be more broad. It's much harder to tell
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: a story than it comes to all the people you
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: just talked about. So that's one. But I think the
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: bigger problem is, and we cannot overstate this enough, is
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: that there's just a massive asymmetry when it comes to
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: messaging firepower. Republicans own the means of distribution for their message.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: It comes out of Donald Trump's mouth. There's Twitter feed,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: even Mitch McConnell's mouth. And then it is put in
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: front of voters by Fox News, Breitbart, Wall Street Journal
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: editorial page, whatever else, by people who share a political
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: interest with Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. Joe Biden says something.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi says something. And the primary way in which
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: we can get to voters without paying for it is
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to rely on the goodwill of Jeff Zucker, of Dean McKay,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: of other people who do not share our interest, right?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: They put our message through a filter. They water it down.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: We do not have the ability to communicate with our
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: voters organically at scale. We depend on other people to
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: do it. And that is such a gigantic disadvantage for us.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I can't even say it. This is why every problem
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: we have comes back to that situation. which is the
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: fault of Rupert Murdoch. It's the fault of Roger Ailes.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: It's increasingly the fault of Mark Zuckerberg. And we're not
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: going to solve that problem tomorrow. We're not going to
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: solve it in a year or two years, but it
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: is the single priority we have to do to be
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: able to compete nationally in politics.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And by the way, going back to the last question
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: we got, it's easier to sell a caricature of Democrats
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: in some of these rural and ex-urban areas where local
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: news sources have been decimated and where they get their
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: information from is increasingly Facebook and Fox and Sinclair owned
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: local news. You know, I mean, Barack Obama talks about
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: this all the time and he talked about, he wrote
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: about this in his, in his book, which is like
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: when he was running, he could go to downstate Illinois
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: or Iowa and show up to places and people would
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: get that he was not the madrasa educated secret Muslim
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: terrorist that Fox news was telling everyone he was because
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: they could see him and meet him and, and, and,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And experience it. Right. And now, like a lot of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: those places, they don't see the candidate. They don't hear
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: messaging from the from the candidates. They don't get good,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: like mainstream news. It's all like Fox and propaganda bullshit.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And so it is easier to sell a caricature of
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: national Democrats in a lot of these places. And if
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: we do not fight against that, if we do not
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: have some competition there, we're not going to be able
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: to deliver our message. And we can't just hope that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: like we shut down Fox and shut down Sinclair and
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, like that, because then, as we've seen,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Newsmax will pop up or OAN will pop up in
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: its place. Like the right wing propaganda machine is always
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: going to be there. Like we have to find ways
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to counter that or else we're not going to be
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: able to compete.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Think about the difference between how Fox News describes Democrats
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: and how The New York Times describes Republicans.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Don't. I get so angry. The idea that the New
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: York Times and Washington Post and CNN are like liberal
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: propaganda is– yeah. Are you kidding me?
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: It's not even– and I say that not as a
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: critique of the New York Times. It's not the New
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: York Times' job to convince voters. But it is how
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: our voters– and I use the New York Times broadly.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It could be New York Times. It could be local news.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: It could be local newspaper. There is no difference between–
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: between how Donald Trump and the Republican Party described Democrats
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: in their campaign ads in 2020 and how Fox News
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: does it, right? The difference between, and then think about
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: all the articles about trips to MAGA diners, and we
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: are at such a gigantic disadvantage. And I think the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: greatest failing from a political infrastructure building perspective of the
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: last four years is the party did not invest. And
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: I don't mean the party like the DNC. I mean,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Democrats writ large, billionaires, people with money did not invest
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: enough money in this. And the thing with the difference
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans are right now in the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: places that don't have local news where the local newspaper
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: has collapsed or it's on its last legs, are putting
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: up benign sounding local propaganda sites to push conservative messaging
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: into the community. And that is being funded by Republican
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: billionaires who want to continue to profit off pollution, lower
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: tax rates, all of that. And Democratic billionaires are buying
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: dying mainstream publications and trying to prop them up, whether
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: it's Time Magazine or The Atlantic or things like that.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: And it's just a fundamental difference We have not invested
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: in our information arsenal, and it is devastating.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I will make one more point about the Democratic and
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Republican messages and how they flow from each party's ideology.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Republican message is easy, and I could write it all
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: day long because what they do is lie about shit
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: to make you angry and afraid and cynical about politics.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So they are pushing on an open door. They don't
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: believe that government has a role to help people in
