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"The War on Christmas Trees." · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
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Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
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Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
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Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
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Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
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Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
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Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
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Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
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Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
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Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:50
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:52
Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:53
Speaker 2: Right here in studio, our own Dan Pfeiffer.
0:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tried to sneak a visit to LA in
0:58
Speaker 3: between variants.
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Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
1:01
Speaker 5: Fuck.
1:02
Speaker 3: I might have been a little too late.
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Speaker 2: Dan was here for our What a Year livestream, and
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Speaker 2: it was the first time I've seen you in two years.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been since Super Tuesday was my last visit
1:10
Speaker 3: to this office.
1:11
Speaker 2: Just amazing. Well, it's good to have you here.
1:13
Speaker 3: It's great to be here.
1:15
Speaker 2: You're here for a show where we talk about how
1:17
Speaker 2: Democrats outsmarted Mitch McConnell on the debt limit, but are
1:21
Speaker 2: still trying to solve their Joe Manchin problem. See, nothing
1:23
Speaker 2: has changed. Former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher gives us his
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Speaker 2: read on how to frame Republican extremism ahead of the midterms.
1:30
Speaker 2: And Fox News suffers a critical casualty in the war
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Speaker 2: on Christmas. I'm just excited about that one. I'm sorry.
1:38
Speaker 2: All right. But first, a huge thank you to everyone
1:42
Speaker 2: who tuned into Crooked's What A Year livestream. You donated
1:44
Speaker 2: almost $ 60, 000 to No Off Years, which goes directly to
1:48
Speaker 2: grassroots groups and swing states who are organizing and registering
1:51
Speaker 2: new voters. If you still want to donate, you can
1:54
Speaker 2: help us chip away at our goal at crooked.com slash nooffyears.
1:57
Speaker 2: And if you want to watch all of us embarrass
1:59
Speaker 2: ourselves on the live stream, you can check it out
2:02
Speaker 2: at youtube.com slash crooked.
2:05
Speaker 3: When is the Crooked merch store going to start selling
2:07
Speaker 3: Elon for president bumper stickers?
2:09
Speaker 2: Look, there were some great tweets. There were some great
2:11
Speaker 2: heartfelt tweets that we posted, we were forced to post.
2:15
Speaker 2: And I love that game. I want to bring that
2:18
Speaker 2: game out on the road when we do our tour.
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Speaker 3: Cringe tweets?
2:21
Speaker 2: Cringe tweets.
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Speaker 4: Okay.
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Speaker 2: Because it's really fun posting a cringe tweet, knowing that
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Speaker 2: you had to post a cringe tweet, and then watching it.
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Speaker 2: people not get the joke. I've never had a more
2:31
Speaker 2: fun Twitter experience than that. A bunch of people mad
2:34
Speaker 2: at me, but I knew that I didn't really care.
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Speaker 3: That was a low bar, my friend. Best colonoscopy ever had.
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Speaker 2: I will say people are still mad. Still mad today.
2:43
Speaker 2: Two days later. It's great. It's great. Anyway, also check
2:47
Speaker 2: out the latest episode of Take Line, where Jason and
2:49
Speaker 2: Renee talk to Hannah Kaiser of Yahoo Sports about the
2:52
Speaker 2: MLB lockout, the news about Antonio Brown using a fake
2:55
Speaker 2: vaccine card, and more. New episodes of Take Line drop
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Speaker 2: every Tuesday. All right, let's get to the news. Here's
3:02
Speaker 2: something to feel good about. Democrats have now diffused the
3:06
Speaker 2: Republicans' threat to shut down the government, as well as
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Speaker 2: their threat to default on our debt and crash the economy.
3:11
Speaker 2: This now clears the deck for the Senate to focus
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Speaker 2: on passing the rest of Joe Biden's agenda. That's great, right?
3:17
Speaker 2: Here's something to feel less good about. Joe Manchin is
3:20
Speaker 2: still a senator. And per usual, he's giving interviews to
3:23
Speaker 2: reporters about the Build Back Better bill. which don't exactly
3:27
Speaker 2: inspire confidence that he'll support the legislation, especially by Chuck
3:31
Speaker 2: Schumer's self-imposed Christmas deadline, or ever. But we'll talk about that.
3:36
Speaker 2: And here's something I have no idea how to feel about.
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Speaker 2: Senate Democrats are telling reporters that they may have a
3:41
Speaker 2: plan to pass voting rights and democracy reform with rule
3:44
Speaker 2: changes that don't involve abolishing the filibuster. Half of it,
3:49
Speaker 2: they're smoking, you know? That's pretty, sounds exciting. That's good.
3:54
Speaker 2: Let's start with the debt ceiling deal. Thanks to an
3:56
Speaker 2: agreement between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, 14 Republicans voted
4:00
Speaker 2: with 50 Democrats Thursday to allow a complicated procedure where
4:03
Speaker 2: Democrats can vote to raise the debt ceiling on their own.
4:06
Speaker 2: Donald Trump attacked McConnell over this on Hugh Hewitt's show.
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Speaker 2: Here's a clip.
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Speaker 4: I know you lost your brother. One thing I'd like
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Speaker 4: to bring up is the debt ceiling situation. So Mitch
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Speaker 4: McConnell has the greatest hand.
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Speaker 2: I know you lost your brother. But anyway, what I
4:24
Speaker 2: really want to talk about is the debt ceiling. What
4:26
Speaker 2: a segue.
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Speaker 3: He's a human empath.
4:31
Speaker 2: How was the interview? I woke up this morning and
4:34
Speaker 2: you and Tommy, it seemed like you had read the
4:35
Speaker 2: entire Hugh Hewitt transcript of Donald Trump. It seems like
4:38
Speaker 2: it was a fun one.
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Speaker 3: It was unbelievable. If you are down, Omicron got you down,
4:47
Speaker 3: read this transcript. Don't listen to it because you don't
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Speaker 3: want to have to listen to Trump or Hugh Hewitt.
4:51
Speaker 3: The written word, the transcript is available online. It is
4:54
Speaker 3: so good. It is just Donald Trump's answers are even
5:00
Speaker 3: more insane than you remember. Hugh Hewitt, who you hopefully
5:04
Speaker 3: don't even know who is or care about, his questions
5:06
Speaker 3: are such a perfect mix of pretentious and obsequious.
5:13
Speaker 2: It's hard to get that just right.
5:15
Speaker 3: He is name dropping random people you don't care about
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Speaker 3: left and right. I mean, it is unbelievable.
5:21
Speaker 2: Didn't he say at one point, I heard from someone
5:24
Speaker 2: that you're not only the best president for Christmas, but
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Speaker 2: the best president for Israel and Christmas.
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Speaker 3: He said, I'm going to paraphrase the, this is a question.
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Speaker 3: He said, last night I was at a book party
5:39
Speaker 3: slash holiday party by this person you never heard of,
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Speaker 3: hosted by this person you never heard of, for this
5:44
Speaker 3: other person you never heard of. While I was there,
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Speaker 3: this third person you never heard of, who you definitely
5:48
Speaker 3: know Donald Trump, came up to me and I said,
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Speaker 3: I am interviewing the president tomorrow. And this third person
5:53
Speaker 3: you never heard of said to me, you tell that president,
5:56
Speaker 3: you tell him that he was the best president for
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Speaker 3: Israel and the best president for Christmas. He saved Christmas. Mr. President,
6:03
Speaker 3: what do you think about that?
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Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
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Speaker 3: So good.
6:07
Speaker 2: Anyway, enough about that interview. Let's talk about this debt
6:10
Speaker 2: ceiling deal. Why do you think McConnell agreed to the
6:14
Speaker 2: deal instead of forcing Democrats to raise it through reconciliation,
6:19
Speaker 2: which I was sure would happen? And I guess the
6:24
Speaker 2: second question we can take on later is, does this
6:26
Speaker 2: even matter?
6:28
Speaker 3: This does not matter.
6:29
Speaker 2: Most people will see that like, all right, we're not
6:32
Speaker 2: going to have a catastrophic default.
6:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that matters.
6:34
Speaker 2: That's great. But then like how it got done, this
6:37
Speaker 2: complicated procedure, I'm sure people don't care about. But why
6:39
Speaker 2: do you think– I'm interested in McConnell and why he
6:42
Speaker 2: did this.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think McConnell genuinely does not want the global
6:46
Speaker 3: economy to collapse one week before Christmas because of Republican incompetence.
6:49
Speaker 3: Like you don't have to be a political savant to
6:51
Speaker 3: recognize that's not super for your political brand as you
6:54
Speaker 3: head into an election and what's your favorite. The whole
6:57
Speaker 3: thing speaks to how stupid the debt ceiling mechanism is
7:00
Speaker 3: and the conversation around the debt ceiling, right? Which is
7:02
Speaker 3: you have an esoteric legislative measure to allow the government
7:10
Speaker 3: to pay the bills it's already spent. And the way
7:12
Speaker 3: this deal is, this esoteric legislative measure allows Mitch McConnell
7:20
Speaker 3: to claim a victory because Democrats will have to vote
7:24
Speaker 3: on a majority vote to lift the debt ceiling. But
7:29
Speaker 3: Republicans– so he claims a win. Republicans have to vote
7:33
Speaker 3: on a different esoteric legislative maneuver to allow this esoteric
7:37
Speaker 3: legislative maneuver. And then Democrats can claim victory that they
7:41
Speaker 3: were able to avoid using a process exactly like the
7:46
Speaker 3: one we're just using but called reconciliation– it doesn't matter.
