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"Will Trump Cost Mitch the Senate?" · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Jon Lovett is on vacation.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Big birthday boy.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Birthday boy is just taking something off. He's 40 now,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: so he's feeling.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I thought he was 50.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Republicans are in disarray as Donald Trump
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and Mitch McConnell fight over their party's chances to take
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: back the Senate. Beto O'Rourke joins to talk about his
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: run for governor in Texas. And Jared Kushner's new book
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: gets one of the most devastating reviews we've ever read.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on how you're looking at it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: It was a great review, in my opinion.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We'll get to it. We'll get to that. Accurate?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: We'll never know.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: But first... To post or not to post, that is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the question for the hosts of Dare We Say this week.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Josie Tota, Alicia Pascal-Pena, and Yasmin Hamidi talked about performative
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: activism and how social media has mobilized the activists and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: all of us for the best and for the worst. Plus,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: there's a new segment called The Icuation Room where the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: girls discuss one of the most polarizing topics, the Zara
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: landing page.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Zara.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Zara. I knew it was called Zara. I knew it
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: was Zara.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Leave it in.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Leave that in. No one corrected me. I corrected myself.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You don't want to miss it. I don't know anything
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: about what's wrong with the Zara landing page. Do you, Tommy?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: No. It's where Nick Shapiro gets all his shirts.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do know that. Anyway, you don't want to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: miss Dare We Say. New episodes drop every Thursday wherever
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Now I've got to find out
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with the Zara landing page. I'm going to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: have to download that one. Don't go looking now. Don't
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: go looking now. Okay, you're right. Also, check out the
• 1:54
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• 1:57
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• 2:07
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• 2:10
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• 2:12
  Speaker 1: involved and do your part in getting involved in this
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: year's midterms. All right, let's get to the news. In
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the last week or so, Most election forecasters have said
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: that control of the Senate is now a toss-up. And
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: none other than Mitch McConnell seems to agree. Here's what
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: he recently said to an NBC reporter. Quote, I think
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Senate races are just different. They're statewide. Candidate quality has
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a lot to do with the outcome. On Sunday, Donald Trump,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: truth to truth in response, said, Is there an.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Easy way to find his truth? Obviously, I'm not signing
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: up for truth, but does someone retweet his truths full-time?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I'm getting a nod from Andy.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I noticed like people pluck up some of them out.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: There was like an account. There was like a bot
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: account that was doing it, but then I think Twitter
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: shut that down because it's like they don't, their whole
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: point was to get rid of Trump. The spirit of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the law. So you still sort of rely on reporters
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to just give you the truth once in a while.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's like, I want to get those truths all the time.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Full-time truths.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I want my truth.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: How far we've come on this issue. Anyway.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Here's this particular truth. Why do Republican senators allow a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hardworking
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Republican candidates? He should spend more time and money helping
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: them get elected and less time helping his crazy wife
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and family get rich on China. Rich on China.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: This is his former transportation secretary.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: He was talking about.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: For all four years.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Elaine Chao.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So I guess he turned on her because she remember
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: she called on him to resign.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: She posed the insurrection.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she posed it. She posed the violent insurrection. So
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that was that. All right. Why do you think Mitch
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: said that?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, John,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but roughly translates to don't blame me if the Democrats
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: keep the Senate. Blame Trump and the idiots he recruited.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: That's that's what I heard. Because Mitch McConnell doesn't just
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: say things. Don't blame me. He's a pretty calculating guy.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: That's one thing you can say about Mitch McConnell. He
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: could have easily said, I feel good or we'll see
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: what happens in November.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: In fact, showing even that little bit of insecurity about
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the outcome is very unlike him.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Very unlike him. He wants to hang this around Donald
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Trump's neck if they lose. And he wants to blame
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: him specifically for the candidates he has endorsed in the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Senate primaries who are now most of the nominees. Herschel Walker,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Blake Masters, Dr. Oz, Adam Laxalt. These are all Trump candidates.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think these comments are probably the most directed
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: at Dr. Oz down in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: But he's also Mitch McConnell's obvious also probably not happy about.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: his super PAC having to spend $ 28 million worth of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: ads in Ohio to help out J.D. Vance. And J.D.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Vance has been critical of McConnell personally. He called him
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: out of touch with the base, which is fun. In 2022,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: that means you guys too will destroy the Capitol. Also,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Eric Schmidt, the Republican candidate in Missouri and Blake Masters
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: have also both suggested that McConnell should no longer lead
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the GOP. So I don't know. I wonder, like, bitch
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: isn't liking the vibes.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Isn't liking the vibes. Yeah, you probably don't get a...
