Latest / Pod Save America / “Biden takes on the Big Lie.”

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“Biden takes on the Big Lie.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
• 0:02
  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,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
• 0:14
  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
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, President Biden marks the anniversary of the
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: January 6th attack with a pointed speech about the big lie.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump decides to shut up and cancel his press conference.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Congress debates voting rights and the Electoral Count Act. In
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Cook Political Reports, Dave Wasserman joins to talk about how
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: redistricting is going much better for Democrats than expected. Still
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: not great. Better than expected. That's where we're going. That's
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: our standard these days. But first, two cricket pods to
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: check out in 2022 if you haven't yet. X-Ray Vision
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: from Jason Concepcion. where this month he'll be covering the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: finale of Hawkeye, exploring the post-apocalyptic miniseries Station Eleven, and
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: diving into the new series, The Book of Boba Fett,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: for which I, Jon Favreau, have been getting lots of
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  Speaker 2: accolades on Twitter. Just my mentions are flooded with people
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  Speaker 2: who really like it. This is what happens when the
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  Speaker 2: other Jon Favreau does something great. I just bathe in adoration.
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  Speaker 3: How bad do you think his mentions are?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: His mentions are perfect, actually. LAUGHTER People love what he's doing.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: That's what I get. So you can catch new episodes
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: of X-Ray Vision every Friday. And on Wednesdays, don't miskeep it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: This week, Lewis and Aida are joined by guest host
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Guy Branum to talk about what movies and TV shows
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  Speaker 2: they're looking forward to in 2022. Plus, they process the
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  Speaker 2: recent losses of Betty White, Joan Didion, and Bell Hooks.
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  Speaker 4: Check it out.
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  Speaker 2: All right. Let's get to the news. One year ago,
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  Speaker 2: We all watched Donald Trump rile up a mob of
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  Speaker 2: angry supporters who then broke into the U.S. Capitol, violently
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  Speaker 2: assaulted the Capitol Police with stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats,
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  Speaker 2: and flagpoles, and hunted down members of Congress and the
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  Speaker 2: Vice President in order to stop them for certifying the
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  Speaker 2: presidential election for Joe Biden. All while Trump happily watched
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  Speaker 2: the scene unfold from the White House. At least seven
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  Speaker 2: people died, dozens more were injured, and so far 70
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  Speaker 2: of the attackers have been sentenced for the crimes they committed.
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  Speaker 2: It was an attempted overthrow of American democracy. And on
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  Speaker 2: Thursday morning, the president marked the anniversary with a speech
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  Speaker 2: that made clear who he holds accountable for the attack
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  Speaker 2: and why he thinks the threat to democracy still exists.
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  Speaker 5: For the first time in our history, a president had
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  Speaker 5: not just lost an election. He tried to prevent the
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  Speaker 5: peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.
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  Speaker 5: We didn't see a former president who had just rallied
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  Speaker 5: the mob to attack, sitting in the private dining room
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  Speaker 5: off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it
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  Speaker 5: all on television and doing nothing for hours as police
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  Speaker 5: were assaulted, lives at risk, the nation's capital under siege.
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  Speaker 5: You can't love your country only when you win. You
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  Speaker 5: can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't
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  Speaker 5: be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
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  Speaker 2: So I thought this was Biden's most powerful speech since
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  Speaker 2: the inaugural address a year ago. I'm interested though, a
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  Speaker 2: few weeks ago, Biden told reporters, I don't think about
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  Speaker 2: the former president. Clearly this speech, this was, I was
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  Speaker 2: even surprised. I had like whiplash from this speech because
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  Speaker 2: he has been so He has avoided for so long
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  Speaker 2: talking about Trump. And it's this sort of like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: joke among the staff and sometimes on Twitter. They call
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  Speaker 2: him the former guy.
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  Speaker 6: Right.
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  Speaker 2: It's a whole thing. And he spent a lot of
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  Speaker 2: time on this speech talking about Trump. What do you
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  Speaker 2: think got into him?
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  Speaker 3: I'm getting the sense he said a lot. He wanted
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  Speaker 3: to get off his chest for a very long time about.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: The quote unquote former guy. And it's not just that
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  Speaker 3: they were opponents and maybe opponents again. It's like Joe
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  Speaker 3: Biden is someone with sort of this deeply held moral
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  Speaker 3: code about honesty, integrity, how you treat people, how you
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  Speaker 3: treat politics, public service. And there's just no question that
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump offends Joe Biden to his core and never
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  Speaker 3: more so than how he handled the election, where you
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  Speaker 3: put yourself over your country. And I think that This
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  Speaker 3: speech does potentially at least mark a turning point in
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  Speaker 3: how Biden is going to approach this because Joe Biden
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  Speaker 3: ran on a message of unity. And that is something
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  Speaker 3: that is not like bullshit. It is like core to
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  Speaker 3: who he is. Like he wants to bring people together.
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  Speaker 3: He wants to work with Republicans. He wants compromise. He
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  Speaker 3: wants cooperation. And like that part of Joe Biden's personality
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  Speaker 3: can be deeply frustrating to to us at a time, right?
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  Speaker 3: Where even he will see opportunities to work with people
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  Speaker 3: that we find abhorrent like Mitch McConnell. But I think
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  Speaker 3: that what this speech was and doing this so powerfully
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  Speaker 3: and aggressively from the Capitol on this day is sort
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  Speaker 3: of this acknowledgement from President Biden that unifying the country
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  Speaker 3: means you have to take on the people who are
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  Speaker 3: trying to divide it for partisan gain and profit, right?
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  Speaker 3: That you cannot turn the other cheek when there are
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  Speaker 3: people who are actively spreading lies and conspiracy theories and
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  Speaker 3: trying to divide Americans and incite violence, right? And that is,
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  Speaker 3: and that threat is around the corner and coming closer.
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  Speaker 2: I also think you can make an argument that the
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  Speaker 2: preservation of democracy has always been even more important to
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  Speaker 2: Joe Biden than this theme of unity. Oh, of course.
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  Speaker 2: We have sort of lost focus of this in the
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  Speaker 2: last year because Joe Biden has dealt with quite a
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  Speaker 2: few challenges and And, you know, has been through some
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  Speaker 2: really tough political times, has disappointed some people, has angered
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  Speaker 2: some people, all this kind of stuff. But if you
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  Speaker 2: look at, like, why Joe Biden ran for president in
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  Speaker 2: the first place, talked about Charlottesville, talked about the fact
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  Speaker 2: that Trump was in the race, talked about the soul
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  Speaker 2: of America, talked about the preservation of democracy. It's clear
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  Speaker 2: that you're right. He has a sort of, he's offended
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  Speaker 2: by Donald Trump, I think is how you put it.
