Latest / Pod Save America / “Covid, covid, covid.”

Transcript

“Covid, covid, covid.” · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: We can't put on things we can't verify.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Leslie, they spied on my campaign.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Well, we can't verify that.
• 0:06
  Speaker 4: It's been totally verified.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: No.
• 0:08
  Speaker 4: No, your first question was, this is going to be
• 0:10
  Speaker 4: tough questions.
• 0:11
  Speaker 5: Why?
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: You don't ask Joe Biden.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: I saw your interview with Joe, the interview with Joe Biden.
• 0:16
  Speaker 6: I never did a Joe Biden interview.
• 0:17
  Speaker 5: It was a joke.
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: I think we have enough of an interview here, Hope. Okay,
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: that's enough.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 0:24
  Speaker 5: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:26
  Speaker 6: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:27
  Speaker 5: That was a big whiny baby talking to Leslie Stahl.
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: That's the opening clip that you heard. You guys see
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: that 60 Minutes interview?
• 0:36
  Speaker 6: That's how I wanted to close, yeah. Closing strong.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: So 60 Minutes, you can download it as a podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: And then you can listen to it at 1.3 speed,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: which is what I would recommend for that.
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: You know what you missed, Lovett? You missed seeing him
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: grit his teeth. teeth and clench his jaw while she
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: asked him the questions. Fair enough. Anyway, on today's pod,
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: Tommy talks to Wisconsin organizer Dakota Hall about how Democrats
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: can turn out as many young voters as possible. Before that,
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: we'll talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: final week of the campaign, what the candidates' schedules can
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: tell us about their closing strategies, and what, if anything,
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: we can learn from the record-breaking early vote. Lovett, how
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: was the show this weekend?
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Great, Lovett or leave it. Barnburner, second to last show.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Alex Wagner and Guy Branum did okay. Stop on the debate.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Ira Madison for the monologue. We talked to Teresa Greenfield
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: who quizzed me on Iowa facts. I talked to Olivia Troy.
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: Do you know the price of corn?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: No, I don't know the price of corn. I'm a,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I'm a East Coast. I, yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, it depends.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Like if it's, if they cut it off of the,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: of the cob before they serve it, I kind of
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: get a sense of the price. But, um, and then
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I talked to Olivia Troy about working with Mike Pence
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: and I tried to get her to criticize Mike Pence,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: but I kind of failed. and talk to a young
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: person trying to turn out the vote on TikTok for Biden.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: It was a great show.
• 1:55
  Speaker 6: Hey, Barry, lead Love It. I didn't know you were
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: canceling Love It or Leave It after a couple more shows.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Second to last show?
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Till the election. Listen, first of all- Oh, thank God.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: What would I do on Saturday? I mean, look, I
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: had to keep this going till I can get the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: applause back. I obviously missed the applause. And I think
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: 2021 is the year I can have applause again.
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: Damn right.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Make America applaud again.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: Travis's hands are calloused and bruised at this point just
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: from doing this on Zoom.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: But it helps.
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: No comment. If you didn't catch it already, also check
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: out Lovett and Dan's interview with Joe Biden. We finally
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: got Joe. We got him. Special bonus episode, Pod Save America.
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: It was very nice to hear a good human being
• 2:39
  Speaker 6: geeking out and getting excited about policy. When he told
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: you that he was going to be pushing the Sunrise
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: Movement and not the other way around, I was like,
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: all right, man. There we go, Joe.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: He's ready to go.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: He's ready to go. He wants to be president.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: And to the rest of the Biden family who listens
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: to the pod, who we didn't know. So these grandkids,
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: maybe Ashley, like, welcome. Welcome to the pod.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: Love to have you.
• 2:59
  Speaker 6: Just forget all that shit in the primary. We were
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: just kidding.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: No, what primary?
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, never happens.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: We've been riding with Biden from the beginning.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: Finally, if you've already voted. Uh, fantastic. But your job
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: is not over. You have about a week to make
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: sure everyone else votes too. Uh, we will not just
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: win this thing with good early vote numbers. We're going
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: to talk about that later. Uh, it is absolutely critical.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: We get people to make a plan to vote and
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: turn in their ballots. Uh, ideally this week. Don't wait
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: till election day. Turn it. If you have your ballot,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: mail in your fucking ballot. If not. figure out a
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: plan to go to a Dropbox, drop it off in person.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: Or if you really want to vote on election day,
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: make a plan to do that, but make a plan
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: and make sure everyone else in your life makes a
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: plan as well. You can go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: to find all your options to get involved between now
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: and election day. We need people to call to remind
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: people to turn in their ballots, to make a plan,
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: still trying to persuade some undecided voters. There are a
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: lot of calls to make. There are a lot of
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: voters to contact. We really all need the help. So
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to get involved.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: You, a lot of people, have heard that again and
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: again and said they were going to do it. This week,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: one hour, make some calls. You haven't done it yet.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: There you go. Who's he talking to?
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: All right. With nine days left to vote, here's the
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: headline in today's Washington Post. White House signals defeat in
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: pandemic as coronavirus outbreak roils Pence's office.
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: Oh, my God.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: It's not funny because the pandemic is awful, but that
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: headline is funny in the last week of the election
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: for Donald Trump. That's right. After five of the vice
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: president's aides tested positive for COVID-19, the White House chief
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: of staff told Jake Tapper, quote, we are not going
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: to control the pandemic, which is now beginning its third wave.
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: On Friday, the U.S. hit an all-time record for daily
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: cases as hospitalizations jumped in at least 38 states, including
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: 14 states in the Midwest and Mountain West, that have
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: reported a record number of COVID patients in the last week.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: Love it. Before we get into the political implications of
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: all this, why is this third wave potentially more dangerous
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: than the previous two?
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Well, it seems like it's on track to be bigger.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: This has been the fear the whole time, right?
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: The whole fear.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: You know, when Trump was saying it'll be gone by summer,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: The other half of that was there was a great
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: worry about what happens when America has a winter during
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: this pandemic. We know when the flu season is. It
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: comes in the winter.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Because people go in their homes. They're inside. There's poor ventilation.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: So the fear was that if we had not done
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: enough to contain the virus by the time we got
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: out of summer, we'd be in a position for the
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: worst wave yet, that the second wave was bigger than
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: the first wave and that the third wave would be
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: bigger than the second wave. Europe is a bit ahead
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: of us. And I see some conservatives and others taking
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: cold comfort and somehow explaining with a kind of fatalism
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: that if Europe's cases are going up, that must mean
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: this would have happened anywhere. But what we know is
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: that Europe did a very good job of getting this
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: contained when we were seeing our second wave. And the
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: fact that they're going up so dramatically and we're going
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: up right behind them so dramatically tells you that we
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: could be in for an incredibly scary and tragic winter,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: which by all account would, you know, given how little
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: national leadership there is. And when we know that a
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: lot of where this outbreak is growing the fastest is
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: in red states, Midwestern states, states controlled by Republicans.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and everywhere. It's probably the first wave that is,
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, the Midwest and Mountain West are really sort
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: of where it's concentrated, but it's like, you know, 40
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: something states have had rising cases. So it's very scary
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: that it's all over the country right now. And again,
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: that it seems to be just beginning. Mark Meadows, the
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: White House chief of staff who reportedly Trump wants to fire,
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: went on CNN Sunday to let America know that the
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: White House has all but given up on COVID. Here's
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: a clip.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: other mitigation areas because it is a contagious virus, just
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: like the flu.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but why not make efforts to contain it?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Well, we are making efforts to contain it.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: By running all over the country, not wearing a mask?
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Tell me... How good is Mark Meadows at his job?
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: And what could a real White House be doing right
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: now to contain the virus?
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we're not going to control the pandemic. We've noticed, Mark.
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: This morning, I was thinking about Mark Meadows and how
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: he ranks among former White House chiefs of staff. And
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: I was ready to be very harsh to Mr. Meadows.