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: If they did take the Senate, I bet you don't
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: have a critical majority of Trumpers that would throw out McConnell.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: But it'd be uncomfortable for McConnell. Yeah, it'd be annoying
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: for him. Do you think McConnell's right in what he said?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: He's absolutely right. The candidate quality matters. I think his
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: full quote was like, maybe we'll tie. Maybe they'll win
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: it by a couple. Maybe we'll win it by a couple.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: So like he's, yes, he's absolutely right. Quality matters. And
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I think you're seeing that in some of these numbers,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: especially Herschel Walker, who's just more Dr. Oz, who are
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: just fumbling their way to. Yeah.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Well, and one reason that we know candidate quality matters
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in Senate races is that we've seen Republicans miss a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: chance to retake the Senate in 2010 when, obviously, Republicans
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: did really, really well in the House and took back
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the House. It was a horrible year for us being
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: in the White House as Democrats. Yeah, that stunk. But
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: they had horrible candidates. And in 2012, they had a chance, too,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and they blew it because they had candidates like Todd
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Akin in Missouri. Richard Murdoch, Sharon Engel in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: For those of you who don't remember Christine O'Donnell, she
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was running for the Senate in Delaware.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: For Dancy.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: For Dancy, yeah. And one of her ads, she had
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to come out and say, I am not a witch.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: That was a thing that happened back in 2010. Well,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: maybe not historic first. It probably happened in like the 1600s.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But those were different times. Yeah, Todd Akin had some
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: despicable comments about rape.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Horrible human being, yeah.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Richard Murdoch did as well. There was an abortion. There
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was two candidates that were saying horrible things about rape
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and abortion.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: You know what's great? I don't even remember who Richard
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Murdoch is.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: He ran in Indiana. And Rupert could have, you know,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Indiana Republican state and didn't win.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. So it's happened to Mitch McConnell and the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Republican Party before. So they think it could happen again
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: even when the political environment is better for Republicans. So
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Shane Goldmacher at the New York Times reported last week
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that the National Republican Senatorial Committee said, recently canceled $ 10
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: million worth of planned advertising in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: What'd you make of that story?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: So there've actually been a bunch of very interesting, fun
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: stories about the NRSC, the National Republican Senate Committee and
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: their spending. So the New York Times said they had
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: cut 10 million in ads. Politico said they had cut 13.5
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: million in ad cuts. And then later in that, I
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: think that same paragraph in the story said, but a
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Democratic source said it was 10. Sort of like a
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: bitchy little aside pointing to what the New York Times
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: sourcing was. But Politico has, since August 1st, the NRSC
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: has cut ad buys in Pennsylvania, 7.5 million. Cut off
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: the top. Arizona, 3.5. Wisconsin, 2.5. And Nevada, 1.5. So
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: it's hard to know exactly what's happening here because there's
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: so many different committees and so much money sloshing around. Obviously, John,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: in an ideal world. you don't cut ad spending less
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: than 100 days.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Let's just go with the simple explanation. It's not good.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was all this spin from the NRSC
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in the piece that's like, well, we're moving it from
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the independent expenditure side, which is the side that you
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: can't coordinate directly with the campaigns by law. We're going
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to move some of it directly to the other side
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: so we can coordinate with the campaigns themselves better. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it's just moving money around here and there and all
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of shit. But that, like you said, the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: bottom line is you don't cut money. You don't cut
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: spending a couple months out before the election.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Also, presumably, if you're buying ads eight months out, six
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: months out, a year out, you can kind of get
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a better rate than at the very end when everyone's
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: trying to come in and the prices go up. We
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: also do know that the NRC has already spent $ 36
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: million in ads so far. The question is just always like,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen with super PAC spending? Because Mitch
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: McConnell has this huge super PAC and he's dumping cash places.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Peter Thiel is trying to personally buy the race in Arizona.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And then he gave $ 10 million to J.D.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Vance.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: The really, really fun part is that Republicans hate Rick Scott.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: They hate Rick Scott, the head of the NRSC. And
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: there were some stats in one of those stories. So
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: the DSCC has nearly twice as much cash on hand
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: as the NRSC, 53 million to 28 million, basically. The
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Washington Post said that Democrats are outspending Republicans by more
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: than double in the Arizona race, two to one in Nevada,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: nearly two to one in Nevada, and four to one
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: in Ohio, according to some media tracking firms. And then Again,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: they say, like, it's not fundraising. The Republican Senate campaign
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: has raised $ 173 million, but they're down to only having
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: $ 28 million left. And they also pointed out that Rick
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Scott cut and released an ad featuring him, like himself.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Himself saying some of the most unpopular things a Republican
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: could possibly say.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: So it's just, I don't know what it'll mean for
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: the election. The consensus clearly is the NRSC is poorly
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: run and a terrible organization. You also just have to
