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John Kelly's Trump Bombshell · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Alex Wagner.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: goes on the record to confirm that Trump praised Hitler...
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and thinks he can use the military against domestic political opponents.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris sharpens her closing argument, and Barack Obama raps
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: with Eminem. Then, Senator Sherrod Brown stops by to talk
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: with John about pulling out an all-important win in Ohio.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: With me to discuss all of it is my friend
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Alex Wagner, host of Alex Wagner Tonight on MSNBC, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a fixture of their special election coverage. Alex, thanks for
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: being here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: It's a thrill and an honor, Dan.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: You were on the ground in Pennsylvania for a few
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: days this week, and you did a live show from
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: there last night, right? How was it? I sure did.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Um, It was a lot. I was with Victor Martinez,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: who's the number one Latino radio host, Spanish language radio host,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: and based out of Allentown. I was at a barbershop
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: in West Philadelphia. I was meeting with Trump-supporting Republicans in
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: East Philadelphia. I was with John Fetterman in red counties
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: for Trump. It was fascinating. And I got to say,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I got an earful. I got a lot of perspective.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: But if you ask me which way that state's going
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: to go, I wouldn't be surprised if Harris won it,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: you know, tidily or Trump won it tidily or it
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: was neck and neck and we didn't get the vote
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: count for like 14 days after election day. It just
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: feels incredibly unpredictable and very, I won't say volatile, but
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: just unknowable in a way.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: That really feels like this election.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Unknowable.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's get into the news today. For as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: long as Donald Trump has been around the presidency, he's
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: had staff who walk away and tell people how disturbed
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and scared they are about his stewardship of the country.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The problem is they hardly ever go on the record
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: with those charges. Less than two weeks before the election, however,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Trump's longest serving chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: did an on-the-record recorded interview with New York Times reporter
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Mike Schmidt. Let's take a listen. What do you think?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Do you think he's a fascist?
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. Those are
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: the kinds of things that he thinks would work better
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: in terms of running America. The former president is in
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: the far right area. He's certainly an authoritarian, admires people
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: who are dictators. He has said that. So he certainly
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: falls into the general definition of a.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Fascist, for sure.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: He commented more than once that Hitler did some good things, too.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: And of course, if you know history, again, I think
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: he's lacking in that. But if you know what Hitler
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: was all about, it would be pretty hard to make
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: an argument that he did anything good.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: If you know what Hitler's all about.
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Look, it's hard to be shocked.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Peel back the onion on Hitler. Peel back the onion.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: A complex figure. It's hard to be shocked by new
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: revelations about Trump. But I do think hearing the audio
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: from one of his closest advisors saying that Trump praised
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Hitler is a fascist is shockingly should be. What do
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you make of this report?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think, first of all, like when
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the conversation begins with, so, uh, do you think he's
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: a fascist? Let's just say we are in a different
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: space with this candidate. And the TLDR of that John
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Kelly answer is if it looks like a fascist and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: it walks like a fascist, it's a fascist. If you
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: have a former general who is by all accounts not
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: a hair on fire liberal, like someone who is as
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: into the concept of law and order as anyone else.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: As any person could be, not as anyone else. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: he's out there saying Trump's a fascist. Yeah, it should
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: alarm everybody. I mean, I think the issue is there is,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: especially among Trump supporting, you know, voters out there, a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: disbelief that he'd actually carry through on it. Like, yeah, sure,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: he likes dictators. Sure, he's, you know, into light fascism
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: or not light fascism, just full on fascism. But is
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: that really going to come and affect my life if
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: he's reelected? And that's the fundamental problem here. Having said that,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I think there's every reason to focus on this. I
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: think that it should alarm everybody. I don't think we
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: should sanewash his comments. And like, it's obvious that Donald
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Trump isn't a student of history or a student, period.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So like when he says Hitler did some good things,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean he's reading some like deep cut history of,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: you know, Hitler. It's just that he has a personal,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: there's a proclivity towards you know, Hitler-style fascism. And he
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: can't really explain it away except to say that, like,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: in his mind, he believes that Hitler wasn't all that bad,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: because in his mind, he agrees with Hitler.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not like Donald Trump is so deep into
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the history of World War II-era Germany that he's familiar with,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, the public works projects of Nazi Germany
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: or something like that. He knows only what the most
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: basic thing to know about Hitler is, and it's not good.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: He knows Holocaust. Right, he knows Holocaust, and he He
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: seems to not have a giant problem with that or
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: not be disturbed by the idea of praising someone who
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: did that.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's revealing. I mean, I think it's revealing. I
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: think these two things together are extraordinarily revealing. You know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: he may be a wannabe fascist. He may ultimately be
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a failed fascist, but fascism is where he's at.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And you hit on what has been the challenge of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: this Trump will be a dictator on day one argument,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: which Democrats have been making since Biden was the candidate.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And the fundamental challenge of that argument is that for
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: all of the terrible things that Donald Trump did as president,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: most people do not believe he was a dictator. Now,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: what we're learning from some of the accounts of the presidency,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the Trump presidency that came out afterwards, what we're learning
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: from Kelly in these interviews, what we've learned like 14th
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: hand double secret code from like Jim Mattis and Mark
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Milley is that Trump tried to do these things and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: he was stopped or distracted or whatever else from a
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: series of people. And what we also know is those
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: people are no longer going to be around him. One
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: lesson Trump has learned since 2020, and he's not somebody
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: who learns a lot of lessons, but is that he
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: wants enablers around him. And so instead of the people
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: with the big names and the stars and the medals
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and all of that, he wants someone who's going to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: do what he wants. And so there will not be...
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: If John Kelly, as he talked about in this interview,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: did make it harder for Trump to use military force
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: against American citizens, the next person will probably not do that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And that's very, very scary. Now, so you have John Kelly,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a four-star general, saying he's a fascist. We have Mark
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Milley telling Bob Woodward that Trump is a fascist. We
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: have all these alarming accounts. We have a report in
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic, which has people talking about Trump, most likely Kelly,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: talking about Trump wanting to use military force against domestic
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: political enemies, the enemy within, the thing he is saying
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: on the campaign trail all the time. And it's a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: huge deal, but doesn't it feel a little bit like
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: we're sort of, like people aren't alarmed enough that it happened?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris gave the statement we'll talk about in a minute.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: It's getting some coverage, but just like we're kind of
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: numb to it. Am I right? Are you getting that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: same impression?