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  Speaker 2: But I think it isn't just personal and it's much
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  Speaker 2: bigger than Donald Trump. I think that you can tell
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  Speaker 2: when someone's giving a speech if they really truly believe
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  Speaker 2: in what they're saying, if they care about the speech,
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  Speaker 2: or if they're just sort of reciting what's on the
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  Speaker 2: page or on the prompter. And Joe Biden cared about
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  Speaker 2: that speech. He cared deeply about the inaugural address. He
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  Speaker 2: cared deeply about the parts of his convention speech when
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  Speaker 2: he was talking about the preservation of democracy. This is
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  Speaker 2: something that animates him. And I also think it's like
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  Speaker 2: the challenge of our time right now. I mean, that
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  Speaker 2: is the fight. And Donald Trump, his message since November
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  Speaker 2: has been about the election and democracy and voting, not
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  Speaker 2: in ways that we like, not in ways that are true,
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  Speaker 2: in ways that are completely dangerous, but that's his message.
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  Speaker 2: And the anti-democratic faction that he's leading, that's what they
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  Speaker 2: care about too. And we have, I think, bemoaned on
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  Speaker 2: this podcast, how, you know, you take polls of, you know,
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  Speaker 2: way more Republicans think that democracy is threatened right now
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  Speaker 2: than Democrats. And I think in terms of voters, and
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  Speaker 2: I think that, uh, and polls show that Joe Biden
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  Speaker 2: today tried to join the debate that Donald Trump has
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  Speaker 2: been having and saying, this is the most important issue
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  Speaker 2: of our time, that if we do not have democracy,
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  Speaker 2: if we don't fight to save democracy and Nothing else matters.
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  Speaker 2: We're not going to make progress on climate change, on
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  Speaker 2: student debt, on police violence, on anything else that we
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  Speaker 2: care about. There will be zero progress if we do
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  Speaker 2: not preserve democracy first. And whether that's Donald Trump attacking it,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's the people who attack the Capitol, whether it's
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  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis, whoever else comes along, the preservation of democracy
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  Speaker 2: is foundational to all the other progress we want to
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  Speaker 2: achieve in this country.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not just a speech that he believes in,
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  Speaker 3: which he obviously clearly does, but it also had all
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  Speaker 3: the markings of a speech that a politician has wanted
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  Speaker 3: to give for a long time and hasn't been able
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  Speaker 3: to for whatever reason, right? Their political advisor said it
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  Speaker 3: was the wrong time. You're trying to get through your
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  Speaker 3: legislative agenda or you have to wait until– like he–
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  Speaker 3: like I think when I saw Biden give the speech,
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  Speaker 3: I thought a little bit about how Obama delivered the
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  Speaker 3: race speech in 2008, which is a speech he'd wanted
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  Speaker 3: to give for a very long time. Everyone had told
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  Speaker 3: him probably incorrectly not to do it. The moment forced it,
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  Speaker 3: and he gave it. And I sort of watched this thinking,
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  Speaker 3: Joe Biden has wanted to say this for a very,
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  Speaker 3: very long time, and could not or did not, and
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  Speaker 3: now got the chance to, and he did it with gusto.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it played very well, in my opinion.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hope he talks about it more. And look,
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  Speaker 2: the circumstances don't always allow you to give a speech
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  Speaker 2: like this all the time. He's dealing with a million
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  Speaker 2: other issues that, as President of the United States, he
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  Speaker 2: has to grapple with. So it's not like every week
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  Speaker 2: he can go out and give a democracy speech. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not Pollyannish like that. But I do think it has
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  Speaker 2: to be core to his message as president. I think
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  Speaker 2: one of the reasons I'm sure political advisors have been
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  Speaker 2: nervous about him talking about all the time is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it doesn't connect to directly to people's lives, or at
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  Speaker 2: least when you ask voters about it doesn't connect directly
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  Speaker 2: to their lives. And maybe they care more about their
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: jobs and economy and their financial well-being. And I get
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  Speaker 2: that all that is probably true with voters, but this
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  Speaker 2: is the threat we're facing. So you have to make
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: the case for it. You have to make the case
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  Speaker 2: why it's important. And I think you have to connect
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  Speaker 2: why it's important to people's everyday lives. And that's a
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  Speaker 2: challenging task, but it's a task that I think that
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  Speaker 2: the White House and all Democrats and all of us
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  Speaker 2: actually need to fulfill.
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  Speaker 3: Knowing how these things play out in the White House,
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure there's this view that's like, once we get
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  Speaker 3: Build Back Better behind us and the pandemic's in a
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  Speaker 3: better place, we will focus on voting rights and democracy.
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  Speaker 3: And then it's like Joe Manchin still sitting out there
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: making it difficult. Oh, the pandemic's back. I remember this.
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  Speaker 3: We had all these things we wanted to do in
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: early 2010 that we will do once healthcare is behind us.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: And then healthcare was not behind us for so long
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: that you never get to it. And I think what
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  Speaker 3: January 6th gave him the opportunity or the reason to
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: give the speech, I think, the White House, and he
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  Speaker 3: had wanted to give for a while now.
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  Speaker 2: So Trump had a press conference scheduled for today that
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: he canceled at the last minute in a statement where
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: he promised to say whatever he was going to say
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: today at his January 15th rally in Arizona. Tune in.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: What do you think happened there? What do you think
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  Speaker 2: happened with Trump?
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  Speaker 3: Well, whenever Trump does anything, there are sort of two
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  Speaker 3: potential reasons why we have. There's, I guess, technically a
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: third one which we can discard because it's impossible, which
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: is like it's the right thing to do or it's–
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: like it's never that, right? So it's either because he
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: views it as good strategy or it's pure selfishness, right?
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  Speaker 3: The good strategy take here would be, yeah, the party,
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  Speaker 3: Republican Party still love– voters still love Trump. They agree
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  Speaker 3: with his bullshit about the election being stolen. What they
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: don't like is people violently assaulting the Capitol. So it
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: seems like a bad day to pop your head up
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and remind everyone that you fomented that. If he were
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: to have given that press conference, it would have led
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: to a bunch of bad press coverage, which he actually
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: does hate. And it would force some Republicans to attack him, right?
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: And elected Republicans. And not just Liz Cheney's, but it
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: would be divisive within the party. The other reason is
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: one that Maggie Haberman reported out on Twitter the other day,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: which is Trump found out that the networks were unlikely
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: to cover his press conference live, so he canceled it.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm going to guess in this case, it was
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: not that he's gotten smarter. It's just he wasn't going
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: to get the attention that the rest of us crave
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: and need like oxygen. So he canceled it.
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  Speaker 2: Here's my theory. And I think that Maggie also tweeted this,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and I saw some other reporters tweet this too, that like, Yes,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: reporters were going to cover and show up at the speech.
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  Speaker 2: I think that his advisors knew it was stupid for
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: him to do.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Tried to convince him that it was stupid to do,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: but thought that it would be more effective to tell
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  Speaker 2: him that he was not going to get the coverage
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  Speaker 2: that he wanted so that he could blame the media
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  Speaker 2: who he hates. Yeah, same, same, right? I think I
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: agree with you on what his advisors thought, and I
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: agree that, but the ultimate decision point for Trump was
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: because of the television. Yeah. I mean, it was a
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: politically smart decision, whether he made it knowingly or not,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: whether the advisors at least that told him not to
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  Speaker 2: speak up. It was politically smart because I think if
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: you first of all, the I think the reaction to
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's speech was very positive. It was I was
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I rarely watch cable. It was positive on the whole
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: CNN panel. Everyone was very happy with it. And I think.