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: But then I thought about Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: and H.R. Haldeman having the job. and suddenly he looks
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: a little bit better. But I do think he stands
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: out for being uniquely stupid and seemingly going rogue all
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: the time. I mean, how do you otherwise explain him
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: both trying to cover up Mike Pence's COVID diagnosis, which
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: we learned happened this weekend, and then also telling the
• 7:58
  Speaker 6: press corps that Trump's case was worse than his own
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: doctors had just said during a briefing at Walter Reed, right?
• 8:04
  Speaker 6: And the honest answer is no Trump White House chief
• 8:07
  Speaker 6: of staff right now could do much to contain the
• 8:09
  Speaker 6: virus when his boss doesn't really want him to, right?
• 8:12
  Speaker 6: Trump doesn't want to contain it. He wants to throw
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: the problem to the states and lie to people that
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: things are going to be okay. But if Biden was
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: president and the VP got COVID, the White House chief
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: of staff would be doing contact tracing, or at least
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: having someone do it. They'd be quarantining people who were exposed.
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: And most importantly, they'd be working with Congress to pass
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: a coronavirus relief bill that included an actual plan to
• 8:32
  Speaker 6: deal with this. But instead, Mark Meadows- is arguing that
• 8:35
  Speaker 6: Mike Pence is, quote, essential personnel, which is essential is
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: a word that has never been used to describe Mike Pence,
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: not in the White House, not as a governor. And
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: they're sending him back out onto the campaign trail to
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: continue to just spread his gift of this virus. All
• 8:50
  Speaker 6: across the country. So yes, Mark Meadows, not the best
• 8:53
  Speaker 6: White House chief of staff in history. Maybe not the worst.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: Love it. The CDC says if you've been exposed, you
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: should quarantine for 14 days unless you're a critical infrastructure worker.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: Those are the specific words in the CDC guidelines. Is
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: Mike Pence holding maskless super spreader rallies? Is that critical
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: infrastructure work?
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: It isn't, right? Doing a PR. It's a PR campaign.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: A campaign is a PR campaign. He's doing PR events.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: No.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Famously- Vice presidents have told great jokes about it since
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: our founding that their job is the least essential. The
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: only requirements of him are to be alive, be alive,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: and break ties in the Senate. That's why he exists.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: You know- And he's not doing a good job with
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: the first one.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: No, he's not.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: He's not.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: So he should obviously be- You know, everybody on the set,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: that 60 Minutes interview, a lot of the focus has
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: been on Trump walking out.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: Fine.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: I understand why that is. But there's actually, I think,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: a pretty chilling moment right after when Mike Pence sits down.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: It tells you something, I think, about how we got
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: into this mess. Basically, you know, Leslie Stahl says to
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Mike Pence, do you think Fauci's an idiot? And he's like, oh, well,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: the president's got broad shoulders, you know?
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: And then....
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Then he says, she says to Mike Pence, what should
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: families do about Thanksgiving? And he says, oh, Thanksgiving, it's
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: a wonderful time of the year. And I'm looking forward
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: to spending it with my family. And she's like, well,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: what should people do? What's safe? What's not safe? And
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: he's like, well, each family needs to make a decision
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: on their own about what the right thing to do is.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: But I know that it's a wonderful time of year.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: You know, there have been incredible policy failures on coronavirus.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: We all know that.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Incredible failures to invoke presidential authority, to make PPE, to
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: contain the spread of the virus. their failure to be
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: moral leaders throughout this. Pence is just as guilty of
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that as Donald Trump. He may say it with a
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: kind of smoother tone of voice, but Mike Pence should
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: be isolating himself and he should address the country and say,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: because the virus is uncontained, this is the right thing
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: to do so that we can have holidays, so that
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: kids can go back to school, so that seniors who
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: are abandoning Trump in droves because they see just how
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: reckless these people have been and how much they have
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: failed to contain the virus to let them go back
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: to their lives and see their grandchildren so that they
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: could go and be part of their families this Christmas.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: you know, fundamentally, like what these people are doing, you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: they're stealing Christmas from people. That's what they're doing because
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Melania hates it. And it was her plan from the beginning.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: I mean, it doesn't it just we don't have to
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: have this dark winter, right?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: We keep glossing over because like the Trump administration is
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: so fucking incompetent, like what we could actually be doing here.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: Scott Gottlieb, who was the FDA commissioner for a time
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: under Trump, wrote an op-ed that said, he said, it's
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: time for a national mask mandate. Anthony Fauci has been
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: saying this too, you know, it was like, tell all
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: the states to do it. And if they don't do it,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: then we have to mandate it, right? You have a
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: national mask mandate. You, you know, Tommy talked about sort
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: of passing a COVID relief bill, which is absolutely right.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: I think at this point, we've realized that for bars,
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: for indoor restaurants, we need to like have a bailout
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: for bars and indoor restaurants until we have treatments and vaccines,
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: because like we should almost never be opening bars and
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: indoor restaurants while the virus is raging. More resources for
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: rapid testing, other safety precautions at businesses and schools, right?
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: Like I saw Andy Slavitt, who worked in the Obama
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: White House with us on healthcare issues, talk about how
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: like Two different colleges, the difference between an outbreak at
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: one and not having an outbreak at another was at
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: one college, they test everyone in the college every week
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: all the time. There's access to free rapid testing, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: they just haven't had bad outbreaks. At the other one,
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: they don't do testing. Horrible outbreak, right? So free rapid
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: testing exists. It's just not all over the country yet.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: These are the things that the Trump administration could have
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: done and could still do to prevent a horrible, horrible winter.
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: And so we're opting for a hot zone winter. In
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: honor of Megan Thee Stallion. They've given up. It's not
• 12:40
  Speaker 6: a joke to say Mark Meadows is waving the white flag.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: That's exactly what they're doing.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: And you know what?
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Just one other small point about this too. It's control
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: is not a switch you flip on and off, right?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: You're right. This virus is hard to contain, right? There
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: will be outbreaks. There will be states that get worse.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Like even if you do everything right, Europe, some places
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: have done everything right. And it's really hard. But doing enough,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: doing better... saves thousands of lives.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: Step one is trying.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Untold pain, try, try. Of course we should be trying.
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: So let's talk about how this is playing out on
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: the campaign trail. Joe Biden gave a major speech on
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: Friday about his COVID plan and spent the weekend calling
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: out Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic, while Trump spent the
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: weekend complaining that the virus is getting too much media coverage.
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: Here's some clips.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It was as if he decided to go on offense
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: for the virus, holding rallies with no masks, no social distancing.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: where people contracted the virus, inviting the virus into the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: White House, hosting what Dr. Fauci called super-spreader event, endangering
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: more people's lives by telling the public, don't worry, don't
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: worry about the disease, don't let it dominate you. How
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: many people from Kristen in Arizona will end up suffering
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: because their loved one listened to the President?
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: And we're rounding the turn. You know, all they want
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: to talk about is COVID. By the way, on November 4th,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: you won't be hearing so much about it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: COVID, COVID, COVID. COVID.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Today, let's talk about COVID all over Europe, right?
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: Europe's like, they don't talk about that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Now we're rounding the turn and we have the vaccines
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: coming out very soon.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: COVID, COVID, COVID. Complaining that Americans who die from COVID
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: are getting too much media coverage doesn't sound like the
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: most compelling closing argument, does it, Tommy?
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: No, it doesn't.
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: I mean, also, like he is directly contributing to the outbreaks.
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: USA Today had an interesting piece that traced a number
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: of local outbreaks, specifically back to Trump campaign events. So
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: they're not just harming us with their message. They're harming
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: us with their events. But for me, this is much
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: bigger than their COVID handling. It is about Trump leaning
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: way too hard into the Marsha, Marsha, Marsha joke construction,
• 14:56
  Speaker 6: because I don't think he's referencing the 1995 Brady Bunch movie.
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: I think he is talking about the original show from
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: the late 60s and 70s, which I'm sorry, that's just
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: not going to land. He did it at the debate too.
