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Trump's Indefensible Pardons · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: On today's show, America's golden age has begun, Dan. We'll
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: talk about the first week of Donald Trump's second term
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and try to separate the signal from the noise, though
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: there was quite a bit of the latter during the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: president's sit-down in the Oval with his pal Sean Hannity
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday night. There was also a catfight between two
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of Trump's billionaire friends that broke out over which one
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of them gets to help control the artificial intelligence that
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: could destroy civilization. So that's fun. We'll also talk about
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: what Democrats might learn about how to fight back from
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: an Episcopal bishop and a pod bro. And speaking of Democrats,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: DNC chair candidate Faz Shakir, one of the smartest voices
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in progressive politics, stops by to talk to Dan about
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: why he's running and how he's different. But first, as
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of Wednesday evening, Donald Trump had signed by our count
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: 48 executive orders and actions and generally spent the week
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: making decisions. drastic changes to the way our country is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: governed and how our society views itself. Some of this
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we previewed on the Tuesday show, but here's a sample
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of the moves that got the most attention. Trump ordered
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a review of the Biden administration's investigative actions, quote, to
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  Speaker 1: correct past misconduct related to the weaponization of law enforcement
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: and the weaponization of the intelligence community. He withdrew America
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: He's also pausing all leases for offshore wind farms. and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: incentives to buy electric vehicles. He's sending U.S. troops to
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  Speaker 1: the southern border and building a mass deportation force of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: federal agents to begin immigration raids. He's also directed federal
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: prosecutors to criminally investigate state and local officials who resist
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the coming deportations. But Trump's also going after legal immigration.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: He signed an order trying to end birthright citizenship for
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the children of immigrants who aren't yet citizens, even the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: ones who are here legally on visas. He suspended our
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: asylum and refugee programs. He signed orders directing the federal
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: government to dismantle all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: jobs to no longer officially recognize transgender Americans, to freeze
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: all federal hiring and make it easier to replace nonpolitical
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: civil servants with Trump loyalists, which he is already doing.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: He gave top secret clearances to White House staff without
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: going through background checks. And he also canceled the security
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: clearances of 51 people who signed a letter casting doubt
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: on the Hunter Biden laptop thing. He's renaming Denali over
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  Speaker 1: the objections of Alaska's Republican senators and the Gulf of
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  Speaker 1: Mexico over the objections of anyone whose brain hasn't been broken.
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  Speaker 1: He signed an order directing all executive departments and agencies
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  Speaker 1: to deliver emergency price relief to Americans. Didn't realize the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Commerce Department was responsible for the price of eggs. And
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  Speaker 1: last but not least, he has issued pardons and commutations
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  Speaker 1: for all of the January 6th defendants, regardless of the
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  Speaker 1: severity of their crimes. That's a lot. We're going to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: spend some time on the pardons and immigration in a bit,
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  Speaker 1: but beyond those two big issues, what from this list
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: really matters the most, what matters less, and what is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: just a bullshitty talking point?
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  Speaker 3: I think other than the renaming various things on various maps,
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  Speaker 3: we should take all of it pretty seriously. Even if
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  Speaker 3: the order seems more symbolic or so legally dubious that
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: even this Supreme Court is likely to strike it down
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: because it all sends a message to the Project 2025
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: goons who are going to be running this government about
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  Speaker 3: what they should do, right? The order on investigating the
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: investigations to understand the weaponization of government, that's kind of
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: a fake thing, but that is a signal to Kash
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Patel and the people who work for him, the people
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: in Pam Bondi's DOJ, that we want to investigate these people, right?
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  Speaker 3: Even if the order doesn't mean that much, It sends
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  Speaker 3: a dangerous signal to dangerous people. And so we should
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: take it quite seriously. Having to choose amongst this list
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: of terrible things as the thing that's most terrible is
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  Speaker 3: pretty hard. But for me, the stuff I'm most concerned
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: about is all the climate stuff. It is pulling out
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  Speaker 3: of Paris. It is getting rid of electric vehicle incentives.
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  Speaker 3: In part because on climate, it's the one thing we
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  Speaker 3: don't have time to waste, right? We're already behind schedule
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: and trying to get where we need to get to
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: keep the planet alive, and wasting another four years on
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is deeply dangerous, and it's time we can't
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: get back. On some of these other things, if we
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: can survive these four years, you can go back and
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: you can undo the worst policy does. You can issue
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: new executive orders. You can pass new laws. On climate,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: we're never going to get those years back, and I
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: think that comes at a great cost.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the climate stuff is pretty horrible. I
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  Speaker 1: think probably the most bullshitty executive order is the one
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: on Yes, yes, for sure. even if you think that
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  Speaker 1: they don't really care. At least they care about staying
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: in power. You think just would have been more popular
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to have lower prices. So you think they would have
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: done that. But that's probably because there are no levers
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in the federal government to bring down prices that Joe
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  Speaker 1: Biden hadn't already tried over the last four years. So
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that is clearly window dressing and just sort of bullshit.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the January 6th pardons, which, while promised
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  Speaker 1: by Trump during the campaign, I think it's fair to
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  Speaker 1: say were not expected to be this broad. Pardons and commutations,
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  Speaker 1: even for people convicted of brutally assaulting police officers and
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  Speaker 1: for the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers,
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  Speaker 1: which are two far-right paramilitary groups. Those two leaders had
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  Speaker 1: been found guilty of seditious conspiracy. As recently as January 12th,
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  Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance said, while defending potential pardons for
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  Speaker 1: nonviolent offenders, quote, if you committed violence on that day, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be pardoned. J.D. Vance, if you committed violence
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  Speaker 1: on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. Not so
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: obvious to J.D. Vance's boss, who according to reporting from Notice,
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  Speaker 1: decided to extend the pardon to even the most violent
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  Speaker 1: criminals because of the blowback to Vance's interview from Trump's base.
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  Speaker 1: According to Axios, Trump said, fuck it, release them all.
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  Speaker 1: Trump did an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night
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  Speaker 1: where he talked about his reasoning.
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  Speaker 4: Number of reasons. Number one, they were in there for
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  Speaker 4: three and a half years, a long time. And in
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: many solitary confinement, treated like nobody's ever been treated. Treated
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  Speaker 4: so badly. They knew the election was rigged and they
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  Speaker 4: were protesting the vote. And that you should be allowed
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  Speaker 4: to protest a vote. You should be allowed to. You know,
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  Speaker 4: when the day comes... You shouldn't be able to invade
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  Speaker 4: the Capitol. Most of the people were absolutely innocent. Okay,
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  Speaker 4: but forgetting all about that, it would be very, very
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  Speaker 4: cumbersome to go and Look, you know how many people
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about? 1,500 people. Almost all of them are,
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  Speaker 4: should not have been, this should not have happened. They
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: were very minor incidents, okay? You know, they get built
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  Speaker 4: up by that couple of fake guys that are on
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  Speaker 4: CNN all the time. They were very minor incidents.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so angry about this. I want to talk about
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Michael Fanone for a minute. He's a D.C. police officer.
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  Speaker 1: He was beaten within an inch of his life on
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  Speaker 1: January 6th. Wasn't even on duty that day. Responded to
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  Speaker 1: radio calls for assistance. After he got there, the rioters
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  Speaker 1: dragged him down the steps, sprayed chemicals in his face,
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  Speaker 1: beat him with pipes, tased him repeatedly in the back
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  Speaker 1: of the neck, and said they were going to kill
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: him with his own gun while he said, please, I
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  Speaker 1: have kids. He suffered burns, a concussion, traumatic brain injury,
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  Speaker 1: and a heart attack. He had to retire immediately. He
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  Speaker 1: testified at the January 6th trial. He's gotten threats. His
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: family's gotten threats. He said that as recently as a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: month ago, his 76-year-old mother was outside gardening and someone
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: threw human feces on her, a Trump supporter, because of
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: her son. The man who tased Michael Fanone is Daniel
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Rodriguez from California. He saw Trump call for a protest
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: on January 6th. Got on a big group chat, told
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  Speaker 1: everyone to bring knives and bear spray to Washington where
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  Speaker 1: he said he would, quote, hang Congress. And after he
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  Speaker 1: tased Michael Fanone until he lost consciousness, he wrote on
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  Speaker 1: the group chat, quote, tased the fuck out of the blue.