7:50
Speaker 3: The whole thing is so stupid.
7:51
Speaker 2: It's so stupid. I do. I think the point you
7:53
Speaker 2: made about McConnell is the most important one, which is,
7:56
Speaker 2: I think it, it reveals that he believes he has
7:59
Speaker 2: a really strong hand. And like you said, if you're
8:02
Speaker 2: favored in the next election and you're Mitch McConnell, you're
8:05
Speaker 2: thinking I could be majority leader if I just don't
8:08
Speaker 2: fuck something up and give people a target.
8:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
8:13
Speaker 2: Um, to criticize like, Oh, Republican shut down the government
8:16
Speaker 2: or Republicans cause a catastrophic default on our debt. Like,
8:19
Speaker 2: He doesn't need that. That's not advantageous to him. So
8:24
Speaker 2: if Ted Cruz gets mad at him, which Ted Cruz
8:26
Speaker 2: is mad and Lindsey Graham is mad and Donald Trump
8:28
Speaker 2: is mad, does it really matter if Mitch McConnell can
8:31
Speaker 2: just say, OK, let's focus on we're going to be
8:33
Speaker 2: able to attack them on build back better. We are
8:35
Speaker 2: attacking them on inflation. We're attacking them on everything. Do
8:37
Speaker 2: we really need to have this fight over the debt
8:40
Speaker 2: limit right now when we're doing so well?
8:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, ultimately, when the debt limit has been used in
8:45
Speaker 3: the past, it has been used as a point of
8:47
Speaker 3: leverage to try to achieve some policy aim, right? Massive
8:51
Speaker 3: cuts in spending in 2011.
8:52
Speaker 2: We know now Republicans have no policies anymore.
8:54
Speaker 3: That's right. So they're like, what are we going to do, right?
8:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, they used to like cuts.
8:58
Speaker 5: Yeah.
8:58
Speaker 2: Isn't it though tied up in, I think they inserted
9:01
Speaker 2: it in some bill that would avoid Medicare cuts. And
9:04
Speaker 2: now I'm wondering if of all the 14 Republicans that
9:07
Speaker 2: voted for this, but all the rest of the Republicans,
9:09
Speaker 2: can we say that they didn't vote to avoid Medicare cuts?
9:12
Speaker 3: I mean, theoretically, yes. I mean, there are a set
9:14
Speaker 3: of automatic cuts to Medicare that go in if spending
9:17
Speaker 3: exceeds a certain amount, if I remember correctly from our days.
9:20
Speaker 3: And then all it takes is a vote to avoid it.
9:23
Speaker 3: But I think the big takeaway from this, based on
9:25
Speaker 3: Trump's reaction, the insane response from House Republicans over it
9:28
Speaker 3: is if Democrats do not keep the House... the first
9:32
Speaker 3: thing they have to do in the lame duck session
9:34
Speaker 3: is eliminate the debt ceiling mechanism for the remainder of
9:37
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's presidency.
9:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a ticking time bomb.
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Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell, savvy enough to avoid collapsing the global economy.
9:44
Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy, no.
9:46
Speaker 2: No way. Yeah, no, I agree. All right, so now
9:48
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer says his next move is to hold a
9:50
Speaker 2: vote on Build Back Better before Christmas. But here's a
9:53
Speaker 2: sampling of what Joe Manchin said, not at a town
9:56
Speaker 2: hall in West Virginia, mind you, but at the Wall
9:59
Speaker 2: Street Journal's CEO summit. Where else would Joe Manchin be? Quote,
10:04
Speaker 2: the unknown we're facing today on inflation is much greater
10:07
Speaker 2: than this aspirational bill we're looking at. He also said, quote,
10:12
Speaker 2: I said, let's take a strategic pause a while back.
10:14
Speaker 2: I still feel strongly about that. And here's what he
10:17
Speaker 2: said to reporters on Wednesday, quote, we haven't even seen
10:20
Speaker 2: the complete scrub from the parliamentarian. And then we haven't
10:23
Speaker 2: even seen the final text and they're still negotiating different
10:25
Speaker 2: parts of it. So we're doing what we can. But
10:27
Speaker 2: then he gave reporters a list of major bipartisan legislation
10:30
Speaker 2: passed by Congress in the last year, along with how
10:34
Speaker 2: much it all cost to say, look how much we've
10:37
Speaker 2: already done. Uh, what is your best Manchinese translation of
10:42
Speaker 2: all that? And, um, does this sound like a guy who's, uh,
10:46
Speaker 2: ready to vote for Build Back Better?
10:47
Speaker 3: It makes me very skeptical that we are going to
10:50
Speaker 3: pass this legislation before Christmas.
10:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I don't, Christmas, whatever, who cares?
10:58
Speaker 3: It was like Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
11:05
Speaker 3: But I think, I mean, is there anything more designed
11:11
Speaker 3: in a laboratory to be annoying than Joe Manchin reading
11:14
Speaker 3: fallacious Republican talking points about inflation at a conference attended
11:18
Speaker 3: by the richest people in the world paid for by
11:20
Speaker 3: Rupert Murdoch. He's just like... He's trying to make us.
11:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes I think he's really dumb and then sometimes
11:25
Speaker 2: I think he's just trying to troll us, but I
11:26
Speaker 2: can't tell.
11:27
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you.
11:28
Speaker 2: Maybe his incompetence naturally trolls us without even trying.
11:31
Speaker 3: It's not an either-or. Some of the most successful trolls
11:33
Speaker 3: on the internet, Dan Bongino, the Trump children, are particularly stupid.
11:38
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Schumer and the rest of
11:41
Speaker 2: the Senate Democrats, though, because... I am not someone, I
11:44
Speaker 2: know you're not either, who thinks that Chuck Schumer and
11:48
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Senate Democrats can bend Joe Manchin and
11:51
Speaker 2: Kyrsten Sinema to their will by yelling at them, threatening them, whatever.
11:56
Speaker 2: These two people don't care about being yelled at by
12:00
Speaker 2: their colleagues and by Joe Biden because they feel like
12:04
Speaker 2: they know how to win elections back home. Maybe they're wrong,
12:06
Speaker 2: maybe they're right, but that's how they feel.
12:09
Speaker 4: But.
12:10
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer's walking around like, I'm so confident we're going
12:14
Speaker 2: to get this done by Christmas. I'm feeling great. Chris
12:17
Speaker 2: Murphy was on this podcast this week saying like, I
12:20
Speaker 2: feel great about it. I think Joe Manchin's going to
12:22
Speaker 2: come around. I think we're going to get this done.
12:24
Speaker 2: We've interviewed a number of Democrats who've said this. Honestly,
12:27
Speaker 2: the only person who was maybe a little honest about
12:30
Speaker 2: the situation was Elizabeth Warren when I talked to her
12:33
Speaker 2: and she was like, yeah, Sinema seems like she's negotiating
12:35
Speaker 2: in good faith. Joe Manchin seems like he's walking around
12:37
Speaker 2: to a grocery store confused about which aisle he's in
12:41
Speaker 2: and what he actually wants on his grocery list, which
12:44
Speaker 2: was like, I think the most honest part about it.
12:46
Speaker 2: But like, haven't the Democrats sort of let this expectation
12:49
Speaker 2: game get out of hand here? Like if Joe Manchin
12:52
Speaker 2: is really this down on Build Back Better, I don't know,
12:56
Speaker 2: isn't it time to start raising alarms here or am
12:59
Speaker 2: I just?
13:00
Speaker 3: Well, I think the expectations management on this part of
13:05
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's legislative agenda has been horribly mismanaged, primarily by
13:10
Speaker 3: people in Congress, right? You have Bernie Sanders at 6.5 million,
13:14
Speaker 3: then we're at 3.5, and now we're at 1.75, and
13:16
Speaker 3: it's clearly going to be less than that. And you're
13:22
Speaker 3: continually setting, like politics is not that complicated. You want
13:26
Speaker 3: to exceed expectations, not fail to meet them. And if
13:29
Speaker 3: you set expectations in an unmeetable place, you are setting
13:31
Speaker 3: yourself up for political loss. Now, the problem with this is,
13:35
Speaker 3: is this is where Congress, and political messaging success run
13:39
Speaker 3: headlong into each other. Because what is sometimes good for
13:41
Speaker 3: your legislative process, which is move the Overton window, start
13:45
Speaker 3: at 6.5 so you can end here, will get you
13:48
Speaker 3: a better substantive result. But the problem I think with
13:51
Speaker 3: that is, and we've dealt with this very painfully with
13:54
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act, is it ends up in a
13:56
Speaker 3: place where the final product, which viewed in a vacuum,
13:59
Speaker 3: would be a huge historic transformational win. And instead it
14:02
Speaker 3: ends up being Half a loaf at best. Or in
14:05
Speaker 3: this case, if I can do my math right, it's
14:08
Speaker 3: like 25%.