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's two things. One is there hasn't been
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: enough focus maybe on the stooges around Trump, in part
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: because it's about the Trump show, but You remember Garbage
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Pail Kids, Dan? Are you old enough to remember? I do.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I do. There should be, in the way that I
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: think there's a much broader understanding of Project 2025, it
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: would have been slash it would be great for Democrats
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: to say, like, these are going to be the, these
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: specific people are going to be the architects of a
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: second Trump administration instead of just like this policy paper, right?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: These are the real human beings who are going to
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: let Trump, unleashed, do whatever he wants to do, right?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe that would help. In the context of
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: showing that what came before is not what will be
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: in a second term, right? You won't have those same
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: sort of career professionals, people who care about the Constitution
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: in the White House. You'll have this bunch of clowns.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But the second piece of it, which I think speaks
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: to the broader question of why this doesn't resonate more,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't pierce the veil, if you will,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: around Trumpism and Republicans drawn to Trump. is I think
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: for as many reports as you have of, you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Millie or Mattis or Kelly coming out and saying this
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: guy is a fascist, you also have events like the
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: one last week where Trump's standing on stage at a
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: town hall and dancing to Ave Maria and Hallelujah for
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: 45 minutes, right? You have him like slinging fries to
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: a bunch of like vetted Trump supporters who have been
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: cleared by Secret Service at a McDonald's. You have him
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: in these kind of absurd situational kind of political comedies.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: that I think make people think, oh, he's not that bad.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: He's kind of just like, you know, I think it
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: reminds them of their crazy grandparents or their crazy uncles,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: which now apparently is an asset in American politics, where
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: they say outlandish things, right? They do things their way,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: but they're not actually a harm to the rest of
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the family. And like, So there's always a point counterpoint.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And I would also say most of the people who
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: are in the tank for Trump or excited about him
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: aren't reading The Atlantic, right? They may hear passing mention
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: of the fascism stuff, but the dancing on stage cuts
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: through the noise better because it's memeable. It's on the internet.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It's just, I mean, I just think the sort of
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: political comedy of the Trump candidacy is more widely known
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: than the darker, you know, fascistic tendencies that he has
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: embraced and will embrace in his potential second term. So,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I think it's a problem. Like his character,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: a character study of Trump is necessarily, I can't believe
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I'm saying this, kind of a complicated thing in that way.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I would say that's, I'd say that's right. There's a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: lot of issues there. He really could have used a
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: lot of therapy is my take. Oh my God.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Maybe some medication.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: It's all the above. A couple of points here. One,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: You know, the inevitable part of this discussion is, is
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: anyone going to care is going to make a difference?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And one of the challenges we have, which is why
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it's going to be incumbent upon Democrats and the Harris
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: campaign to make people know about this in the next
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: few weeks, is just the distribution pipes of media are broken.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Most people are never going to see this, not just
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: because it's in The Atlantic and The New York Times,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: but their things were in The Atlantic and The New
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: York Times for decades, and they would eventually reach people
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: because it would be in their local paper, which they
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: would see every morning when they went to check out
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the sports scores. It'd be on their local news, which
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: they would watch every night before dinner because they wouldn't
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: know what the weather was going to be the next day.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: It would show up in their Facebook feed because Mark
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg thought it was a great way to make money
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: by distributing news for free to the public. None of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: those things happen anymore. So it's just so much of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the conversation only happens among political junkies who opt into
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: political media. So it's not going to osmotically get to voters.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: The second thing here is, and you hit on it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: really right, is that what people usually see about Trump
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: is him talking about Arnold Palmer's manhood or serving fries
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: or the dancing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: That's a generous term for it. Anyway, sorry. It's manhood.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: We know specifically what you're talking.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: About, Dan.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to keep this show. I know a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: lot of our listeners. I don't do a good, I
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: don't do a great job of this. I use the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: F word a lot, but there are a.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Lot of people listening to this show. Definitely don't say that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you listened to the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: last episode, but Whatever our yearly allotment of dick jokes is, John, John,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and Tommy way surpassed it.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: You're reeling it back in. Manhood. We'll go with manhood.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Or what is putter? What's his putter? The size of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer's putter. That does defang some of the scary stuff.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But I just want to say this, which is it
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: does feel, unlike 2020, like we are ambling into the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: abyss here as a society.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: I agree.
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: I agree.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows how dangerous he is. He is telling us.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The things he's saying on the stump are way more
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: dangerous than they were then. And now it's not a
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: theoretical exercise because he has instigated a violent insurrection that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: led to the loss of lives. It is real. We
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: know what's happening. I'm glad John Kelly did this interview.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I'm glad he did an audio interview with the New
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: York Times. He should be commended for that. But if
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you truly believe that Donald Trump is a fascist who
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: wants to use military force on his domestic political opponents,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: you have to do more than call Mike Schmidt.
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And the same goes for James Mattis and Mark Milley
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and all these other Trump people, Mike Pence, other Republicans
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: like George W. Bush, people who were saying, I don't
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: really like Trump, but I'm going to write in, I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: don't know, Ronald Reagan's spleen or whatever you're going to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: do in your ballot. If this is really as bad
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: as you say it is, you have to do more.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: There was a story in the New York Times the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: other day about how Jamie Dimon and Bill Gates and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: these other business leaders are for Kamala Harris, but they're
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: afraid to say it.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Like, if you truly believe what we are, if you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: truly believe that Donald Trump is this dangerous, you have
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to do everything possible to stop him.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't feel like it's a society we're doing that.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. I mean, the fact that Dick Cheney
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: came out before George W. Bush, who so obviously is
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: voting for Kamala Harris, is just shocking. Like, the idea
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: of sort of the presidential club, it's a wrap on that.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: he should be out there campaigning for Kamala Harris. I
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: will say also, as not a student of history, but
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: someone with just passing understanding of what has happened, Fascists
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: and dictators also do loony old grandpa style things too, right?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Like we should seek no comfort in the idea that
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: he loves YMCA. Like that is not going to prevent
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: him from jailing journalists and going after political opponents. I mean,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Fidel Castro has all sorts of personality, had all sorts
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: of personality idiosyncrasies. I can, my mom's from Burma where
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: there's a military junta in charge. Those guys are pretty
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: wacky too in their off hours. this is all actually
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the portfolio of behaviors around dictatorial tendencies and fascists. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I don't mean to underscore, I don't mean to undermine
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the notion that he's an incredibly dangerous, that I just
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: don't think people think of it that way. I think
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: it's like we have this Marvel comic book conception of villainhood.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: And it's like, you're all evil all the time, or
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: you're a good guy. And Donald Trump has the ability
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: to make people laugh as he shreds the Constitution. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I think And I honestly think the fact that those
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Republicans have not come out and that they're not endorsing
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and why ever Mitt Romney isn't endorsing Kamala
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Harris has to do with some, I think, personal reluctance
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to fully wrap their arms around the danger that is
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: being posed by a potential second Trump term. They are
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: alarmed because of personal experience, but it's shocking to me
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: that they haven't made the leap towards doing everything they
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: can to stop him. And that suggests that something's holding
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: them back.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And that, I mean, it's to the credit to the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Cheney family for doing this, who seem to at least
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: understand that their era in Republican politics is over and,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: or if it's ever to come again, it has to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: begin with stopping Donald Trump. And so it is, you know, look,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know that George W. Bush would make a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: huge difference. He's not that popular. He's kind of seen
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: as a, as a failed president turned painter, but still
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: just like leave it on the field.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I just, I'm a huge fan of the painting. I
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: wish he had started with that, started with that.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: If he had just had a really inspiring art teacher
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in seventh grade, perhaps American history would be, would it
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: be changed for the better?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: If you'd just gone to Jerry Gagosian instead of, you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the ranch at Crawford, Texas. Anyway, we'll, we'll never be
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: able to undo those, those eight years. But yeah, I'm
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: not saying it. I guess what I'm saying is it's
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: not that I think George Bush would be some incredible
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: campaign surrogate. But I do think there is this, I mean,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: this moment is about a sort of cultural norms and
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: people feeling like they are inside or outside of like
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: the America that wants to preserve democracy. And like, really,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: it's like, you want everybody who's a fan of democracy,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you want a groundswell of that sort of support to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: be obvious and to anyone that is voting in this
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: next election. And the more people you have inside the
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: tent of like the pro-democracy tent, I think the better
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: that is in convincing anybody who's still on the fence
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: or sitting on their couch and unsure of whether they
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: actually want to vote.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And this is not a crazy argument. Actually, the folks
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: at Blueprint poll tested closing arguments. And the best testing
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: closing argument, especially with independents, is this idea that most
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of Trump's cabinet and senior staff are not supporting him.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: So you can only imagine that his former chief of staff,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: who also happens to be a four-star general, being on
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the record saying these things would help with that. So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: more people doing that is good.