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  Speaker 1: And after he pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer with
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  Speaker 1: a dangerous weapon, he walked out of the courtroom. He screamed,
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  Speaker 1: Trump won. He was sentenced just about a year ago,
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  Speaker 1: and now he is free. No shorter sentence, free. And now,
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  Speaker 1: Michael Fanone is trying to get a protective order because
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  Speaker 1: the rioters who were pardoned are now threatening to go
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  Speaker 1: after the people who sent them to prison. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what to do with that, Dan.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it is so deeply dangerous.
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  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: And the way Trump talked about it is just, it's
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  Speaker 3: pure gaslighting, right? None of what he's saying is true.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Nothing that he describes happened the way it happened. These
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  Speaker 3: are not peaceful protesters. It's an entirely made-up reality to
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  Speaker 3: justify this pardon. And it's all belied by video evidence,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: testimony from the people who were there, testimony from some
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: of his allies and former aides. And he has created
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: this false reality. And I think the scariest thing about
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it is he clearly believes it. There's a lot of
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: things Donald Trump says that he obviously doesn't believe. He
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: has convinced himself about what happened on January 6th, that
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: it is something that was not violent in the way
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  Speaker 3: it was, and that the violence that did happen was justified.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: It was on his behalf. And it is quite, quite scary.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And look, for all the Republicans and other people who think, oh,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: we're going to re-litigate January 6th again, and we're looking back,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: this is actually about the future, why this is so dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: Because now Donald Trump has pardoned all of these right-wing
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  Speaker 1: extremists who were armed, who committed violence, who are not
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  Speaker 1: apologetic at all, who are not, you know, maintaining their
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  Speaker 1: innocence either. They know they're guilty. They've said they're guilty.
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  Speaker 1: They're not apologetic. And now they're out of prison. And
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: other right-wing extremists who might want to cause violence, now
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: know that if you commit violence in Donald Trump's name,
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  Speaker 1: then he's got your back. And so why wouldn't they
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: commit violence again? Now they're all talking about revenge. Revenge
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: against the people who testified, against the prosecutors, against the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: judges who put them in prison. And so like when
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the Proud Boys come to your community and start marching
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: or menacing people or whatever the hell they do, what
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: are the police going to do? knowing that when last
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: time a police officer was beaten within an inch of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: his life, that the perpetrator was just released. Are the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: police going to protect us? Who's going to protect people?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Because it's Donald Trump's, whether or not Donald Trump thinks
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: it's his private army, they think they're Donald Trump's private army.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: That's what they think.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: What does it say about the politics of the Trump
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: coalition that they believed that it would be a huge
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: political problem to not pardon right-wing militia groups?
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, that's where it is that that would be
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  Speaker 3: a political problem. And I think these pardons are the
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: fullest expression of that famous quote from Frank Wilhoite that
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: went viral a few years ago. Conservatism consists of exactly
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: one proposition to win. There must be in groups whom
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: the law protects but does not bind alongside out groups
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: who the law binds but does not protect.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: If you support Donald Trump, you have the full protection
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: of the law. If you do not support Donald Trump,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: if you oppose him, then the law will be turned
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: against you. That is the message of Donald Trump on
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: the first day of his presidency.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, even before he sits down with Hannity, Trump allies
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: were having trouble defending these pardons. Let's listen to some Republicans.
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  Speaker 5: What about those who assaulted police officers and then were
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: pardoned by the president?
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen any.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I haven't gone into the detail.
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: What do you make of President Trump's pardons for violent offenders?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful that President Trump is the president of the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: United States.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: I certainly don't want to pardon any violent actors, but
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: There was a real miscarriage of justice here, so I'm
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: totally supportive of it.
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: Are you comfortable with that?
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the details.
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: It's supposed to.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Be 12 years.
• 14:20
  Speaker 7: You've got less than one.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Are you okay with that?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It's not my place. It's the president's own decision, and
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: he made a decision.
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  Speaker 4: Again, it's not ideal, but I'm not overly concerned about
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: it either.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I think the gift is that it's all behind us now.
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: Pathetic.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Pathetic. I think those Republicans, I think every elected Republican
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: should be asked that question, who refused to answer it,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: should be asked that question every single day. That any
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: reporter can get in their face and put a microphone there.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The ones who are walking through Congress. I mean, I just,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: at least answer the question. At least have the courage
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to say, yeah, I support the pardons of the violent
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: criminals who beat the shit out of police officers and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: almost killed them. Yeah, I support it. At least say that.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Instead of just running away. I mean, do you think
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that Republicans will pay a political price for defending this?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Is this something that is going to haunt some of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: these members when they're up for reelection in two years?
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: It will haunt them more if the reporters and others
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: in politics are aggressive about continuing to ask the question
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: and we don't just give up after six days. These reporters,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: these Capitol reporters, many of whom also have their lives
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: in danger on January 6th, are going to see these
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: members every single day. Are they going to keep asking
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: about this? Or are they going to switch to their
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: opinion on whether it's one bill or two bills or
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: whatever else? If they drive this, then it has a
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: greater chance of staying in the public consciousness. The pardons
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: are very unpopular. Large majorities oppose them. Even a significant
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: number of Trump's most ardent supporters don't think they're a
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: great idea. And I think we should– Democrats should scream
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: from the rooftops about this as much as we possibly
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: can because most voters are not going to know this
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: happened or they're not going to understand exactly who he
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: pardoned and what those people did and what the consequences
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: of that are. But I do want to sort of
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: level set expectations on the politics of this in the
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: short term, at least. And this gets to what I
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: think is one of the analytical errors that I made
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: in 2024 when talking about this election, is we have
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: to sort of understand the difference between the popularity of
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: an issue and how big a priority is for voters.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: These parties were always unpopular. Every voter, people said they
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: did not like them. They do not like it when
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump talks about January 6th. But in the end,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: for most of the voters who were persuaded, well, this
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: did not drive their vote choice. because they cared so
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: much about costs in immigration to a slightly lesser extent,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: that they're willing to put up with a whole bunch
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: of shit that Donald Trump was willing to do that
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: they did not like if he was going to lower
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: their costs. So the political price of this is going
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: to come if and when prices don't come down, as
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump says, or the borders not become more secure,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: or America continues to feel more chaotic. In the short term,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: is this going to move things a lot? Probably not.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep talking about it,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: because it's incredibly important.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just, I get why it didn't move vote. Like,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: first of all, how many people knew that he was
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: promising pardons like this? How many people knew exactly what
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: these people did? And it's a prospective promise during a campaign.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And it's not something that you're experiencing while you're going
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to the voting booth. Now he's done the pardons. Now
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: we should be telling the stories of what happened. Because
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I think this goes, like, okay, what if prices do
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: come down? but there's still paramilitary groups roaming our communities, right? Like,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: probably we should say something about that. Probably we should
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: let people know what's happening. And, you know, I mean,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: we'll get into the democratic discussion about, you know, how
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Democrats are responding, but I completely understand the driving force
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: behind Trump's victory and probably the central challenge that has
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: destabilized American politics has to do with people's living standards
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and yawning economic inequality in this country. And so I
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: completely understand that. But sometimes I think you just have
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to talk about one thing and then you have to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: talk about the other thing. You have to be able
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to talk about both, especially this far out from an election,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: you know, because I think this is the time, if
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: any time, to cede the ground and make sure that
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: people know what has happened and what the stories are.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maybe the way to think about this is,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: and one of the strategic errors of the first Trump term.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: There was this belief, this intuition among so many Democrats
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: that we were just one thing away from people abandoning Trump.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: If they could just learn this one singular piece of
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: information about him, then they would walk away. We spent
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of time screaming about all of those things.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: The way to think about it now, because he just
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: did this on the furthest distance possible from the midterms,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: when he will actually have to be held accountable nationally
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: for his political misdeeds, is we have to tell a
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: story about Trump, right? And not just about Trump, about
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party in the Trump era is probably the
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: way to think about it. And this needs to be
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: a piece of that story. It's not just that we're
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: just like, he pardoned these people, they're bad. Look at
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: all the terrible things. Look what it means that that's
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: going to move things. It's just like over time, right?