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: this country. And they want to show you that government
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: is fucked up and beyond help. And they get to
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: prove that every day by fucking up government. and trying
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: to shrink it and trying to make people angry and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: afraid of each other. And again, they lie all the time.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: When you can lie all the time, when you are shameless,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: when you are unable to be shamed, it is easier
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: for you to whip people up and get them angry
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and pissed off every day. It's just an easier thing
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to do. Our ideology is about self-sacrifice and the obligation
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: we have to one another. and making government work for everyone,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and making sure that everyone is equal in the eyes
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of the law. And in a country of 330 million
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: people of like every different ideology and background and race
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and religion, that's really tough. It is easier to burn
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: down the fucking barn than to build something. And that's
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: why always the Republicans will have an advantage with their message.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And it'll always be harder for us to get people
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: to like come together and build something together.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: It's easier to say change is bad than to explain
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: why change is good.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This was our primary challenge in messaging and communication
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: during the Obama administration when we were in charge. Everything
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that goes wrong with the federal government, everything that goes
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: wrong with politics and the government, you get blamed for.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: And that redounds to the benefit of the party that
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: has always been saying government is bad anyway and that
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: politics is fucked up anyway and that everyone should just
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: sit back and let Mitch McConnell, and all the rich
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: people just run the show because they know best.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I swear this is the last thing I'll say about this.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Like I said, we could have done this for two hours.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: But what is interesting about– and this is something where
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: I think there's fair criticism of how we approach things
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: over eight years– is Republicans find ways to use what's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: happening to prove their larger point. So the oil spill–
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: is viewed not as a failure of rapacious energy companies
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: mining the earth for profit. It is seen as a
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: failure of government to plug the hole, right? Not the
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: fault of the oil company for making the hole. The
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Obamacare website is a proof that government failed. I think
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: one thing that we have, we made an argument for
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: the purpose of winning the presidential election that what happened
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: in this pandemic, the failure of the government to prepare
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: for and respond to was the fault of the particularly
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: bad president we had, not the fault of a larger
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: conservative philosophy that believes government doesn't have a role. And
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: 2020 is the year that has proven we need better,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: smarter government. We need it on the economy. We need
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: it in the pandemic. The Russians just hacked our entire government,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: which if that had happened to President Obama or President Biden,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: that would be an argument for a failure of government.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: So that's a thing to think about.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Not just smarter, better government, though. Government that is fair
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: and more equitable as well. And I do think this
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: is a key. And this is where... you know, the, the,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I really agree with a lot of folks on the left.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Like you do need a villain in these stories and
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the right has plenty of villains.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: And sometimes when we say that this is the fault
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of Republicans and their rich friends and their donors and
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, you get a lot of the more
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: center left Democrats and folks in the media being like, Oh,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: populism is bad. And you don't want to, you don't
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: want to be angry at rich people and all that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Don't demonize private equity.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Don't demonize private equity. Right. Everyone gets very upset about that.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, that's actually what like. Well, first of all,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like you don't want to again, we don't want to
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: be like them. We don't want to lie and spread conspiracies.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: But we do want to point to what the source
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: of the problem is and who Republican politicians are trying
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: to protect and trying to work for. And also like.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: This the pandemic and the mismanagement of the pandemic wasn't
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: just an indictment of incompetent government, but it's an indictment
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: of the Republican philosophy forever.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Like the idea that I don't have to wear a
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: fucking mask to protect you because freedom means I can
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: do whatever the fuck I want. Take however much money
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I want, profit as much as I want, do whatever
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the hell I want and not care about anyone else.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: This idea that like that's what freedom is and that's
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: what America stands for is just rugged individualism and nothing else.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And we have always had another story at our best
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: as Democrats. that government and that politics and that this
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: country is about actually looking out for one another and
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: having an obligation to one another and coming together to
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: solve our biggest challenges. And that's the message that we
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: need to get back to. And that is the indictment
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: that we should make against not just Trump, but the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Republican Party for what they did in the pandemic. Anyway,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: like you said, we could talk about this for an hour.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Here's some fun questions. Amber asks, if you
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: could have any cabinet-level position, what would it be?