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: The vice president this morning went out and gave a
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: brief statement to the press reacting to the Kelly interview.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: the deaths of 6 million Jews. and hundreds of thousands
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: American people of who Donald Trump really is. This is
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: people who know him best, from the people who worked
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: with him side by side in the Oval Office and
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: in the Situation Room. And in a second term, people
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: like John Kelly would not be there to be the
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: guardrails against his propensities and his actions.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Those who once.
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: Tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: no longer be there, and no longer be there to
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: rein him in. So the bottom line is this. We
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: question in 13 days will be, what do the American
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: people want?
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: What did you think of her message?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, right on, right? Like these comments, these audio tapes,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: these deserve a real platform. They deserve focus. They should
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: drive the news. They aren't normal, despite the fact that
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: they've been echoed, you know, over the years. Like we
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: are reaching a crisis point. And I think it's right
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: for her to highlight it. I think, you know, her
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: speaking in very serious terms about what has been unearthed by,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: A phone call with Mike Schmidt and The Atlantic and
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Goldberg is absolutely right. I mean, as a matter
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of political strategy, I don't know what it does. I
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: don't know if this is the thing that moves people
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: with 13 days left to go.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if it moves people either. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: think doing the statement is the right thing because the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Atlantic story came out and it got a lot of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: online attention, right? I was able to watch the video,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: so I'm sure you guys talked about it on MSNBC
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: last night. And then the Mike Schmidt interview happened a
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: little later in the day, I guess, or at night.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I couldn't really tell when that happened. And that is
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: even more damning to Trump because now you have the audio,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: which matters a lot in this media environment because that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: audio can now travel the world on TikTok and Instagram
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and elsewhere in a way in which just the written
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: words just can't. It's not the right medium for this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: media moment. But if you want something to be a story,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you got to go make it a story. And one
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: way you make it a story and you make it
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: part of the conversation is to go talk about it.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Give it more pictures. Give it more audio for it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: to circulate to people. Because the only way the people
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: who are going to sign this lecture are going to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: see it is they're not picking up the New York
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Times to see it. The New York Times runs it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris talks about it. A bunch of people then
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: talk about it on social media and TikTok and whatever else.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: And then it randomly shows up in their feed because
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the algorithm chooses to show it to them. And so
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you got to just pour gasoline on the fire. So
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I think that's the right thing to do.
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: From a message perspective, what I really like about this
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is she tries to go right at the concern you
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: raised at the top of this pod, which is if
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: he wasn't a dictator before, why would this time be different?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: If he didn't shoot people last time, why would he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: shoot people this time? And she makes the point that
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: John Kelly and people like John Kelly will not be
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: around him next time. And so that has changed. The
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: context from which Trump is operating is changed. He's now
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: surrounded by people who will let him do these things.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: And so just because it didn't happen before doesn't mean
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: it'll happen now. Now there's a lot more work to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: do to hammer that message home in a very little
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: amount of time, but I thought the way she did
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: it there was right.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: She needs to have a picture or a fathead of
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Roger Stone and Stephen Miller on either side. These are
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the guardians. This is what we're looking at, America. Just saying.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think putting up large pictures of Stephen Miller
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: is a good way to win an election or a
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: bad way to win an election?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, listen, that's who is going to be
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: his minder. That guy and the other guy who wears
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a bowler hat for fun. I mean, you know, these
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: people can't be trusted.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: We don't want to get into what Roger Stone does
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: for fun.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Fair point. A fair point. It's a family show. It's
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: a family show.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: With less than two weeks to go, Kamala Harris is
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: getting in front of every voter possible. She's doing a
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: CNN town hall in Pennsylvania tonight, then has a rally
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: with Bruce Springsteen and Obama. tomorrow in Atlanta, and a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: rally with Michelle Obama in Michigan on Saturday. In between
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: all those things, she's going to Texas on Friday for
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a rally focusing on abortion rights, where she'll record an
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: interview with Brene Brown's podcast. And yesterday, she sat down
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: with Hallie Jackson of NBC News, your sister network, for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: an interview that aired on Nightly News last night. Let's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: take a listen.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Last election, the.
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: Former president came out on election night and declared victory
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: before all the votes were counted. What is your plan
• 21:52
  Speaker 8: if he does that again in two weeks?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Well, let me say this. We've got two weeks to go.
• 21:58
  Speaker 7: And I'm very much grounded in the present in terms
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: of the task at hand. And we will deal with
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: election night and the days after as they come. And
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: we have the resources and the expertise and the focus
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: on that as well.
• 22:12
  Speaker 8: So you have teams ready to go? Is that what
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: you're saying? Are you thinking about that as a possibility?
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: This is a person, Donald Trump, who tried to undo
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: a free and fair election, who still denies it. The
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: will of the people who incited a violent mob to
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: attack the United States Capitol and 140 law enforcement officers
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: were attacked. Some were killed.
• 22:34
  Speaker 8: Would you consider if you win and he's convicted a
• 22:36
  Speaker 8: pardon for former President Trump?
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into those hypotheticals.
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: I'm focused on the next 14 days.
• 22:44
  Speaker 8: But do you believe is there any part of you
• 22:46
  Speaker 8: that subscribes to the argument that has been made in
• 22:48
  Speaker 8: the past that a pardon could help bring America together,
• 22:50
  Speaker 8: could help unify the country and move them move on?
• 22:53
  Speaker 7: Let me tell you what's going to help us move on.
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: I get elected president of the United States.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: A lot of tough questions are on a whole bunch
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: of topics. What'd you think of the interview?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Um, I thought it was good. You know, I think
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Hallie asked her some questions that yes, we would love
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a vice presidential candidate and potential president to answer, but
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I absolutely get why she would not negotiate with her.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: So she was asked in part of that interview, whether
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: she would, what concessions she was prepared to make to get, um,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: to restoring Roe v. Wade and getting it through Congress.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: The question about a pardon to Trump, I mean, who
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: in their right mind would even float that 13 days
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: before an election? You know, I got to say, I
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: thought her answer on the post-election period was interesting, right?