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  Speaker 3: A focus group of Americans right there.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Gloria Borger, thumbs up. So I think that like if
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: if we had done if we had this, you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden giving the serious speech about democracy, everyone giving that,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: you know, talking to doing their memorials and all this
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: like seriousness, stuff like that. And then that buffoon gets
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: up and starts saying something crazy. Yeah, I think it
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: would have been very bad for him. It's such a.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Funny way to use the term smart to describe this decision,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: however you came to.
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  Speaker 4: It, right?
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Is it smart or is it just not incredibly fucking
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: stupid to hold a press conference to celebrate the lowest
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: political moment of your life?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Well, but the lowest political moment that he has, he
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: is trying to turn into, you know, something that everyone
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: should be proud of. That's the way he's handling it.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: He's not trying to memory hole it. He's trying to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: now like celebrate it. I mean, I noticed that he,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: of course, he's put out like three statements since Biden's speech.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: And one thing I noticed about the last statement is
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: it's like five paragraphs long and like four paragraphs are
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: all about the fucking 2020 election and his grievances. And
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: the last paragraph is about what he calls, you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Biden administration's failures. And I'm thinking like, Most Republican strategists
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: would probably look at that last paragraph and think, like,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: that's an effective message against Joe Biden. Not the first
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: four paragraphs are fucking crazy, but that's what you get
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: with Donald Trump.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I need some reporting on the person who has to
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: take dictation on these statements.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I love that story. I love that story. All right.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So a year later, we are still dealing with the
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: fallout from the January 6th attack. And I want to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: start with the legal fallout. move on to the latest
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: in the congressional investigation, and then end with the broader
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: political impact. On the legal front, Attorney General Merrick Garland
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: gave a speech this week where he said the following
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: about the Justice Department's criminal investigation into the attack.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: perpetrators at any level accountable under law, whether they were
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: assault on our democracy.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: So Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona had criticized Garland
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: before the speech, before the speech, for being, quote, extremely weak, feckless, and, quote,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: not helpful in terms of preserving our democracy. Wow, tell
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: us what you really think. What do you make of
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the debate over whether Garland has been aggressive enough on
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: this issue?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I think we don't know the answer to that yet.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: The Justice Department moves slow. And it's going to move
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: particularly slow in a situation that is politically sensitive like this.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: And I think it's going to move even slower because
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: one thing that Garland is very committed to is restoring
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: the reputation of independence and integrity of the Department of Justice.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: So in a case where they are investigating associates and
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: maybe the former president, they are going to make sure
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: that Every I is dotted. Every T is crossed. Every
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: protocol is followed. And I know it can be extremely frustrating.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: But the fact that it's moving slow shouldn't be a surprise.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: You can only judge this when it comes to an end.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: What is going to happen with the criminal referrals on
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: contempt of Congress? What other charges will be brought? But
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I don't think we should be super surprised that Garland
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: is moving so carefully because whatever charges are brought must
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: be– or indictments are had– you know, it's going to
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: have to be completely a paper trail, career prosecutors, everything
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: has to be completely sort of buttoned up so that
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: it cannot, it will withstand the tremendous scrutiny that it
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: will get from a lot of very bad faith actors
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: in the Republicans in Congress.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I think that if Merrick Garland and people at the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Justice Department are declining to bring chargers or declining to
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: focus on potential criminality because they are concerned about the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: perception of bias or politicization or stuff like that, then
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that is a problem and that is wrong. That is
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: clearly what the Mueller team was worried about during that investigation.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And we saw how that turned out. But if they
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: are being cautious and taking time for the reasons that
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: you suggest, then you're right. I think we should just
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: deal with that and wait, right? Like, Part of what
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: we're fighting for here is the preservation of democracy and
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the rule of law and institutions. And we want a
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Justice Department that takes the time to get it right
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: and actually goes after criminality and wrongdoing and doesn't just
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: prosecute political enemies because everyone wants them to. So, you know,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: and we don't know, like you said, we don't know
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: what's going on yet. I do know there is some,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we have seen before within law enforcement, within
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the Justice Department, you know, within bureaucracies, people not just
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: doing their jobs, but also deciding to be sort of
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: political communication strategists and wondering how things will play, that
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: becomes problematic, right? You're not a political communication strategist. You
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: are legal and you should be following the law where
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: it takes you.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: John, that is incorrect. As you know, from having worked
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: in politics, that the only thing you need to be
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: a political communication strategist is to have read a newspaper
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: or have access to the internet. Everyone else can do
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: it at that point.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Twitter feed, you're good to go. What do you think
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: he was getting at in that speech? That clip that
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: we played, do you think that was basically that line,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: that paragraph was in response to some of the criticism?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, he says, you know, at any level, meaning
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: maybe the former president of the United States, whether they
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: the assault on our democracy, which also makes me think
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: not just the people who strummed the cap, but potentially
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the people who planned January 6th.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I don't think he is making promises about the sorts
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of people who will be charged, but I think he
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: is saying, stay tuned. We are doing more than you
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: think we're doing. We are doing it seriously, and we're
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: doing it aggressively, and we hope to have more information
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: for you soon.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So there's one development in the House investigation we should
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: talk about, which is that the committee is asking Sean
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Hannity questions about his communications with Trump and his staff
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: in the days around the attack because they have text
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: messages from Hannity to Mark Meadows warning him that there
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: could be mass resignations from the White House Counsel's Office
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: if Trump went through with his plan to get Mike
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Pence to overturn the election. In one example, Hannity texted,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I do not see January 6th happening the way he
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: is being told. No shit. First of all, how cool
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: must it be to work in a White House where
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you just coordinate daily messaging directly with the hosts of
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: the country's most popular cable news shows?