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: He did the Russia, Russia, Russia thing No one knows
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: what he's talking about.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: Like, it's 2020, man.
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: You're like a bitter old asshole Republican white guy from
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: New York. At least quote Seinfeld, right? Like, update this
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: repertoire a little bit. Do you think he even knows
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: that he's quoting the Brady Bunch?
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Has to.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Do you think he's ever watched the Brady Bunch?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Has to, right?
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe. I guess. I thought he was more of
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: like an Archie Bunker guy.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: Well, yeah. In spirit, certainly.
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: He is Archie Bunker as our president. I mean, I
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: just like hearing that in the 60 Minutes interview. Like, Trump...
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: you know, we've talked about this before, but like in 2016,
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: he was at least pretending to fight on behalf of
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: his supporters, on behalf of people, against liberals, the elite, immigrants,
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: the media, whatever it may be. It's now just, he's
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: only fighting for Trump. He only cares about himself. He's
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: mad that there is coverage of a pandemic that's killing
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: Americans because it's taking away from positive coverage for Donald Trump.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: That's where we are. He's pissed that the virus is
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: stealing his coverage. That's where we are right now.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think, you know, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: virus got like a pretty high powered PR firm and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: has been planning a lot of like really negative stories.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: And like, this is like a dirty game, right? Like
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: we've seen this time and again, these kind of ugly
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: PR campaigns run by some of the worst elements in
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: our society, like, like, you know, COVID or, you know, others,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: you know, it's really sad.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: He was, and it wasn't just that rally. He's tweeting
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: this morning. He's got five, six tweets this morning. COVID, COVID, COVID.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: It's all COVID all the time. It's like, and this,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: this whole thing, a lot of the cases, it's because
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: we're doing more testing and blah, blah, blah. No, no,
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: there's fucking hospitalizations rising in all these states. Like, like
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: the situation is dire in El Paso. in Wisconsin, in
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: South Dakota. Again, a lot of his supporters, right? Which
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: also goes to show you, he doesn't give a shit
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: about his own supporters. He doesn't give a shit about
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: all of us for sure, but he doesn't even care
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: about his own supporters that are going to these rallies.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: And again, they're not just ignoring the pandemic at the
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: White House now, they are actively spreading it. They are
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: actively spreading the virus themselves.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also like, I don't know who this more
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: testing argument is working on anymore, right? Like these numbers, like,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I just don't know who this is for.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: It's for his base. Um, for people that aren't seeing
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: the rest of the news around Trump, they're not seeing
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: clips of him calling Anthony Fauci disaster. They're just not
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: seeing the full scope of what he's been saying day
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: to day. But yeah, I mean, look, testing has been
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: going up incrementally from the beginning. It should have gone
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: up much faster, much sooner, but we're seeing massive spikes.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: It's not from testing.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: It's just a lie.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: And I don't think anyone believes it. It's just a
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: sad reality that what he's doing is not just terrible
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: for the country. It's not even good politics. It's hurting everybody,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: including himself.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: One last question on Biden, Tommy, because we've talked about this.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: He's been criticized not just by Trump and the Republicans,
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: but by a lot of pundits for not campaigning enough,
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: not doing door-to-door organizing, encouraging mail-in voting, even though it
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: comes with greater risk of rejected ballots. How do you
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: think those criticisms look? Now, a week out from the campaign.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: I mean, if Biden loses, then I'll be fully on
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: board with all those criticisms. And if he wins, I'll
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: be slapping those people around on his behalf. The one
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: that really galls me is the criticisms of vote by
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: mail as if we're just talking about a strategy. We're
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: talking about creating a way for people to vote, especially seniors,
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: people who have pre-existing conditions, where they won't die. Critiquing
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: that as some sort of political who's up, who's down
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: thing really pisses me off. I do think like some
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: of the days that people were giving Biden shit early
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: on for calling a lid or not having events, he
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: was clearly doing debate prep. That was obviously time well spent, given,
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: as Lovett put it, he won three debates by attending two. Clearly,
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: the campaign strategy in terms of Biden's travel has been
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: based on minimizing the risk of catching COVID and the
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: risk of giving his supporters COVID. Now that we know
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: that 100% of the Republican ticket has gotten the disease
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: versus 0% of the Democratic ticket and local officials and
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: states are tracing outbreaks back to Trump events, I'd argue
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: that those concerns from the Biden camp were justified. Hey guys,
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: this is Tommy Vitor, you know me. Earlier in the show,
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: I said that Mike Pence currently has COVID and that
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: 100% of the ticket has COVID. I had been talking
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: to future me, who assumes this is going to happen
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: since his body guy, chief of staff, and a bunch
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: of other lackeys around him currently has COVID. But my bad,
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: as of now, Mike Pence does not have COVID. I
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: apologize and regret my error. All of this was Trump
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: trying to spend months saying that Biden had dementia or
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: was too low energy for the job. And then Biden
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: mocked the floor with him at two debates. So I
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: don't think it was the best strategy in hindsight. But
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: to your point, John, it again, it just shows how
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: much Trump is focused on the process in the sport
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: of politics, right? Like when he would get a substantive
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: critique at the debate about, I don't know, being tied
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: to Wall Street, he would come back with a rejoinder
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: about how he could raise more money than Biden did
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: if he did X, Y, or Z, right? He never
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: thinks about politics in terms of what people actually care about.
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: what they're looking for from politics, like how things, how
• 20:11
  Speaker 6: it might help their lives. And I think that's why
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: he is failing.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: That's my take.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: Or like, what is just the responsible thing to do?
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: What is the responsible way to govern as a president?
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: I always remember Obama saying that during the financial crisis
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: at the end of the 2008 campaign, what he believed
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: he should do is show people how he would act
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: as president of the United States and show people how
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: he would govern. And if that meant doing things that
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: politically short-term would might not be as popular or might
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: be risky or whatever it may be. You know, like
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: McCain tried to suspend the campaign and not go to
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: the debates. And then there was question about whether he
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: should support the financial rescue package in Congress, even though
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: it wasn't popular. And Obama was like, look, I have
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: to model the behavior that I would follow as president
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: of the United States that people expect me to. And
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: that is what Joe Biden has done during this campaign
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: around the pandemic, even if it gets some criticism at times,
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: or sometimes it wasn't necessarily as popular. And again, we'll
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: see how it turns out.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, stay tuned on that one.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: All right, let's talk about where both campaigns have been
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: spending these final days. Donald Trump has been holding rallies
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: in states that he won by five or more points
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: in 2016, like Georgia and Ohio, the second district of Maine,
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: and the second district of Nebraska, which is also right
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: next to Iowa, which he won by nine points. Mike
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: Pence was in South Carolina and Indiana. The Trump campaign
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: has also been campaigning, of course, in the six most
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: competitive battleground states, all of which Trump won. Biden has
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: been campaigning in all of these states as well. Their
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: campaign has also been holding events in Ohio, in Georgia,
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: where Joe Biden will be this week, and now Texas,
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: where Kamala Harris will be this week. What do these
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: two schedules tell us about each campaign's thinking in terms
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: of paths to victory? Are there any states that surprised
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: you on either side? Love it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, well, look, we talked about a little
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: bit last week about, you know, when you put aside
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: the bluster, it's clear that the Trump campaign sees a
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: dwindling path and the Biden campaign, while trying to signal
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: nothing is for granted, some of these polls are out
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: of whack, like they are seeing a widening map, right?
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: That's why they're adding Georgia. That's why they're adding Texas.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: The Nebraska and New Hampshire play from Trump tells us that, like,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: they really do see, they have to assume that they're
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: going to surprise people with some turnout. And if that happens...
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: They're looking at where they can lose and still eke
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: out 270 electoral votes. There is a non-trivial chance of
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: a map in which you can see a situation where
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Biden and Trump are both at basically 267 and 269
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: electoral votes. And it comes down to one electoral vote
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: in Nebraska, and one electoral vote in Maine.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: Is that likely?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but they clearly view it, right? They
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: want to make sure they close the deal in Iowa,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: but there really is a possibility that Trump could be
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: at 269 electoral votes and tries to go get one
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: last electoral vote to knock to win by winning that
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Omaha seat in Nebraska or winning that second district in Maine.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: It's unlikely, sure, because any one scenario is unlikely, but
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: it's plausible.