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: We're not trying to move his numbers today. We're not
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: trying to move his numbers tomorrow. We're trying to make
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: a case against him that is going to bear fruit
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: for us when voters actually vote in Virginia and New
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Jersey and In November and then nationally in the House
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: and Senate elections next year.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: One way to think about this that I've been thinking
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: about is our kids, you know, in a couple years,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: your kids probably even sooner, are going to like know
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the details of these stories.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Of like what happened. Or they're going to learn about it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: In school at some point. God willing. Who knows. If
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the curriculum hasn't been. Changed. By. By Donald Trump's administration.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: By the regime. They're going to learn about this. And
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: they're going to be like. Okay. So. These people. Beat
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: up these cops. This cop had a heart attack. He
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: was threatened. And then Donald Trump let them out of prison.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And then they said that they wanted revenge and that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: they were going to go buy guns. And so what
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: did everyone say? What did everyone do? And, you know, well,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the Republicans pretended that it wasn't happening. The Republicans tried
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to avoid that. Well, what did the Democrats do? Well,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the Democrats complained about it, but then they said, that's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: certainly not lowering the price of eggs. And like, I'm not,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of course... I'm only half joking because I will say
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of statements from Democrats about the pardons that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: included the price of eggs in the statement about the pardons.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, guys, that's not that's not the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: time to do that now. I'd like and I feel
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: bad because we have suggested that, you know, and I'm like,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: no costs are it right. Like standard of living. That
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: is the central challenge. That is the challenge that most
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: voters are dealing with. Democrats have to talk about it.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: We have to reckon with it. It's going to drive
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: vote choice. That doesn't mean combining it with everything awkwardly.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there is a difference between the story
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you're trying to tell and the words you use every
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: single day, right? The log line here is that Donald
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Trump failed to lower prices in part because he did
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: all these other things instead of that. That's not what
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: you say, right? It is reading the stage directions out loud.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: You can scream about the the pardons as we should,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: understanding in the back of your head that the longer
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: game here is going to be around prices. You don't
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: have to jam it all into one tweet or one
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: skeet or one statement. You can just scream about this
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: and then over the course of time, you are making
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: a case about all of the things he did that
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: people don't like, which are going to have much more
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: political weight when he undoubtedly fails on the promises he
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: made that they care the most about.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: You can even do a multi-part skeet. Do not thread this.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be a thread. It can just be...
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Just make a point.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Reading the stage directions is just such a good description
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of what so many Democrats have been doing this week
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and maybe the last several years.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: The last decade.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Like, just stop reading the stage directions, please. It does
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: tell me something about how Republicans view the politics of this.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson gets asked about it and says, we're... We're
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: not looking back. We're looking forward. And then three hours later,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson announces that they're going to investigate the January
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: 6th investigation that Congress undertook. And the reason why we
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: now know, because of reporting from CNN, is that Donald
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Trump asked Mike Johnson to go investigate the January 6th committee.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And Johnson was like, it's a little looking backwards. I
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: don't know. But of course, Johnson has to do whatever
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump says, because they are all doing whatever Donald
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Trump says. There's no Republican left. That is trying to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: actively oppose him. We had a few Republicans who said
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they don't agree with the pardons. Good for them. Lisa Murkowski,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Tom Tillis, some others. But no one is making it.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: None of the Republicans are making a big deal out
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's in their minds and they're not
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: incorrect on their short term politics is if you're on
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the wrong side of Trump, you're out of the Republican Party.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Right. What do you think about the one excuse? you
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: hear from some of them as well. Joe Biden did
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: all the pardons. So Joe Biden pardoned his family and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: he did those prospective pardons for Fauci and Cheney. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: so if he's doing pardons and Trump's doing pardons, all
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the pardons are bad.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I don't love Joe Biden's pardons, particularly the one, well,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: I'm very sympathetic on the Hunter one, the ones for
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: the rest of his family, six minutes before he left office,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: I think are much harder to defend.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good move. Yeah.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: But if you think that Donald Trump did all of
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: these pardons in this way because Joe Biden did some
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: pardons earlier that day, then you were too fucking stupid
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: to be in politics.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Then you were in fucking a coma for the last
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: year because he talked about it every day on the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: fucking campaign. Yes.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Of course he was going to do this. Now, Biden
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: made probably slightly leavened the political pain that could come
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: from this because a lot of the coverage is the
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Biden pardons and the Trump pardons. Look at how presidents
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: are now breaking norms left and right. He gave the
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: press an opportunity to do its favorite thing, which is
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: default to the pox on both your houses narrative and
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: that both sides are doing it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Once again, Joe Biden in his last move in the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: White House nailed the messaging and communication, you know, because
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: he excels at that.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: There is a– I don't love Joe Biden's pardons. There
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: is a fundamental difference morally, legally, and every other sense
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: between proactively pardoning your family and pardoning 1,600 people who
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: assaulted the Capitol, some of whom committed violence against police
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: officers or members of right-wing paramilitary organizations because they were
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: on your side. Those are not the same thing. They
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: can both not be awesome, but one is a lot
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: less awesome than the other.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: think Anthony Fauci tased anyone until they had a heart attack.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Well, we'll find out soon.
• 25:33
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• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Crooked or enter code Crooked before checkout. Let's talk about
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the immigration moves. We could do a whole show about this.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I imagine we'll probably end up doing that at some point.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about this a lot. Just to start, what
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: do you make of the move so far in immigration?
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: And what did you make of that directive to prosecutors
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to go after any official who tries to stop the deportations?
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Well, let's start with the directive, which could not be
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: more ironic in the sense that it is exactly what
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump has been running against in his mind for
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: the last four years. It is weaponization of law enforcement
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: apparatus of the government to scare people into adhering to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: your policy agenda. If you are someone in a city,
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: in a blue city or somewhere else, or local law enforcement,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And you have every reason to be afraid that this
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Department of Justice will prosecute you. And even if ultimately
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: you will be found innocent or you won't end up
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: being indicted, you're going to have to spend your own
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: money and your own resources to defend yourself legally against this.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: It's going to upend your life. It's going to potentially
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: ruin your reputation. And so he is trying to remove
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: all obstacles to anyone who will stand up against him.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I think the other thing that has stood out to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: me about all of the immigration moves is Donald Trump's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: first term, he basically cut legal immigration, legal immigration, by
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: more than he reduced illegal immigration. So again, much like
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the cost of living and prices, a lot of people
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump thinking there's a situation at the border.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: They need to control the border. There's been an influx
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of immigrants coming into our cities that we can't care for.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: This is a problem. Can we get this under control?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And what Donald Trump is saying is actually, I want
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to go after legal immigration, birthright citizenship, not just for
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: people who've just crossed the border and had a child here. No,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: this is people who are here on student visas, H-1B visas,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: people who are here legally. Now he's suspending the refugee program.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Refugees who we take into this country are the most
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: vetted people of any immigrant when we take refugees in.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Suspended the refugee program, suspended asylum. People like Steve Bannon
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and that wing of the party, they want to cut
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: legal immigration. Stephen Miller wants to cut legal immigration. They
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: don't want the H-1B visas, that whole fight we talked about.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: So it is hard to look at his immigration process.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: moves as moves that are about national security, people's safety,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: anything like that, order in the immigration system, and more
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: about the Trump administration deciding that they want to define
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: who is an American and who is not.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the national security threat in the minds of Donald
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Trump and Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller is a diverse
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: pluralistic society. That's what they're trying to stop, right? And
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: that anyone who represents change or diversity is a threat.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: And that applies to immigration, it applies to their policies
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: on DEI programs and all of it, and that is
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: exactly what they're doing. And I think the scary thing
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: here is a lot of this is warmed over policy
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: from the last time, but they are just implementing it faster,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: more aggressively, and seemingly with more precision than before. They
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: now know how to pull the levers of government in
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: a way they absolutely did not. It was just a
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: clusterfuck the first time around. They didn't even know what
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: they were doing. If you remember the Muslim ban, they
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: had to rewrite it like five times to get it through.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: They made huge errors that delayed implementation. And now they're not,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: for what we can tell, they're not going to make
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: as many of those errors, right? They have real people
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: in charge of things. The entire government is on board
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: with Trump's immigration plans. And before There was a wing
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: of the government that was for it, and part of
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: his White House staff was resisting it, including some of
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: his closest aides. And in this case, everyone is moving
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: forward to do it, and that's where it's the most scary.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: All right, this is what counts as lighter fare. I
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: was saying, when I got this part, how fun. A
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: mini-drama erupted on Wednesday when Elon Musk went on the
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: attack against a $ 500 billion AI initiative that Trump had
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: announced the day before in the Roosevelt Room. With the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: SoftBank CEO, billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison, and Elon frenemy
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman of OpenAI, Elon responded on X, quote, they
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: don't have the money. And then Sam and Elon got
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in a bit of a slap fight online. What's going
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: on here? Why is Elon Musk mad about the artificial
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: intelligence initiative announced by his pal Donald Trump and all
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: those other billionaires? I thought he loves AI.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: He does love AI, I think, but he hates Sam
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Altman more than he loves AI, right? Elon was on
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: the board.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: He also loves his AI.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, which we're going to get to, right? In
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: the big tech world, in this club of billionaires, it's
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: all about money, but there is a high school cafeteria
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: element to this.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little dick swinging contest.