14:08
Speaker 5: Of a loaf.
14:09
Speaker 2: Some percentage of a loaf.
14:10
Speaker 5: Yes.
14:11
Speaker 2: But here's what I don't understand. And I know I've
14:13
Speaker 2: said this a million times already. Don't these people fucking
14:16
Speaker 2: talk to each other in Congress? Like, you'd think that
14:20
Speaker 2: the first move after the House passes Build Back Better and,
14:25
Speaker 2: you know, we had our problems in the House, but
14:28
Speaker 2: like at the end of the day, Pramila Jayapal and
14:31
Speaker 2: Josh Gottheimer and the rest of the gang, they all
14:33
Speaker 2: got together.
14:33
Speaker 3: They retweeted each other.
14:35
Speaker 2: They all compromised. They passed something. They all walked the
14:37
Speaker 2: plank and took the vote. The first step would have
14:40
Speaker 2: been Chuck Schumer going to Joe Manchin's office and Kirsten
14:42
Speaker 2: Sinema's office and being like, okay, what is it going
14:44
Speaker 2: to take to get this to pass?
14:45
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to presume that happened.
14:47
Speaker 4: Right.
14:48
Speaker 2: I am too. I am too. So then they're like,
14:50
Speaker 2: what are we doing?
14:51
Speaker 3: I imagine the problem is largely on Manchin's side. Like
14:56
Speaker 3: I'm sure he's saying, I need more. I need more.
14:58
Speaker 2: I need more.
14:59
Speaker 3: And I imagine you think.
15:01
Speaker 2: That you think that they'd be like, all right, Joe,
15:03
Speaker 2: you need more. We understand that we're willing to make
15:05
Speaker 2: more changes if you want. Just one thing. Please don't
15:09
Speaker 2: go to the Wall Street Journal CEO summit and shit
15:11
Speaker 2: all over the entire bill two weeks before Christmas. At
15:14
Speaker 2: the very least, just keep your concerns quiet and let's
15:16
Speaker 2: talk about it.
15:18
Speaker 3: I think one of the problems here and this is
15:19
Speaker 3: this is the mansion problem. And it's even more. This
15:22
Speaker 3: is much more even more mansion than cinema is in
15:25
Speaker 3: the house at the end of the day. There are
15:27
Speaker 3: disagreements on strategy and policy, but I truly believe that
15:31
Speaker 3: everyone in that caucus, from Josh Gottheimer and Jared Golden
15:35
Speaker 3: to Pramila Jayapal and AOC, believe they are in it
15:39
Speaker 3: together and that they're going to rise and fall together.
15:42
Speaker 2: And that's how they voted and that's how they've acted, frankly.
15:44
Speaker 3: Joe Manchin does not believe, and he's not incorrect, that
15:48
Speaker 3: he is rising and falling with the Democratic Party.
15:49
Speaker 2: No, he clearly believes it's advantageous politically for himself to
15:53
Speaker 2: place himself between the parties at the end of that
15:55
Speaker 2: wall street journal thing they were like are you gonna
15:56
Speaker 2: change to become a republican which everyone asks him all
15:58
Speaker 2: the time and he's like no he goes but i
16:00
Speaker 2: feel like i'm in between these two parties and oh
16:03
Speaker 2: too bad that's where i'll stand you know which he
16:04
Speaker 2: i'm sure he just loves that he loves because that's
16:07
Speaker 2: that makes him look reasonable and moderate back in west
16:10
Speaker 2: virginia which you know again voted for trump by like
16:12
Speaker 2: 40 points yeah.
16:13
Speaker 3: I mean you think i should wear the republican label
16:16
Speaker 3: they think i should wear the democratic label i will
16:18
Speaker 3: wear no labels.
16:19
Speaker 2: There you go mark penn Some Senate Democrats are pushing
16:23
Speaker 2: Schumer just to put it up for a vote and
16:24
Speaker 2: see what happens. Is that wise?
16:26
Speaker 3: I mean, eventually you're going to have to do that.
16:28
Speaker 2: I mean, it is. But aren't we? It makes me
16:32
Speaker 2: feel like we're just headed to a fucking, you know,
16:34
Speaker 2: reverse ACA repeal scenario where Joe Manchin walks in and
16:40
Speaker 2: like McCain and gives us thumbs down and that's that.
16:42
Speaker 3: I mean, in part, you probably have to play the
16:45
Speaker 3: long game here, which is at some point you just
16:47
Speaker 3: have to call the question. And if you fail, then
16:51
Speaker 3: that at least gives you something to go back and
16:54
Speaker 3: deal with or decide the whole thing is not happening.
16:57
Speaker 3: Because if let's say they call it and Manchin is
16:59
Speaker 3: a no. And then it's like, okay, where do we
17:02
Speaker 3: go from here? Is there a scaled back thing we're
17:04
Speaker 3: going to do? Are we going to move on to
17:06
Speaker 3: voting rights? But just living in this purgatory where we're
17:10
Speaker 3: just moving the deadline time after time after time is–
17:16
Speaker 3: massively damaging to our political prospects for 2022.
17:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:20
Speaker 2: I mean, one thing I tried to get out of
17:21
Speaker 2: Murphy when he was on is like, are these big
17:24
Speaker 2: changes or small changes that Manchin wants? Because sometimes you
17:28
Speaker 2: hear him be like, oh, I don't like the methane
17:29
Speaker 2: fee and I don't like this. And you go, okay,
17:31
Speaker 2: you can move that here and there. But then he
17:33
Speaker 2: starts talking about, I don't like that any of these
17:35
Speaker 2: programs have been cut down to three or four years
17:37
Speaker 2: instead of 10, because I believe that's fuzzy math because
17:41
Speaker 2: obviously these programs are going to be reauthorized. So we
17:44
Speaker 2: should count all that money. towards the cost of the bill.
17:46
Speaker 2: And I think that's too much. And it seems like
17:48
Speaker 2: if that's his fundamental problem, that's going to be a
17:50
Speaker 2: hard one to get around.
17:51
Speaker 3: I mean, his problem is he says he wants a
17:52
Speaker 3: strategic pause. That which is not.
17:55
Speaker 2: Until what? November of 2022 when there's a fucking midterm?
17:57
Speaker 5: Right.
17:58
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think we also have to say,
17:59
Speaker 3: because it cannot be said enough, this bill is not
18:04
Speaker 3: going to make inflation worse. Every economist looks at it.
18:07
Speaker 3: It's a fraction of the federal budget.
18:08
Speaker 2: The Larry Summers who are worried about inflation, all these people,
18:11
Speaker 2: none of them think that it's going to.
18:12
Speaker 4: Yes.
18:13
Speaker 3: And more importantly, because sometimes we get so like tied
18:16
Speaker 3: around the macroeconomic axle that we can't like common sense.
18:19
Speaker 3: If you give people money, they're going to be able
18:23
Speaker 3: to pay for things that might be a little bit
18:25
Speaker 3: more expensive right now because they don't have to pay
18:27
Speaker 3: as much money for childcare or elder care. And I
18:29
Speaker 3: think there's one thing that is looming over all of
18:31
Speaker 3: this is the child's tax credit expires. On New Year's Eve.
18:35
Speaker 2: Right. So perhaps that's a forcing mechanism.
18:37
Speaker 3: Well, because, you know, Joe Manchin, passionate.
18:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.
18:41
Speaker 3: About helping poor children.
18:42
Speaker 4: Poor children.
18:43
Speaker 2: OK, so here's an even tougher statement to translate. And
18:46
Speaker 2: this is about voting rights in the filibuster. This time
18:48
Speaker 2: it's from Tim Kaine, Senator Tim Kaine to Politico. He said,
18:53
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin has made it very plain we're not abolishing
18:55
Speaker 2: the filibuster. But we're looking at a number of complaints
18:59
Speaker 2: that Democrats and Republicans have had about the way the
19:01
Speaker 2: place operates to see if we can restore it to
19:04
Speaker 2: operating better and do it in a way that would
19:06
Speaker 2: facilitate the passage of voting rights. The Hill also reports
19:11
Speaker 2: that Manchin himself has been talking to Republican senators about
19:13
Speaker 2: rule changes to make the Senate work better. How many
19:16
Speaker 2: edibles do you think Tim Kaine was on when he
19:18
Speaker 2: said that? Do you think it was like five milligrams,
19:20
Speaker 2: 10 milligrams?
19:23
Speaker 3: Tim Kaine is a very optimistic human being.