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: It's totally plausible. Oh no, it's the scenario where Trump
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: wins Florida and Pennsylvania. Joe Biden wins Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: And then like Joe Biden wins if he wins the
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: Nebraska second and he loses if he doesn't.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Well, John, here's what's chilling. You're totally right. I did
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: it a different way and got to the exact same
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: result because Biden can win Florida, lose Pennsylvania, lose Michigan.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: And still be in that exact same scenario. Holy fucking shit. No,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: thank you. No, thank you.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: So when they announced yesterday that they're sending Joe Biden
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: to Georgia, some people said, oh, is this smart? Because
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: has he locked down the rest of the map yet?
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: Should he really be going to Georgia? Tommy, what do
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: you think about that?
• 23:54
  Speaker 6: I mean, here are some reasons to go to Georgia, right?
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: They have 16 electoral votes. So you could take the
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: 2016 map. You could win back Michigan, Wisconsin, and then
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: flip Georgia. And that gets you to 274 if you're Biden.
• 24:07
  Speaker 6: Or you could take the 2016 map. win Arizona, Michigan,
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: and Georgia, that's 275. So you could lose Pennsylvania. You
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: could lose big states if you win Georgia. It also
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: has two huge Senate races. John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: are running strong. I don't know if it's smart or not.
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: No one will know until we have the results, right?
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: I mean, remember in 2016 when the Clinton campaign made
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: this late October push into Arizona, they sent Michelle Obama,
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: they sent Bernie, they sent Hillary herself like in early November.
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: And in the moment, it felt like an exciting attempt
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: to expand the map. In hindsight, it looks like a
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: huge mistake because she never went to Wisconsin, right?
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: So we'll find out.
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: I have confidence that the Biden campaign is looking at
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: some polling that tells them Georgia is fertile ground and
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: that they're like, you know, relentlessly focused on 270.
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: But it's always a bit of a gamble.
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: Now, the interesting thing, just writ large, it's not just
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: that Trump is going to states where he's playing defense.
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: And he's also going to Florida a lot to his credit.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: But he's also going to counties where where he has
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: won overwhelmingly. Like in Ohio, he went to a county
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: where he got 68% of the vote. In Wisconsin, he
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: went to Waukesha County, where he won by 30. In
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: North Carolina, he goes to a bright red county outside Charlotte.
• 25:16
  Speaker 6: Biden's travel is different. They went to Pennsylvania 10 times.
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: The next state is like three visits, which is Florida.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: But on top of that, he's going to Bucks County.
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: He's going to Luzerne County, which are like basically swing
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: counties and swing districts, which shows that they are not
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: just trying to turn out base voters. Biden thinks he
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: can persuade people. They can turn out new suburban voters
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: and maybe push down Trump's vote in some of these
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: redder places.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: So I don't know.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: We'll find out.
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: I don't care what they do as long as they
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: get to 270. But I do think it's like the
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: candidate's time is the most important resource you have. And
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: if you're going to a stretch state when you don't
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: have others that are easier in the bag, people will
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: question that decision if you lose.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: And I have to say, I think the criticisms are
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: a little silly because knowing the Biden campaign and how
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: cautious and conservative they are, when you send a candidate
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: to a state like that or the running mate, it's
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: not necessarily like, oh, we got all these other states
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: in the bag and we're just sitting at campaign headquarters,
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: you know, kicking back and having a good time. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: maybe we'll go expand the map and run up the score.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: It's about giving yourself multiple paths to 270 should one
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: of the paths foreclose, even though you didn't expect it to.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: And especially when you're talking about states in the Sun
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: Belt specifically, where the electorate has been changing so fast,
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: you just don't know what's going to happen, right? Some
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: states like the electorate is set and it's been set
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: for a while. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, those electorates don't move
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: too much. In Georgia, the fact that we've seen this
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: huge suburban shift over the last several years among white voters,
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: the fact that in Georgia, if 30% of the electorate
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: is black, as it was when Stacey Abrams passed, ran
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: in 2018, you combine that with a suburban shift, suddenly
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: Georgia's in play. Now, you know, what if something happens
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: in Pennsylvania, something happens in Wisconsin, they missed a surge
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: of white working class voters, right? And then suddenly, well,
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: then you have Georgia, right? So I think it's about
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: some of these trips are about giving yourself as many
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: different paths to 270 as possible, and not necessarily just
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: trying to play and expand the map just for fun
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: to run up the score.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: I'd add just one small thing, too, which is that
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Biden is doing a ton of events in Delaware. And,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: you know, the Republicans try to make hay of that.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: That's doing events in Pennsylvania, too. And it shares a
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: media market. He's really hitting Pennsylvania so hard. So he's
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: doing that as well.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: Now, is it, well, follow up is like, is it
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: smart to send Kamala Harris to Texas? Texas is interesting
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: because there was a poll out this weekend that had
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden up three points. Then the New York Times
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: Siena poll came out this morning, has Biden down four points.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: But the turnout in Texas is so large, we're going
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: to talk about this in a second, that like no
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: one knows what this electorate is going to look like there.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: And of course, if Biden wins Texas, it's over.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: It's tantalizing.
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's a game changer, right? At 38 electoral votes,
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: you could lose every state that Hillary lost in 2016,
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: flip Texas and get to 270. You also have MJ
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: Hagar running a close race against John Cornyn for that
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: Senate seat. Maybe even more importantly, there are all the
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: down ballot race's where if Democrats can flip nine Texas
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: statehouse seats to get a majority, that would give us
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: a seat at the table in the 2021 redistricting process,
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: which could might mean a swing of plus or minus
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: five congressional seats in Congress, because Republicans will try to
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: rewrite those maps as advantageously as possible for themselves, gerrymander
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: the shit out of Democrats. And so there's just like
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: huge stakes up and down the ballot in Texas. And
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: so I get like, look, I'm excited by it. I'm
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: watching everything Beto O'Rourke is doing. It's pretty amazing how
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: many calls they're making every night and how much his
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: organization has registered voters in that state. But I don't know.
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: I don't want to get sucked into this romantic fantasy
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: world where we win Texas and Biden potentially wins by
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: 400 electoral college votes and not pay attention to the
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: key Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: In 2016, Trump was like the coyote who made it
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: across the cliff and ate the roadrunner. Maybe 2020... Texas
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: has always been like Lucy in the football, but maybe
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: this is the time where Charlie just kicks that ball.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Just boots the thing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Just gets it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: And that's it. I mean, even in the New York
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: Times poll, they showed Biden just crushing Trump in some
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: of these suburbs where we're already also seeing the turnout
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: numbers go up. What keeps him behind is that Trump
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: has shown improvement among more working class Latinos and black
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: voters in Texas. which are hard populations to poll. So
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: it's who knows. But, you know, the difference with Texas
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: and Georgia is Texas is much more expensive to play
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: seriously there.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: This is when I talked to Stacey Abrams. Way back when,
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: she always likes to say that Georgia is a cheap
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: date because it's a little easier to compete there and
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: it's closer than Texas, which is very close.
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: Well, 50% of voters currently registered to vote in Texas
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: have never voted in that state or vote infrequently. So
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: just a very confusing state. It's hard to read. That's
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: why I'm not letting myself get excited about this early
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: vote data or literally any other because who knows.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: Well, let's talk about early voting. November 3rd is technically
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: Election Day, but over 60 million people have already voted
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: by mail or in person. That represents 43% of the
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: ballots cast in the entire 2016 election, and we still
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: have eight days of early voting to go. Texas is
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: leading the way here with 80% of its 2016 turnout.