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Because honestly, as someone in the media, that's the period
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: that I'm the most worried about, given what happened last
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: year and given just how much I mean, honestly, tighter
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: this race could be, how much longer it could take
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: to get the vote, how much preamble there's been about
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: election fraud and the election monitors that have been deployed
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: by the RNC, and then the freelancers who are out there.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: And I would say even on the left, a concern
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that there's going to be chicanery and that we can't
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: necessarily trust the results in certain swing states. So I'm
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: deeply worried about that kind of volatile environment. And I
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: get why Harris... wants to focus on election day. I
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: also get as a public official that she doesn't want
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: to stir up paranoia and fear and potentially violence by
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: suggesting there's going to be something bad. But I would,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: you know, as a candidate, like to hear more about
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the army of lawyers that will be deployed and the
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: ways in which there is a strategy in place, as
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there is, to combat the misinformation, the disinformation,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: and the, you know, trying to push the country towards
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: at worst, violence, and maybe at best, just even deeper
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: division around the results of the election. So I guess
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I understand her posture in that interview, but I wish
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: there had been more from her on that answer in particular.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, there are a whole bunch of
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: questions here that were tough to answer. I thought she
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: navigated it well. She pivoted to message at several points,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: which is what you want to try to get out
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of this. On to your point about the post-election period,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I have great confidence that the Harris campaign has a massive, well-funded,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: well-thought-out legal strategy. I'm very confident in that. And I'm
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: curious to know what, if anything, they're going to be
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: able to do to fight the post-election misinformation. A lot
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of the guardrails that existed in 2020, and they didn't
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: go great, are not there anymore. There's less fact-checking in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the media, even some of the fact-checking, and we sort
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of now know the limits of fact-checking in general. The
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: social media platforms were spending a lot of time and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: energy to try to keep disinformation and misinformation from going
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: viral on the platform. They're not doing that anymore to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: any extent at all. The owner of one of the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: larger social media platforms is the number one purveyor of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: some of the worst conspiracy theories out there. So that's
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: going to be a real messy period. I'm sure that
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: they have very, very smart people who I know have
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: been thinking about it. And I understand why they're not
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: giving us the playbook in advance, but I am curious
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: about what they will do with the limited tools available
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to them to push back on Big Lie 2.0.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be incumbent on members of
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: the media to do a lot of that work too,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, we do a good job sometimes
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: and we do a very bad job other times. So
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: we got our work cut out for us.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think, I will say to the credit
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of the media, and that's not something I do a ton,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of lessons were learned after 2020 about, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: it took, especially after January 6th, about how to cover
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Trump when he's lying about the election and Some of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: those have been unlearned pretty dangerously since then, but I
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: have faith that a better effort will be made from
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: at least the best-intentioned players in the space.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Which is definitely not me. I mean, I know that already,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: You're saying it. You were among the best-intentioned in the space.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I was specifically referring to you. In addition to the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: interview with NBC, Harris also did an interview with Telemundo.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: But those were the only two events on her campaign schedule.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: She had no trips to the battleground state. I just
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: laid out her robust schedule to come, but the fact
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that she was not actually campaigning in a battleground state
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: less than two weeks before the election became a topic
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of conversation. Some folks feel her schedule is not robust
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: enough or as robust as, say, Obama's was in 2008, 2012.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: What do you think about how she's been campaigning?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I applaud the fact
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that she's doing more media. That's great. You know, she
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: had been basically locked in a cupboard for the first
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: six or seven weeks of her campaign. And to some degree,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I understand that. But at the same time, it's time
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and it's good. And I think she's been comporting herself really,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: really well. I am loathe to suggest that Kamala Harris
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: isn't working her ass off to... To win this election,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I would like to believe there is a reason she
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: is not in a battleground state and is instead doing
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: interviews in Washington. The reality is the more the public
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: sees of Kamala Harris, the more they like her. So
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: they should be putting her out as often as possible.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I think she'll probably have a punishing schedule for the
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: last 10 days of the race. So maybe they're just
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: trying to give her a reprieve and do a day
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of media. I guess I'm just, as a member of
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: the media, I'm... I don't want to, I guess I,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I don't question the decision because the, the fight is
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: so clearly at everybody's doorstep. I don't, I don't think
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: they're making kind of thoughtless decisions at this point. That
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: seems to be a piece of campaign strategy, but maybe Dan,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: you can tell me otherwise that this is like, you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the campaign strategist whiffed this one and she should have
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: been out in Georgia. I did.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: There's a, I don't know what the reason was, but
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: there's a reason because I know the people who run
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: our campaign are Jenna O'Malley Dillon, David Plouffe, Stephanie Cutter,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: all those folks, they believe to their core, and I've
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: done many campaigns with them, that the best thing is
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: for the candidate to be in front of voters. Now,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: people keep comparing it to Obama's 2008 schedule. It's like
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: he did all this stuff every single day. The better
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: comparison is to his 2012 schedule when he was president
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: at the same time that he was running. And sometimes
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: you have to do things as vice president. I don't
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: know what those things were yesterday. Maybe that's what she
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: was doing. But she is out there a lot. She's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: out there more than Trump. And so there is a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: reason here. I just don't know what it is. And
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: there's not a chance– no, there's not a fiber in
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: my body who believes that she was in Washington doing interviews,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: which is a way to communicate with voters, but that
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: she was in Washington because the campaign thinks they have
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: this in the bag or she's not working hard enough.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That's just not the reason. There is a reason. They
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: just haven't shared it with us and maybe we'll find
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: out before. But she was doing something and certainly something
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that contributed to either her job as vice president, which
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: is important, or– to win the campaign in some other way, right?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's some other interviews we don't know about. Maybe
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: it was taping ads. It could be absolutely anything.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It could have been between two ferns with Zach Galifianakis,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and then we'll really say thank you.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Then she'll have won. It'll be over because that's what
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: will happen.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It's pretty rare for a candidate. We just talked about
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the importance of being in battleground states. Texas, not a
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: battleground state. The Harris campaign has been clear. They're not
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: going there because they think they can win it. They're
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: going there to highlight abortion. Do you think this is
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a smart decision?
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, you know, the abortion thing is
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: so interesting because in my conversations with male voters, particularly
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: in battleground states, it hasn't really resonated. In part because,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: you know, Michigan has protections, Pennsylvania has a few more protections.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's not the sense of doom and threat
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: in the same way that there is in abortion deserts
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: like Texas. And I think if it's not going to
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: give her a win in Texas, it could give It
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: could kick Ted Cruz out of office, right? Like, juice
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the turnout among people who understand the stakes, who are
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: feeling the excruciating choices they have to make just either
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to start a family or not have a family or
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: whatever their personal choice is, and help maybe control the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Senate in the process. It's a super important issue. I
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: think it's, you know, Texans should be reminded and probably
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: need to be reminded about what sending Colin Allred to
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: the Senate means versus sending Ted Cruz. when there's the
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: prospect of a national abortion ban on the table. And so, yeah,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I think it's the right thing to do. And you
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: know this, Dan, like just because she's in Texas doesn't
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: mean the words she says stay in Texas. They will
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: be clipped and they will be put on the internet
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and she will be renewing the focus on reproductive choice
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in the closing days of the election. And I think
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: that's absolutely right. She should be doing that. By the way,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: we'll be having our own reproductive rights focused special on
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: MSNBC that I'll be co-anchoring with Joy Reid. next week
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: in case people want.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: To talk more. Oh, I love that organic promo. That's great.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: What day is that?
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: October 30th. Okay, perfect. And I say that in part
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: because I feel like we are talking, and I think
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: necessarily so, about fascism and democracy and the economy and immigration.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Abortion is a huge driver for Democrats, a real tangible
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: result of what it means to have a Republican in office.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And it is good to focus back on that before
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: people go to the polls. Because I do think to
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: some degree... that has not been as sharp. We have
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: not had as sharp a focus on that from the
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Harris campaign in her closing argument.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I fully endorse this decision to go to Texas. Obviously,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: if she can provide a boost to Colin Allred and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: he can kick Ted Cruz out of the Senate and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: back to Cancun, that is a super plus. But even
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: more importantly, what she is desperately trying to do here
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: is get attention. And the audience is, yes, people in Texas,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: but it's primarily the exact voters you were talking about
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, places that have Democratic governors or
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: constitutional rights to abortion access, to say to those voters,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: if Donald Trump wins, what you see in Texas when
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: it comes to abortion policy could very well be the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: national policy. Trump could pass and sign a federal abortion ban.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: He could, as Project 2025 has suggested, use executive authority
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to make it hard to get abortion medication, impossible to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: get abortion medication. In Project 2025, they want to have
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: a database of pregnancies. There is scary stuff here. What
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is happening in Texas could be the nation. And it
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: is so hard to grab people's attention in this media environment.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And going to Texas, giving a speech in Texas is
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: off the beaten path. It's different enough. We're talking about
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: it now. It'll get more coverage than if she just
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: gave an abortion speech in Michigan on the same day.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And so she is trying to get attention.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: It's the geographical equivalent of going to Fox News, right?