19:25
Speaker 2: He is. Now, there's a number of Democrats who said
19:28
Speaker 2: this to Politico. I was trying to read between the
19:31
Speaker 2: lines on this one. There's something in the works where
19:33
Speaker 2: they think that they can not abolish the filibuster, but
19:37
Speaker 2: still get voting rights passed. And I don't know why
19:40
Speaker 2: Republicans would agree to any rule changes that allowed voting
19:45
Speaker 2: rights to pass.
19:46
Speaker 3: I think that there is a general sense that bipartisan,
19:51
Speaker 3: in fact, that things are not working the way they should.
19:53
Speaker 3: It's just around because they couldn't pass.
19:55
Speaker 2: The- These people are bright.
19:56
Speaker 3: That's why they got elected to the Senate. It took
19:58
Speaker 3: them not long enough. But the defense authorization bill, huge
20:01
Speaker 3: bipartisan bill, could not pass it. They had to engage
20:04
Speaker 3: in some weird chicanery to get done because and this
20:08
Speaker 3: is sort of Mitch McConnell's problem right now, and it's
20:09
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell plus the Republicans that voted for the bipartisan infrastructure,
20:14
Speaker 3: is you have a bunch of attention trolls in Ted
20:18
Speaker 3: Cruz and Tommy Tuberville. And if you look at the
20:23
Speaker 3: Senate candidates for 2022, that's going to get a lot
20:26
Speaker 3: worse come next year. So are there ways, and they've
20:28
Speaker 3: done this in the past to facilitate confirmations. Like for
20:33
Speaker 3: a long time, almost every appointment above a certain level
20:37
Speaker 3: needed confirmation. 60 Senate votes. And they made a whole
20:40
Speaker 3: bunch of those in a bipartisan way, non-Senate confirmable. You
20:44
Speaker 3: could just hire them because the government was hollowed out
20:47
Speaker 3: because the Senate didn't have time to do these things.
20:49
Speaker 3: How that squares with something that would allow Democrats to
20:54
Speaker 3: stop Republicans from rigging the 2022 election, which would give
20:56
Speaker 3: them power, seems very hard to imagine to me.
20:59
Speaker 2: Especially as the maps are all getting drawn right now.
21:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't imagine that.
21:04
Speaker 2: On the redistricting side of it.
21:05
Speaker 3: I am sure that there will not be a ban on,
21:09
Speaker 3: as sad as this is, that if there was some
21:10
Speaker 3: sort of compromise-like thing that got through, I don't know
21:13
Speaker 3: how a ban on partisan gerrymandering could even be implemented
21:17
Speaker 3: at this point. I think when we talked to some
21:19
Speaker 3: folks much earlier this year, it was around August or
21:22
Speaker 3: September was the view in which you had to get
21:24
Speaker 3: that passed, and it's not August or September.
21:27
Speaker 2: It does seem like they're talking about some modifications to
21:30
Speaker 2: the filibuster, like the, it's gotta be a standing filibuster.
21:33
Speaker 2: It's gotta be a talking filibuster. You need 41 on
21:35
Speaker 2: the floor, right? Like there's all these other reforms. And
21:38
Speaker 2: the other thing that Cain said to Politico was we're
21:41
Speaker 2: trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the minority
21:44
Speaker 2: party and saying, if we were, if we were in
21:47
Speaker 2: the minority, what changes to the Senate would we want, uh,
21:51
Speaker 2: to the filibuster or to the rules of the Senate
21:53
Speaker 2: that we could still live with if, if, if Democrats
21:56
Speaker 2: were in the minority. Which, again, doesn't seem like it's
21:59
Speaker 2: going to be anything major. And I don't know exactly
22:01
Speaker 2: how it facilitates the passage of voting rights, but I
22:03
Speaker 2: guess it's all they got at this point.
22:05
Speaker 3: I mean, remember, you only need 50 votes to change
22:07
Speaker 3: a Senate rule. So you could, this is not a
22:09
Speaker 3: situation where we need all 50 Republicans to agree or
22:13
Speaker 3: even 10 Republicans. You could theoretically do it with a
22:15
Speaker 3: small handle.
22:15
Speaker 2: Again, you just need Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to say, yeah,
22:18
Speaker 2: this preserves the filibuster, but it's also a rule change
22:20
Speaker 2: that I could live with.
22:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like, I think this is interesting. We should
22:25
Speaker 3: watch it. Tim Kaine is a serious person.
22:26
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
22:27
Speaker 2: He's not popping off.
22:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:29
Speaker 2: I was joking about the edibles.
22:30
Speaker 5: Yeah.
22:31
Speaker 3: To be clear, he.
22:33
Speaker 2: Who knows? He can do what he wants.
22:34
Speaker 3: Virginia.
22:36
Speaker 2: Is it? I don't know.
22:37
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. But point being, I think it's fair
22:40
Speaker 3: to have some healthy skepticism about this.
22:44
Speaker 5: Okay.
22:45
Speaker 2: When we come back, we will talk to former Obama pollster,
22:48
Speaker 2: Cornell Belcher, about strategy for the midterms. This week, we
22:59
Speaker 2: got a preview of what we can expect if Republicans
23:01
Speaker 2: win back the House from human frat paddle Matt Gaetz,
23:05
Speaker 2: who said this week that he will move to install
23:06
Speaker 2: Donald Trump as speaker and make sure that this crew
23:09
Speaker 2: is in charge of investigating people they don't like. Let's
23:12
Speaker 2: hear it.
23:12
Speaker 7: We are going to take power after this next election.
23:16
Speaker 7: And when we do, it's not going to be the
23:18
Speaker 7: days of Paul Ryan and Trey Gowdy and no real
23:22
Speaker 7: oversight and no real subpoenas. It's going to be the
23:25
Speaker 7: days of Jim Jordan and and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Dr. Gosar,
23:29
Speaker 7: and myself doing everything to get the answers to these questions.
23:34
Speaker 2: Joining us to talk about what message and strategy might
23:37
Speaker 2: give the Democrats the best chance to stop this from happening,
23:40
Speaker 2: former Obama pollster Cornell Belcher. Cornell, welcome back.
23:43
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
23:46
Speaker 2: How do you think that an ad would do that
23:49
Speaker 2: warn voters about putting those yahoos in charge of the
23:52
Speaker 2: House with Donald Trump as Speaker?
23:56
Speaker 4: Uh, I think for, I think for our, our, our
24:03
Speaker 4: already likely, uh, Democrat midterm voter, I think, I think
24:09
Speaker 4: it will juice them. The problem is, is we're going
24:14
Speaker 4: to get our asses handed to us because if we
24:17
Speaker 4: only have our likely democratic midterm voter, um, and I look,
24:23
Speaker 4: you all are, are are students of political history the
24:28
Speaker 4: way I am students of political history, there is a
24:32
Speaker 4: pattern here, right? And people want to beat up on
24:35
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden all they want. As if so,
24:39
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are actually the key variables
24:42
Speaker 4: here when history, and I know this is tough for people,
24:44
Speaker 4: but history tells us they're actually not because we've seen
24:48
Speaker 4: this happen to Clinton. We've seen this happen to Obama. Hell,
24:53
Speaker 4: we saw it happen to George Bush. So how do
24:57
Speaker 4: you break that dynamic of the midterm? And what we
25:02
Speaker 4: know historically from a midterm standpoint, again, I'm going to
25:05
Speaker 4: be a data nerd here, is there's an ebb and
25:09
Speaker 4: a flow, right? We get a flow on on-term, sort
25:12
Speaker 4: of on presidential year 11, and we get an ebb back.
25:14
Speaker 4: In 2010- That new huge majority of Americans who said, yes,
25:21
Speaker 4: we can, and voted for Barack Obama, gave Barack Obama
25:27
Speaker 4: a majority victory, didn't say, you know what? Damn it.
25:31
Speaker 4: That was a mistake. I was wrong. I'm going to
25:34
Speaker 4: go vote the other way now. That's not what's happening.
25:39
Speaker 4: You have two electorates. You have one electorate that's older,
25:42
Speaker 4: more conservative, and less diverse than versus a more younger,
25:48
Speaker 4: more diverse, and more progressive audience fighting for the control
25:54
Speaker 4: of this country. And we saw, we've seen in 2010,
26:00
Speaker 4: and now history is lining up just the way 2010
26:07
Speaker 4: lined up. And the question is, how do we get
26:09
Speaker 4: in the way of that? And we can't get in
26:12
Speaker 4: the way of that we don't have an electorate that
26:16
Speaker 4: looks more like the 2020 electorate and the 2018 electorate, right?
26:22
Speaker 4: I think that is a fundamental problem with, I think
26:25
Speaker 4: we can give, we can sort of scare them with
26:28
Speaker 4: Matt Gaetz, but I think, you know, and I'm an
26:31
Speaker 4: Obama-Dane guy, but I think fundamentally for that younger, more
26:36
Speaker 4: diverse electorate that we need, we gotta give them something
26:39
Speaker 4: to vote for. And I think if you look at
26:42
Speaker 4: qualitative research that I think sort of folks are doing
26:44
Speaker 4: all around the country right now, look, infrastructure and build
26:47
Speaker 4: back better are really great pieces of legislation. But no
26:51
Speaker 4: one knows what the hell's in them and no one knows,
26:55
Speaker 4: you know, how it benefits, how it benefits them. Just
26:58
Speaker 4: the same way that that Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Leader
27:02
Speaker 4: Reid literally saved America from the chaos, you know, economic calamity.