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: Of the states that report party registration, we can see
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: that 49% of early votes have been cast by registered Democrats,
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: 28% by registered Republicans, 22% by voters with no party
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: affiliation and 0.6% by voters with a minor party affiliation.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: We got a lot of listener questions about this. Lovett,
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: what can the early vote tell us about the outcome
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: of the race and why?
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: So here's my position. Basically nothing. Basically nothing. We know
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: one thing. We know one thing. There's going to be
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: a historic turnout in this election. That's the one thing
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I think we can really say with certainty. We don't
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: know ultimately what the party breakdown will be. We went
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: into this, you know, we talked about this for so
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: long that there's a real bias towards Democrats and Democrat
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: leaning voters voting early and Republicans and Republican leaning voters
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: voting on election day because the media that we consume
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: is different. And one side has been honest about the
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: pandemic and the other has been telling people it's a
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: liberal hoax and it's overblown. And a bunch of Republicans
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: are planning to vote on election day. We also don't
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: know how many Democrats are people that have actually are
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Democrats in name only who voted for Trump in 2016
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: and are going to vote for Trump now. We don't
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: know what some of the breakdowns of these independents will be.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: We also don't know the impact of what happens when
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: there's a ton of reporting saying, holy shit, there's huge
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Democratic early vote. We don't know how any of this
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: is going to play out because we've never voted in
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: a pandemic with this much vote early and vote by
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: mail before. So I see it only as a sign
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: of huge turnout. And beyond that, I think we should
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: take nothing for granted and draw no conclusions.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: Tommy? Yeah. You got anything to add?
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: No, I think it's right.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: There's some states, there's some early voting data that makes
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: me excited. I think North Carolina is an example. There's
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: some where it's a little worrisome, frankly. Florida Republicans seem
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: to be chipping into the Democratic early vote lead, and
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: they historically turn out more on election day. So I think, yeah,
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: every minute people spend trying to interpret this data is
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: probably time better spent doing literally anything else, including making
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: calls into swing states, because who the fuck knows?
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: And I'll just I'll tell you guys why for people
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: who are wondering this, like the party registration numbers aren't
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: very helpful, particularly. And I'll just use Florida as an example.
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: So Florida right now, the you know, it tells you
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: the early vote absentee voting by party registration. So 42
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: it's 42 percent Democrats, 36.5 percent Republicans, 21 percent what
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: they call NPAs in Florida, non-party affiliated voters.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: So you think, OK. That's sort of a small lead
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: for Democrats, but not great, whatever. So there's a Florida
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: CBS poll over the weekend. And among those who voted early,
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: it's Joe Biden up 61-37. Well, that's much bigger than
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: that party registration breakdown I just read.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: Because Biden wins NPAs by 15 points and he takes
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: 10% of Republicans. Now, will Biden really do that? It's
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: one poll. It's in line with some other polls, so
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: it's possible. It could be off a little bit too,
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: but it's the example of why the party registration breakdown
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: can't really tell you anything, especially in a race where
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden is consistently in the polling, been winning over
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: so many independents and even more Republicans than Trump is
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: winning over Democrats, right? So we don't know. That's why
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: when you look at all the party registration numbers, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: we don't know the party breakdown or the candidate breakdown
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: of who's left to vote.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: And by the way, one thing we've talked about over
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: and over again is that there's been this huge shift
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: of seniors, right? A huge shift of seniors who may
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: have voted for Trump in 2016 and may vote for
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden. Now, what is their party affiliation? What is
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: the breakdown of the kind of senior who might have
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: voted for Trump and now will vote for Biden? Are
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: they independents? Are they Republicans? Are they Democrats? We just
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: We don't know.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And I will say, too, what it can tell
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: us and what especially it can tell campaigns and why
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: campaigns like early voting data is that it tells you
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: how many of our voters still haven't voted yet. How
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: many people with ballots haven't returned them yet? How many
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: people still need to make a plan to get to
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: the polls? So as the voting universe shrinks because a
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: bunch of people started voting, if you see numbers that
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: are concerning, oh, we don't have much Dem turnout in
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Miami-Dade County. Now you can focus on those neighborhoods where
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: you know those voters are and start making calls and
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: getting people to return their ballots. So for campaigns, it
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: can be useful. For predicting the outcome of the race,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: it is not. Another question we got from quite a
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: few listeners is what to expect while watching returns on
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: election night. Aside from abject terror. Someone want to talk
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: about like just watching returns on election night and which
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: states we might know soon and which states we might
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: not and all that for listeners.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just say, I'll say that I will, look,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of anxiety and I, for me
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: on election night, it will be the shape of Florida.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: It will be, that will be the shape of it.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: It will be, it's a miasma. It's actually visible. It's like,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: like kind of greenish, but it will form into the
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: shape of Florida and I'll be watching Florida. Can we
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: win without Florida?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: But because they'll have counted a lot of their early
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: vote and vote by mail, we may know Florida relatively early.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And as we've talked about many times, Trump's path narrows dramatically.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: If we have Florida, similar, I will also be watching Colorado,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: also be watching Arizona. There's a chance early in the night,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: we might know the results there. And if we do,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: we kind of have a sense of where this is going.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Does that mean that's what's going to happen?
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Of course not.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Does it mean if some of these things look worse,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: the night is over? No, the night is just much,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: much worse emotionally.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, here's the very 2020 part that's
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: quite tricky. All the swing states that are hardest for
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Texas are
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: the ones who count first and count on election night.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Don't won't delay the count. In addition, those states all
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: may start by showing Biden in the lead because they
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: dump vote by mail early vote first. And so when
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: the polls close in those states, it could show a
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: big Biden lead. And then Trump starts eating into his
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: lead with election day votes. The states that should be
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: easiest for Biden, at least according to the polling, Michigan, Pennsylvania,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: and Wisconsin, are all going to take a couple of
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: days because they can't count the mail ballots until the
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: day of the election or in Michigan the day before.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: And they could all show Trump in the lead as
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: polls close because they will dump the election day votes
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: first and then start counting the mail ballots in the
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: days after. So everyone's just got to sit tight. Like
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: you said, love it. We win one of those in
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: the first column, like a Florida, a North Carolina, a Texas. Yeah,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: it's probably over, right?
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: But if we don't- Hey, wait a second. Knock on something.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Throw something over your shoulder. I don't want to hear
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: probably over. Just emotionally, just saying it's probably over.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: If we win Texas on election.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Night, it is over.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: I'll say that.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: I'll give you that.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: If we win Florida, I'm like 99% sure it's over.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Here's something. If we win Texas, and
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: again- Who knows? And I want this clip to have
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: plenty of caveats in it when it's used against us.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: In the future.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: But if we win Texas, one thing to look forward
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: to is Republicans deciding they want to abolish the Electoral
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: College and us being like, but this has been part
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: of our country from the beginning. Shame on all of you.
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: Shame on all of you.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: We've got a few other listener questions. Victoria Rome asks,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: I feel like there's a lot of grassroots work for
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: Biden with phone banking and text banking and more. Are
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: the Republicans also doing this? Do they have the same
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: volunteer enthusiasm that we do?
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: Tommy?
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: Probably. We should assume they do. I mean, they're also
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: doing more in-person canvassing. They're actually physically knocking on doors. Now,
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: I think all the conversation about Who's doing what field
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: work is a little bit confusing, because even if the
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: Biden campaign proper isn't doing like door to door, actual
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: door knocking, some groups are in key states. So I'm
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: a little I feel like no one really has a
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: handle on the aggregate amount of field work doing. So
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: I guess just don't stress it, but assume they have
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: a huge turnout operation. Assume they're mobilizing people in churches,
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: that people are hitting doors, that they're making calls like
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: we just.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Got to outwork them.