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's why Trump's going to Madison Square Garden.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: Same.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It is a way to get people's attention. And
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the other thing we just have to... This is a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: sad thing for democracy, but the importance of local media
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in politics, it's still quite important, but it's way less important,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: particularly for the undecided voters who consume less media. Politics
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: is national. News is national. Going to Texas is almost
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: as good a way to reach a lot of voters
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in Michigan as doing a speech in Michigan. It's not
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: great that we're not that it's not all local TV
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and local news anymore. That was an important part of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the process. But the world has changed. The media economics
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: have changed. And so the efficacy of going to a
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: place like Texas in 2024 is very different than it
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: would have been back in my day in 2008 or 2012.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: That's where we're at.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Obviously, abortion is going to be a huge part of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: her closing message. How do you think she should balance
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that with the economy and border security messaging that we
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: also know that undecided voters are very concerned about?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: It's so hard. Can I just say, like, This poor woman,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: my Lord, like, who wants this? Nobody wants to be
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: in this position.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: She didn't ask to be.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, everything, everywhere.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: All at once.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: She's got to do it all. I mean, that's just
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: the reality of it, right? She's talking to different voters.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: She's talking to suburban women when she talks about abortion.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: I wish she was talking to everybody. She's talking to men,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: you know, working class men, especially when she's talking about
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: the economy. She's talking to the Latino vote. She's talking
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to More working class Americans when she's talking about immigration.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, she's just talking to each segment that she
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: needs to turn on, so she's going to have to
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: do it all. And, you know, I think that that's
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: just the reality of what a closing message is when
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: you're literally building the biggest possible tent you can. What's
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: amazing is that it's held. that the party of AOC
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: and Dick Cheney is still, you know, the bandwagon, like,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: drives onward, hopefully ending at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: testament to the Democratic Party that, like, this coalition has
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: held for as long as it has with nary a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: peep from, I mean, accepting a few certain issues. Mostly...
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: With everybody in accord, I think it's amazing. So yeah,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, she's going to have to talk to all
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: the different, you know, sort of buckets of voters who
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: may be sitting on their butts, unsure of whether they
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: want to vote or skeptical of the fact that she'll
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: be four different years of a Democratic administration and won't
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: be a continuation of what they believe has not been
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: a good moment for them financially or economically, though that
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: is not true. And she's got to remind people of fundamental,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: you know, bodily autonomy and how it's on the ballot.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, it's not as it's not the,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: it's not the sort of polished stone that was the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Obama candidacy in 2008, where you knew exactly what you
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: were getting. And it was this beautiful glowing thing that
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: you could hold in your hands. It's more like, you know,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: emotional confetti. That's the description I always use. It's just like, it's,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: it's in the air, it's everywhere. It's all around you.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And you know, all the little bits together kind of make,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know, a celebration of her candidacy. This is
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: an overwrought metaphor. The point is it's, um, yeah, it's
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: everything everywhere all at once. And, um, that's what she's
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: got to do.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I really toured about this because the ways
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: in which we communicate are so different, right? It was in,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: back in 2008, 2012, even 2016, it was largely, you
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: needed one core message for everyone because you were communicating
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to everyone in the same way. Yes, you could do
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: like some, you know, black radio, or you could do
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: some Spanish language TV or something that would be a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: little micro targeted, but in general, it was all macro
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: communication all the time. Your TV ads were large, could
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: reach anyone at all times. Now there's the ability to
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: target even more, right? You can have, you can identify
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the voters who feel a certain way about a certain thing,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and you can push messaging towards them via digital advertising
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: or influencers or whatever else. Like you can, we just
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: have so much richer data about how to, and so
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: many more tools to reach people But ultimately, you still
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: have to put it through one frame, right? And I
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: have struggled with this the whole campaign. The closest thing
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I can come up with for one way to latch
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: all these things together is that Kamala Harris is for
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you and Donald Trump is for himself. And that's how
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: you get to abortion, freedom. That's how you get to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: her economic plan versus his economic plan. And it's the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: way you get to border security because it allows you
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to tell the story as she does at every opportunity.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: that the reason the border is not as secure as
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it should be is because Donald Trump torpedoed a bipartisan
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: deal to help himself. So if you want someone who's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: going to fight for you, Colin Harris will do it.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Because the one core essential truth about Donald Trump that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: even in their private moments, his supporters would admit is
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: that he's a narcissist.
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: He cares about himself.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Can I just say one thing? I was at a
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: barbershop in West Philadelphia this on Monday. And one of
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: the guys said, I've made more money with assholes than
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: with nice people. And I think one of the problem,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. That is very elegant sort of
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: distillation of how Kamala Harris can sell herself to people
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: who are still on the fence or to even people
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: who support her. Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is for you.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is for himself. We underestimate the lure of
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: a man who's only out there for himself. And I
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: saw and heard that reflected in especially the men that
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I spoke to, that that was actually aspirational. And that
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the greed, you know, it felt like the 1980s, right?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Like greed is good. And that the narcissism wasn't off-putting,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: but like, you know, that's someone who wanted to be like,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: and that's someone who was maybe going to help you
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: get rich just because it provided a template from the
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: highest echelons of government for everybody else in the country.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I'm obviously not endorsing that, but I just mean, I
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: think that's part of the reality here is that, and
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: that's a testament to like where we've gotten as a
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: society is But there is a kind of the subject
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: of that, what do we call it, thesis, Donald Trump
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: is maybe not, he doesn't do so badly in that dichotomy.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. I mean, that is ultimately
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the entire thesis of Trumpism, which is, I will protect
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you from whatever threats you're worried about, domestic or abroad,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and I will put more money in your pocket. And
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: because I will do those two things, you are willing
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to put up with me as a largely embarrassing asshole, right?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: You may not like my personality. You may not like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: my tweets. You may not like the way I act.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: You may be somewhat concerned about the fact that I
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: keep getting convicted of federal crimes and state crimes. But
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: because I will do those things that matter the most
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to you, right, and you're in the hierarchy of needs,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: those are the top, right? Safety and financial security. And
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: if I can protect those, you'll put up with everything else. Now,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: what is essential then is for the Democrats and the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Harris campaign to, you have to make how this matters
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: for people, right? So it's not just like, we don't
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: like Trump because he's a narcissist, he only cares about himself,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and therefore he's a bad person. It's because he only
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: cares about himself, he's going to help people like him
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: and not people like you. And that's a hard argument
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: because people think they did well under him before, but
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Tax cuts for the rich, finding a way to talk
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: about the increase in prices because of tariffs, talking about
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the restrictions of your freedom on abortion and everything that
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: can come next. That's the hard part. This is not easy.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: If it was easy, we would have beat Trump in 2016.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: 2020 wouldn't have been so close, and he would not
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: even be running again, but it's not easy.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Even with Harris off the trail for a day, Democrats
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: are in get-out-the-vote mode, and Kamala Harris has been absolutely
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: blissing the battleground states, and so are her top surrogates.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: On Tuesday, that meant Barack Obama holding a rally with
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Tim Walz in Madison, Wisconsin, and Obama in Detroit with
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate Alyssa Slotkin and who else?
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: Eminem.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I would just say my old boss was feeling himself
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: at this event. Let's take a listen.
• 40:53
  Speaker 8: Can the real Slim Shady please stand up?
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: The people shouldn't be afraid to express their opinions.