27:09
Speaker 4: in 2008, then we got our asses kicked in the
27:14
Speaker 4: midterm election. I don't want to see history repeat itself,
27:18
Speaker 4: but it's on track to repeat itself.
27:21
Speaker 2: So I want to talk a little bit later about
27:24
Speaker 2: sort of the positive message, because I do think, Cornell,
27:26
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, that's incredibly important to give people something
27:29
Speaker 2: to vote for. Obviously, in every campaign, there is a
27:32
Speaker 2: positive message and a negative message about the other party. Dan,
27:36
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on the message about Republicans and
27:41
Speaker 2: do you think there's any, uh, any fodder there from
27:45
Speaker 2: Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor green and those folks?
27:47
Speaker 3: Well, I can see the ad, right. And it's, there's
27:50
Speaker 3: ominous music and then someone superimposes, uh, Donald Trump sitting
27:55
Speaker 3: behind Joe Biden at the 2023 state of the union
27:58
Speaker 3: and he's sweating and scowling. And then, you know, you
28:02
Speaker 3: see these videos of Marjorie Taylor green and all this and, and,
28:06
Speaker 3: I can see it trending on Twitter. I can already
28:08
Speaker 3: identify the people who are going to say it would
28:11
Speaker 3: really upset TFG if this trended and everyone retweets it.
28:15
Speaker 3: And like many ads that trended in 2020, it's going
28:18
Speaker 3: to fall on deaf ears. Because I do think the speaker,
28:20
Speaker 3: I think the speaker, Donald Trump, a speaker means nothing
28:24
Speaker 3: to anyone, because even some of the most politically engaged
28:26
Speaker 3: people have no idea that the Speaker of the House
28:29
Speaker 3: is going to have to be a member of Congress.
28:31
Speaker 3: So I think that specific thing is going to fall
28:34
Speaker 3: on deaf ears. I think that there is a case
28:39
Speaker 3: that can be made about Republican extremism, Republicans as a danger,
28:43
Speaker 3: because we have to give people something to vote for,
28:45
Speaker 3: but I think we also have to give them something
28:46
Speaker 3: to vote against, a reason to believe correctly that the
28:49
Speaker 3: crisis that got them engaged in politics post-2016 still exists,
28:54
Speaker 3: even though Donald Trump's out of the White House. But
28:55
Speaker 3: I think that message has to be credible, and it
28:58
Speaker 3: has to be something that is not easily sort of
29:02
Speaker 3: evaded by candidates who are less crazy than Marjorie Taylor Greene,
29:07
Speaker 3: Paul Gosar, and Matt Gaetz, if that makes sense.
29:09
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Well, Cornell, you know, in every campaign, right,
29:13
Speaker 2: if you're the challenger, you want to make it a
29:15
Speaker 2: referendum on the incumbent. If you're an incumbent, you want
29:18
Speaker 2: to make it a choice between two visions. How would you,
29:22
Speaker 2: what do you think the choice would be in the
29:24
Speaker 2: midterms that Democrats should lay at?
29:27
Speaker 4: One, I want to underline sort of what John was saying.
29:29
Speaker 4: I think, I mean, it's just spot on. But I
29:33
Speaker 4: also think there are bigger things at stake.
29:38
Speaker 5: All right?
29:38
Speaker 4: And I think we got to get to what's the bigger, right?
29:40
Speaker 4: It's not Donald Trump, right? You're spot on. It's like
29:44
Speaker 4: Donald Trump being the speaker is crazy shit that I
29:46
Speaker 4: think sort of makes people like us crazy. But I
29:52
Speaker 4: think we got to, what's the bigger thing? And I've
29:55
Speaker 4: said this before is.
29:58
Speaker 4: You know, all those young people, you know, black, white, brown,
30:03
Speaker 4: who were marching in the streets, millions of young people
30:05
Speaker 4: marching in the streets before the last election, they weren't,
30:10
Speaker 4: and then marched to the polls and gave Biden the
30:13
Speaker 4: majority and flipped states that we hadn't flipped before, especially
30:18
Speaker 4: if you look at Georgia. They weren't marching for bridges, roads,
30:22
Speaker 4: and broadband. And I think bridges, roads, and broadband are fantastic.
30:27
Speaker 4: but they're not mobilized. You, you, you, you can't mobilize
30:30
Speaker 4: someone for a bridge. Right. It's good government, but, but
30:35
Speaker 4: people aren't mobilizing for, for bridges. So what's the, so
30:41
Speaker 4: what's the big thing here? And I think there is
30:43
Speaker 4: something to be said about, I don't know, guys call
30:45
Speaker 4: me crazy, but maybe saving our fucking democracy. Like, like,
30:53
Speaker 4: You know, and Perdue was cut out of the bag
30:56
Speaker 4: the other day talking about, yeah, I would have been
30:59
Speaker 4: for the coup, right? I'm all in for the coup.
31:01
Speaker 4: These people are literally trying to overthrow our democracy. I
31:06
Speaker 4: don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty
31:08
Speaker 4: scary thing, the ideal that democracy is going to end,
31:11
Speaker 4: especially for people who look like me. You know, I
31:15
Speaker 4: don't think I like my chances if we're not a democracy.
31:18
Speaker 4: How do I have a hard enough time in a democracy?
31:20
Speaker 4: I don't like our chances at all if we're no
31:22
Speaker 4: longer democracy. a democracy, but I do think we can
31:25
Speaker 4: make the case. And actually, this is one of the
31:28
Speaker 4: things I've been so fucking frustrated about progressives inside Washington
31:31
Speaker 4: about is, you know, if progressives had stormed the Capitol
31:37
Speaker 4: and tried to overthrow the government, every day we would
31:41
Speaker 4: be hearing about it. It would lead every day on
31:44
Speaker 4: Fox because it would be a mobilizing thing for them.
31:49
Speaker 4: It is almost like it's not even a big deal.
31:51
Speaker 4: Let's just move on. But I think there's something bigger
31:55
Speaker 4: in a conversation about democracy and the chaos, right? I
31:58
Speaker 4: think there is a thing here about, especially with middle
32:02
Speaker 4: of the road voters, is to your point about, you know,
32:05
Speaker 4: is give them something to vote against. It is, if
32:09
Speaker 4: you look at what Republicans are doing in state legislative bodies,
32:12
Speaker 4: if you look at what they're doing around choice, they're
32:15
Speaker 4: seeding chaos, right? and they're making America a more dangerous place, right?
32:26
Speaker 4: Chaos around, you know, chaos in our classrooms, school boards,
32:32
Speaker 4: chaos around, they're trying to take away your rights. They're
32:38
Speaker 4: talking about, you know, they're trying to overthrow our government.
32:43
Speaker 4: It is, I think there is a fear piece here
32:48
Speaker 4: that Democrats can make an argument against Republicans and chaos
32:52
Speaker 4: and them being dangerous for the country and dangerous for
32:54
Speaker 4: our future that I'd like to see us unpack a
32:56
Speaker 4: little bit more.
32:57
Speaker 2: That's interesting, too, because you do see, and I wonder
32:59
Speaker 2: if you see this in your polling, in a lot
33:02
Speaker 2: of the public polls, you find more Republicans saying that
33:06
Speaker 2: democracy is in danger than Democratic voters. And I think
33:10
Speaker 2: partially that's a function, like you said, Cornell, of maybe
33:14
Speaker 2: Democrats aren't talking about it enough. I also wonder, too,
33:18
Speaker 2: where the threat to democracy is animates us, animates a
33:23
Speaker 2: lot of activists, probably animates a lot of young people
33:26
Speaker 2: and people of color who marched in the streets and
33:27
Speaker 2: who volunteered and organized in 2020. I wonder about some
33:31
Speaker 2: of the less engaged voters, the voters who are sporadic
33:34
Speaker 2: voters and specifically voters who tend to be young and
33:38
Speaker 2: communities of color and who come out sort of in
33:41
Speaker 2: the presidential elections and not necessarily in the midterms. Do
33:44
Speaker 2: you think that the threat of democracy is is understood
33:49
Speaker 2: enough or is animating enough to those groups of voters?
33:54
Speaker 4: I think we've got to have the conversation because truth
33:56
Speaker 4: of the matter is democracy is, is, is being threatened.
34:00
Speaker 6: Right.