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we've been saying this the whole year, last year too.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: Assume that Trump is going to get his turnout from
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: 2016 and maybe add a few percentage points in each
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: of the swing states. Republicans are going... And so far,
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: everything in the early vote, again, you don't know what
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: it means for vote share for each candidate, but in
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: terms of registered Republicans, they're turning out. So are Democrats,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: but Republicans are turning out too. And we should assume
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: they have sky-high enthusiasm for their fucking MAGA god.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: The biggest story... that didn't get enough attention out of
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: 2018 is that the Republican turnout was there. Beto O'Rourke
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: hit his numbers and he still lost because more Republicans
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: showed up than anybody expected. We should assume that that
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: is the case.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: Angela Berthold asks, I may have a dumb question. Ask
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: it anyway, Angela. Why don't candidates make more visits to
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: smaller towns in states? I realize there are more people
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: living in larger cities, more bang for your buck, but
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: it's the rural areas that tend to vote Republican. I
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: wonder if a candidate visit would help rally support, especially
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: in mid states like Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yeah.
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: At this point in the campaign, you should assume that
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: both campaigns have county by county turnout projections that they're
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: trying to hit. And some of those numbers will be
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: based on like field targets, like how many door docks,
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: how many people are telling them on the phones that
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: they're voting for Biden or Trump. Some of it will
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: be based on early vote, and they're going to choose
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: where they go accordingly. It does seem like in the aggregate,
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: Trump is much more focused on turning out his base,
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: whereas Biden is a little more focused on suppressing his
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: margins in the redder counties and getting swing voters out.
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, look, these are data-driven decisions usually.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: One example, and I'll use in Pennsylvania, it used to
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: be that Democrats believe they could win Pennsylvania only by
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: showing up in Pittsburgh, showing up in Philadelphia, like running
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: up the margins there and in the inner suburbs. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: that was it. And they didn't have to go anywhere else.
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: That's what Hillary did. And she actually got the margins
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: that she needed out of Philadelphia and still lost the state.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: Biden has been like, he was, you know, right after
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: the convention, his first stop was in Greensburg, which is
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: right outside of Pittsburgh. It's a suburb outside of Pittsburgh.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: And he's been going to Erie and he's been going
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: to Scranton, right? So, He has actually been going to
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: some of these, I wouldn't call them small towns because
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: they're like small cities, but some of the places in
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: these redder states that Trump won just to sort of
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: cut the margins down a little bit. Even if he
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: ends up losing Erie County, Luzerne County, all those places,
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: like he could lose them in Pennsylvania, but if he
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: loses them by less, that's enough to win the state. Um,
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: Brett Turner asks, hello, Obama had all three branches, Democrat
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: in 2008 to 2010, but couldn't fix a lot of issues.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: What were the obstacles and do they still exist now?
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: Thanks for everything. Love it. Yeah.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Well, what a question.
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, sure.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I'll take it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: I'll take it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: So here's what I would say. Here's what I would say.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: First of all, the first two years of the Obama
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: administration were probably the most productive years. period of governing
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: via Congress, uh, in 50 years, uh, there was the
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: passage of a recovery act, a healthcare bill, a student
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: loan bill, uh, among other, an equal pay bill. Um,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: you know, with Obamacare specifically, you know, Obama had that, uh,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: had a big majority in the Senate, but those weren't
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: all people who had signed on, uh, for the Obama agenda.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: These were a lot of moderates that are now in
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: some of these receipts, we've lost some of these, uh,
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: seats that are now Republicans. But the challenge in the
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: early days of the Obama administration, even with a big majority,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: was getting some of the more moderate Democrats who'd been
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: around a long time to get to 60. You know,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: we've talked a lot about Joe Lieberman. A lot of
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: people try to blame Joe Lieberman specifically for killing the
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: public option. It actually wasn't him. It was a bunch.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: of conservative Democrats who killed the public option. Lieberman just- Wow.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: Tune into Pod Save America today to hear Lovett give
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: a spirited defense of Joe Lieberman.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Now, Joe Lieberman personally killed the Medicare buy-in, which is
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: currently still not law. It's what actually Biden has included
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: in his health plan so there can be a Medicare
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: buy-in for people over 60. Lieberman personally killed that and
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: raised healthcare costs for everybody and is a genuine monster.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: But I think one of the lessons of those two
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: years is that The focus was on health care and
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: the recovery and some other big priorities. But things that
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: didn't happen in that period, immigration, voting, some legislation on
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: unions were the kind of steps we could have taken
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: to not just do really good progressive change for the country,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: but also make America more democratic and help make sure
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: that people have a better say in how they are
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: governed and how their offices are governed. And that, I think,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: ultimately was a missed opportunity. But it was in the
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: midst of a massive financial crisis and Every administration has
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: to make choices and only so much progress can happen
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: in a short period of time when you're dealing with
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: a recalcitrant wing of your own party.
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: I would just say, I think the lesson from that
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: period of time for Joe Biden, if he wins, if
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: we take back the Senate, is move fast, use your
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: power swiftly and brutally and do all the things you
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: want to do, especially in including a voting rights, voting
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: access bill that will unfuck some of these problems we're
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: having right now, voter suppression and gerrymandering and all the
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: ways Republicans are trying to lock in minority rule. But
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: that's why I think people get so frustrated when you
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: hear about a blue ribbon commission on this or giving
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: Mitch McConnell some time on the filibuster. They're just going
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: to try to wait out the clock while big insurance
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: companies and fossil fuel companies pour hundreds of millions of
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: dollars into some astroturf firm to prevent climate change legislation
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: from happening or prevent the public option from being expanded,
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: et cetera, et cetera. And I think they just got
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: to move fast.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: Got to get rid of that filibuster right away. Looking
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: at you, Joe Manchin, looking at you, Kyrsten Sinema, looking
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: at you, freshman class of 2020 Democratic senators who come
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: from largely red states and are going to want to
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: be fairly moderate. You have a choice. You either come
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: to Congress and then be able to tell your constituents
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: you did something and you passed something, or you come
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: to Congress and say, Mitch McConnell blocked everything and I
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: couldn't do anything. They're not gonna like that excuse as much.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: I also think- That's it. Like on that specific, first
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: of all, we've got 180 days on a blue ribbon
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: panel to figure out the judiciary. So we gave, that's
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: one- That's one delay on the filibuster.
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: You could probably work overtime to shorten that window. Maybe
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: start in the transition. Maybe put some extra hours in.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Come on, Charles Freed or whoever's on that thing.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Let's go.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: We're going to work weekends.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Climate change is real. I also think that this issue
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: of the filibuster, similar to adding justice to the court,
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: is this sort of philosophical or process question. But it
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: won't be come January when we're talking about whether or
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: not we pass a big relief plan or a climate
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: plan or a health care plan. And then I think
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: people can force to choose between a Senate procedure for
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: saving the country's economy, I think the skids get a
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: bit greased for getting rid of some of these hurdles.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: Hope so.
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: And I will just say, I almost didn't want to
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: talk about this question because it's like a high class
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: problem to have because it imagines that we win, but
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: it should push everyone in this final week that like,
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: this is the future we could have. These are the
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: arguments we could be having if everyone turns in your ballots.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: And the Senate is just as crucial to this whole
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: thing as the presidency, so.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: When we come back, Tommy's interview with Wisconsin organizer Dakota Hall.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: I'm now joined by the executive director of the Wisconsin-based
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: youth organizing group Leaders Igniting Transformation, Dakota Hall. Dakota, welcome
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: to Pod Save America.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: Hey, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: and really excited about the next few days ahead of us.
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you guys are kicking ass out there. So your group,
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: Leaders Igniting Transformation, or LIT, for you old folks at home,
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: you guys do issue-based and electoral organizing. What issues are
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: resonating most? What's motivating people to go out and vote?
• 46:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, what we're finding is one of the
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: number one issues in Wisconsin is education. And that's K-12,
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: that's higher education. We actually just got a poll back
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: that said almost 90% of young people between the ages
• 46:37
  Speaker 7: of 18 to 34... are voting with education at the
• 46:42
  Speaker 7: top of their mind. And so we know after what
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: we've seen for almost a decade of Scott Walker in
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: Wisconsin and the disastrous cuts to public education, K through
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: 12 and higher education, that people are designing an education
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: system that is well-funded, that meets the needs, and that
• 47:00
  Speaker 7: is also equitable for black and brown communities as well too.