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: All the people at the outcast table in the high
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: school cafeteria now are fighting over being at the cool
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: kid's table.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just keep in mind, Donald Trump is the cool kid. Yeah.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: What a fucking road we're in.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: But Elon and Sam Altman founded OpenAI together. Elon left
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: it in dispute about its direction. Elon then started a
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: competing AI model, Grok, which is part of Twitter. He–
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: does not like the people involved. He did not, I imagine,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: did not like being on that stage because he said
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Twitter does not have the money to be, or X
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: does not have the money to participate in such an
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: endeavor like OpenAI and the others do. And so he
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: just did what he always did, which is say what
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: was at the top of his mind without really thinking
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It's also watching Sam Altman, who in 2021 was tweeting,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: thank you, Reid Hoffman, for everything you've done to help
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump. And we're so lucky he's not in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the White House anymore. We've defeated Donald Trump. This is great.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: He was resistance-pilled at one point. He was tweeting polls
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in 2017 like, what should we call him? Dangerous Donald? Like,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: this is Sam Altman. And then just yesterday or this week,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: he posted on X, wow, you know, I think I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: was wrong about Donald Trump. And now that I've met
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: him in person, I'm really excited about what he's going
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: to do for the country. Give me a fucking break, man.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, I met Sam Altman in 2017 at a
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: series of meetings about trying to bring together political folks
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: and tech folks on how to defeat Donald Trump and
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: fight back against MAGA extremism. And now he's on stage.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: It's giving him billions of dollars.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Now that he's free of your brainwashing, Dan, your liberal
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: propaganda that you were spouting at him. Now, thank God
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: he got to meet Mr. Trump so he could see
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: firsthand how great he is. So is Elon like now
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the most powerful person? In government, and I say in
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: government because he's got a White House email, and he's
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: apparently getting a West Wing office. He was originally going
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to be in the EEOB, Old Executive Office Building. That's
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the one next to the West Wing because there's not
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: a ton of West Wing offices, but Elon was not
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: going to have that. Now he's in the West Wing
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: with his buddies. He pushed Vivek Ramaswamy out of Doge.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Vivek's now running for governor because apparently Elon didn't like
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: his weird thread about Saved by the Bell and you know,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: we need to have more screeches and fewer zacks and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, which, you know, point to
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Elon on that.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That was an understanding of the plot of State
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: by the Bell.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Correct. Correct. But so like, is Elon the most powerful
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: person right now? Steve Bannon was taking shots at him
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: for this open AI thing, the fight with Sam Altman.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: He was like, Donald Trump needs to sit him down.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that he's just out there and he's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: been brought into government. Now he's criticizing the president, you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: because Bannon hates him. But What do you think of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: this whole thing?
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he is the most powerful person in
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: government by far and one of the most powerful people
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: in the world because Donald Trump has limited leverage over
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: him compared to everyone else, right? Anyone else can kick
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: out of government. He can support a primary challenge against them.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: He can use his Twitter account or his Truth Social
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: account to trash their reputation and send a mob of
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: people after him. Elon has more money than Trump. He
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: doesn't need Trump per se. And he also has a
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: very vicious, aggressive, very large online mob of people who
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: support him. And so you can see it. Donald Trump
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: treads lightly around Elon in a way he does not
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: tread lightly around anyone else we've ever seen.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder how long it'll last. So more from
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the Hannity interview. They talked about a lot of other
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: stuff besides January 6th. I think it's safe to say
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: that both men were really feeling it. They were really
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: happy to be together. Let's listen.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: After four long years, President Donald Trump is back where
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: he belongs. He is in the Oval Office. Joe Biden
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: has very bad advisors. Somebody advised Joe Biden to give
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: pardons to everybody but him. They wanted to take care
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: of him. Yeah, but you don't.
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: They wanted to.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: I don't care. This guy went around giving everybody pardons.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: is he didn't give himself a pardon. And if you
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: look at it, it all had to do with him.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: And I heard Schiff went to him and just begged
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: him for a pardon because Schiff is a crook.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I will say that. So I don't know if you
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: watch the whole interview, but that clip, he has like
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a sort of menacing tone, but is a little vague
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: on investigating Biden or Schiff. But at one point, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Hannity asks him about just sort of, you know, vengeance
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: in general and retribution and all that. And he gets
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: really angry and really dark. And it's like, I went
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: through hell these last four years. And, you know, maybe
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: people need to go through that. Like, it was, you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: we are on a watch what he does, not just
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: what he says kind of path here. But I hear
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: something like that. I left that interview thinking, oh, man,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: he really wants to do these investigations. Yeah, 100%.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, he implicit is doing a lot of work here,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: but he threatened Biden repeatedly, right? Seems weird, seems unfortunate
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: he didn't pardon himself.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Kind of funny, kind of sad. Yeah, maybe it's sad,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: maybe it's funny.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And I mean, there is this, you and I, based
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: on a series of misbegotten professional decisions, are forced to
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: watch all of the Trump-Hannity interviews over the last near decade.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: And there was always this moment where he sees Trump
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: about to light himself on fire and he tries to
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: use gentle parroting techniques to shift the interview onto safer territory.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: And so you hear him in that clip being like,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I want to get to the economy. Seriously, the economy,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: high prices. And Trump's like, I don't care. I want
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: to talk about prosecuting my opponents.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we got. There was also, by the way,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a very long discourse about the fires in LA and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: smelt and turning the valve on in Northern California so
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: that the water flows down to Los Angeles. That's the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: old days we would have played that. But if you
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: want to laugh or maybe you'll cry, you know, go
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: take a listen to that. And we'll probably hear it
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: again when he goes to Los Angeles on Friday.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you when we cry, which is when he
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: conditions a fire aid to California based on sending the
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: water to L.A. when the water doesn't go to L.A.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Water doesn't go to L.A. Doesn't go to L.A. Doesn't
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: know what he's talking about. He's the fish guy. They're
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: trying to save the fish and the fish. How are
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: we even saving the fish? Because don't fish need water?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, it's obviously absurd. But when you
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: say something like that, like you see why people believe them.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: It's like, well, you fish do need water.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. It does make sense that there'd be
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: a valve in Northern California that you open. It's just
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a button.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: It's just, Elon just has to push one button and
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: the water.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Goes all the way down. They won't push it because
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: it might hurt the smell. Might hurt the smell. Pots
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  Speaker 1: free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash crooked. Donald Trump
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: has done a lot of public appearances since the inauguration.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: We hear Donald Trump multiple times a day. Is that strategy?
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Is that just what he wants? Because he wants to
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: be the country's host for the next four years? Or
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: is there any risk to that for him? I guess
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: there's no risk to anything because he's fucking He's immune.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: He's president. That's it. He wins.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: He's not running for– he doesn't have to run again
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: and he's immune for prosecution. So, yeah, there's very little risk.
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Tough to keep asking what the political damage for Trump is.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: I guess just so everyone knows, you know, a weakened Trump,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: a trumpet back at lower 40%, 30%, whatever, you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that bodes poorly for the midterms for Republicans. And I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: think probably if it keeps up for four years, the
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: same is true for 2028. But long way to go
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: until we get there. So, go ahead.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: It's– Is it a strategy? No, in the sense that
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump has always wanted to be this way. He
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: wants to be the center of attention at all times, right?