34:00
Speaker 4: And I think if you, I think you've got to
34:02
Speaker 4: have the conversation with, with that, that younger, that younger,
34:05
Speaker 4: more diverse electorate and about the real threats to, to democracy. Look, we're,
34:11
Speaker 4: you know, we're in, we're in political communications business. Um,
34:16
Speaker 4: Define the debate, win the debate. If we're not defining
34:21
Speaker 4: the debate as democracy being under threat, quite frankly, Republicans
34:27
Speaker 4: are defining debate as democracy being under threat to sort
34:29
Speaker 4: of gin up their voters. Again, I've said this before,
34:35
Speaker 4: when Donald Trump says, I'm going to give you back
34:36
Speaker 4: your country, he's having a conversation about the future. He's
34:41
Speaker 4: having a conversation, a different conversation than than we are having.
34:45
Speaker 4: But I do think we can have a conversation about
34:48
Speaker 4: the real threats to democracy that we face and how
34:53
Speaker 4: we have the power to save democracy, right? One of
34:56
Speaker 4: the things that we see among young voters is there's
34:59
Speaker 4: a correlation between them participating and they think they have,
35:04
Speaker 4: in fact, the power to bring about change. They think
35:06
Speaker 4: their vote matters. I think there's a conversation with young
35:09
Speaker 4: voters about democracy is literally being threatened by these people
35:13
Speaker 4: that you don't like. that people don't even believe in
35:15
Speaker 4: climate change and want to take away your right to
35:20
Speaker 4: choose and don't want you to vote. Your democracy is
35:24
Speaker 4: being threatened and your rights are going to be pulled
35:26
Speaker 4: back away from you. You have the power to change that.
35:29
Speaker 4: I think there's a conversation there that we can have
35:31
Speaker 4: with young people that I think is different and I
35:34
Speaker 4: think is important. I think we've got to give our
35:38
Speaker 4: voters something to mobilize around. Again, I'll circle back around
35:41
Speaker 4: here I love broadband. I love more bridges, but they're
35:48
Speaker 4: not mobilizing issues.
35:50
Speaker 2: Right. Dan, going back to, I mean, you talked about
35:53
Speaker 2: sort of the need to be specific in defining Republicans
35:56
Speaker 2: as extremists. Do you think the threat to democracy is
36:00
Speaker 2: a good frame here? And also one of the challenges
36:04
Speaker 2: with what Cornell is talking about is Joe Manchin and
36:08
Speaker 2: Kyrsten Sinema could stand in the way of passing voting
36:10
Speaker 2: rights and democracy reform. And if that happens- how do
36:15
Speaker 2: you instill a belief in the young people that Cornell's
36:18
Speaker 2: talking about that what they do actually matters? Because the
36:21
Speaker 2: risk here is a lot of people say, okay, I
36:23
Speaker 2: went out and voted and I thought that that would
36:25
Speaker 2: protect voting rights and protect our democracy. And yet it didn't.
36:28
Speaker 2: So now what's the point?
36:31
Speaker 3: You know, our friend and not Shankar, sorry, I always
36:32
Speaker 3: says that the job of the politician is not to
36:34
Speaker 3: tell people it's popular. It's to make the things they
36:36
Speaker 3: say popular. And the fact that like right now you
36:39
Speaker 3: will test it and Republicans will say they care more
36:41
Speaker 3: about democracy. Now what they mean is they have, either
36:45
Speaker 3: through some sort of motivated reasoning or Fox News or Facebook,
36:47
Speaker 3: come to the belief that some unknown forces stole the
36:51
Speaker 3: election from Donald Trump and are going to steal future elections,
36:55
Speaker 3: preventing them from having this largely white party, the political
36:58
Speaker 3: power they see as their birthright. That is not democracy being...
37:02
Speaker 3: That is them believing that the shift to democracy is
37:05
Speaker 3: bad for them, not that democracy is at stake. But
37:08
Speaker 3: we have not, as Cornell points out, made the case yet. Obviously, with.
37:14
Speaker 3: I'm very sympathetic to the fact that there's a different
37:16
Speaker 3: world where the Build Back Better bill was passed six
37:19
Speaker 3: months ago and we've moved on to other things and
37:20
Speaker 3: people have the space to make that case. But ultimately,
37:24
Speaker 3: we have to. I think the question here for us
37:31
Speaker 3: to figure out is how we define them in a
37:35
Speaker 3: way that is credible. And I think your point about,
37:39
Speaker 3: and I think it's one of the hesitancies among Democrats is,
37:41
Speaker 3: They say democracy is a threat and then very engaged
37:45
Speaker 3: and completely correct people say, well, what the F are
37:47
Speaker 3: you doing about it?
37:48
Speaker 6: Right.
37:49
Speaker 3: And then the, you know, whether it's Biden or the
37:52
Speaker 3: White House would say to you quietly, but what do
37:57
Speaker 3: you want me to do about Joe Manchin?
37:58
Speaker 5: Right.
37:58
Speaker 3: I can't make him do this. I can't make Kyrsten
38:00
Speaker 3: Sinema do that. Are you not reading the things they're saying?
38:02
Speaker 3: But one of the things I think we have to
38:04
Speaker 3: do here is to shift the locus of the threat
38:08
Speaker 3: from voter suppression to election subversion and focus more on
38:14
Speaker 3: stolen elections on what they are trying to do. Like
38:18
Speaker 3: whether you read that very long Atlantic piece, whatever it
38:20
Speaker 3: was like, the plan is happening all out in the open.
38:23
Speaker 3: They were being very specific about what they were planning
38:25
Speaker 3: on doing. It's not a mystery. It is, they are
38:27
Speaker 3: normalizing the country in the party to the idea that
38:31
Speaker 3: they will are willing to install someone who lost not
38:34
Speaker 3: just the popular vote, but the electoral college as president
38:37
Speaker 3: United States. And we have, I think if we focus
38:40
Speaker 3: on that threat, we shift some of our legislative actions,
38:42
Speaker 3: which may still fail to like the Electoral Counts Act
38:45
Speaker 3: and other things that deal with election subversion, we might
38:48
Speaker 3: have more success in that area.
38:51
Speaker 5: Yeah.
38:51
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Cornell mentioned David Perdue saying, you know,
38:55
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have certified the election in Georgia. And I
39:00
Speaker 2: saw a lot of people tweeting about that last night
39:01
Speaker 2: and they're like, this is why Manchin and Sinema have
39:03
Speaker 2: failed us and we should pass voting rights and democracy reforms. Like,
39:08
Speaker 2: even if we passed The best voting rights legislation that
39:11
Speaker 2: we have, you know, without even all the compromises that
39:14
Speaker 2: we've thrown in, that wouldn't prevent David Perdue from running
39:18
Speaker 2: and saying that he wouldn't have certified the last election
39:21
Speaker 2: and that he might not certify the next one. You
39:22
Speaker 2: know what we do?
39:23
Speaker 3: We don't elect David Perdue governor. We elect Stacey Abrams.
39:25
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm getting to the point. Yeah. The
39:27
Speaker 2: point I'm trying to make is it always comes back
39:29
Speaker 2: to trying to. persuade the electorate in some way that
39:32
Speaker 2: Republicans are a threat to democracy and we are not.
39:34
Speaker 2: No matter how much legislation we pass, no matter how
39:36
Speaker 2: much we protect democracy, we're always going to have to
39:38
Speaker 2: do that work of persuasion. Cornell, what are you hearing
39:43
Speaker 2: from voters about Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress right now?
39:47
Speaker 2: What's the mood out there?
39:53
Speaker 4: Here's the problem. They don't know what Joe Biden and
39:56
Speaker 4: Democrats in Congress have been doing. And you see that
40:03
Speaker 4: in public polling, right? Where, yeah, when you test the
40:08
Speaker 4: infrastructure and build back better, when you actually tell them
40:10
Speaker 4: what it is, yeah, they're all for it. Like 60%
40:12
Speaker 4: are for it. But they don't know. They don't know
40:17
Speaker 4: what's happening at all. They don't know what's in the
40:20
Speaker 4: infrastructure plan. And they don't know what's in Build Back
40:24
Speaker 4: Better either. I mean, some of them have heard maybe
40:26
Speaker 4: a child tax credit. And quite frankly, some of them
40:31
Speaker 4: are saying in folks groups, well, I think are roads
40:35
Speaker 4: and bridges in Build Back Better? So it is a classic.
40:40
Speaker 4: So Democrats are very good at legislating, right? They're very
40:44
Speaker 4: good at governing and legislating. We have not been very
40:47
Speaker 4: good at selling and connecting what, in fact, the bipartisan bill.
40:52
Speaker 4: And remember, everyone likes bipartisanship. This bipartisan infrastructure bill has done.
40:57
Speaker 4: And quite frankly, they haven't done a very good job.
40:59
Speaker 4: And again, I'm not beating up specifically on the White House.
41:01
Speaker 4: I'm not beating up on them at all because this
41:05
Speaker 4: is a larger problem with progressives and democratic side is that, guys,
41:12
Speaker 4: there's over 200 million people in vaccine in this country, right?
41:15
Speaker 4: Unemployment is at, what, 4.2%, 4.3%?
41:17
Speaker 6: Under the Biden administration, there's been more jobs created in
41:23
Speaker 6: the first nine months than anyone in history. There's stimulus
41:31
Speaker 6: checks been sent all over to.