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: God, that's so frustrating. It's like the obvious number one
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: issue you see in polling is, How often has it
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: been discussed on the campaign trail, or at least in
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: the media? Like, never, right?
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:15
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's quite frustrating to think about, you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: what most people are thinking about. Most parents, most young people,
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: most grandparents, you know, caretakers of children are thinking about
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: the education that their child is going to receive. And
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: yet we don't hear the plans that are going to
• 47:28
  Speaker 7: lay out the future to eliminate, you know, almost $ 2
• 47:31
  Speaker 7: trillion in student loan debt. We're not hearing plans that
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: are going to change critical funding formulas to ensure that
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: Property taxes are not the only ways that schools are
• 47:39
  Speaker 7: being funded because we know that is inherently racist and
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: inherently just out of touch with reality. Why are we
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: still funding our school system off of decades, centuries ago
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: idea on how schools should be funded? So for us,
• 47:56
  Speaker 7: it's pretty frustrating to think about almost every day while
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: doing this work that what people want to hear the
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: most about is not being talked about.
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah. So there's what people want to hear about.
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: There's also how to reach them, right? And with the pandemic,
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of talk about how to reach voters
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: this cycle, especially since sometimes like normal face-to-face contact can
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: feel risky or unsafe, especially for older cohorts. How are
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: you guys reaching people? And does your strategy change if
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: the outreach is to seniors in high school versus a 29-year-old?
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, so our outreach is similar to a
• 48:28
  Speaker 7: lot of folks. Like, we're making, you know, phone calls.
• 48:31
  Speaker 7: To date, we're approaching 1 million phone calls. We're approaching 1.2
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: million text messages to Wisconsinites. You know, we're on social media, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram,
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: reaching people there and getting people to interact with us
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: on social media as well, too. So, I mean, while
• 48:51
  Speaker 7: we're not in person, I think a lot of our
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: game plan is still to be the same in terms
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: of reaching out with people. not necessarily about the election first,
• 48:57
  Speaker 7: but talking to them about the values in which, you know,
• 48:59
  Speaker 7: it's motivating this year, right? Whether it is the coronavirus response, right,
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: or lack of response, depending on who you're talking to
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: and communities feeling left out to dry, whether you're a
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: small business owner, whether you're a young person who was
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: intentionally left out of the coronavirus relief package earlier this
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: year and received no stimulus dollars and was told by
• 49:18
  Speaker 7: your campus that, we don't have a plan, but we're
• 49:21
  Speaker 7: going virtual. You may or may not get a refund
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: for the housing you already paid for and you were
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: sent home and they got screwed throughout the whole entire
• 49:30
  Speaker 7: COVID relief stuff. And even now, a lot of them
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: are forced back to the campus without a clear safety plan.
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: or testing here. So one of the examples we always
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: bring up is University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, when they first announced
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: that they were coming back to school, announced that they
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: would not be testing every student. They would only test
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: students who were showing symptoms of the coronavirus, and that
• 49:53
  Speaker 7: did not include testing faculty. So it was just a
• 49:56
  Speaker 7: really unsafe plan to usher people back in to receive
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: those housing dollars, to receive the tuition dollars, without a
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: real plan to keep people safe and educate them.
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that is absurd. So you mentioned how a lot
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: of Wisconsin college students are back on campus. Are you
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: guys still able to organize on campus in traditional ways
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: or how does that work?
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's completely changed.
• 50:16
  Speaker 7: We've done a few safe, like COVID safe events outside,
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: handed out PPE, just talking to people as they walk by.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: But the campus vibe has completely changed, right?
• 50:26
  Speaker 7: You don't have hundreds of students walking by, thousands of
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: students walking by.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: And so it's definitely different.
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: And that's where all of the text messaging and phone
• 50:34
  Speaker 7: calls come into place, as well as We brought out
• 50:36
  Speaker 7: a relational voter program to have some of our young
• 50:39
  Speaker 7: leaders reach out to some of their classmates and their friends.
• 50:42
  Speaker 7: And we built over 3,000 strong contacts on college campuses.
• 50:47
  Speaker 7: And who's doing that organizing? Who's reaching out saying, hey,
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: we have this coming up. We have this coming up.
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: And every day they're talking to people who they otherwise
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: would be able to interact with in person. But now
• 50:56
  Speaker 7: they just moved to, you know, whether it's text messaging, Facebook,
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: other means besides that.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: So early voting is happening right now in Wisconsin.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Yes, it is.
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: We're seeing some big, big aggregate numbers. How are you
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: feeling about youth turnout so far?
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm feeling good about it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 7: I mean, while Wisconsin data isn't the best in terms
• 51:15
  Speaker 7: of breaking out young people, we know that almost a
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: million ballots have been returned in Wisconsin via the absentee program.
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: And we know that young people, due to what happened
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: in April, are ready and know how to vote by mail. And,
• 51:28
  Speaker 7: you know, we've seen them request ballots ourselves, as well
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: as I think the numbers are going to show that
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: when it comes down to it, the winner of this
• 51:35
  Speaker 7: election is going to have young people to thank because
• 51:38
  Speaker 7: the young people are going to sway Wisconsin. When you
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: look at the polling numbers, almost every age group beyond
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: 35 and above is almost neck and neck.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: For Biden and Trump.
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: And our poll shows that Joe Biden's up 28 points
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: over Trump between 18 to 34-year-olds. So Really, I think,
• 51:58
  Speaker 7: you know, I think young people are going to determine
• 52:00
  Speaker 7: the election in Wisconsin as well as other places like
• 52:02
  Speaker 7: Arizona and Georgia and Florida. All these key states are
• 52:06
  Speaker 7: really relying on, you know, Gen Z voters and young
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: millennials to, you know, change the country a little bit.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: Are you guys getting help and support from the Biden
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: campaign or the Wisconsin Democratic Party?
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: Are you operating independently? How do you work with those groups? Yeah,
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: we operate independently. All of our work is independent of Democrats.
• 52:26
  Speaker 7: While we know a lot of our values and interests
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: may align with them, we don't directly work with them
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: on any campaign stuff. But we also know we push
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: a lot of Democrats, even here locally, to go a
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: little bit further, to think a little bit bolder and
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: bigger around some of the issues. One of the things
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: that we push a lot of Democrats on this year
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: was removing police from schools. And we got that victory
• 52:46
  Speaker 7: back in June by removing police officers from Milwaukee Public Schools.
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: And Milwaukee Public School Board, most of those folks would
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: identify as Democrat, if not Democratic Socialist. And it was
• 52:56
  Speaker 7: a fight, a multi-year fight to get people to think
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: about rethinking safety in a district that is 90% black
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: and brown. And we finally got that done this year.
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: So also Wisconsin was the center of a lot of
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: the Black Lives Matter protests.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: This year after Jacob Blake was shot in particular. Have
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: those protests and that organizing been foundational to your work?
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: Do you work with them?
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: How do you view what happened in Wisconsin and the
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: ability of organizers to build on that?
• 53:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think what just happened in Wisconsin was,
• 53:31
  Speaker 7: you know, nothing new to us, unfortunately. I think we
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: just finally got a lot of media attention because of
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: what happened to Breonna Taylor and George Floyd earlier in
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: the year. And then we get Jacob Blake down in
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: Kenosha being shot seven times in the back in.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: Front of his kids.
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: But that's not the first case of police brutality that
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: we've had here in Wisconsin. We had Dontre Hamilton shot
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: 14 times right downtown in Milwaukee. We had another young
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: man shot in Madison. And for Wisconsin, this wasn't new
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: to us. And it's something that we've been building towards.
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: And a lot of cities are now just getting attention
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: for the injustice that their communities suffer. But really, you know,
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: I think, you know, when we think about what happened
• 54:12
  Speaker 7: with Jacob Blake and everything, it was, you know, I
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: think just more heightened media. But it's something organized on
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: the ground since, you know, 2013, 2014 have been dealing
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: with and organizing against and holding local city councils accountable to,
• 54:28
  Speaker 7: you know, really focusing on changing some of these police
• 54:30
  Speaker 7: policies and getting civilian oversight over their police departments.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: Are you guys running into or concerned about voter suppression
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: or voter intimidation efforts?