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: In tabloids, putting his name on everything, hosting a reality show.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: But it does also happen to be, and this is
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: why he's president for the second time in three elections,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: is that sort of approach is also the way you
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: should communicate in this media age, is you have to
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: be omnipresent. You have to be everywhere all at once.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: You have to do everything. Never stop talking. You can't
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: abide by this philosophy that a lot of Democrats will
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: abide by, which is the news of the day is
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: the EOs. So once I've done the EOs, I should
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: stop talking until tomorrow, and then we'll have another news
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: of the day. That's not how the world works anymore.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: It's nonstop, always talking, always be there, command as much
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: attention as you possibly can. And that means that the
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: people who don't pay a lot of attention have a
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: greater chance of hearing you if you're always talking. But
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: it also means, this is very key for Trump, That
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: if you're always talking, if you say something wrong, if
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: you make a mistake, it hurts a lot less. And
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: so this is the approach, right? It is exhausting. It
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: hurts my brain. It makes doing this podcast thoroughly like
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: being on a hamster wheel of terribleness at all times.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: But that is how Democrats– that's how everyone should communicate
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: in this day and age. They should overcommunicate. They should
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: be out there all the time. And that was not
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: the approach that Joe Biden used for sure. Certainly not
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the approach that Kamala Harris used, although she did exponentially
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: more than Joe Biden. But you have to be, we
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: have to sort of adopt not the messaging, not the behavior,
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: but the conceptual understanding of messaging that Trump is employing here.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Trump didn't said so much shit this week. It was
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: easy to forget that he also is trying to get
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a cabinet confirmed. So far, the only one who's gotten
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: through the Senate, who's officially confirmed as Secretary of State
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. Who, by the way, has planned a trip
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: to Panama, Dan. So I guess that canal thing is
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: no joke. That's going to be his first trip as
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State. Marco's going to Panama. You think he's
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: excited about that? You think there's going to be a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: moment on that trip where Marco Rubio thinks of himself like,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: how the fuck did I get here? On one hand,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I'm Secretary of State. On the other, it's for Donald
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Trump and he sent me on a mission to take
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: back the Panama Canal.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, we are, the world is on fire in
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: multiple places right now. And the top priority, the first
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: thing New Secretary of State is going to do is
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: to go to try to take back a canal for
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: reasons that are entirely made up.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Made up.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: As we went through on this podcast two days ago.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Because Donald Trump is stuck in the 80s and no
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: one wants to tell him otherwise. So that's Marco. DOD
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: nominee Pete Hegseth made it out of the Armed Services
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Committee on a party line vote on Monday. But on Tuesday,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the committee got a sworn statement from his former sister-in-law,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: detailing abusive and scary behavior toward the woman's sister, Hegseth's
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: former wife, including that she once hid in a closet
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: to get away from him and then she had to
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: develop an escape plan. Fox News reported that Mitch McConnell,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins may all be planning to
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: vote against Hegseth, in which case J.D. Vance would have
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: to cast the tie-breaking vote, possibly in a Friday evening vote.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: No word on whether Pam Bondi or Kash Patel will
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: have any trouble getting confirmed now that Trump has basically
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Shut down the Justice Department's largest ever investigation into right-wing
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: domestic terrorism. That's the January 6th rioters. And also suggested
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that he wants the government to investigate his opponents. RFK Jr.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: is apparently telling Republican senators that he's changed his mind
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: on the polio vaccine and others and that he's not
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: trying to limit access to inoculations. So there's some good
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: news for your day. Some good news for your Friday.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Go into the weekend with that. But apparently he'll continue
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: to make money. from his involvement in a lawsuit against
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Merck over the HPV vaccine, which he would now be overseeing.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: So that's lovely. He's going to get a piece for him, too.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone's got their piece. Meanwhile, one nominee who
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: may actually be in trouble, Tulsi Gabbard. One Republican senator
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: just told Semaphore, quote, there are very serious concerns by
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: enough members to put her nomination in jeopardy. What do
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: you think, Dan? Is the Senate going to reject any
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: of these yahoos?
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe Tulsi Gabbard.
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: Maybe. Maybe.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't bet on it, but it does seem possible
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: there was some reporting she wouldn't get out of committee.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: And they're most mad at her, as it turns out,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: for suggesting a pardon for Edward Snowden, which seems to
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: be low on the list of reasons why she should
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: not have this job.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I think they're also– she's not as right-wing on sort
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: of surveillance issues. And I think some of them are
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: a little worried about that.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Worried that she's going to over or under surveil?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Under surveil. Oh. You can't be under surveilling in the
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Trump administration.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: You've got to be over surveilling the right people.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Very against surveillance on their people, very pro-surveillance
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: on everyone else. And then, of course, she met with
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Assad a couple times, and they're a little concerned about that.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: So we'll see about Tulsi. It is wild that Hegseth,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: they can't get one more Republican to take, because if
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: they have three, they can't get one more Republican to
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: take down Hegseth.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: The drama is whether he's going to pass easily or J.D.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Vance is going to have to remind America he exists
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: and show up to break the tie.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we're going with. So it looks like
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Trump's going to get his cabinet. And it seems like
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: John Thune is going to keep the Senate in session
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: basically until all of the nominees are confirmed. So that's
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: what we're looking at there. Unsurprisingly, Trump's opponents have not
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: been getting a ton of airtime this week. One moment
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: that did break through, though, was this one from the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: prayer service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday.
• 47:24
  Speaker 7: In the name of our God, I ask you to
• 47:28
  Speaker 7: have mercy upon the people in our country who are
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican,
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: the people, the people who pick our crops and clean
• 47:54
  Speaker 7: our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants,
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and
• 48:01
  Speaker 7: work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: citizens or have the proper documentation But the vast majority
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are
• 48:17
  Speaker 7: good neighbors.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: That, of course, was Bishop Marion Buddy. She is the
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: head bishop in Washington, D.C., of the Episcopal Church. Trump
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and the rest of the Republicans spent the rest of
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the week attacking her for what she said. Not just disagreeing,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: saying that it was despicable. One Republican congressman said, I
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was a joke or not, said
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that she should be on the deportation list. Trump has
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: demanded an apology from her. They've called her a liar.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, very religious man, he posted about her that
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: it was despicable. White House called her despicable. What did
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: you make of that moment at the prayer service?
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: It was incredibly powerful. Not just what she said, but
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: the fact that she said it to Trump's face, particularly
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: in an environment where So many of Trump's longtime opponents
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: are bending over backwards to kiss his ass in the
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: most debasing way possible. And so to have someone who
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: actually is not willing just to say it, but to
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: say it to his face. in a moment when people
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: are listening was powerful and courageous.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: I also think it is a model for other leaders
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: to talk about Trump because she, like they're all saying,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: you know, she's so division. And I've just looked at
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: what Mike Johnson actually says. her, her hateful radical ideology.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: That's what she uses an opportunity to push that. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: then anyone who listens to the clip, like go listen
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to the clip, go listen to the whole thing. She
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: could not have been more respectful of Donald Trump and Republicans.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: She could not have been more willing to extend a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: hand and to try to just, she's just trying to
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: lodge her complaint in the most respectful way possible. And
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I do think there is additional power in criticizing Trump
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and criticizing what he's doing in a way where she
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: didn't really care in that moment if Donald Trump was
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: going to get mad at her. But what she was
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: thinking about is how is this message, how is what
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I'm saying in this criticism going to land even with
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: people who may not agree with me? And that's not
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: to say that she was being like super political and
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: thinking of message strategy like we do, but she's She's clergy,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and she thinks about it from a human perspective. And
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: she spoke in a way that normal humans would speak
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: to each other when you're trying to convince someone who
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: may not agree with you in a respectful way, in
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: a way that shows grace. And I think it's something— and
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: even in her interviews afterwards, she had some— you know, all
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: these reporters, all these parties kept setting her up to, like,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: take another shot at Donald Trump or really attack— and she
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: just— she wouldn't do it, you know, because she's like, this
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: is— She said, I think on a– Rachel Maddow interviewed her.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And she said, look, I just– I wanted to say
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: it this way because I think this is a moment
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: to try to like bring the country together. And I
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: don't think this is a moment to further inflame divisions.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: But these voices weren't being heard and I needed to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: say something. And I just– I thought that was great.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: It was very– you hit on the– I think it's
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: like the instructive part of this for Democrats is the–
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: core of her remarks is that she believes that despite
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: this election, despite whom we just elected, that this is
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: a country of people who care about each other, who
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: want to come together and want to do the right thing,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: particularly for America's most vulnerable people.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: And- That we take care of each other.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: We take care of each other, right?
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: We've all been strangers here at one point.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: And we don't want to be, try to make ourselves
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: be a lesser version of Trump, right? Sort of a
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: paler shade of orange, if you will. What we want
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: to do is we want to speak to what, to
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: the opposite of Trump. And that, and that's what she did.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: And I think, and I do, it didn't come to
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: fruition in this election, but I have continued to believe
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: ever since Trump first came down that escalator and won
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: that election, that the, the antidote to that in the
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: longterm in politics is to get back to speaking to
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: hope and optimism and unity and the idea that we
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: care about each other.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Decency. What else have you seen? What are your overall
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: thoughts on how Democrats have responded to this week?
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Man, that's a loaded question.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I've been here trying to answer it all week here.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I'm getting asked it all the time on all these
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: press interviews.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: That is your personal choice, my friend.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: You're wise to keep your head underwater there.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Look, I think to be fair to Democrats, it is
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: impossible to ask them in a moment in which we
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: are thoroughly leaderless, to have the fully formed response to
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: Trump in the first 72 hours of his presidency. What
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: I worry about in some of the responses to date
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: is that we are unwilling to truly reckon with this election, right?