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: assume that Trump constantly fundraising with these evangelicals alerts.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I was going to bring that up.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: He's got to be siphoning off some cash.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Of course he is. It's so funny that Donald Trump
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: is doing his best fundraising ever, especially after the FBI thing, too.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: He's not on the ballot. The NRC, they're having... You're
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: right that they raised a bunch of money. They're having
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: low-dollar fundraising issues. They're having trouble getting the $ 5 and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: $ 10 donations from the base, so they have to rely
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: on these big billionaire donors and the super PACs and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: stuff like that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: The WinRed, that's their ActBlue version. They're down 12% in
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Q2 versus Q1.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so it's like, give Rick Scott your money,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and then he'll go on TV and tell people how
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: he wants to eliminate Medicare and Social Security and raise
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: taxes on working-class people. It'll be great.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Here's what we're going to do.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It's going to be awesome.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Imagine the most unappealing man you can possibly think of,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: just like Lord Voldemort in a hat for some reason,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: and then give him awful ideas that everyone hates.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Give him the worst polling ideas that you thought were
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: buried in the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan campaign in 2012. Then
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: put them on TV. But we'll bring them back.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: For millions.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: That's what we're going to do.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: That's our plan.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Now, lest anyone worry that Republicans are strapped for cash,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the Times followed up with the story Monday that... This
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: 90-year-old manufacturing mogul I had never heard of named Barre Side.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Is that how we're pronouncing it?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, is it like a bar class?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Spelled sort of like a bar class.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Zara landing page?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Anyway, he made a donation worth $ 1. 6 billion to a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: right-wing group called the Marble Freedom Trust, which is controlled
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: by Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. How alarmed were
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you about this story?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: This is one of those stories that's like, it's so
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: complicated and confusing that it's easy to get lost. Let
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: me give you the, here's what you need to know.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Leonard Leo, as you said, right-wing creep. I think he
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: actually finally left the Federalist Society to move on to
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: a new, equally murky role. I think he like sits
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: on the board still. Conservative donor role, yeah. He's got
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: like an honorary board seat there. He's got his finger
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: on the pulse. Leonard Leo basically owns stock in a
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: huge chunk of the right-wing judges currently serving anywhere in
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the country, including Supreme Court justices like Roberts, Alito- Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: He's buddies with Clarence Thomas from back in the day.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas once called Leonard Leo the number three most
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: powerful person in the world. So anyway, Federalist Society, bad, powerful,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: right-wing organization. It marries up sort of right-wing zealots, corporate
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: money in the judicial branch. Not a good combo. So
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: here's what happened here. Leonard Leo starts this new organization
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: called the Marble Freedom Trust in May of 2020. It's
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: a nonprofit. This donor- Donates 100% of the shares of
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: a company I think he started or he owned called Triplight.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Who cares what it does? And then the company was
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: sold to an Irish conglomerate for 1.65 billion. So that
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: means I think the nonprofit pays no taxes on the sale.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I suspect it also means that this original donor... avoids
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: any taxes on this sale. I don't think he gets
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: to write off the profits because I don't think you
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: can write off donations to C4s versus.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: C3s, but maybe. Whether or not that's the case, the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: real bad part is now they have $ 1. 6 billion to
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: spend on politics.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Two bad points. The campaign finance system is totally broken.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Now Leonard Leo has well over a billion dollars to
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: just shovel at every right-wing cause that he wants.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And here's the.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So much money.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You brought this up many times because you're a Jane
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Mayer fan and you've read Jane Mayer stuff.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: You got my attention.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: But it's not just that they're spending this money or
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that they can spend this money on races, right? They
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: are going to spend this on institutions, policy, think tanks, right? Like,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: they are going... Local races, local institutions, media organizations, right? Like,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: this is now the single largest political donation in history. 1.6
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: billion dollars to seed.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: This right-wing MAGA revolution all over the country, not just
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: in electoral politics, but in every facet, every institution you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: could imagine.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, ironically, under the IRS code, these are called social
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: welfare organizations.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Right, right. And so this is like, it's just, it's
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: pretty scary. It's so much money. And it's so much money.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: They have like 1.4 billion left over just to do
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: whatever they want with for forever.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so this is why we need to, this is
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: why we need to win the elections here. So let's
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: talk about these Senate races and the quality of the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Republican candidates that seem to be worrying Mitch McConnell. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: we can just go through the map here.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So the Senate's currently split 50-50. There are four Senate
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Democrats who are in competitive races. Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, and
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan. How tight are these races...