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, Jen Psaki, our DMs are open. We can do
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: this for you. Get Joe Biden on the pod.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Like... I mean, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure there
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: are plenty of Republicans. There are plenty of people on
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: the right who think that happens. That like in the
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Obama White House, you guys were like calling, you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: you were calling Rachel Maddow to coordinator. I laugh about
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: it because it's so, it is so silly to me. Like,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you the cable news host I really like, like,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, like they don't always do
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: shows that I think are beneficial to the democratic party,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: nor should they be. That's not their job. We, we
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: do shows. We are a progressive media company who are
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: former Obama, uh, staffers. We do stuff. We say stuff
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that probably pisses the white house off.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: You say stuff.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Like I don't, it's, it's amazing to think that as a,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: as a white house, When you're trying to control your message,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: you just pick up the phone and coordinate with cable hosts.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: It's amazing.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is sort of amusing because it's caught
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: up in this specific investigation. But we already knew from
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: other reporting that Trump would dial Lou Dobbs into policy
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: meetings in the White House. He took advice on a
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: military strike against Iran from Tucker Carlson, who actually argued
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: against the strike, if I remember correctly. like he, there
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: were Fox personalities that he wanted to appoint to the cabinet.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, like the Fox and the, there are no
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: lines between Fox and the Trump white house. And so
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: the fact that Sean Hannity is acting as shadow chief
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: of staff to Trump is like, it's interesting, but it's
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: not surprising, I guess.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: It reveals more about just how fake, even the thinnest
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: veneer of journalistic integrity at Fox is. And it's, how
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: just poorly run the Trump White House is, is that
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: these bozos would be offering you political advice that would
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: be taken very seriously?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I think it also goes to a point that you
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: and I have talked about before that I think is
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: worth talking about again, especially today, which is a lot
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: of these Fox hosts seemed, as it was happening, very
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: worried about the attack and the attempted coup from the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: messages that we've seen sent to Mark Meadows from Hannity
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and from Laura Ingraham, from people like that. We also
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: saw around that time, Trump cabinet secretaries resign, Republican leaders
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: in Congress, including fucking Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, were
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: openly blaming Trump for the insurrection. Lindsey Graham goes on
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the floor, he says, I'm out, count me out, I'm done.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Trump's approval rating fell into the 30s, and yet here
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: we are a year later, And he is the clear
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: favorite for the Republican nomination in 2024. He's got like
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: a 90% favorability rating among Republican voters. He's got Republican
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: members of Congress endorsing him, urging him to run again.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: What do you think happened?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Well, let's take Fox and the Republican Party slightly separately here.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: We know what happened with Fox. They did sort of
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: break with Trump, right? They called Arizona for Biden. They
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: began sort of pushing back on the big lie. afterwards
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: pretty aggressively, and they lost their viewers. The ratings went down.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: And so what did they do? They swerved completely in
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: the other direction and got more pro-Trump. They cut back
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: on news and put in place more pro-Trump opinion. They
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: purged the people who called the election for Biden. The
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: political staff, they fired them as some sort of sacrifice
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: on a MAGA altar for Trump. And it's like, We
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: know that Rupert Murdoch and his kids are right-wing ideologues.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: We know they want to elect Republican politicians because that's
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: what they believe in and they know it's good for
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: them financially. They're also greedy assholes. This is where the
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: money is, right? Tucker Carlson wants to make tens of
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars a year. He has to get 5
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: million people to watch a show. How does he get
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: 5 million people to watch a show? By being a performative,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: preppy– white supremacists, conspiracy theorists. That's where the market is.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Republican Party, same thing, right? Where McConnell, with the great
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: courage of anonymity, suggests through Jonathan Martin that he would
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: like to, of the New York Times, ask Trump to resign.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Same thing with McCarthy. Gets a couple of mean emails
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: from some Republican supporters. And next thing you know, Rick
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Scott of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that Mitch McConnell
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: controls is giving Trump a fake trophy. And what they
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: will all say is this is where the base is.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: This is what the base wants. Well, this is what
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the base wants is because you don't ever give them
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: anything else. No one has the courage to actually stand
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: up and say this is wrong for more than five
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: fucking seconds at a time. And if people actually stood up,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: not just Liz Cheney, but if McConnell and McCarthy had
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: stood up and fought back, if other Republicans had fought back,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you might have a different situation. But they all popped
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: their head up. Took a shot and then went right
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: back in.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Well, partly because who has more sway with the Republican base?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy or Sean Hannity and Tucker
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Carlson and Laura Ingraham and Ben Shapiro and whatever, Dan
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Bongino and all these fucking, Steve Bannon. Like, that's who
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: has the power over the base. And so, like, you know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell are no match for those people.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: They can't do it. And also, you know, to be
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: a Republican right now, it's not a question of ideology anymore.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: It's a question of identity. And when the identity is
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: tied up with Donald Trump and when Donald Trump says
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the election was rigged and I have been wronged and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: so have you, that becomes an issue of identity, which
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: is much stronger than ideology and much harder to puncture.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: if you're some Republican elected official who, for some reason,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: wants to do the right thing, of which there are
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: vanishingly few. And look what happened to the 10 Republicans
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: in the House that impeached him. They voted to impeach.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: They're either retired or not running or have primary challenges.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: They got death threats. That's what happens. So this is
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the party now. And then I guess the question is,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: would you say that Trump... And the big lie have
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: an even greater hold on Republican politicians and Republican voters
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: today than they did back a year ago?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, much greater. And in part for the Republican Party politicians,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: think about this. Most of them, the elected officials, the
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: party leaders, never liked Trump, particularly the ones in Congress.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: They thought he was an idiot. He was embarrassing. They
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: were just sort of expecting and waiting for him to
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: lose everything. In 2016. And then he didn't. And they
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: kind of kept waiting for him to light himself on
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: fire all the time. But the fact that he lost
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: an election, was impeached twice, fomented a violent insurrection on
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: the Capitol, committed multiple crimes, and is still powerful today,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: says to them, you cannot beat this guy. We have
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: no hope. And so his grip is much stronger than before.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And again– How do you run against Donald Trump if
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: you also embrace the lie that he was cheated in
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: the last election? Because if you embrace the lie that
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: he was cheated in the last election, then he's the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: rightful winner and he should get to win again.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: They're all so dumb.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I do think a smart Republican would say, like,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't know for sure if there was
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: fraud in the last election. Maybe there was. But the
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: real question is, why did Donald Trump let the election
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: get close enough for Joe Biden to steal? And start
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: inserting some doubt that maybe Donald Trump shouldn't have let
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: it get that close because he was a fucking loser,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: which is basically Chris Christie's message now. You know, Chris Christie,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: who just is saying he doesn't believe in the big
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: lie and he's saying, you know, Donald Trump's a loser
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But you can't call Donald Trump
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: a loser if you're a Republican running against him unless
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: you say that the election was legitimate.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: The Republicans have been making the same mistake since the
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: 2016 Republican primary, which is they just keep waiting for
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump to go away on his own, to drop
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: out of the race, to quit, to light himself on fire.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: And so they never make an argument against him. They
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: just make his argument in the hope that when he
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: goes away, they'll be the person doing the best Donald
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Trump karaoke impression for the base. And you need a
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: different argument. I think the best thing to do is
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: call him a loser. Republicans have been caricaturing and attacking
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden for two years now. We obviously think that
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: that caricature is completely wrong, but in the hermetically sealed
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Republican information ecosystem, Joe Biden is a doddering, sleepy old
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: man who can do nothing. He beat Donald Trump by
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: 8 million fucking votes. What a loser he is. Trump
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: is like, what?