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: We can tell ourselves a story that the election was
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: closer than sort of the narrative, and that is true
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: in one sense. But it's also true, and more importantly,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: that we have bled massively with the most core parts
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: of our coalition, right? Latino voters, black voters, young people.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: And that is an ongoing trend, right? If you look
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: at the Latino numbers, it's massive over the last four years.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: And it just feels like the same people are doing
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: the same things they were doing six months ago, as
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: opposed to really rethinking how we communicate, how we speak, right?
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: Not our message. What are the words that come out
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: of our mouth? How do we sound different? What are
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: we going to do that's different than before? And it just,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: and I see that, I see that a little bit
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: in the way the DNC race is playing out is
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: that people really, we want the easy way out. What
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: we want to do is kind of get lucky, right?
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: And that we're going to survive this period. And then
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Trump's going to be unpopular. It's kind of an election.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Maybe we'll, we can, we can win it kind of
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: like we won 2020, but that, but that doesn't solve
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: our bigger problem. And I would, I don't even want
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: to depress people, but Take a look at what the
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: 2032 electoral map is going to look like. And once
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: you do that, you're going to realize that we have
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: massive work to do to reconfigure our coalition. And we
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: have to be willing to ask really hard questions. And
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: I'm not convinced that enough people in the party are
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: willing to ask those questions right now.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: And when you say the 2032 electoral map, you mean
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: that some of the blue states could lose electoral votes
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: because of the new census by then, because blue states
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: are losing people to red states. I'm still... like you,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I'm still giving people time to sort of get their
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: sea legs in the new... And look, we had to
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: wait to see how extreme he would be in the
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: first week, whether he'd actually follow through. I mean, on
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: this very podcast, on our Tuesday show, I think I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: was saying, oh, we've tried resistance politics. We should try
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: normal politics. And here's the price of a... I did
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. And then he goes and pardons these
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: violent offenders and And all the other shit, and you're like,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you just, you know, you've got to adapt to and
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: react to him in some ways, right? Like, that is
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: just part of dealing with Donald Trump. He does something,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: and we often have to react. We try not to overreact, but, like,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: he's the president. He commands a lot of power right now, right?
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, a lot of Democrats are just
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: finding their sea legs. I get that. But I have
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: not seen anything this week, right? Like, I don't— You know,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I saw Chris Murphy on the floor talking about the pardons,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and I think he was very passionate. He's someone who
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: talks like a human. AOC is out there. She's talking
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: like a human. I just don't see a lot else
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: from Democrats right now. People who are just, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: putting all the polling down for a second, put the
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: stage directions down. Just tell us how you feel. It's
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the first week, right? You don't have to think about
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: what polls well right now. It's the first week. Tell
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: us how you feel about this.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I think there's obviously a messaging problem, but even take
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: the Chris Murphy example, right? Great speech. He lived on
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: the floor of the Senate.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: You saw that.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I've now made a Twitter list of Democratic
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: politicians just so I could see what they're all talking about.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: And that was the only one that caught my eye
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: in that long list.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: And part of it is hard. Other than the example
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: of AOC who did a lot of her stuff on
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: Instagram Live, which is the right place to do a
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: lot of this. is there's just not people who have
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: the capacity to be heard.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Right. That is a challenge.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: But part of it is you, well, this is a,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: you know, this is a bigger topic about attention and
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: how to command attention in this age. But sometimes one
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: way to get heard and have the capacity to get
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: heard is to say something worth hearing, you know? And
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think that anyone said anything worth hearing yet,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: or not a lot of people. The bishop sure did. Now, look,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: she was in a, she's a bishop. She's not political.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was sitting right there. So obviously that's why
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the whole thing went viral. But like, I don't know.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I think we got to start throwing some stuff against
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: the wall, see what sticks in terms of getting the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: message out, right? Not in terms of message itself, but
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: like people, it's what you said about Trump. You got
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to over communicate, right? There's the press release, the Senate
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: floor speech, the five minute cable hit, not sufficient, not
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: sufficient right now. One last thing on democratic strategy here
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday night, someone we know Tom Vitor was a
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: guest of my pal Jesse Waters on Fox News. Let's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: listen to how he did.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: How many genders are there, Tommy? How many genders are there, Tommy?
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: The honest answer, Jesse, I don't care. I'm a libertarian.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: I don't care.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: You can be what you want to be, Jesse.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Live your truth.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm not a Democrat, and that we know. I
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: haven't seen this enemies list. Can you show me this list?
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, read Kash Patel's book, The New FBI Director.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: You should check it out. It's not a long book.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen the list.
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: I know there was FBI agents on the ground on
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: January 6th, and then they destroyed evidence in the committee,
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: and then everybody gets preemptive pardons.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: What's that all about?
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: He's doing kind of the greatest hits of conspiracy. Are
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: we going to do lab leak now?
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: Where do we want to go next?
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: How'd our boy do?
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: He did great. He did great. He hung in there.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Our libertarian co-host.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: I have a, I really appreciate it from Tommy because
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: I have a, one of my theories I'm noodling on
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: for the future of our party is we have to
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: become more libertarian.
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Free speech, legalized marijuana.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I thought, Tommy did great.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: He was very quick on the draw.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: He was very quick on the draw. It's also, I mean,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I did this, I did Jesse Waters during the convention
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: when we were, I was in the high school. of
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Brat Summer. We were riding high.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Much, much tougher. Jesse Waters seemed a little scared about
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: his future when he saw you. Now he is.
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: He was like, well, no way. Well, Tommy was like,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: why don't you just want to let this go? Donald
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Trump won. He's like, I'm not letting it go, Tommy Vitor.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: That question about how many genders, that was the first
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: question to Tommy.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, no.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like, hey, hello, could you comment on the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: pardons or anything? It was like, Tommy, tell us about
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the genders. It's still worth, you know, I still think
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: it's worth going on. It was worth going on to
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: hear Tommy bring up the conspiracies, give Jesse some shit. Like,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's good.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: This is, I mean, I have been a longtime opponent
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: of Democrats, other than the most talented of Democrats, which
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: I would include Tommy, and going on Fox News. But
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: now this is the thing we have to do. We
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: have to be everywhere, and you have to be in
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable spaces so you'll get more attention. If Tommy had
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: just gone on Pick Your MSNBC Show, it wouldn't have
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: gotten any currency outside of the people who happen to
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: be watching at that moment.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: For example, we're not talking about Lovett's star turn on
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Chris Hayes last night.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: He did Chris Hayes?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Which happened at the same time.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: I'm learning this right now.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I did the night before with Tim Miller, yeah.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: You and Tim Miller were on Chris Hayes at the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: exact same time?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were just hanging out. Cool. We had a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: good time yelling about everything.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: If I didn't know that, then I've got to tell you.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: Same way your wife finds out you did that.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: She definitely doesn't know. She texted me. She was like,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: are you coming home? And I was like, no, I'm
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: doing this pod. And then I got the view. No,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. It gets more attention that way.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: And I think Tommy did great. So let's keep it up.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: All right. That's all we got for news. When we
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: come back. You'll all hear Dan's interview with DNC chair
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: candidate Faz Shakir. But one quick thing before we get
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: to Faz. Dan, I hear we have a special offer
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: for our listeners from Messagebox, your Substack newsletter. Is that right?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: Well, John, great toss.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Speaking of reading the stage directions, right here it says
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Dan Crosstalk. So that's what we're doing now. We're doing
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the crosstalk.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it says banter TK. Well, John, I do have
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: a special offer, but before I get to that, I
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: just want to say, I've been writing this newsletter for
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: four and a half years now, which is very alarming,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: but almost all of that's been during the Biden administration.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: So I spent a bunch of time over the holidays
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: trying to think about what I want to do differently
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: now that Donald Trump is back in our lives and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: how I want to think about with four years of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: fighting Trump ahead of us. And so It's kind of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: come up with like three things that I'm really going
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: to try to focus on. The first is continue to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: analyze what happened this election, exploring how we can rebuild
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: our coalition. It's not pleasant to look back at that election,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: but we have to learn the lessons from it. The
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: second is strategizing about how we can continue to combat
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: the right-wing media machine. We got our asses absolutely kicked
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: in the last election. We're at a huge media disadvantage.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: So how do we fix that as Democrats? How do
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: we communicate better? What platforms do we use? What platforms
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: do we need to build? And the last thing is
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: I want to identify for my readers specific ways we
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: can all fight back against what Trump and his minions
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: are trying to do, right? And that includes where to volunteer,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: where to donate, which campaign matters most, and how to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: talk to the persuadable voters in your life about what's
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: happening in politics, what Trump's doing, how to do that
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: the most effective way possible. So this is of interest
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: to you. I have a special offer that cringes me
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: to say this in so many ways.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: That's fun watching your face do this.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I know, I know. The special offer is if you
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: go to the most embarrassing website possible, Crooked.com slash YesWeDan
• 1:02:57
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• 1:03:05
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• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Everyone, when there is a Dan Pfeiffer MessageBox, it is
• 1:03:10
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• 1:03:16
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• 1:03:18
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• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: do it every single time it comes out. It is
• 1:03:22
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• 1:03:25
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• 1:03:27
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• 1:03:30
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• 1:03:30
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• 1:03:32
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• 1:03:35
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• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. All right. When we come back,
• 1:03:40
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  Speaker 3: Joining me now is Faz Shakir, the founder of the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: progressive media site More Perfect Union, former national political director
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: for the ACLU, longtime advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: now candidate for DNC chair, Fess. Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 6: Dan, thanks for having me.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: You've been in politics a long time. You've worked on campaigns.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: You've worked on the Hill. You've been in groups. You
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: know a lot about how the DNC works. Why the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: hell do you want this job?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: We've gotten a creeping sense that maybe you feel the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 6: same way, Dan, that there's a powerlessness about the DNC. Oh,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: it's useless, especially in an age in which You've seen
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: a lot of the power drift over to super PACs
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 6: and outside actors who are a little more nimble and quick.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: And I understand that. But let me get philosophical with
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 6: you for a moment here.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 6: We are dealing in a society where you've got great
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 6: wealth and income inequality, where power is residing with people
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: who have a lot of money. And when you think
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: about like if you just pull back and say, OK, well,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: what do you do in a situation where, hey, a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: lot of power has moved to the hands of a few?