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And what do you think about their Republican opponents?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: So, John, I checked back in with the 538 podcast
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: this week. You did? Mostly.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: It's that time of year again. Well, mostly.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to hear Galen ask just like a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: totally straightforward question and then Nate kind of get mad
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: at the premise.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sort of like a little passive aggressive.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Just sort of like, how dare you?
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: No, but there's a, they have it at 60% chance
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: that Democrats hold the Senate. The odds in the house
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: are worse, but improving. So you want to go through
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: one by one? Yeah. Okay. New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan doesn't
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: have an opponent yet. So that Republican primary, September 13th.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: The St. A's poll, near and dear to your heart
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: in the St. Anselms, Hassan has a 44% approval. So
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: she is clearly vulnerable. The leading Republican opponent is a
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: guy named Don Balduck. I don't know how to say
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: his name.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: He's a Trump big lie guy. He's a right-wing zealot.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: If he wins, I think we have a good chance.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: He's a retired brigadier general. who wants the U.S. to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: be directly involved in the war in Ukraine. He wants
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: troops on the ground. Troops on the ground. He wants
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: troops on the ground in Ukraine. And he called Governor
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Sununu a Chinese communist sympathizer.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Wildly popular Republican Governor Chris Sununu, Chinese communist sympathizer. He also,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: by the way, doesn't believe that people should get to
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: directly elect their senators. He wants to repeal that. He
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: wants to repeal the 17th Amendment.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: He's one of these, we're a republic, not a democracy guy.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: He wants the state legislature to pick the senators. So
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: your last vote is for Don Bolduc, and then that's it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: These guys are all worried about majority rule. You can
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: figure out why. Always scary when just these right-wing crazy
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: zealots are former Democrats. generals in the military. That doesn't
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: make me feel good. Yeah.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: There's a, I think a lot of sort of the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Republican establishment in New Hampshire is a little worried about him.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously Chris Sununu is not a fan. Governor Sununu is
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: not a fan. They want the state Senate president.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Um, so that's no, but I think you're right. Like
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: if he, if, if he ends up in winning that
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: primary and he isn't leading it right now, then I
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: think Hassan has a, has a much better shot.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She's probably much more of a, probably a lean
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: down or likely down.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Uh, should we go to Georgia?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Georgia, I mean, Warnock versus Walker, you guys know. I mean,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: 538 has Warnock up a couple points, like 46.2% to
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Walker's 44.4%. This is a hard one. I mean, look,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Herschel Walker is a terrible candidate, but there's also this
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: big statewide governor's race. I think everyone's going to be
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: turning folks out. The question I have is, I mean,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I guess the Democratic Party's path to winning the Senate
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: seat is either higher Democratic turnout or Republican split ticket voters,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: a combo of both. I don't know. It could happen.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Herschel Walker is terrible.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You know, we did a whole game about Herschel Walker
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and Brian Kemp in our Atlanta pod. We had all
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: kinds of Herschel Walker greatest hits. There's a new one
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: now that we just got over the weekend. He was
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: asked about the Inflation Reduction Act. And he said, I
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: don't know, a lot of money, it's going to trees.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Don't we have enough trees around here? A lot of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: money is going to trees. Like what was he thinking about?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: He doesn't like raking. What was going on up there?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: That was Trump's, by the way, that was Trump's climate plan.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: That was to like plant a trillion trees or something.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Literally.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: That's awkward for him then.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Anyway, whatever.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: No, I think, so I did a, for the wilderness,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I did focus group in Atlanta. It was a focus
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: group of black voters who had voted for Joe Biden
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and now either aren't sure who they're going to vote
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: for or whether they're going to vote. sort of an
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: upsetting focus group. These people are there. Everyone I talked
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to there was very down on politics for a lot
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: of good reasons. You know, hate Brian Kemp. So it's
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: not like they wrote for him, but like weren't too
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: happy with Joe Biden. But when I talked about Herschel Walker,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I was like, anyone maybe going to vote for Herschel Walker?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: What do you think of Herschel Walker? They were like,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: he is stone cold fucking crazy. Absolutely not.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: That makes me feel better. Yeah.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And they're not like super happy with Warnock, but they're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: all like, if we end up going to vote, we're