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Like, like Trump, Christie is the absolute worst person to
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: make that argument because Donald Trump kicks his ass not
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: too long ago. But if someone really wanted to be
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Trump and the, someone like Ron DeSantis, like that's how
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: you would do it. I just don't think anyone had
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: the courage to do it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't have let the election get close enough for Joe
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Biden to steal. That's the that's the anti-Trump message, if
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: any of you guys want it. But here's so there's
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: if you want to read more about this, by the way,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: there's two, I think, excellent pieces. The New York Times
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and The Washington Post did great pieces about how Trump's
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: grip over the Republican Party strengthened from over the last year.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I know Maggie Haberman wrote The New York Times one
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: and Ashley Parker wrote The Washington Post one. There are
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: other reporters I'm forgetting now, but they laid out like.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: At least 163 Republicans who have embraced Trump's false claims
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: are running for statewide statewide positions that would give them
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: authority over the administration of elections. According to a Washington
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Post tally, the list includes 69 candidates for governor in
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: 30 states, as well as 55 candidates for the U.S. Senate,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: 13 candidates for state attorney general and 18 for secretary
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: of state. At least five candidates for the U.S. House
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: were at the Capitol during this January 6th riots. They
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: are running for the fucking house. So that part's pretty scary.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Then there's an interesting part in the Washington Post story
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: that says, one prominent Republican consultant who has advised clients
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: on getting Trump's endorsement said he increasingly counsels candidates to
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: walk a fine line. The former president, quote, isn't going
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: to endorse you if you say he's wrong and there
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: was no fraud, but you don't want to make your
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: whole campaign about that either, the consultant said. What do
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: you make of that? That, like, you have all these
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: candidates running on the big lie in a lot of
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: scary positions, and then you have consultants advising them, yeah,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: but it's not super popular in a general election in
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: a swing district or a swing state to get too
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: close to Trump or talk too much about Trump.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, Trump is incredibly unpopular, to be very clear
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: about that. And even though large portions of the Republican
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Party believe that the election was stolen in some way, shape,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: or form, that either they believe They want to believe
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: or they're willing to tell pollsters some version of the
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: big lie. The efforts to steal the election violently, extra-legally,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: otherwise are incredibly unpopular. Data for Progress did one of
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: their polls. They looked at four swing congressional districts in
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: the state of Georgia. In the state of Georgia, only
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: 52% of the voters think Joe Biden won the election legitimately,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: which is basically his margin plus a couple points, right?
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: And I think it's like 17% of Republicans think the
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: election was legitimate. But the people who stormed the Capitol
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: and what happened in the Capitol that day have a
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: negative 60 approval rating. And so you have to fight,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: walk this line. If you're a Republican, you definitely need
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Trump's endorsement, or at least you think you do. We'll
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: find out later this year if that really matters as
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: much as people think it does. But you have to
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: sort of be, and this is the Youngkin approach, you
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: have to be just Trumpy enough, but not so Trumpy
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: that you turn off the large, strong, enduring anti-Trump majority
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: in this country.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: So what do we do as Democrats or anyone who
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: wants to save democracy, you don't have to be a Democrat,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: about a party that is enthralled to the big lie
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and Donald Trump?
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: More tweeting.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: More tweeting. RTing is fine. Smashing the like button, also fine.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: All that kind of stuff will do it. Posting. I
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: don't want to just say tweet. Post some stuff on Instagram.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: That'll work.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. All the social platforms. There's probably, there's
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: like one silver bullet TikTok that someone just has to
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: come up with. It will end this whole problem.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Or get really angry at Eric Adams on Twitter. Also
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: works well. Also very effective.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: People, that's a joke. Tweeting is not going to solve
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: this problem. It's not going to exacerbate it necessarily either.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Feel free to post. But the thing to understand about
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: this is that there has always been a version of
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: this MAGA base in our country, right? A nationalist, radical,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: anti-government minority that has been there from the beginning of time.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: What is different... now and more dangerous now is one,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: they have a leader in Donald Trump, someone who just
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: recently was President of the United States. And our political system,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: both by flawed design by the founders and ruthless exploitation
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: from the modern Republican Party, have given that distinct minority
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: more political power than they have had in a very
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: long time. Whether it's the geographic bias of the Senate,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: the Republican bias of the Electoral College, all of them
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: is that the parts of the American population that make
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: up this dangerous faction are dramatically overrepresented in our system.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And we have to understand that we are not going
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: to convince them to change their minds, right? You're There's
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: not an argument. There is not reason. What I think
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: we really have to do, and it's really hard and
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: really unsatisfying, and many of the solutions run into the
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: same Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema problem. But the way to
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: address this problem over the medium term and the long
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: term is make our system more democratic, small d, right?
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Make it more representative of the anti-Trump majority in this country.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: The anti-Trump majority means the millions of people who voted
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: against him in 2016, 2020. But also, the 40% or
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: so of our population that does not vote, right? Do
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: we bring them in? That is, you know, it's everything
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: from fighting back against voter suppression, you know, expanding access
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: to the ballot to as many people, to as many
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: eligible voters as possible, making it as easy as possible
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: to vote, making DC a state, giving Puerto Rico the
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: opportunity to be a state, doing those sorts of things
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: that have a political system that much better represents The
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: America we really are, not the America that is trying
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: to be destroyed by this small, dangerous group.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I completely agree with all that. I would say that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: before we can do that, before we can actually make
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: those reforms, we have to beat them at the ballot box.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: We have to beat them within the unfair system that
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: we do not yet have the power to change. Don't
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: we have all three branches of government? Yes, the Senate,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Manchin Cinema, blah, blah, blah. We do not yet have
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the power to change this very unfair system. So we
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: have to beat them within the system like we did
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: in 2020. The good news is that faction that you
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: said whose minds were not going to change, we do
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: not have to convince them to win. We do have
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: to convince and persuade the coalition that showed up to
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the polls in 2020. And the way that we have
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to beat them, the way that to beat Republicans is
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: to persuade people to vote with us. People who do
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: not agree with Democrats on every issue. People who may
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: be disappointed with Democrats on plenty of issues. People who
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: do not think like us. People who do not have
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: all of our opinions. And we have to do whatever
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: it takes to persuade these people to vote with us
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: and join us. Because if we can't persuade them, the
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: fascists win. That's it. And I think sometimes we forget
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: about this because it is hard work to do persuasion.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: It is hard work to persuade people who do not
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: think like you, who do not believe everything you believe.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And sometimes it is uncomfortable because you have to compromise
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: with people who you don't necessarily agree with all the time.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: But we are in a fight for the future of democracy.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Everything is at stake. So whether it's making peace with
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: the far left, the center left, former Republicans, independents, people
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: who don't vote, whatever it may be, our job is
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: to assemble that coalition and to keep it together in
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: the next couple years. Even when it is uncomfortable, even
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: when it is difficult, even when it is fucking annoying.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Because that's the only option we have is to beat
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: them at the ballot box. And the idea that there's
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a law that's going to fix this that we can pass,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: that there's some one person we can elect that's going
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: to let us all go back to our lives is fantasy.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: It's fantasy. The only way to get this done is
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: to actually go and talk to people who disagree with