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, the answer to this question is so obvious.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Really? I have to think about it. I want to
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: hear yours, then.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Treasury secretary. Three reasons.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Get your name on the money. Can eliminate the penny.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: And at least a small chance your life story will
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: be told in the form of a hit hip-hop musical
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: at some point. I think hands down, treasury secretary.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I have Treasury or Attorney General because I
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: think Treasury, I mean, you do have a ton of
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: power as Treasury Secretary. And, you know, people talked about
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: this when Yellen was picked because she is a climate
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: hawk as well. But like just on her own. sort
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of the things you can do, whether it's a national
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: green bank or some financing around or some, you know,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: sort of pressuring fossil fuel industries with certain regulations within
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the treasury. Like you can do a lot just on
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: your own as treasury secretary. I like attorney general because
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: in this hypothetical question, I don't know the president that
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I'm working for.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: And so I think probably. No one has more independence,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: or at least no one should have more independence in
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the cabinet than the attorney general. And there's a lot
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of things that you can do on your own as
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: an attorney general around sentencing and criminal justice reform. And
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: then on the other end, sort of, you know, making
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: sure that we, that the IRS goes back to auditing
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: rich people, that you can sort of prosecute Wall Street crime,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: white collar crime. Like, so I'm kind of interested in
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: AG too.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Can I just point out that, and maybe you lost
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: this point, but this question was in the section of
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: the outline titled Fun Questions.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Well, Dan, I hate to break it to you. I
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: don't think that either of us is ever getting confirmed
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: for a cabinet appointment. So it is sort of a fantasy.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, I.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine? Poor Neera is going to be run
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: through the ringer over her bad tweets. Can you imagine
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: if we were ever nominated? What they would do with
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America episodes?
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I am not getting confirmed for anything. I'm not putting
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: myself up for confirmation. But they can see act my
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: ass into a job, people.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Ainsley asks, what's your least favorite hackneyed speech Twitter line?
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Mine is make no mistake. So I have a lot
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of these, Dan.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let me hear. This is really your bailiwick.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: For speeches, it is basically all the cliches that are
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: similar to make no mistake. Make no mistake. Let's be clear.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: My friends, my fellow Americans, here's the truth. Let's speak
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the truth. Like, I don't know. And I'm totally guilty
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of this as a speechwriter myself. I don't know why
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: politicians need to preface what they're about to say with
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a signal that they're about to say it. And they
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: do it in speeches and they do it in tweets.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: And I just don't get it. Just say it. Just
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: say it. Don't lead with let me be clear or
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: my friends or this. Like, you don't need the throat clearing,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: but they do it anyway. On Twitter, here's what I hate.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: RT, if you agree, this, just going to leave this here.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know who needs to hear this, but let
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: that sink in. Louder for the people in the back.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Do better. Rethink this. That ain't it, chief. Hold my beer.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Said no one ever. Not a good look. Bad look.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Jokes about the writers this season and the fucking Jennifer
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Lawrence laughing meme. Those are the ones that I really
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: hate the most.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: You put a lot of effort into this question.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Because I hate so many of these things on Twitter
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and almost every single fucking clapping hand emoji. I'll throw
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: that one in too.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I think my speech, I agree with you as a
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: man with many verbal tics. I can't really criticize others.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Who among us is one?
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: I say look all the time.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is Barack Obama's fault and no one else.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I know. That is his fault.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like people eventually start looking like they're dogs.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: We eventually started speaking like Barack Obama, unfortunately, in just
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: a terrible imitation. The Twitter one is the pointing down
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: finger emoji is my least favorite.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: That goes with this. This pointing down.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: And that's the tweet. That's the other one.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's it. I forgot that's the tweet. How did
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I forget that one? That sucks too. Okay. Megan Dombrowski asks,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: were you guys excited for Taylor Swift's new secret album drop?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Lots of questions about Evermore. Dan, this is obviously for you.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a question for you.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Has Charlie ever listened to any music that was not
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: performed by Taylor Swift?
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the stupid fucking kids music that comes in
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: all these toys, like the Purple Elephant song and all
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that shit that is now stuck in my head. But
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: other than that, so Folklore was released on Charlie's birthday,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: the day that Charlie was born. And from the moment
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: we were in the hospital until we came home, all
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: through August, we probably listened to Folklore, I don't know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: a million times. you know what the, um, the Spotify
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: does the like artists you listen to most and all
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Emily is in the 0.0001% top
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: 1% of people who listen to Taylor Swift on Spotify,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: which is, which seems like it's not, not believable, but
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: apparently I've seen the numbers myself.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I not a lot of Taylor Swift in
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: this house these days or any days, frankly, which is
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: not a no dig on Taylor Swift. I appreciate all
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: of her efforts to people can be able to register
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: to vote. Uh, but not a lot of folklore Evermore,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: any of that in our house.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of, a lot of Evermore, a lot of folklore.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: And now we're enjoying Evermore very much. Love the album.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Big Swifty. Switching gears. David Greger asks, will the 76ers
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: additions of Doc Rivers, Seth Curry, and Danny Green and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: keeping Ben Simmons at point guard be enough to get
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: them over the hump?