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: going to vote for Warnock and we're going to vote
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: for Stacey Abrams.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Look, there's a real anti-incumbent thing going on, I think,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: across the country.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, for sure. For sure. But Walker was not.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But no one liked Herschel Walker. Good. All right. So
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: then we go to Arizona, Mark Kelly and Blake Masters. Yeah.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, so I think the polls have consistently had
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Mark Kelly ahead, including some Republican polls. Masters is a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: fairly recent nominee. So he hasn't had a lot of time.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Look, Kelly's a great candidate. He's got
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of cash. He's an astronaut. I'm just worried.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: It's a wacky state with a wacky Republican party and
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Kerry Lake running for governor on the Republican side. I'm
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: a little worried about it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that Kelly, yeah, the average of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the polls right now has Kelly much further ahead than
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I thought he would be. He only won the state by,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like two and a half points
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: in 2020. And so that was just two years ago.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And now the average has him around, you know, 8.3.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: But he's just, he's running ads about masters. Doesn't mention Trump,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't mention Peter Thiel, doesn't mention all this, like, basically
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: just has two of his quotes. One, Blake Masters saying,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: maybe we should privatize social security. And the other saying
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that he wants a nationwide ban on abortion, no exceptions
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and calling abortion demonic.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's all he needs.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I know it's a very like old school feeling election
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of issues that have been important in collections for decades.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So hopefully that'll work.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And then you got Mark Kelly running an ad with
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a Republican mayor endorsing him saying, oh, he, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: he's good with Republicans and Democrats, which I know like
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: makes you know probably makes some liberals uncomfortable but it's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: like state like arizona mark kelly's been with democrats and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: voted with democrats and voted with joe biden every every
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: step of the way uh unlike you know his uh
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: his his colleague kirsten cinema he's a great democrat so
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: yeah that's how you win arizona that's how you win
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: arizona Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: So 538 has her at 45%-ish, him at 41%-ish. But Trafalgar,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: remember those guys, the Republican polling firm who did a
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: better job, I think, of reaching Trump voters back in
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: the day, had Laxalt up three in their most recent poll.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And it makes me worried.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I actually, I would say of the four Democrats up,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I'm most worried about the Nevada race.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am too, because of the demographics of the state,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the challenges of incumbency. She's running on very local issues.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: She's running on like, we got drought relief funding in
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: the Inflation Reduction Act, which, great message, hopefully.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And the other issue that she's been running on is abortion, because,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you know, we just talked about demographics in Nevada, and
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it's been sort of inching towards the Republicans over the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: last several years. But Nevada is a very pro-choice state.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: And so she's been really hammering this issue. And I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: also think she's You know, she's suffering from like people
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: don't know. She doesn't have a high profile in the Senate. Right.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Catherine Cortez Masto. But you got Adam Laxalt, the Republican there,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: believes in the big lie, big lie supporter. He's called
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade a joke. Dan Pfeiffer called him the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Conor Roy of Nevada political dynasty.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And then sure enough, Catherine Cortez Masto came out with
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: an ad. where she basically has music that's like the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Succession music, all about Laxalt, and she calls him, like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: son of a D.C. lobbyist. He was kicked out of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: an elite school. He was arrested for assaulting a cop,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but he still got back into another elite school. Basically,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the whole ad is, like, Dan calling him Conor Roy
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: come to life in an ad.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I love it. No, I saw that ad. It was
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: a good ad.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: It's pretty good. But I think that's going to be,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, if you can help volunteer and help out
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Catherine Cortez Mastro, that's going to be super important because
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's a real tight one. All right, so
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: if one of these Senate Democrats lose... we'll need to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: flip a Republican seat to hold the Senate. If two lose,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: we'll need to flip two and so forth. Our best
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: chances for flips are in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman and Dr.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Oz are competing to fill retiring Republican Pat Toomey's seat,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and Wisconsin, where Mandela Barnes, Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: running against Ron Johnson. Look, Dan and I talked about
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Oz and Fetterman last pod. Tommy, do you think Dr.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Oz is feeling good that the debate has now moved
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: from his crudite outing to how many houses he has?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, The worst candidate I've ever seen so far, Dr.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Oz.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: More own goals than a six-year-old soccer game. Mind you,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, you guys didn't mention this because you're... His