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: And I don't think anyone wants an America where people
• 41:02
  Speaker 9: are worried about retribution of what people will do if
• 41:05
  Speaker 9: you make your opinion known. I think Vice President Harris
• 41:12
  Speaker 9: supports a future for this country where these freedoms and
• 41:15
  Speaker 9: many others will be protected and upheld. And here to
• 41:22
  Speaker 9: tell you much more about that, President Barack Obama.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: I gotta say, you know, I have done a lot
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: of rallies, so I don't usually get nervous. But I
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: was feeling some kind of way following Eminem. And I
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: noticed my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy,
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: vomit on my sweater already, mom's spaghetti. I'm nervous, but
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: but I keep bomb forgetting.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I'm biased here, but was that great
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: or was it kind of cringeworthy? I don't really know.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Both. I mean, it was great. It's also like Barack
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Obama loves his own performances. As someone who knows him, Dan,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: you know this to be true.
• 42:22
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Also, I mean– That song that he was dropping lines
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: from is his hype myself up song. Am I incorrect?
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: That is an Obama musical chestnut. So I'm sure it
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: was awesome. And also, I had missed the Slotkin M
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: & M tour when it rolled through New York. So
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I was glad to be able to catch a little
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: bit of it in Michigan. It's great. First of all,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I'm all for joy. I loved the beginning of the
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Harris candidacy because she was just happy. Like, it was
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: such a good moment. It was a reprieve from the
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: just apocalyptic doomsday scenario we now find ourselves in again.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: And when he's having fun, when he's smiling, you can't
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: help but smile. Having said that, there was a slight
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: daddish edge, a little bit of a daddish edge to it.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: In part, you knew he practiced that before he went
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: out there. That was not impromptu.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't know. I don't know.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: No, Dan.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: There's a real chance he did.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Dan. Dan.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I have to believe this. He didn't practice Amazing Grace.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Dan, it was impromptu. The lyrics were impromptu. Anyway, but props.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I can just say, if I had been with him
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: at the time, I can know how this would go.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: We'd be in the car, driving there.
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: He'd be like, you know what?
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: He'd be like, Pfeiffer, you know what I think I'm
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: going to do?
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to rap.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, what, sir? He's like, I think I'll
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: just do maybe the first verse or two of Lose Yourself.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I would be like, That's an idea. I hear you.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I hear what you're thinking. I don't know. And he'd
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: be like, I'm doing it. And then he would do it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And I would worry about it. And he'd do it.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: And it would go well.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Can I just say, Dan?
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I felt this to my core.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Contrast that with, like, the people who have to keep
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Trump in line. It's like.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Look, that is a privilege.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going to shoot protesters in Lafayette Square, sir. Versus, like,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going to rap. I just want to, like.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Tan suit, the worst thing he ever did, which was
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: actually a great outfit.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: You're on the record as that.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I loved that tan suit, and I told him I
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: liked the tan suit to his face. He appreciated it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Because he walked around telling everyone how good he looked
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: in that suit for, frankly, years afterwards. I think he
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: did it just pretty recently. So you are preaching to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the choir there.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: It's cool that he rapped. It's cool. It's great.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Fine.
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: Good.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Politics should be fun, right? You want a rally to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: be fun. You want your movement to feel like something
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: you want to join. You want people to stop what
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: they're doing to be involved. You want them to stop
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: what they're doing and listen. And that has always been
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Obama's great ability. Harris has done it herself incredibly well here.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Tim Walz did it in a very funny way by
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: calling Elon Musk a dipshit yesterday. In a weird, bizarro way,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Trump does the same thing for his supporters. And it
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be spinach. It should be fun. It should be entertaining.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: There should be risk involved, right? And so I think
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: it is great he did it. It's obviously dominating social media.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: More people will see more of the rally because of it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Eminem's message is cool. Eminem speaks to a certain group
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: of voters. And so all of it was great, in
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: my opinion. Now, how his daughters felt, who knows?
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, we know how they felt, Dan.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: We know how they felt. In general, what do you
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: think of the role Obama's playing down the stretch here?
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: It's great. I mean, look, I think sometimes he kind
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: of steps, he gets a little over his skis. I
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: think the scolding of black men in Pittsburgh, just from
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: the men that I talked to, did not come across
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: the way that I think he perhaps had hoped it would.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: But it changed the conversation. And I think that was very,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: very useful in terms of like gender and how much
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: of the resistance to Harris's candidacy and electing her was
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: because there's still some latent or explicit misogyny holding people back.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: That I think is good. But, you know, he's magic.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: He's the most magical person in the Democratic Party and
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: has an ability to crystallize the issues and the stakes
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: and do it with passion and eloquence and joy and
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: like bring in the fucking reinforcements, right? Like bring him
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: in and then the closer Michelle Obama is going to
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: be hitting the trail too. Like, of course, this is
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: what needs to happen. Like, yes, everybody come out of
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: the woodwork. And he's, you know, it's nice to be
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: reminded of the once in a generation talent that he
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: is and feel good about the fact that he was
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: elected twice and that we were that country and maybe
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: we can be a country that does that kind of
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: thing once more.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Obviously, I think he's a huge net positive out there.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: He's a great communicator. He does a lot for signaling
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to the entire party how to talk about things. And
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: he did that in 2020 with Trump a lot. And
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: then in 2022, he did a similar thing about how
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: he's the best messenger in terms of distilling the argument
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and then delivering it in a very compelling way. I
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: did have this lingering fear that it's been a long
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: time since he was president. It's been a long time
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: since 08. I see that in my own gray hairs
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and aging self. And one of the huge target audience
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: here is younger men. And so I was like, does
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Obama really have a connection to them? But then the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: folks at Blueprint came out with this poll where they
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: polled men. And so here's Obama's approval rating among men
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: aged 18 to 29. He is a plus 38 net favorability.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: That's not nothing.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: That is, I mean, and he's by far exponentially more
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: popular than any other political figure out there with this
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: exact group of people that Kamala Harris absolutely needs to
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: do better with if she's going to win this race.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: And so the fact that we have polling here shows
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: that Obama is the best messenger with them. And that's
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: why he's doing so much. You know, he's doing these rallies,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: but he's also doing a ton of events or like
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: interactions with TikTok influencers. He did a podcast today with...
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: where he was interviewed by Tyrese Halliburton of the Indiana Pacers.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: So he's doing a lot of stuff to reach that group.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: So that's very good to know that it has the impact.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: He still has that appeal with the young voters she needs,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: even all these years later.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important also for it to be
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a man alongside her doing this, not because she needs
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: a man, but because the question of masculinity is so,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: there's so much tension around it. And Obama is so
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: confident in his manhood. And so clearly masculine. You know
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: what I mean? Not that Tim Walz isn't, but he's
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: such a known sort of male patriarchal figure in American
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: life that I think is really important to have him
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: out there talking vociferously at great volume about what an
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: extraordinarily accomplished leader Kamala Harris will be.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: When we come back from break, we're going to hear
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: John's interview with Senator Sherrod Brown about his must-win race
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. But before we do that, with less than
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: two weeks to go, we wanted to remind you that
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America has a bunch of really vital tools.
• 48:54
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• 48:57
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• 49:00
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• 49:02
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• 49:25
  Speaker 1: This message has been paid for by Vote Save America.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: candidates committee. When we come back, Senator Sherrod Brown.
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: Joining us today, he's currently running against a rich car
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: salesman to keep control of the Senate and Democratic hands.
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: Please welcome back to the pod, one of America's very
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: best senators and human beings, Ohio's own Sherrod Brown. Welcome
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: back to Pod Save America.