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: What is over the hump mean? Does that mean getting
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: out of the second round of the playoffs? It seems possible.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I did watch the first preseason game last night against
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: the Celtics, if you will. And it's all preseason game.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: It doesn't count. But it was very nice to see
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: the Sixers look like a normal basketball team with multiple
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: players who can dribble the ball and shoot and not
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: sort of running an offense as if they were all
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: locked in a very small closet under the basket together.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: So I'm very happy with where the Sixers are. A
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: lot of questions about whether we're going to trade for
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: James Harden or not. It's a very exciting time. And
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I could honestly... The fact that the NBA is coming
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: back next week is a great end-of-pandemic gift. Yeah.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Over the hump. Relative term. You can just take it
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: however you want. Yes.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Can they get out of the second round with it?
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: I like to think they can.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Great. Switching gears again, Dan. Matt Squisillo asks, who's the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: top chef GOAT?
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. I'm so glad you asked this question. I can
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: talk about this even longer than our discussion on messaging.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Or the Sixers.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, or the Sixers. I actually have more to say,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: and it's a less fraught topic for me personally to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: talk about Top Chef and the Sixers, which is very
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: emotionally challenging, particularly talking to a Celtics fan at the time.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: And I don't know anything about Top Chef, so you
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: just say whatever.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Well, which is a huge personal failing on your part.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I know, I know.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: But feel free to just forward this clip to the
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: development department at Crooked. It can go along with my
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: forthcoming email about my Top Chef recap pod I'm pitching.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, perfect. Guys, I hope you're listening to this. Okay,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: let's do it.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Probably doesn't listen to it. There are lots of different
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: people who could have this role. Richard Blaze, who won
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: the All-Star season and came in second once. Could be
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Michael Voltaggio, who steamrolled the competition in Vegas. Could be
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Kristen Kish, who won in Seattle. But I think the answer,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: and this could be recency bias, is Melissa King, who
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: just won this most recent season. The Final Four was
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: one of the best Final Fours ever. She crushed it.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: She's a local chef here in the Bay Area and
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: is fascinating. And she was about to open a restaurant
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: that I was going to attend and then a pandemic hit.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: So I don't know where that stands.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's tough. Paul Santamore asks me, who is the
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: greatest College of the Holy Cross graduate of all time? Obviously,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: I'm taking myself out of the running here. So, Dan,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: here are the most notable College of the Holy Cross graduates.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Bob Cousy, Clarence Thomas, Bill Simmons, Chris Matthews, and Tony Fauci.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's got to be Fauci.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: It's clearly Tony Fauci now.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: It was Fauci, then Bob Cousy. And then you and
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Bill and Chris Matthews can figure it out. And then
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: there's like 75 people who failed out, a guy who
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: probably vomited himself at a party, and then Clarence Thomas
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: in that order.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: We had a– Holy Cross has a DC internship program.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: That's how I got started in politics. I was interning
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: for John Kerry. But every class of Holy Cross interns
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: that does the DC program gets a tour of the
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, a personal tour from Clarence Thomas. So I
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: met Clarence Thomas in college and he gave us a
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: tour of the Supreme Court. Um, and, uh, so that was,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: that was nice of him. And that's all I can
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: say about him ever. Um, but yeah, you know, he's,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: he's the most notorious grant of Holy Cross for sure. Um,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Tess Kearns asked, did you guys eat chicken tenders on
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: election night to keep the Obama tradition going?
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: That's all you think. I don't, I don't, I never
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: ate chicken tenders on election night.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was mostly, it was big nights. So this
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: is a process we started during the debates in 2007, 2008,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: continued in the White House for State of the Unions,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: national addresses, and then election nights. Did not eat them
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: in 2016. Donald Trump became president. the government was hollowed out,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: a pandemic reached across the country, figured, I like chicken
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: tenders anyway, so let's not leave nothing to chance.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: And Joe Biden won. I didn't eat anything. I didn't
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: eat a thing on election night because I was too nervous.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: And I could barely breathe until Fox called Arizona. And
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: then I took a few more breaths when the big
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: dump of votes came in Milwaukee at 2.30 a.m.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: I was so convinced.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Pacific time.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: One, a lot of people right now are yelling at
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: you for being one of those people who can't eat
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: when they're stressed as opposed to the rest of the world.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. That happens too.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Two, the Arizona thing did nothing for me because as
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: a veteran of the Gore campaign.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, Florida.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: When Florida was called for Gore and then lots of
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: people were saying they called it too early and then
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: you watch those numbers shrink. I was pretty nervous that
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: we were seeing a repeat of horrible, horrible history. But
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: then Milwaukee votes saved us.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: There you go. Sandy Chase asks, does Dan have a dog?
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: I do not have a dog, John. I don't.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: When's Kyla getting a dog?