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: opponent had a stroke.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: He was literally off the playing field for months. I mean, Dr.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Oz could have been running on the state, owning every
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: news cycle for months and months and months. Unbelievable.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Instead, he was owned by the news cycle.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Look, the media likes a comeback story. People aren't paying attention.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: I feel good. Having 10 houses is... I mean, good
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: for him, I guess, but not knowing how many houses
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you have or trying to draw a distinction between how
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: many homes you own and how many properties you own.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: That's called just digging your own political grave. John McCain
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: famously got asked, uh, how many houses do you own
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: during the 2008 race? Um, and, uh, we ran ads
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: on it for months and months and months.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: This campaign is like all of our best, uh, McCain's
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: out of touch and Romney's out of touch hits times
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a million.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's, Truly something to watch.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: It's amazing. Crudite.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It's just been a blast. Tell me, I guess you
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: got some credit, finally, the credit you deserve on lifting
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: up the Crudite video. There was a BuzzFeed story that
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: noted that you tweeted it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, but really?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I did not see that.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: From Elijah. It's you and Elijah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think tweeting deserves a lot of credit.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But I'll give Elijah props to Elijah there for finding that. Yeah,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so they have now moved, a lot of the forecasters
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: have moved Pennsylvania from a toss-up, which... Pennsylvania should always
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: be a toss-up. It is an incredibly close state. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: because Oz is such a bad candidate, and to the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Fetterman campaign's credit, because Fetterman is such a good candidate,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: they've moved it to lean D in a lot of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: these forecasts.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: They've done a really good job. I mean, again, it's
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: so impressive what Fetterman's team has done.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Because he has been unable to campaign. And in the past... Fetterman,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I think, has been kind of like a one-man band
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: going everywhere and meeting with everyone, his own turnout, his
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: own field program, right? And because he had a stroke,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: he was unable to really campaign hard. And his team
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: just filled the gap in such an impressive way with
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: all these great digital ads, super creative attacks on Oz,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: great use of their oppo file, which, you know, is voluminous.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: There's lots of hits to be had on Dr. Oz,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: but they deserve a ton of credit.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: It seems like a fun campaign to be on. In Wisconsin,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: there's only been two polls reported since Mandela Barnes won
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the primary. The Fox News poll has him up four.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Marquette has him up seven. Both pretty good quality polls.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: And I think both had him at 50% or higher.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: That said, John, Wisconsin, the biggest, most disastrous polling this
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is in recent history. I don't even want to think
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: about it. There's also a big governor's race and a
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: great state party in Wisconsin.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: But as you said, too, that there's an anti-incumbent mood
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: out there, and you have Ron Johnson who's just been
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: sitting around. Again, they elected Ron Johnson thinking like, oh,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: he's sort of an independent-minded businessman that will go to
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Washington or whatever, and he just has become a fucking
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Trump lackey and a conspiracy theorist and says all kinds
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of crazy shit all the time. He sucks. So, you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: hopefully Mandela Barnes can pull that out. All right, so
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: there are also three other races where Democrats have a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: chance at flipping Republican seats. Tim Ryan versus J.D. Vance
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in Ohio, Val Demings versus Marco Rubio in Florida, and
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Sherry Beasley versus Ted Budd in North Carolina. How much
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of a long shot do you think these are?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I think the short answer is I don't know. I
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: want to add one more, which is Iowa. We got
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Adam and Mike Franken running against Chuck Grassley, who's 140
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: years old. Franken had an impressive Navy career. He spent
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: a bunch of time in Eastern Africa taking out terrorists.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: The guy was born and raised in Sioux City. I
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: think he was one of like 90. Kids still lives there.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So also an interesting race that we should just keep
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: an eye on. Ohio is a really hard state. Trump
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: got 53% in 2020. But Tim Ryan has raised seven
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: times the amount of money that J.D. Vance has so far. J.D. Vance,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: you might have noticed, is a weirdo and kind of
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: a schmuck. But I'm worried about, you know, super PACs
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: riding to J.D. 's rescue with a bunch of cash
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: like Mitch McConnell just did.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Can I read you a line from a J.D. fundraising
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: email that was just sent today?