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: Thanks, John. I really appreciate the chance to do this again. Thanks.
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: Of course.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: You've been running and winning statewide races in Ohio for
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: many years now. What, if anything, is different about your
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: state and what you're hearing from voters this time around?
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: Well, Ohio's perhaps gotten a little more conservative. People think that.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: But last November, we passed a statewide constitutional amendment on
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: abortion rights, passed it with 57 percent of the vote,
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: which my opponent in this race wants a national abortion ban.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: So one of the clear contrasts we make, he says
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: I'm 100 percent pro-life, no exceptions. I have supported the
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: constitutional amendment on abortion rights. So we make that contrast.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: And I think that That's going to be an absolute
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: voting issue this year, as it is other places, both
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: in the presidency and the presidential and especially in the
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: Senate race. So what's different about Ohio is I think
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: I win in large part because I take on interest
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: groups and stand up to the drug companies and stand
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: up to big oil and stand up to the railroads,
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: which had that terrible derailment in eastern Ohio. And that's
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: one of the reasons that big money is going after
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: me in this race.
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: Has political polarization made it harder than it was back
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: in 2018? When you won in 2018, you ended up
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: picking up a lot of Trump voters. You have to
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: in your state. Is that a little bit harder this
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: time around?
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: It's harder only in the sense that so many people...
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: I mean, there are only, I believe, six Senate seats now,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: six states which have a split delegation of one R
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: and one D or an independent. And I mean, the assumption...
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: I think too many people make is that they're voting
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: for Trump. They're not voting for me, but I, I mean,
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: I don't look at politics left to right. I look
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: at it more as who's side you on. And I
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: was in Zanesville today with a UAW plant and Zanesville
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: is a small industrial town, very conservative. It's kind of
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: the Northern edge of Appalachia. I will get a lot
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: of votes there because people know I fight for workers
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: and regardless how they vote in the presidential race. And that's, that's,
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, my, my, my mission has always been to,
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: put workers, that workers should be at the table and
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: talk about the dignity of work, a term from Dr.
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: King initially that he used. And I think if you
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: stand up to interest groups like I have, it means
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: tens of millions of dollars are spent against you, but
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: it means that voters, regardless of how they're looking in
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: the presidential race, are likely to vote for somebody that
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: they see as on their side.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: What do you make of a lot of unions in
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: this cycle? You see a lot of the leadership is
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: for Kamala Harris and for Democrats, some of the rank
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: and file sort of drifting towards Trump. I've seen that
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: in places in Michigan. I've heard union members be interviewed,
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: say that some of their fellow workers are a little
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: more pro-Trump. I've heard that in some other states. What
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: do you think is going on there?
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I wear, when I have a suit on, I
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: wear a pin. It's a canary in a birdcage. You
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: know the story, Jonathan, mine workers are used to take
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: a canary down to the mines when they didn't have
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: a union strong enough or a government that cared enough
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: to help them. He was really on his own. And
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: where that pen signifies to me that workers are the
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: center of what we should fight for in government. I
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: don't know that Democrats around the country have focused on
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: that the way that we should. And workers, that symbol
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: also means to me that when we didn't, 100 years ago,
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: Wall Street didn't come to to us and say, hey,
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: I think we should start Social Security and take care
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: of seniors. We fought for it. We demanded it. We
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: got it. The polluters didn't come to us and say,
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: it's time to clean up Lake Erie. I want to help.
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: We had to force them, demand it, and make it happen.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: We didn't create Medicare because the health insurance interests wanted
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: to help us. Civil rights didn't happen because a bunch
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: of Southern segregationist senators had time to give them the vote.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, it really symbolized, I think the Democrats need
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: to fight more on these issues that matter to everyday people.
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: And I don't know that national Democrats have figured that
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: out well enough. And I can see in Ohio, it's
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: why as a party, we slipped a little bit.
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: Talk to me about Bernie Moreno. What have you found
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: is the most persuasive argument to people who are thinking
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: about voting for him? You mentioned, of course, his stance
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: on abortion. What else are people finding troubling?
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, he's, as you say, he's a
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: car dealer. luxury car dealer. He has cheated his own workers.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: Raphael Warnock was in town the other day for me,
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: and he said Marino had to pay $ 400, 000 in back
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: pay to workers who he had sniffed out of their
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: overtime and then destroyed the evidence that a judge ordered
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: him to produce. And Raphael said, how would you trust
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: a guy who treats his own workers that way? Why
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: would you think he'd treat workers around the state in
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: any better way? So Marino, he's 100% wrong in abortion.
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: He's done that with his own workers. He's against, not
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: only just against the minimum wage, but he's against, he
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: thinks the minimum wage should be eliminated. And recently, as
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: some of you have seen, I assume you've seen it, John,
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: he was sort of in a town hall and he said,
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: why are these single issue voters in abortion? What's with them?
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: Why should a woman over the age of 50 care
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: about abortion? And that sort of tells you who he is.
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: And It tells you, I mean, he mocked Ohioans and
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: he particularly mocked women over 50. And I don't think they,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: as my wife, whom you know, wrote in her Substack column,
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: see at the polls, pal, because it's pretty clear. But
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: Marino's also a self-funder. I ask people because he's spending
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: so much, because McConnell's spending so much in my race,
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: this is probably the most expensive race now, most money
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: spent against a candidate ever for the U.S. Senate. $ 200 million,
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: something like that. So I ask people to come to SherrodBrown.com
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: and help me with $ 15 or $ 20 or whatever you
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: can afford.
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: So aside from your Senate race, Ohio has become part
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: of the national political debate this year, thanks to your
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: fellow senator and current Trump running mate, J.D.
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: Vance.
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: Both Vance and Trump are still spreading lies about the
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: good people of Springfield, Ohio, including hardworking, taxpaying immigrants who
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: are there legally. How has that whole controversy landed with
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: folks in Ohio? Is that something that's come up in
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: your race too?
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: First of all, these Senate partners, if you will, it's
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: kind of an arranged marriage. Vance didn't choose me and
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: I sure as hell didn't choose him.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: I bet.
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: But that's what we got. Springfield is a town of,
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: it's a town a lot like where I grew up, Mansfield.
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: It's a little larger, about 60,000 people. It's a city
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: that's been hit really hard by globalization. Um, all kinds
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: of manufacturing jobs have been lost in that city. Uh,
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: and they were, they were coming back and they, they,
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: the business community brought in, um, and politicians of both
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: parties brought in a number of immigrants to work in
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: these plants. Uh, and then, um, you know, lo and behold,
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: political figures politicized it. And I, I've worked with them
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: on this issue for months, uh, working with state government,
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: working with federal government, getting help, um, as, as more
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: housing is needed more, um, more public works generally, more
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: schools to address this influx of people. I think they're
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: getting back on their feet. I think they will. I
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: think it's a prosperous town and beginning to be a
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: prosperous town. And I'm just hopeful that politicians stop injecting
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: themselves in to create division just so they can win politically.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, you saw that on the immigration bill that
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: was about to pass earlier this summer Uh, and, uh,
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: it was, it was agreed to, it was a pretty
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: conservative bill. The border agents supported it yet for political reasons,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: it got blown up. And I, I'm hopeful after, after
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: the election, after we have a pretty good year, we
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: keep the Senate and, and the, uh, Kamala wins, we
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: win the house. I'm hopeful we can actually do things
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: and put this, uh, this, this divisive for the sake
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: of political victories and divisive politics behind us.