41:34
Speaker 4: Millions of Americans. There is so much good sort of legislation,
41:39
Speaker 4: and this infrastructure bill is transformative. And the Build Back Better,
41:43
Speaker 4: which they're now calling What did they change it to, Dan?
41:47
Speaker 4: Was it build America better or something?
41:50
Speaker 3: On this podcast, it's called the Jobs and Climate Bill.
41:52
Speaker 3: That's all we're going to call it.
41:54
Speaker 2: Or just, I've been just trying Joe Biden's economic plan.
41:57
Speaker 3: As a general rule, you should not name your signature
42:00
Speaker 3: legislative agenda a tongue twister.
42:03
Speaker 4: But yesterday, I think they rolled out some different language
42:06
Speaker 4: around it. But anyway.
42:07
Speaker 2: Oh God, I missed that.
42:08
Speaker 4: But there are transformative, you know, pieces of legislation and
42:16
Speaker 4: policies in there and a lot of stuff around the climate.
42:21
Speaker 4: You know, and the president did another executive order around
42:23
Speaker 4: climate the other day. And then you look at, and
42:28
Speaker 4: this is the real, this is actually what's so bothersome
42:31
Speaker 4: to me, but it also connects to my point about
42:32
Speaker 4: midterm election. If you look at where the president's numbers
42:35
Speaker 4: have taken sort of a notable nosedive, it's among self-identified Democrats. Right.
42:43
Speaker 4: He's lost 11 or 12 points among self-identified Democrats. He,
42:48
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of weeks back, he was I
42:49
Speaker 4: think I think he was below 7 percent approval among African-Americans.
42:54
Speaker 4: You know, I never had Barack Obama below 7 percent
42:57
Speaker 4: approval among African-Americans. Right. You know, there's we are failing
43:01
Speaker 4: to disconnect with our. with our own base of voters,
43:06
Speaker 4: with the voters who are actually for us. Hell, if
43:09
Speaker 4: you didn't see a 12-point drop in his job approval
43:12
Speaker 4: among self-ID Democrats, he'd be at a 50% job approval.
43:17
Speaker 4: So there's something to be said here about we're not
43:20
Speaker 4: connecting with our own base of voters and mobilizing them
43:24
Speaker 4: and preparing them to come out for the midterm elections.
43:28
Speaker 2: Which provisions in Build Back Better, or whatever the fuck
43:31
Speaker 2: it's called now, do you think are especially mobilizing for
43:36
Speaker 2: our voters? Because I know you rightly said that a
43:38
Speaker 2: bridge is tough to get people mobilized around, but are
43:40
Speaker 2: there Build Back Better provisions that you think are particularly helpful?
43:43
Speaker 4: Well, let me be really clear here about something. I
43:50
Speaker 4: think Build Back Better is great government and there's a
43:53
Speaker 4: lot of great programs in there that are about investing
43:55
Speaker 4: in people. But I also think if it looks like
44:03
Speaker 4: like Democrats and the Biden administration are not fighting fucking
44:07
Speaker 4: tooth and nail for voting rights and for police reform,
44:14
Speaker 4: we got no chance. And now I'm just going to
44:17
Speaker 4: be really clear about that, right? You know, those young people,
44:21
Speaker 4: not just black young people, but white young people, brown
44:23
Speaker 4: young people, AAPI young people, they took to the streets
44:26
Speaker 4: about injustice. And if we're not, I mean, look, And
44:32
Speaker 4: they don't understand filibuster. They don't understand the structural issues.
44:37
Speaker 4: But they also want to see that Democrats and Joe
44:40
Speaker 4: Biden are fighting for this, that they're fighters, that they're
44:44
Speaker 4: standing up and they're fighting for what they want them
44:46
Speaker 4: to fight for. I don't know if we can change
44:49
Speaker 4: the filibuster or not, but I damn sure believe we
44:53
Speaker 4: better go down in fucking flames fighting to get voting
44:58
Speaker 4: rights passed if we want to We want to have
45:02
Speaker 4: a chance of mobilizing our base going into this midterm.
45:06
Speaker 2: Dan, what should that look like? Barring, you know, persuading
45:10
Speaker 2: Manchin or Sinema to to get rid of the filibuster,
45:12
Speaker 2: like what is going down fighting look like from the
45:15
Speaker 2: Biden administration?
45:16
Speaker 3: I mean, it's very, very hard, right? Because the Senate process,
45:19
Speaker 3: you always hear this all the time, or like they
45:21
Speaker 3: should hold votes on these things. And that will be dramatic.
45:23
Speaker 3: And no one covers it. It takes like 36 hours
45:26
Speaker 3: and boring people speak a lot. Republicans have the capacity
45:29
Speaker 3: to delay the vote into the middle of the night.
45:31
Speaker 3: But I think it is everyone in the party using
45:35
Speaker 3: what limited microphone they have to talk about, to raise
45:39
Speaker 3: concerns about. And that, frankly, starts with the White House. Now,
45:42
Speaker 3: I understand. This is my assumption. No one in the
45:45
Speaker 3: White House has told me this. The reason that they
45:48
Speaker 3: are quieter about this than we think they should is
45:51
Speaker 3: they still need Joe Manchin to vote for Build Back Better.
45:55
Speaker 3: So if they start hammering around on the need for
45:57
Speaker 3: voting rights and everything else, they put that at risk.
45:59
Speaker 3: And there's a sequencing issue here. The problem, of course,
46:02
Speaker 3: is part one of the sequence is taking forever and
46:06
Speaker 3: makes it harder to get to part two. But I
46:07
Speaker 3: think you have to raise the concern. You have to
46:09
Speaker 3: speak with the alarm that a lot of people feel
46:12
Speaker 3: in this country about democracy and other people who don't
46:15
Speaker 3: feel it should feel.
46:17
Speaker 2: Cornell, do you agree?
46:19
Speaker 4: I do. But let me say this, and that's spot on.
46:27
Speaker 4: I do. But I also think this, you know– there's
46:32
Speaker 4: going to come a moment probably in early next year
46:38
Speaker 4: where Democrats are going to have to cut bait or
46:46
Speaker 4: fish or cut bait here. We're going to come to
46:50
Speaker 4: a head about the filibuster because I think there's enough Democrats,
46:55
Speaker 4: even in the Senate, who are increasingly understanding that it
46:59
Speaker 4: is not tenable for us to allow these states to
47:09
Speaker 4: remove our, to disenfranchise people and rig the system so
47:13
Speaker 4: that they can overthrow the system with, you know, and
47:19
Speaker 4: not have to do a super majority to do that,
47:22
Speaker 4: to allow us to lose democracy because of a Senate rule.
47:27
Speaker 4: I think there is enough Democrats in Congress right now
47:31
Speaker 4: who are gonna say, I'm really when push comes to shove,
47:34
Speaker 4: am I gonna allow us to lose democracy because of
47:37
Speaker 4: a Senate rule? I have faith that, and I know
47:41
Speaker 4: I'm in a minority on this, but I have faith
47:44
Speaker 4: that sometime next year, we're gonna come to heads with
47:50
Speaker 4: this filibuster thing. And don't be surprised if the administration
47:58
Speaker 4: isn't also leaning on Democrat senators uh, to carve out
48:03
Speaker 4: an exception for voting rights.
48:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think that Biden sort of, um,
48:09
Speaker 2: leaked out his position in the middle of a town
48:11
Speaker 2: hall with Anderson Cooper. Probably that wasn't the planned way
48:14
Speaker 2: to do it. But I think maybe a big speech,
48:18
Speaker 2: maybe during the State of the Union, maybe some big push,
48:21
Speaker 2: maybe he has a bunch of senators behind him. I
48:22
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, but I agree. I think
48:25
Speaker 2: there needs to be a bigger moment on this. And
48:28
Speaker 2: every Democrat, as you both have said, needs to use
48:30
Speaker 2: their megaphone to talk about this all the time. Cornell Belcher,
48:34
Speaker 2: thank you, as always, for joining us here on Pod
48:36
Speaker 2: Save America. And be well and come back soon.
48:40
Speaker 4: It's always a pleasure. Folks, get out. We've got to
48:42
Speaker 4: save democracy.
48:43
Speaker 2: That's right. All right. Take care, my friend.
48:45
Speaker 4: Thank you.
48:46
Speaker 5: All right.
48:56
Speaker 2: Before we go, we have a very important update from
48:59
Speaker 2: the front lines of the war on Christmas, which has
49:02
Speaker 2: now tragically become the war on Christmas trees, Dan. The
49:05
Speaker 2: 50 foot pine adorned with 10,000 ornaments and 100,000 lights
49:10
Speaker 2: that stands proudly outside of Fox News headquarters was set
49:13
Speaker 2: ablaze by an arsonist late Tuesday evening. Fortunately, no one
49:16
Speaker 2: was hurt. And the culprit, a homeless man with addiction
49:19
Speaker 2: and mental health issues. was quickly arrested. But the patriots
49:22
Speaker 2: who work at Fox will never be the same. CEO
49:25
Speaker 2: Suzanne Scott called the incident a deliberate and brazen act
49:28
Speaker 2: of cowardice. Tucker Carlson decried it as an attack on
49:31
Speaker 2: Christianity and Fox and friends had wall-to-wall coverage of the fire.