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: At this point, if I don't do a complete 180
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: on the fundraising front, not only will I have to
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: possibly shut down my campaign, but Republicans may never win
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: another race this year.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: That is, wow.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Fundraising emails are bad in general, both sides, Democrats, Republicans.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: That is one of the, that's really taken it to.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: A new level. I just imagine J.D. Vance, like, turning
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the sign from open to closed on the window.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: That's it, I'm done. You made me shut down my campaign. Look,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I have been skeptical of this because, you know, Trump
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: won Ohio 53-45. That's a big margin. That's a lot.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: That means there has to be a lot of Tim Ryan,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump voters. People who voted for Donald Trump who
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: vote for Tim Ryan this time around. A lot of
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: them for Tim Ryan to win. Now, but even as
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I explain this to my in-laws and all of Emily's
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: family and friends from Ohio, they still say, hey, We believe.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Can I call them Buckeyes or does that offend them
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: as not sort of Ohio State or Columbus people?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we should be getting into this
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: as two people who are not. I can't speak for
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: them on that. But I'll tell you, there's a lot
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of people in Ohio who have a lot of faith
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: in Tim Ryan that he can pull this off. So
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I've started to believe.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: The one that I really want to believe in is
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: North Carolina because 538 has Sherry Beasley and Ted Budd tied.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: She's crushing him in fundraising. I think it's two to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: one as of the June 30th filing. And I just,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: in my soul, I want North Carolina to be a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: blue state. Obama and Kay Hagan won statewide in 2008.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I don't really get what happened since.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what happens is in the Trump era,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: they turned out just so many rural ex-urban white voters
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: who had never turned out before, who just didn't usually
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: turn out before. And so even though it's a diversifying state,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And it was helping trending towards Democrats. Sort of the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Trump era brought it a little bit. Just put it
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: out of reach, which was unfortunate. But Sherry Beasley, a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: great candidate. We interviewed her here. And like I said,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it's tied right now. Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Look, I'm rooting for her. Florida, listen. Florida, you broke
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: my heart so many times that I just can't let
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: you back in. I want Val Demings to win.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I think... Famously, we hate Marco Rubio.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: What I wonder about Marco Rubio is he sits around
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: his house... And he puts on his little athleisure outfits
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: and his goofy hats. And he records little videos that
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: are just poorly lit. And everything about him screams, I
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: give up. I don't want this job.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the only satisfying thing about Marco Rubio is
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: you know he'll never be president of the United States.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And that's what he's wanted more than anything. So it's
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: comforting to know that he'll never achieve that. But I'd
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: also like him to not be in the Senate. Yeah,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: he's a JV Ted Cruz. But there's 200,000 more Republicans,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: registered Republicans, I think, in the state than Democrats.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: So that's just.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: No, I think Georgia is going to be a hard one.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. All of these races, like the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Senate is very much up for grabs here. Democrats can
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: hold on to the Senate. We can even add to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: our Senate majority. We've said this before, too. Forget about
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: holding on to the Senate. You get two more senators
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: than we have now who are pro-choice, anti-filibuster. And not
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: only could we codify Roe v. Wade, but you could
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: do a whole bunch of other stuff that we couldn't
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: get done because of the filibuster if we also are
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: somehow able to keep the House, which is a longer shot. But,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know, who knows? So anyway, go to votesaveamerica.com, sign
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: up for Midterm Madness. There are also some voter registration
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: deadlines coming up. And we're working at Vote Save America
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with the team at Vote Pro-Choice. They have a plan
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: to turn out 600,000 new likely Democratic voters in some
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of the states we've been talking about and will be
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: talking about with Beto. Texas, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio, and North Carolina.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: They want to do this by November. For every $ 2 raised,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: our partners at Vote Pro-Choice can register a Pro-Choice voter.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So every $ 2, they can register another voter. Head to votesaveamerica.com
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: slash VPC right now to chip in. And sign up
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: for Mentor Madness if you haven't yet.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, please.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: What are you waiting for? When we come back, Better O'Rourke.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Joining us now, a longtime friend of the pod who
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: is now running to be the next governor of Texas,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Better O'Rourke. Better, welcome back.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me back.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Good to see you both.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Great to see you.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: You too. You ran statewide for Senate in 2018 when
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Democrats had the wind at our back. You came closer
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to turning Texas blue than any candidate in decades. Now
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you're running for governor in a political environment that's much
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: tougher for Democrats. What lessons from 2018 are you applying
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to this campaign? What's different about this race and what's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: different about you as a candidate?