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: What you need are people-powered organizations led with integrity that say, hey,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: don't forget about us here. And those things have to
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: exist as institutions. So to all the people, and I
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: understand them, there's a lot of working class people out
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: there who say institutions are corrupt. They're broken. They don't
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 6: work for me. I'm making the argument, yeah, but institutions
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: are your way out. You need to have solidarity within
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: a structure. to have some power, this is what unions
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: are about, right? This is why you and I have
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: built up our own media institutions, is that people need voice.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: And the DNC is one of two major political parties
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: in America. You got the Republican Party, which we know
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: what direction is going, and the Democratic Party. I'm like,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: don't give up on a structure and an institution that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: has to work for people.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: We have had your two primary opponents for this position
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: on the show. We've talked to Ken Martin and Ben Wickler.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: What is something you disagree with them on? You got
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: into this race after they've been running for a long time,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: so there must have been something you saw that was
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: not being addressed or something you would do differently. So
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: I'm curious what the contrast is.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the shortcoming in my mind is that I am
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: very pleased and happy, no surprise to you, that we're
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 6: not talking about being a working class party. I'm like, great.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: Been hunting this one for a while, but like, I'm
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: glad coming out of this, like we're all talking about it.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: And so then I'm sitting around saying, hey, okay, get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: me what is the ambitious new thing that we are
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: going to do out of the DNC that is going
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 6: to turn the heads of working class people to say, oh,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: that's different. That's interesting. I didn't realize you guys are
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: going to act that way. And I quite frankly was
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: feeling let down by the lack of ambition on that score.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: And I'm jumping in to challenge the notions of our
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: constraints of thinking around what the DNC can do. If
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: you're an apparatus with $ 100 million plus in raise of
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: a year and you've got 50 plus state parties, can
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 6: you think outside the box of how you let people
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 6: into this? The big thing that I'm trying to force
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 6: everyone to think about is a grassroots DNC that says,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: membership to our organization is not merely a contribution. It
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: is us being in community with you. We have to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: be out there with striking workers, organizing workers, people fighting,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: you know, utility rate hikes or evictions and foreclosures. You
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: have to be closer to grassroots people who are fighting
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: economic justice issues and using your media apparatus to highlight
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: those fights in which I think working class people turn
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: to you and say, well, that that I've never seen
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: from the DNC. That's interesting. That's different. That's what I'm
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: compelling and forcing us to think about.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: So what is that? Is community that big idea? Can
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: you talk a little more about that?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: So I blend it all together, that media infrastructure being
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: on the front lines. Let's take, I mean, you go
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: case by case here, but let's say Amazon workers are
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: going to organize to fight for a union in a
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 6: North Carolina warehouse, which by the way is going on.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: And does the DNC play a role in this? Right now, historically,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: you and I know we're a partisan organization. We focus
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: on elections. What I'm arguing is that if you are
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: a working class party, you associate with the working class
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: struggles in all different fronts, And utilize some degree of
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: your email list to help build solidarity with them. Use
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: your media channels to advertise and explain what the hell
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: it is that they're fighting for at this Amazon warehouse,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: why they matter to us. And ultimately, when we stick
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: our necks out for them in North Carolina and there's
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: an election, I believe you're more likely to get some
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: of those people to stand with the Democratic Party up
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: and down the ballot. when the time comes. So I'm
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: seeing it more holistically that when we change the way
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: we are projected to working class people, when we get
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: closer to their fights rather than just our fights, I
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: think we got a better chance to recruit them back in,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: particularly in this moment where people feel like Donald Trump
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: is leading us into a world where wealth and power
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 6: dictate all.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: You obviously, you work for Bernie Sanders. You've talked a
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: lot about the Democratic Party becoming more populist. This is
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: a fairly loaded question or one that could take this
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: entire interview and several podcasts to talk about, so I'll
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: try to get your short version of the answer is,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden was, on economics, the most progressive president in
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: a very long time. He did a lot of the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: things that Bernie Sanders and other populists and progressives wanted
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: him to do, yet we bled more with working class
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: voters than in any election since the 80s. What is
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: your short diagnosis for why that happened?
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: I'll try to keep it short. My diagnosis is that
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: when Joe Biden was rightly doing a lot of great
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: populist policy, it was not matched by the political apparatus
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: leaning into those same fights. So you take a moment
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: where Joe Biden makes history by going to a picket
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 6: line on behalf of the UAW during the midst of
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 6: their strike. You do not see a UAW kind of
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: solidarity effort and action from the DNC saying, this is
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 6: our fight. We together in this. This was Joe Biden
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 6: doing his thing, not the Democratic Party standing with you.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 6: You take any of those big moments, you know, if
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 6: you have a Biden administration going after Big Pharma, launching
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: a major case, going after pharmacy benefit managers, going after Amazon,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: a Kroger-Albertsons merger, whatever the case might be, some of
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: these big bank junk fees that Rohit Chopra and others
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 6: were fighting, you correct me if I'm wrong, Dan, it
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 6: does not feel to me that the policy apparatus that
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 6: was taking on these major challenges was accompanied by a
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 6: political apparatus telling you here's what we're doing and here's
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 6: the friction that we are engaged in right now and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: why we're asking you to be part of this Democratic Party.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: And when the political apparatus doesn't do its part, we
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 6: can't blame voters for just being like, I had no idea.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: And I think to this day, if I went out
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 6: and talked about, hey, did you know we were fighting
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 6: the Kroger-Albertsons merger because we wanted to make sure grocery
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 6: prices were low and you had competition? What percentage, Dan?
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: What are we talking about? Five, five percent, ten percent?
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: One percent, one percent, if you're lucky.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: What a sad situation that these were the biggest things
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: that Biden was bringing about. As you know, the business world,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: if I went into any K Street lobbying operation, or
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: in a chamber meeting, and I mentioned any of these
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 6: things that you and I are just talking about, would
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: they know? 98% awareness, right? They were very upset. Why
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: is Mark Zuckerberg where he is? He was upset that,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: you know, they're taking on his Facebook monopoly. So he's
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 6: upset and he moves away. Elon Musk, oh, I didn't
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 6: get invited to a White House meeting and Joe Biden
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: was calling me a union buster. Yeah, these rich and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: wealthy people were very upset at this direction. And yet
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: the political apparatus is not leaning in to tell you,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: This is the direction that we are choosing to fight
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 6: for working class people.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: One of, you know, your sort of passions in politics
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: has been sort of the asymmetry in media, right? Which
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: is why you started More Perfect Union, a progressive organization. populist,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: pro-union media apparatus. What would you do with the DNC
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: to address the media asymmetry here? Which gets to the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: core of, like, there is a political, missing political organizing
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: piece to what we're just talking about, but a huge
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: part of it is media, right? We got outgunned in media.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: We were unable to communicate in the right way. Some
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: of that's specific to Biden, but how would you change
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: the DNC to address our media problems?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: Part of your job, I think, in this moment is
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: to think of yourself as editor-in-chief of a social media
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 6: media channel. Thankfully, we at More Perfect Union have about,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: I'd say, 1.3 million YouTube subscribers now. Dan, I want
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: you to guess, how many does the Democrats' YouTube channel,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 6: which started in 2006, how many followers does it have
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: of More Perfect Union? What does Pod say? Probably close
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 6: to a million or maybe 750,000 or something?