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Well, she wants a dog. It was on the list
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: for her second birthday.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Boy, do I think she deserves one.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: It was on the list for Christmas. Every time we
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: do this podcast, she asks me if I've seen– if
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: during the podcast I've seen Leo– She also asked about
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Emily and baby Charlie a lot. You rarely asked about
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: nothing personal, um, but not to break news here, but
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: instead of giving her a dog, she's going to get
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: a baby brother in March.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Yes. Congrats. Congrats. That's so exciting. That's a great way
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: to break news.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Does she also, but does she probably, does she still
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: want a dog?
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Uh, I think she is very, very focused on the
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: baby brother. So she's very, very excited about it. She doesn't.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Congrats to you and Holly.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: She's excited at the concept of it. She talks about
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: it all the time. Like every week you do the
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: thing where you find out how big the baby is
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: in measured against a vegetable or a fruit. And so
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: like we have to go get that fruit or vegetable.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: So this week the baby's the size of a kale.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: So there's been a lot of kale discussion in our house. And,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: but the one thing I will say is when we
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: ask her if she will share her various toys with them,
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: She's deviously clever and she thinks, no, her toys are
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: too big. So we have to get separate smaller toys
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: for the fourth.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Very shrewd.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: She is a master negotiator and it is alarming.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Very young age.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Well, that is fantastic. We're very, very excited. Final question.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Paulette Arazo asks, do you guys each have a favorite
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: white house memory from Christmas?
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: My favorite White House memory for Christmas. Do you have one?
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I got to bring my parents to one
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of the White House holiday parties, which is the coolest
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: thing ever to get to bring your parents to the
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: White House and see that. And also the white, you know,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: back in the days when there wasn't a pandemic, like,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the White House really goes all out for
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Christmas parties and you get to see the decorations and
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the Christmas tree and. Sometimes, you know, the president comes
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: and speaks to everyone for a few minutes. And that's
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: really cool. One of the funnier memories I have is,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: so they have like a senior staff dinner every year
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: when we were in the White House.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: This is going to be mine. Yeah.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: And they usually have a special guest come for the
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: senior staff dinner. And I think it was the first
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: year that we did it. The Rockettes came. And there is,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to really see this picture, but
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: there is an incredibly embarrassing picture of, All the Rockettes
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: and me and Alyssa. And I think we're all like
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: kicking our legs. Alyssa loves this picture and has sent
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: it around so many times.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: I would highly recommend you text her before this pod
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: drops to make it very clear that you really meant
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: it when you said you don't want that photo out.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: That was an amazing one because there were two other
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: special guests that year. They really went out. Jon Bon
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: Jovi sang.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: And Will Ferrell read The Night Before Christmas.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Long before you began starring in remakes of Will Ferrell movies.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: But he read it. But in what I thought was
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: a moment of incredible comic genius is he made no jokes.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: He just read it, which was just so fucking funny
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: that he did it that way because everyone kept waiting
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: for it and it was just done. And then he
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: walked off stage. It was great. My favorite memory, like that,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: that night was always like this, this special, this senior
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: staff party would have, which was a much smaller group
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: of people. We said you had a dinner, there was
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: a performer, the president and the first lady both gave very,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: just very meaningful remarks about the relationships that all of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: us had with them and the work we had done
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: that year. uh, Pete Souza, uh, would put together these
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: books that had photos from the whole year. They were
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: a yearbook. And then the president would give us each
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: one of those for the holidays. And like each of
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: those books are like some of my most that like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: treasured white house possessions. So like look back at them
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: and like understand that year. Um, but I brought my
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: mom one year. It was like, I think the last,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: the last year, the second to last year. And it
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: was just like to bring your mom to this incredibly
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: fancy thing at the white house. And she, and the
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: president and the first lady were so nice to her. And,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden came up and, you know, and talk to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: her for a long time about Delaware, obviously. Um, it
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: was just like a really, it was always like a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: really special night. And so that night would probably be
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: my favorite holiday memory. And the food at the larger
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: white house holiday parties are fucking great. The lamb chops.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: The lockies.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Very, very boozy eggnog.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure all the Trump holiday parties were like that
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: this year too.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it was so hard to like drink
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: the eggnog with all those masks on.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Right. happy holidays everyone from all of us here at
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America hope you have a good Christmas if
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you celebrate Christmas just some time off if you can
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and we will have a New Year's episode next week
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: with me and Lovett and Tommy that will be out
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: on Monday of next week and then we'll be back
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: to our normal schedule the week after that so have
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: a great holiday everyone stay safe and get some rest.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: Bye everyone stay safe happy holidays.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Quinn Lewis, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: videos every week.