• 58:22
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: It seems like one challenge is that, uh, especially in
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: the Trump era, you know, Republicans want to tell people
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: that they're very legitimate concerns about cost of living, cost
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: of housing, healthcare, you know, or the fault of immigrants,
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: of people who don't look like them. And, you know,
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: and you and a lot of other Democrats are trying
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: to say, look, there's, you know, corporations making record profits
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: and CEOs making record profits and, you know, rich as ever.
• 58:52
  Speaker 6: And we should look to them when we're trying to
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: figure out how to help you with the cost of living. Like,
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: how have you handled sort of the immigration issue when
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: you've heard about it from voters in Ohio who might
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: be frustrated?
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, immigration. And they're running some really nasty ads on immigrants.
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: on transgender against me to the tune of 50, $ 60
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: million of ads. And fact checkers have shown they're simply
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: not true. Independent fact checkers, not Democratic, Republican fact checkers.
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: And they keep running the ads as you would expect
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: them to because they only when they divide people. But
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: I think when you talk about immigration and you talk
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: about a couple of things and you talk about inflation
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: and relate them together, pull them together, it's, I talk
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: about going to the grocery store after church and my
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: wife and I, and we see that, and we hear
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: in the checkout counter, we hear at the meat counter,
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: checkout lane in the meat counter, people are complaining about prices,
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: but they also understand that it's corporate It's been corporate greed,
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: the kind of stock buybacks that executives are taking, the
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: kind of huge profits, as you point out. I also, though,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: think that when it comes to immigration, that I went
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: to the border with a Republican sheriff who has since
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: endorsed me. And he's a reasonable guy about these issues.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: And one of the things that we've worked on, especially Ohio,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: In Ohio, about 350 people a month die from fentanyl poisoning.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: I've been aggressively going after the cartels. I've written a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: bill that's now law, sanctioning the cartels, sanctioning the precursor
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: chemicals makers in China. And much of what we have
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: to do in my state, especially about immigration, is dealing
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: with the drug issue. And it's all of the above.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: It's scaling up treatment programs. It's giving Border Patrol, the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: screening devices to look for this stuff that's smuggled in.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: And most of it's smuggled across, mostly by Americans, apparently,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: they told us. I mean, factually, that's true. And it
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: comes across at the border in legitimate traffic in the
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: points of entry. So we scale that up much better.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: We will, in large part, deal with this fentanyl poisoning
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: problem But it also, as I said, it's local treatment programs, too,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: for sure.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: Jeff Goldberg over at The Atlantic just reported that Trump
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: once said in an Oval Office meeting, I need the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: kind of generals that Hitler had. That's according to two
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: sources in the meeting. His former chief of staff, John Kelly,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: confirmed to Goldberg that he also heard Trump praise Hitler's generals.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: So I saw someone tweet, you know, is it too
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: much for the Republican Party and the American people to
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: care about this type of thing? What do you think?
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: Of course, we should care about this kind of thing.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: I guess I step back for a second, John. And
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: one of the things that's troubled me, I mean, that
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: I'm still incredulous about, and it's hard to be incredulous
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: about anything now, perhaps in American politics, but how I
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: have a lot of Ukrainians in Ohio. And Ukrainians have
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: historically been Republican because I've heard from many Ukrainians a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: generation or two later that They think FDR sold them
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: out at Yalta and Truman sold them out at Potsdam.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, they think the Democrats have not been the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: anti-communist party enough and the Ukrainians are here as opponents
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: to the Soviet Union legitimately. And they have changed because
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: they've seen what makes me incredulous is one of the
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: political parties in this country is a pro-Russia party. That's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: the case for my opponent. It's the case for the
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: people my opponent associates with. and that the Ukrainians feel
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: adrift and now are much more supportive of our foreign
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: policy because they know we don't, Democrats don't go to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: bed with dictators. And, you know, our allies are people,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: our allies are Ukraine and Poland and Britain and Israel
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: and France and democratic countries around the world, Japan. And
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: people are pretty increasingly troubled by this that the countries
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: like Iran and Russia and China, that we are too
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: close to, some of our leaders are too close to them.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: You were just endorsed by former Republican Governor Bob Taft,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: the only person to ever beat you back in the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: 1990 Ohio Secretary of State election.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: Almost nobody knows that, but thank you for pointing that out.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: Otherwise, you got a perfect winning streak there. What does
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: that endorsement mean to you? And what do you want
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: it to mean to voters?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Bob Taft was a good public servant. He beat
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: me in 1990 for Secretary of State. And I've gotten
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: along with him except during that 16 months or whatever,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: that race. I wasn't, like, friendly. We weren't friendly then.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: Since he beat me, within a few years, we began
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 5: to see each other every once in a while. I've
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: spoken to his classmates. He's a longtime public servant. His
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: family goes back actually before William Howard Taft, the president,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: is his great-grandfather. But there was a Taft before him
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: whose name I've forgotten. It was like a judge or something.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: So it's a storied family in Ohio. His support means
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: a lot to a lot of people. He would be
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: considered by some as kind of a rhino Republican, but
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: he's solid. People like him. They trust him. His support
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: means a lot. I have heard many, many Republicans tell
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: me that they support me, including Republican officeholders. Most don't
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: want to be public about it because they feel a
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: bit threatened by their party if they do, but I
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: think Taft's support will go a long way to just
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: tell Republicans, you know, Brown's been effective, and I've worked
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: with people to get things done. I've worked with Republicans.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: When I need to to get stuff done, I come
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: up with ideas from my meetings in your wife's hometown
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: of Cincinnati or Cleveland or wherever. Roy Blunt was a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: former senator, if you remember, from Missouri. And I'd known
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: him for 30 years or so, and he was talking
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: to somebody once, and he said, what do you think
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: of Sherrod Brown? He said, well, I've known him for
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: 30 years, and we've agreed exactly five times. And he laughed,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: and then he said, but all five of those became
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: federal law. So the whole point is you find people
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: that you don't agree with or don't even necessarily like much.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: I liked Roy, but you then find a way to
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: work with them, because if you can build that coalition,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: it works. And so a TAF knows I do that,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: and that's what gets things done in my state, and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: I will always continue to do that.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 6: Two weeks to go, extremely close race. Some folks still
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: making up their minds whether to vote for you or
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 6: whether to vote at all. What do you want them
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: to know? What's the closing message in the last two
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: weeks here?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: That I'll be on their side, that politics is not
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: left or right. In my mind, it's who side you on.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: And that my opponent is 100% wrong on abortion rights.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: My opponent is 100% wrong in minimum wage. My opponent fleeced,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: took money from his employees, $ 400, 000 in back wages, and
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: I'd ask people to come on board to go to SharonBrown.com
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: and contribute $ 15 or $ 20 or volunteer or come to
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: Ohio or make phone calls into Ohio in a close race,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: in a race where 12 million people live in my state,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: and it's going down to the wire. So I appreciate
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: their joining us.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: Sherrod Brown, thank you as always. And good luck in
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: the final stretch. We'll do everything we can too. And
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: Emily also says hello. She wanted me to tell you hi.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: Tell Emily hi and tell the judge hello too. And John,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: thank you so much for doing this.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Sherrod Brown. And
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: thanks so much to Alex Wagner for being here with me.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Everyone make sure you're watching Alex Wagner tonight, Tuesday through
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. And of course,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: we're looking forward to watching you on election night, election week,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: whatever it's going to be. In the meantime, please check
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: out votesaveamerica.com slash vote. And John and I will be
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: Thanks.
• 1:07:07
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• 1:07:10
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  Speaker 6: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo
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• 1:07:42
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• 1:07:47
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