49:35
Speaker 2: Take a listen.
49:36
Speaker 4: It's beginning to look a lot like arson.
49:39
Speaker 3: Who sets a Christmas tree?
49:40
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's just part of the rampage.
49:42
Speaker 3: No city is safe. No person is safe.
49:44
Speaker 5: It's a tree that unites us, that brings us together.
49:47
Speaker 5: It's about the Christmas spirit. It is about the holiday season.
49:51
Speaker 5: It's about Jesus. It's about Hanukkah.
49:55
Speaker 4: The DOJ can tell you precisely how many Korans were
49:58
Speaker 4: burned last year in the United States, but they don't
50:01
Speaker 4: keep track of Christmas trees.
50:02
Speaker 2: Why is that?
50:03
Speaker 5: Well, because they could care less. This is personal to
50:06
Speaker 5: you two at home now. The Fox Christmas tree vandalized.
50:09
Speaker 3: Arson.
50:10
Speaker 4: Arson.
50:11
Speaker 5: Burned down. And that's personal to you. It's personal to us.
50:13
Speaker 5: This is an American icon. This is our Christmas tree. Right.
50:17
Speaker 5: Don't worry. Do not be deterred. We will not be.
50:20
Speaker 5: We're going to rebuild it.
50:21
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
50:22
Speaker 5: We're going to rebuild it and we're going to build
50:23
Speaker 5: it back better.
50:29
Speaker 2: I don't even know where to start. There's so much
50:32
Speaker 2: good stuff in that supercut.
50:34
Speaker 3: I think the most important place to start is we
50:37
Speaker 3: do not support arson.
50:38
Speaker 2: No, we do not support arson.
50:39
Speaker 3: We are strongly anti-arson.
50:41
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I said we're very happy that no
50:42
Speaker 2: one was hurt. I'm glad someone was arrested for trying
50:45
Speaker 2: to burn down a fucking tree.
50:47
Speaker 3: No one should burn down a Christmas tree or any
50:49
Speaker 3: other sort of tree. No.
50:51
Speaker 2: You burn down a tree, you get arrested, of course.
50:53
Speaker 3: And generally, I think, in this day and age, it's
50:55
Speaker 3: a bad idea to make arson jokes.
50:58
Speaker 1: But.
50:58
Speaker 2: But.
50:59
Speaker 4: But.
51:00
Speaker 3: The reaction.
51:01
Speaker 2: It's less about the incident and more about the way
51:04
Speaker 2: it was covered.
51:05
Speaker 4: Yes.
51:07
Speaker 3: When the people who invented the war on Christmas for
51:10
Speaker 3: profit and partisan gain become so.
51:13
Speaker 2: Chickens have come home to roost.
51:14
Speaker 3: They have become so high on their own supply that
51:16
Speaker 3: they actually believe they were at Pearl Harbor.
51:21
Speaker 2: Well, I was just going to say. The attack took
51:23
Speaker 2: place late on December 7th. Do you think that this
51:27
Speaker 2: will also be a day that lives in infamy? I mean,
51:36
Speaker 2: all of this was good. I do think Tucker Carlson
51:39
Speaker 2: wanting Merrick Garland to spend resources to go after people.
51:42
Speaker 2: The rash of Christmas tree burnings that are apparently now
51:45
Speaker 2: out there. Who knows? There's others. I like that. It's
51:47
Speaker 2: about Christmas. It's about Hanukkah. That's important. Of course it is.
51:51
Speaker 3: Um, it's personal to you.
51:52
Speaker 2: It's personal to you.
51:53
Speaker 4: Right.
51:54
Speaker 2: But I still think, and of course, build back better.
51:56
Speaker 2: I still think nothing beats the, um, now deleted tweet
51:59
Speaker 2: from Megan McCain quote. I don't want to hear anything
52:03
Speaker 2: about how radical some of you believe Republicans to be
52:05
Speaker 2: when there are lunatics running around New York city, setting
52:07
Speaker 2: Fox news Christmas tree on fire.
52:09
Speaker 4: Yes.
52:10
Speaker 2: Trump supporters are famously tamer than this one guy who
52:13
Speaker 2: burned down a tree. Uh, let's take a listen.
52:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:26
Speaker 2: Same thing, right?
52:27
Speaker 5: Exactly.
52:28
Speaker 2: Same thing.
52:29
Speaker 3: January 6th, December 7th.
52:30
Speaker 2: You think storming the Capitol, like a mob of angry
52:34
Speaker 2: people who are violent that stormed the Capitol is radical?
52:37
Speaker 2: What about this guy who burned down a fucking Christmas tree?
52:39
Speaker 3: Not any tree.
52:40
Speaker 2: What about him?
52:41
Speaker 3: The national monument.
52:42
Speaker 2: An American icon. Just to inject a small note of
52:45
Speaker 2: seriousness here, do you think Fox's reaction reveals anything larger
52:50
Speaker 2: about how Fox or right-wing media operates?
52:53
Speaker 3: It is the... I mean, they could teach this in
52:56
Speaker 3: a class about right-wing media. It is find a grievance,
52:59
Speaker 3: turn it into a cultural war about themselves, become the victims,
53:03
Speaker 3: be completely full of shit through the whole thing.
53:06
Speaker 2: I mean, it's... And as you become a victim, try
53:10
Speaker 2: to make the rest of America a victim too, right?
53:13
Speaker 2: There's like a patriotism thing at play here, right? That
53:16
Speaker 2: it is, you know, America's a Christian country and there's
53:19
Speaker 2: an attack on religion, an attack on Christmas, and there's also...
53:22
Speaker 2: an attack on this symbol that we all love. And
53:24
Speaker 2: it's an attack on you, right? Like it can't just
53:27
Speaker 2: be Fox news is pissed about this.
53:28
Speaker 3: No, it's all of you.
53:29
Speaker 2: This is an attack on you and your value.
53:31
Speaker 3: And now all of your Christmas trees are at risk.
53:36
Speaker 2: I mean, like we're, this is a wall to, I mean,
53:38
Speaker 2: they did not talk. They talked more about this than
53:40
Speaker 2: they talked about the horrific school shooting in Michigan. They'd
53:44
Speaker 2: never talk about the insurrection like this. I mean, it's just,
53:48
Speaker 2: it was amazing. It was so amazing to see. how
53:51
Speaker 2: wall-to-wall coverage this was.
53:52
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to.
53:53
Speaker 2: A tree, a Christmas tree. It was on fire for
53:55
Speaker 2: a little bit.
53:56
Speaker 3: I don't want to go on all QAnon, but how
53:57
Speaker 3: do we know this was not a false flag?
54:01
Speaker 2: You think Brian Kilmeade was out there and he was
54:03
Speaker 2: the guy? Yeah. You think he lit the tree on
54:06
Speaker 2: fire and then, like, handed the gasoline to some guy
54:09
Speaker 2: that he saw just to frame him?
54:10
Speaker 3: Exactly.
54:11
Speaker 2: That's the conspiracy theory that I'm starting right now.
54:13
Speaker 3: Get that shit on Facebook right now. It'll be trending.
54:15
Speaker 2: Let's get it going. Yeah, I don't have anything more
54:18
Speaker 2: to say about that. I just want to say.
54:20
Speaker 3: Do we need a moment of silence to end with?
54:21
Speaker 2: We do. Well, this wasn't because this is an audio medium.
54:26
Speaker 2: We didn't do this, but there was this great moment
54:28
Speaker 2: on Fox and Friends where they were like, we're now
54:31
Speaker 2: going to play a montage of Christmas trees for you
54:34
Speaker 2: because we don't have ours anymore. Was it great? There
54:37
Speaker 2: was like an in memoriam of Christmas trees.
54:39
Speaker 3: Was it great Christmas trees in American history?
54:41
Speaker 4: I don't know.
54:42
Speaker 2: I think it was just a bunch of Christmas trees.
54:43
Speaker 3: Was Charlie Brown's Christmas tree in it?
54:46
Speaker 2: Anyway, look, We feel for you, everyone at Fox. Maybe
54:50
Speaker 2: we should send them a Christmas tree. No, we're not.
54:53
Speaker 5: All right.
54:54
Speaker 2: That's all the time we have. Dan, thanks for being here.
54:56
Speaker 3: I mean.
54:56
Speaker 2: Come down again.
54:57
Speaker 3: Anytime. Perfect.
54:59
Speaker 2: And thanks to Cornell Belcher for joining us. Everyone have
55:01
Speaker 2: a great weekend and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.
55:09
Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
55:12
Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
55:16
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55:19
Speaker 2: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
55:23
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Speaker 2: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
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Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
55:34
Speaker 2: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
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Speaker 2: slash crooked media.