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: So, you know, respectable numbers here. What does the DNC have?
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 7: 150, I'm guessing.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: 76,000. So, you know, we are obviously undershooting on just
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 6: utilizing the channels to do compelling and interesting content. Well,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 6: you and I know you don't just sprinkle fairy dust
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: on a YouTube channel and suddenly it grows. No, you
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: have to give some compelling content. I don't know, do
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: you ever work in the building? You know, I worked
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: back in the day I was a DNC opposition researcher.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 6: What I do know is we're sitting on content. If
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: you want to know what Donald Trump ever said, you know,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: from his first term, his campaigns, video, it's there. They
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 6: have been recording it. It's wild that you can't come
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: up with compelling and interesting pieces to just tell people
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: about here's what Donald Trump promised. Here's what he said.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: Just that alone could do a hell of a lot
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 6: of service of content. But then, as I was mentioning,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: when you're grassroots operation, you're getting out in the country
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: and you're trying to tell people we're a working class organization.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: We care and affiliate with your economic justice fights. why
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: not use the channels, the videographers, and our 50-plus state
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: parties to say, hey, we're going to get on the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: ground and tell this interesting and compelling economic justice story
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 6: just as a service to all of us to know
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 6: what's going on in the housing market, how you're getting
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 6: screwed on your utility rate hike. Whatever the case might be,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: I find that those types of pieces of content right
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: now would do a hell of a lot to attract
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 6: new audiences that aren't just purely partisan in nature.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: Everyone who has ever run for this job since about
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: 2006 has talked about a 50-state strategy. We're going to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: organize everywhere. We're going to have red states, blue states,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: et cetera. The challenge of that always is money, right?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: There's not enough money to do everywhere. And then you
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: ultimately feel a need to prioritize in the seven swing
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: states or the Senate race, the states where they have
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: the Senate races or wherever that... these days are often
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: the same states. How do you plan to address that?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: And what's your approach to organizing all over the country?
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: So when you mentioned I was at the ACLU, I
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: faced the same thing. We had 50 state affiliates all
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 6: over the board. We were fortunate that we had a
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: great grassroots fundraising operation. I think we ended up raising
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 6: $ 200 million plus. I think the DNC can do that
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: this year too. So I would challenge the notions that, well,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: we just don't have enough money. I think it's a
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 6: matter of conviction around that money. It does mean if
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 6: you take away from somewhere, you have to add to somewhere.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 6: But if you have a conviction of saying, you know,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 6: a baseline of funding, right now you may know this, Dan, but,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 6: you know, most state parties, if you're out in Idaho
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: or wherever, you probably get $ 12, 500 a month. That's a
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: poverty budget, right? Think about trying to run a state
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: party in Idaho at $ 12, 500 a month. And so one
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 6: is just you have to increase the baseline of that.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 6: And if you had a robust grassroots operation, you're not
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 6: only increasing their baseline, you're also saying that the data,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: the donor, the lists that we're getting out of maybe
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: even the last election cycle, we raised a billion dollars
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 6: from small dollar funds, that that list goes back over
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: to you as well. But you've got to know what
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 6: to do with it. This is the challenge I face
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: at the ACLU. So I give you the list. Do
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: you have the digital expertise? Do you know how to
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 6: do online to offline events with volunteers? Probably it might
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 6: be challenging for a lot of other states. That's where
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 6: DNC comes in to say, hey, I got to give
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: you some baselines. Not only am I increasing the amount
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 6: to the state, I also got to give you technical
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: expertise from national of how to use it, the know-how.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: And then I would just say our job, and I'll
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 6: say this with all delicacy and respect to the DNC universe,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: which I've been in and you know a little bit about,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 6: lots of councils and lots of caucuses. Man, one council
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: and one caucus breeds another council and a caucus. What
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: we really need is like program and mission. And so
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: we're by example, what I did at ACLU is say, hey,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 6: we got one program mission for us was expand voting
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 6: rights in this country. Here's a North Star. Now states,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 6: pitch me on what you could do to expand voting rights.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 6: You got independent redistricting commissions. You got expansion of early vote.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: You're trying to get formerly incarcerated individuals to vote.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 6: Get me a pitch. Explain what's going on in your
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: state and what you need to help fund it. See,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 6: so if you set like a goal and ambition, a
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 6: purpose at the top, and now you've got states saying,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: I think here, Even in Idaho, I think we can
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: do something about that.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: We need that.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 6: So goals and ambitions are like grassroots organizing is one
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 6: in events and communities that I was mentioning before. Candidate
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: recruitment across the board. Tell me what you're doing to
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: expand and do interesting candidate recruitment and.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: We'll fund it.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 6: And so I just feel a lack of ambition around
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 6: where's program and mission here.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: Can you raise that money while still being less annoying
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: in your texting emails than the Democratic Party has been
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: in a long time?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 6: One of the learnings of Bernie's email list, which still
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: to this day is very vibrant and raises a fair
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: amount and probably outperforms a number of candidates still running
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 6: for office, is that he writes very substantively. long emails
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: and asks people often not even for a direct contribution.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 6: It's a petition action and a secondary ask for money. And, and,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 6: and I, I think I don't want to treat people
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 6: like they're dumb. I do think people, particularly in this
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 6: age where the economy is complex, people know it's rigged.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 6: They're seeking money.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: Depth.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 6: Get me an understanding. Own your leader, your job. Help
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 6: unpack stuff for me. And I believe the emails, lists,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 6: and texts don't have to be superficial and treat people
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: like they're dumb. I think you can raise the bar
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: and you say, hey, this is something interesting and compelling
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: that I want you to know about, and I'm asking
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 6: you to fund it. I think we'd seen an increase
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: in funding, not a drop-off.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: Would the DNC under your leadership accept contributions from corporate
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: PACs and lobbyists?
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: Well, So what I'm– yes, well, what I'm most upset
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: about there is that corporate power influenced over the party.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: So I wouldn't accept money from PACS lobbyists who are
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 6: trying to say, hey, we want a seat at the table.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 6: We're going to influence this. And right now I think
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: that that's what you've got going, Dan, is you've got
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: these folks who believe not– that when I give you
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: a contribution– I expect that my finance committee will now
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: not be run by finance people that are the delegates
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 6: or people who we brought into the DNC, but they're outsiders.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 6: The people outside the organization, they come in, they make determinations.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: So I think if you're a working class party, in
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: my view, you do things that stand for working class people.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 6: And I'll do a twist on you on this one.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: If If Amazon wanted to give me, and I was
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 6: wrestling with this in real time, if Amazon wanted to
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 6: give me $ 50, 000 for the DNC, promise you, earmarked to
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: support Amazon workers in this country. So I'll take it.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 6: And guess what? Those Amazon workers who are organizing in
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 6: North Carolina, they're going to get every penny of it.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 6: We're going to show, you know, if you're a working
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: class party, this is what you are supporting. And in
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: that way... Yes, I will show my true colors because
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 6: corporate influence will not have driven the decision making. And
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: I think that my sense is there's a lack of
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 6: transparency and people feel like corporate influence is having a
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 6: large role of it because we don't even know where
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 6: the hell the money is going. Where does all the
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 6: large numbers amounts? Beyond the FEC filings, there's consultants who
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 6: get money.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: But what?
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: I don't see anything. Where is my value as a
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: member of the Democratic Party? What are you doing in
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 6: community with me? We can raise the bar on that one.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 6: We can do compelling and interesting stuff in communities all
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: over the country.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: Well, Faz, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: in your race. It's always great to talk to you.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 6: Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. I'm going to be back
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: in your feet on Sunday for our very first Sunday
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: show of 2025, featuring an excellent in-depth conversation with none
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: other than Rachel Maddow about Trump's first week back in office,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: how we should cover his second term, and how to
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  Speaker 1: I hope you'll check it out. Thanks to Faz Shakir
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  Speaker 1: for coming on the show. And thanks to Jared O'Connell.
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