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: you and persuade them. That's it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: If I could be in charge of the Democratic Party
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: for one day, one thing I would do on my
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: first day is ban the verb turnout from our lexicon. Persuade.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Whether we're talking about a swing voter, a non-voter, someone
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: who has voted for Democrats in the last seven elections,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: we are persuading them to vote. We are persuading them
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: to vote for us. We are not turning them out.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Turning them out implies that we're just going to inform
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: them of the time and place of their voting and
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: assume they will show up.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Well, there's also a very reductionist view of turnout that
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: there's a bunch of people who don't vote, and they
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: don't vote because Democrats don't espouse progressive enough policies. And
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: if only we show up to their doors and tell them,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: we actually espouse more progressive policies on every issue, they're
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: going to get out their door, they're going to go
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: out the door and vote. And sometimes that's true with
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: some voters, absolutely. Not a lot of other voters. Some
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: voters want Democrats to be way more progressive on one
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: issue and way less progressive on another issue. And what
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I think we have not understood yet is that a
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: lot of voters, particularly voters who do not vote often,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: and those voters are disproportionately younger, and disproportionately voters of color.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: And there is an assumption, which is understandable, that a
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: lot of these voters are naturally more progressive with their values.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: And again, on some things, they absolutely are. But a
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: lot of voters are really fucking complicated, and especially voters
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: who don't pay close attention to politics and don't pay
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: close attention to the news are complicated in the positions
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: they hold and the ideologies they have. And that is
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: something I think we ignore at our peril. Got to persuade.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Not happening right now.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I feel like Joe Biden, you had a lot to
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: get off your chest there.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: You know, it's again with offline. I'm tweeting me less,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: but I'm seeing a lot of it. And it's just
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: it's not great, Dan. It's not great.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: I always think like the a liberal rejoinder to Bush's
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: war on terror was that. brute force was the wrong answer.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: And that what we really have to do long term
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: is win hearts and minds in the Middle East, in
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan and places like that. And I hate to say
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: that that's what's happening at home now. But it is
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: like this is a this is a battle for the
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: hearts and minds of the American people. And honestly, that's
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: what that's what Trump and his goons see it as.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: They're not offering policies. They're not like, offering to like
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: tangibly make people's lives better they are trying to they
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: are trying to make their narrative the popular narrative in
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: america to make their story the story that is popular
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: and we have to start telling a story that is
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: just as popular and that's more that's bigger than policies
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: that's bigger than anything else it is a larger story
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: about why why we believe this democracy should exist and
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: i and i just it's a lot of work we
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: have ahead of us President Biden and Vice President Harris
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: also pushed for the passage of voting rights in their speeches,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: and Chuck Schumer has said that the Senate will take
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: up the Freedom to Vote Act, the John Lewis Voting
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Rights Act, and filibuster reform by January 17th. Joe Manchin
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: made some news on the issue this week in one
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: of his patented press gaggles that is both indecipherable and enraging.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: You don't know what the fuck he was saying, but
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: you're really mad anyway. He said he'd be open to
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: modest filibuster reform, such as changing the threshold from 60
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: votes to.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Three fifths of senators present in the chamber. So it
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: goes under 60 if people are not there. But he
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: also said he doesn't want to make those changes unless
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: some Republicans agree. No takers yet, but a new bipartisan
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: group of senators has been meeting to talk about reforming
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to clarify the role
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: that the vice president and Congress play in certifying the elections.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: But the White House, Democratic leaders and activists are worried
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: that this would be a distraction from passing voting rights. Dan,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: let's start with voting rights. Do Manchin's comments make you
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: think we're any closer to passing something?
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: These days, my eyes see Joe Manchin when he speaks,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: but in my head, I just hear Adam Sandler giving
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: the speech in Billy Madison. I have no idea what
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: you said, and we're all dumber for having heard it.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: I have no idea what any of those words he
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: said means. It certainly doesn't make me feel good. I
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: guess the victory is I don't feel any worse than
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: I felt before about the prospects being quite, quite low.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: I think that– I guess if you were trying to
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: assign meaning to this centrist pablum that Joe Manchin offers,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: it is– he thinks there are problems with the filibuster.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: He is open to some very, very moderate solutions that
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: would make things somewhat– would make the Senate function better
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: but would have zero impact on the passage of legislation.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: that only one party supports.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because also, again, what he's trying to do is
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: let's pass reforms that are so mild that Republicans will
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: go along with them. If Republicans are willing to go
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: along with them, then they're too mild to help us
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: pass voting rights. That's sort of the, that is the,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that's where we've been stuck, where we've been stuck for
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: the last several months. What's your take on the effort
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: to reform the Electoral Count Act?
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: So this is, I think, pretty interesting because it sort
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: of rolled out in the way a lot of McConnell's
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: position changes roll out, which is you hear some rumors
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: he might be open to it. And then there's a
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: leak to his chosen stenographers at Politico to tell us
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: what he's open to. And then the trial balloon floats
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: up and we find out what happens. And then we
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: find out today that there was a Zoom call, a
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: bipartisan Zoom call, an electoral counts effort organized by Susan Collins,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: which is just A sentence that makes me want to
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: bang my head against the desk.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: It's just designed to trigger, specifically designed to trigger.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: What I think is happening here is with Mitch McConnell,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: who is the human embodiment of cynicism, he obviously doesn't–
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: he's not doing this because he thinks it's the right thing,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: the patriotic thing, the thing that's good for democracy or
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: the system. You just have to think very specifically about–
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: with all things McConnell, you have to ask, how does
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: this help him? How it helps McConnell is– McConnell believes
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: that if he could create some momentum around a fix
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: for the Electoral Counts Act, which needs to get fixed
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: because it is the loophole that Trump and his mega-accolytes
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: tried to exploit on a year ago today. If you
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: get some momentum around that, it would forestall the slight
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: possibility that Democrats could convince Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: to pass the Freedom to Vote Act. The reason Mitch
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: McConnell– cares so passionately about the Freedom of Vote Act,
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: it's not just that he hates democracy as part of
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: his core being. It is that he wants to be
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: a majority leader more than anything else. To be a
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: majority leader, he has to win Arizona and Georgia, two
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: states whose voting laws have been changed since Democrats won
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: those states two years ago. And so anything he can
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: do to prevent, to ensure that there's no chance that
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: the voter suppression laws in place will be undone, he
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: will do. And this is one way to do it.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: And as people have– compared it to his decision to
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: sort of back bipartisan infrastructure talks in the sense that
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: that would take momentum out of the sales of the
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Build Back Better Act. I think there's a similar thing
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: at play here.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I think that preventing election subversion, not what happens before
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: the votes are cast, but after, preventing people from literally
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: overturning the election, overturning the will of the voters, is
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: maybe one of the most important challenges we face. So
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: if we can do something about that, we should do it.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's the top priority. There is a very
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: real scenario. We saw it play out in 2020, could
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: happen very easily happen again in 2024, where you have,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: you know, Republican state legislatures, Republican secretaries of state, Republican
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: governors refusing to certify, people sending two slates of electors
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: to Congress, Republicans in Congress voting to not certify the election,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: all that kinds of mischief. If we can stop that,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: we should. I think the question is, does reforming the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Electoral Count Act actually do enough to prevent election subversion?