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, definitely.
• 54:43
  Speaker 7: I think one of the things that the Jacob Blake
• 54:45
  Speaker 7: shooting brought up was that there are tons of militias
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: in our surrounding communities, especially in Illinois, who are willing
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: to come up and commit harm against our communities. And
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: so even just a few last week, NPR report came
• 54:58
  Speaker 7: out saying that Wisconsin is one of the top five
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: states that would be at risk for voter intimidation with militias.
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: And similar to Oregon, what we saw in Oregon this
• 55:07
  Speaker 7: year is that militias are coming out and they're coming
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: out with guns to scare people, to ignite some fear.
• 55:15
  Speaker 7: And so we're definitely worried about that here in Wisconsin,
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: thinking about all that can go wrong in such a
• 55:21
  Speaker 7: critical state, especially with vulnerable communities, black and brown communities,
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: indigenous communities who often suffer high rates of violence, especially
• 55:30
  Speaker 7: indigenous women. from outsiders of that community. And so what
• 55:33
  Speaker 7: does that mean when you have a bunch of armed
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: militia who are going and intimidating people to the polls
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: to suppress the vote? It's something that we're helping promote
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: out there of talking about voter protection hotlines, really pushing
• 55:46
  Speaker 7: that out to the most vulnerable communities. We're promoting hotlines
• 55:51
  Speaker 7: in Spanish and Arabic to indigenous communities to make sure
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: that they know how to access resources when some of
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: this stuff may happen in their community.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: So maybe you just sort of spoke to some of this,
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: but like knowing that risk is out there, how do
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: you think we should balance the messaging of making people aware,
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: but not making them think, oh man, there might be
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: a militia at my polling place, so I shouldn't bother.
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: To vote, right?
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: Like we don't want to scare people away from voting
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: or kind of do their work for them, but what's
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: the right balance you think?
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, I think it's just talking about the
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: values of why we vote, right? And how long it
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: took for some of us to vote, right? When we
• 56:27
  Speaker 7: think about Indigenous communities not becoming citizens until 1924 and
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: then fighting state constitutions for another 40 years to get
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: that right to vote. Think about the struggle that black
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: Americans have gone through and the civil rights and the
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: Voting Act. And even the suppression that we've gone through
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: in the last few years after the Supreme Court overthrew
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: some critical parts of the Voting Rights Act and no
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: longer mandate the states have to go to the feds
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: to change some of the rules. And so all of
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: this tells me that they're afraid when black and brown
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: folks go out to vote. And that's why we need
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: to go vote. And, you know, if they weren't afraid
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: for us to go vote, they wouldn't be doing all
• 57:05
  Speaker 7: this stuff, right? And so that balance for me is
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: really telling people, you know, we have this power and
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: we're going to try to make sure that everything is
• 57:12
  Speaker 7: protected and make sure that people are voting safely. Even
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: beyond the militias, right? We're still in the pandemic, right?
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: So even going out to vote next Tuesday, November 3rd,
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: it's still going to be dangerous. And making sure that,
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: you know, we're equipping people with PPE, giving out masks,
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: hand sanitizer as well, too. And really just talking about,
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: you know, this is not just, you know, voting for us, right?
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: We're voting for the ancestors who made us aware and
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: got us to this point. We're voting for the elders
• 57:38
  Speaker 7: who literally got beat for the right to vote down
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: in the South, right? And even some places around the country.
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: And so while it's a single vote for us, it's
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: much bigger as a collective.
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, very well put.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: So there might be people listening.
• 57:52
  Speaker 6: Who are doing similar organizing in different states, similar age groups.
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: Are there any strategies you guys have found that they
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: should steal from you in this last week to try
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: to really juice their numbers?
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think the number one strategy that
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: folks need to focus on is building a relationship with
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: young people.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: You can't just.
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: Assume that you're going to get them by doing a
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: funny TikTok ad or you're going to go viral on Instagram.
• 58:17
  Speaker 7: But really, you know, I think oftentimes people are like, oh,
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: what do young people care about? You know, they care
• 58:21
  Speaker 7: about climate or they care about, you know, this or that.
• 58:23
  Speaker 7: Young people, you know, they're not a one issue voter.
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: They often carry multiple identities. You know, Gen Z is
• 58:30
  Speaker 7: probably one of the most politically aware communities, you know,
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: communities that are, you know, hyper tuned into the intersectionality
• 58:38
  Speaker 7: on the way things go. And so you really have
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: to do that on the ground organizing. You can't just
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: start your campaign in September or August or wait for
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: campuses to come back. But you really have to invest
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: into this year round and be committed to doing that
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: deep work and even doing the work that you may
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: have to unlearn as a campaign or as an organization
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: or political entity. Unlike how, you know, you're currently structured
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: doesn't meet the needs of young people in this time.
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: And so really, you know, the advice that I always
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: give anyone is, you know, build these relationships, because at
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: the end of the day, you know, you're always going
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: to get people who are going to get excited to
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: vote and you can send out text messages and people
• 59:14
  Speaker 7: can be like, yeah, you know, I'm really down for
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: Joe Biden or I'm really down for this candidate. That,
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: you know, that's cool now. But what we're trying to
• 59:20
  Speaker 7: do is we're trying to build a movement. We're trying
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: to lay the groundwork for something larger than a political
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: campaign because we know oftentimes what we're dealing with cannot
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: be legislated out, right? We can't legislate out racism. We
• 59:31
  Speaker 7: can't legislate out misogyny. We can't legislate out, you know,
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: a bunch of these different things that are affecting people's lives,
• 59:38
  Speaker 7: you know? So it's really, it goes beyond the election
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: for us as well, too.
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: That's good advice also.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: So last question for you.
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: If people are hearing you talk, they're hearing about Leaders
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: Igniting Transformation, they think that sounds like great work. That
• 59:52
  Speaker 6: sounds like important work. How can they help you out?
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: What do you guys need for this last week?
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, check us out on our website, you know,
• 59:58
  Speaker 7: sign up for a volunteer shift. You know, we're accepting
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: people to help us do some phone calls, some text messaging.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 7: If you're in Wisconsin and one of the places we're
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 7: working in, we're doing Glit Drops all across that. You know,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 7: donating is always good, helps us push us over any
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 7: last thing. You know, whether that is sending out more messages,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: paying for all the messages that we're doing, printing, turning
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 7: out more students, even on Election Day, right? Like, there
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: is no money that is too late, even up to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: Election Day in a place like Wisconsin. where our polls
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 7: open at 7 a.m., they close at 8 p.m., and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: we know for those 11 hours or 13 hours that
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: we're going to be in it, right? And we're going
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: to have to make sure and motivate people to stay
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: in line even though it's going to be cold and
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: dark in Wisconsin.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: 8 p.m.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 7: In Wisconsin is going to be about 30 degrees, super dark,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 7: and people are going to need motivation, right? So that,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: you know, can we bring them hot chocolate, hand warmers,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 7: you know, deploy all of our staff, interns, fellows around
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: the state to make sure that these people are staying
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: in line? Nothing is too late at this moment. All right.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 6: Well, thank you for the work you're doing, Dakota. I
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: really appreciate you doing the show and all the organizing.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: Leaders Igniting Transformation. Check out their website if you want
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 6: to help out. But listen, man, I appreciate you fighting
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: the good fight and hopefully we'll win this thing.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: I appreciate having you on.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: Thanks to Dakota for joining us today. Dan and I
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: will talk to you on Wednesday. And then we'll be
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: doing one more pre-election podcast that the four of us
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: will all record on Friday.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: Wow, it's here. Exciting stuff. It's here. It's here, guys.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: It's here. Votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer. Please do it. Pod Save
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Pavadimitriou, Quinn Lewis,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: videos every week.