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: So say you reform the law and you say the
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: vice president's role is purely ministerial, right? Like the vice
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: president has no power to overturn the election and you've
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Because now you have to spell that out after what
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Trump tried to get Pence to do. So you reform that.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Say you also have in the law, OK, it takes
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: two thirds of a majority in each house to reject
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: the electors from any given state. So therefore, it's not
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: purely partisan or it's less likely that it's purely partisan.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: And so now you basically get rid of all the
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: mischief that can happen in Congress. You tie Congress's hands.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: You tie the vice president's hands so they can't do
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: anything to fuck with the elections. Great. Now we reform
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: the Electoral Count Act. Now what happens when a Republican
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: state controlled by a Republican governor, Republican secretary of state,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Republican legislature that the Democrat wins in 2024 says we're
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: going to send our slate of Trump electors to Congress.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Fuck whatever happened in the state election. Now it's actually harder.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: for congress and anyone else to do anything about that
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: because you reformed the electoral count act and the real
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: problem was the state legislature sending the wrong slate of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: electors so this is why like it's less about for
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: me at least it's less about like oh it's a
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: trap mitch mcconnell wants us to do the eca and
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: now we're not going to get the freedom to vote
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: act of the john lewis voting rights act like frankly
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: it's going to be really hard to get those done
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: anyway for the reasons we just talked about with joe
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: manchin um but i'm more concerned that an actual reform
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: of the Electoral Count Act won't necessarily solve the problem
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: of election subversion and potentially may make it more difficult
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't focus on what's going on in the states,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: which is the real threat.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Now, I read about this in Messagebox today, which is
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: the sort of, I've been like searching, like what, what,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: we do to stop the Republicans from stealing the election,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: which they are advertising they're doing, right? This is the
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: least well-hidden plan in the history of American crime. It's
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: happening right before our eyes. And everyone's like, well, we've
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: got to keep the House. That's really hard. We've got
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: to keep the Senate. That's going to be challenging. And
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: we've got to pass voting rights. And Joe Manchin sucks.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: And it's just like, goddammit, it's so hard. What are
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: some actionable things you can do? One thing is that
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: the six states that decided the election in 2020, one
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: of the reasons why Republicans can steal the election is
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: that of those six states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: four of them had Democratic governors, even though they had
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: Republican legislatures, which said, All your plans end there, right?
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, the governor can stop
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: you from doing what you want to do. And the
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: two Republican governors who were there thought that it was
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: still good politics to be on the side of vote counting,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Brian Kemp and David Ducey. There is a very real–
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: all six of those states are up. Governorships are up
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: in 2022. It's a very– we have a chance to
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: win all six of them. We also have the possibility
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: of losing all six of them. The Cook Report says
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: all of them are toss-ups. And so if you're like,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: what is one thing we can do that's even more
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: effective in the short term than fix the Electoral Counts Act?
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: It is elect those governors to do everything we can
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: to protect the will of the voters in those states.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: And along with those governors, secretaries of state in those. Yeah, exactly.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Because again, and we've talked, state legislature too, but we've
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: talked about how state legislatures are even more gerrymandered than
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: congressional districts. But secretaries of state, governors in purple states,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: very winnable. They should be. And that's where we should focus.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: When we come back, Dave Wasserman talks to Dan about
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: these surprisingly not horrible maps that are coming out of
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the redistricting process.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: Joining us on the pod to talk all things redistricting
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: is Mr. Redistrict himself, Dave Wasserman, The Cook Report. Dave,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: It's great to be back.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: So you recently released an analysis of the redistricting process
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: to date, which had some surprising news, I think, for
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Democrats who have been dreading this redistricting process, where you
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: say that despite Democratic fears, this process is currently producing
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: a congressional map that is slightly less biased in the
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: GOP's favor than last decades, and that redistricting is turning
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: out to be a wash. How did that happen, and
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: how do you come to that analysis?
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: Well, those of us who have been reading the Cook
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Political Report closely in the past year know that we
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: never thought this was going to be a wipeout for Democrats.
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: There are a variety of reasons why this cycle is
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: actually modestly better for Democrats than 2011. And keep in
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: mind that many of the states Republicans control in redistricting,
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: they already got to gerrymander 10 years ago. But part
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: of it was the census, the fact that the urban
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: and suburban areas had more people than initial estimates suggested
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: and that rural areas lost more population. Part of it's
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: been the process. The fact is Democrats got to draw
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: the maps they wanted in Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon. They
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: got the maps that they wanted out of commissions, especially
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: in California, but also in New Jersey and Michigan. Whereas Republicans,
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: they've been mostly defensive in the gerrymanders that they've passed.
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: Texas is exhibit A, where they shored up nine of
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: their own incumbents, didn't really go after any Democratic seats
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: except one in the Rio Grande Valley. But the net
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: result is a more secure Republican map because they purged
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: a lot of Democrats and minorities from their own districts
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: rather than trying to seize a lot of new Democratic seats.
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: The same thing is true in a number of smaller states,
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: including Indiana and Iowa and It's looking like Missouri and
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: Kentucky as well. So the end result is a House
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: map that is less biased in favor of Republicans and
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: more equitable for the parties. I would strongly caveat that
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: by saying this is also a less competitive map than
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: the current one. We're seeing a decline in the number
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: of swing seats, which means that the House throughout the
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: decade is likely to come down to a pretty small
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: set of districts, and most voters aren't really going to
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: have a say by the time November comes around.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's, I think, an under-discussed point, because we've been
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: talking about this redistricting process about Democrats, Republicans, who it benefits,
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: but there is a question about what it means for
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: democracy and that there will be... Can you sort of
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: quantify how many fewer swing seats there will be this
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: time around than there have been in the past?
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so.
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: Seats that were decided by less than 10 points in
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: the 2020 election for either Biden or Trump, there are,
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: in the states that have completed new maps, that number
• 54:35
  Speaker 6: has declined from 62 districts to 46. So that's a
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: 26% drop. If you narrow that range to districts that
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: were within five points either way in 2020, they've declined
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: from 39 to 23. So a 41% drop. So by
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: the time this process is over and we're about two
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: thirds of the way through pending lawsuits, then I would
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: expect to see about a third of the current swing
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: seats eliminated.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: From the map. And that what that means, I think,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: for sort of our listeners to think about is that
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: you're going to be in a situation where for the
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: vast majority and even more than in the past, members
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: of Congress, their greatest political threat. is in their primary,
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: not the general election. Is that correct? That's right.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: We're seeing a rise in ideological cul-de-sac districts where the
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: vicious cycle is already underway, where the political parties don't
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: really care about recruiting candidates with broader appeal. And so
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: the winner in those districts, the foregone conclusion districts, are
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: people who have the most viral appeal on social media, whether.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: It's left or right.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: Before we started this off with a optimistic-ish take for
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: how this process has played out thus far for Democrats.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: You also say in your analysis that the GOP is
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: still a big favorite to take the House. And so
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: could you sort of square those two things between the
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: fact that as you state in your analysis, there will
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: be more districts that Biden won in 2022 than 2020
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: if this process continues at a pace, but Republicans are
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: still a big favorite. Why is that?
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I get why these two things sound contradictory. The
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: truth is there are going to be more Biden districts
• 56:18
  Speaker 6: after redistricting. But so many of them are going to
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: be narrowly won Biden districts. We're talking, you know, places
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: Biden only won with 50, 51, 52 percent, or even
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: some cases less than 50 percent of the vote. That
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: when you price in the decline in his approval rating
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: from where he was at in the 2020 election, where
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: he won 51 percent of the vote to today, when
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: he's at 43 percent, 44 percent, You know, obviously, it's
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: not an apples to apples comparison, but you get the point.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: A number of those very close districts would flip red
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: if Biden remains that low.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: And you added a stat in your analysis, and if
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: you can't do this off the top of your head,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: I won't blame you, but I will be slightly surprised,
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: about the number of districts that Trump won in 2016
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: that he then lost in 2018 and how that, and
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: how that shift affects us and Democrats in 2022.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: You know, in 2018 Democrats didn't pick up a single
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: district that gave Trump more than 55% of the vote,
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: but they still picked up 40 seats. So that goes
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: to show you just, you know, the narrow trading range
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: that exists, it can still swing a lot. Now, There
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: are 48 districts currently that Biden won with less than
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: 55% of the vote. And I would expect that number,
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: or I should say actually Democrats hold 48 seats in
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: the House that Biden won or lost, but received less
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: than 55% of the vote. So I expect that number
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: to be similar after new maps are passed, which means
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: that there is still a ripe battlefield for Republicans to
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: take the majority. Keep in mind, they only need five
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: seats to take control. When you go back to 2018,
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: Democrats needed 24 seats to take control. So the fact
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: that Republicans only need a fifth as many, they're starting
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: from a better place.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: In your analysis, you talk about how the question of
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: who's quote unquote winning redistricting can be looked at on
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: a couple of different measures. One is, which you mentioned,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: the number of seats that Joe Biden or Donald Trump
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: won in 2020, that is one that shows the Democrats
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: may be quote unquote winning or doing better. But there's
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: another one about seats you have or seats you can
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: get that I thought was very interesting. Could you help
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: explain that? Yeah.
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: So if we're just judging the underlying partisan distribution of
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: the House without factoring in which party currently holds those seats,
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: redistricting is a net positive for Democrats. you're going to
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: have more Democratic-leaning seats after this is over than you
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: had before, in part because we've got more.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Commissions.
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: Democrats also have a pretty big state they control, New
• 59:15
  Speaker 6: York State, which hasn't drawn its lines yet. And Republicans
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: have been defensive. But when you factor in who controls
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: those seats now, Democrats control most of the the most
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: marginal districts that are both getting bluer and most of
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: the marginal districts that are getting redder. And so when
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: a seat gets bluer and gets taken off the battlefield, well,
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: that is a positive for Democrats, but it doesn't add
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: to Democrats' total in the House. When a seat gets redder,
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: it increases Republicans' chances of picking up those seats. So
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: when you factor that in, the practical effect of these
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: new maps is still likely to benefit Republicans, and I'll
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: give you a quick example, the state of New Jersey.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: You know, the commission in New Jersey picked the Democrats map,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: and it's a good trade for Democrats in the sense
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: that it shores up three of their vulnerable incumbents and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: makes only one of their vulnerable incumbents even worse off.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: And yet the practical effect of that map is likely
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: to be a 9-3 Democratic split out of New Jersey,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: which is down one from the current 10-2. Right.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: And so as you said, this process is two-thirds of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: the way done. There are some really big states that
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: could really affect the process still underway. What are the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: things that– what are you still watching for? What are
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: the states you're watching or the court rulings that are
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: out there that could change this dynamic and push it
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: more in the favor of one party or the other?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there are four big states that I'm watching. And
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: the first up are North Carolina and Ohio. These are
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 6: both places where Republicans passed really, really brutal gerrymanders that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 6: could get them upwards of 80 percent of the seats
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 6: in those states. And yet there's good reason to believe
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: that state Supreme Courts will overturn those maps on state
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: constitutional grounds. Keep in mind that the Supreme Court ruled
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: that you can't bring a federal claim, but you still
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: can bring a state based claim. Or you can bring
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: a federal racial gerrymandering claim. And we'll see a couple
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: of those adjudicated. But if the state Supreme Courts in
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 6: Ohio and North Carolina strike down those Republican maps, it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: could mean an extra two or three Democratic seats in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: those states over the maps that Republicans have passed. And
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: then you get to Florida, which is Republicans' biggest redistricting weapon.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: Republicans there could potentially convert that delegation from 1611 to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: as wide as 19 to 9 in Republicans' favor. The
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: only thing stopping them, though, is the threat of Florida's
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: anti-gerrymandering law, which voters passed in 2010 and has to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: be interpreted by the Florida Supreme Court. And so far,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: the proposals that Republicans have unveiled actually aren't that bad
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: for Democrats, which has led some Republicans to accuse their
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: own party of surrendering. And then you get to New
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: York State, and this is really the mac daddy of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: them all. New York currently has 19 Democrats and eight Republicans.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: And even though it's losing a seat, it is the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: single biggest redistricting weapon for either party in the country.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: Democrats could conceivably draw a map that's as lopsided as
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: 23 to 3 in their favor. Of course, to do so,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: they'd have to link Staten Island to Park Slope and
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: a bunch of other things that probably don't make a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: lot of cultural sense. However, if Democrats get that map
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: through in February, then the redistricting outlook would look even
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: better for them. I think all of those things would
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: need to go Democrats way to give them a realistic
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: chance of holding on to the majority. But even if
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: they were to go Democrats way, Biden's approval rating would
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 6: need to get much closer to 50% for them to
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: hold on.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: And so last question for you. We're talking a lot
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: about how this is going to affect this cycle, right?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: And we saw that, you know, Democrats took the House
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: in 2018 on a pretty gerrymandered map from 2011. Are
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: there anything you're looking at in terms of demographic changes
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: or population changes over the rest of this decade that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: could change how these maps look for the various parties
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: or what the risks are for the parties as they're
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: constituting them?
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's no doubt that demographic change can overtake the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: best laid plans of partisan mapmaker's towards the end of
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: a decade. And what we saw was that a number
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: of Republican drawn maps in Texas and Georgia and Michigan,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: they unraveled in 2018, in part because of demographic change,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: in part because Republicans drew their advantage in many districts
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: to be too thin to maximize their seats. What we're
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: seeing this time is Republicans are kind of piling up
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: the sandbags even higher, so to speak, where instead of
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: just drawing a Trump plus 10 district, in Texas, they
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: drew a lot of Trump plus 20 districts. And that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 6: is essentially trying to guard against this demographic tidal wave
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: that has threatened Republicans the past decade. What we could see, though,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: is in California, There are a number of seats that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: are long term opportunities for Democrats over the course of
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: the next decade. We could see the same thing play
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: out in Maryland in a seat that was essentially tied
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: between Biden and Trump. But if enough black voters move
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 6: into kind of the hinterlands outlying Baltimore, D.C., maybe that
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 6: district gets more competitive. So there is long term upside
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: for Democrats.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: In this new maps.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: It just may take a while or a good political
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: cycle for that to be realized.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: Dave Wasserman, thank you so much for joining us and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: for all of this information. We will keep following you
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: very closely as this process plays out over the coming months.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you. You got it, Dan.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Dave Wasserman for joining us today. Everyone have
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: a great weekend and we'll see you next week. Bye, everyone.
• 1:05:31
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• 1:05:34
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