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: So there are a lot of good lessons. Going everywhere,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: making sure that you talk to and listen to everyone.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Write nobody off, take no one for granted. That was
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: a big takeaway for me from 2018. And it's something
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: that we're applying to this race as well. And so
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: you'll certainly see us in Houston and in Dallas and
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: in Austin and the kinds of places you would expect
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a Democrat to be, because I want to make sure
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I'm not taking anyone for granted. And within those reliably blue,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: as we're told, counties, we're trying to go to places
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: where maybe Democrats haven't shown up because they've just taken
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: these voters for granted. And oftentimes that's black and brown
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: voters in Texas. But going to places like Greenville or
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Madisonville or Quanah, Longview, Texarkana, even Lubbock and Amarillo, bigger
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: communities that have voted Republican for the last 20 or
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: 30 years, showing up and seeing that there are a
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: lot of Democrats, but also a lot of Republicans and
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: independents who are looking for something better And often having
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: more people than we have space in the halls that
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: we've rented shows me that there is a deep demand
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: for change in the state of Texas. That holds true
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: from what we saw in 2018, only much bigger this time.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: In terms of changes, a mistake I made in 2018
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: was assuming that everyone understood Ted Cruz and just how
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: dangerous this guy was, or that they just formed their
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: opinion on this guy. They loved him or they hated him.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: And there was just going to be little that I
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: could add to that. I now realize I left a
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: lot of votes on the table. There are people who
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: are working two or three jobs to make ends meet.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: They're taking care of their kids or their parents are
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: just not plugged in the way that maybe I'm plugged
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: in or you're plugged in politics. And the candidate that
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: me in that case, needed to do a better job
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: of prosecuting the case on Cruz. Just the loss that
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: we were suffering from having this guy as our junior senator.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: In this race with Abbott, I'm making sure everyone knows
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: that when the lights went out last February and more
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: than 700 of our fellow Texans died, when your utility
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: bills went up, as a result, 45 bucks a month
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: more than you were paying before that, one of the
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: largest drivers of inflation in the state of Texas, you're
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: property tax increase up $ 20 billion cumulatively over the last
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: seven years across the state of Texas. You know, five
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history in five
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: years on this guy's watch. This is Greg Abbott's Texas,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the extremism on a total abortion ban with no exception
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: for rape or incest, turning his back on law enforcement
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and signing a bill called Permitless Carry that did away
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: with our license to carry program. So No longer must
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: you get a background check or proficiency in the firearm
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: that you want to carry on our streets. You're just
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: free to go out there fully loaded with the public,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: none the wiser or the safer for it. I want
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: to make sure every single Texas voter knows that this
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: is Greg Abbott. And by contrast, we can focus on
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: the big things that bring us together, world-class public schools,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: expanding Medicaid so that you can actually see a doctor
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: in the least insured state in America, reversing some of
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: this extremism on abortion and our gun laws, and then
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: just doing stuff that invests in some of these communities
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: that have so long been overlooked or forgotten because Abbott
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: thinks he's got them in the bag, so he doesn't
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: have to show up or deliver for them. Broadband internet
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: is a great example across Texas. We invest in that
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: as an infrastructure, as a technology, as a utility. We
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: will unleash extraordinary economic power. So That's a big difference
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: from the way I ran in 2018 and yet allows
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: us to build on that base that produced the largest
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: voter turnout in Texas history since 1970, had the largest
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: young voter turnout probably ever. It was up 500% from
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: the previous midterm election. And though we didn't win, a
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: lot of Democrats got over the line that night in 18.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: 12 new state house reps, two new members of Congress
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: that flipped control of that institution and in Harris County,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: home to Houston, 17 black women got elected to judicial positions.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: So that was a transformative election. We held all that ground,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: John and Tommy in, in 2020, we didn't lose a
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: single seat or position. We didn't gain as much as
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: I think we should have in 2020, but it shows
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: that that base is solid. Now we get to build
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: on top of that. Yeah.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, by the way, and when, Hey, winning sounds great.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think no one would ever accuse you
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: of not working hard or not showing up or not
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: going to all these places. Um, Thank God Joe Biden
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: got these gas prices under control or else your campaign
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: would be literally bankrupt. Let's talk about gun control for
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: a minute because this past summer, Congress in Washington, they
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: passed the first gun control law in decades. And I
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: think even the authors of the bill would concede that
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: they wish it did a lot more. But I was
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: wondering what you made of that law, especially given how
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: extreme Governor Abbott is pushing for permitless carry, which sounds
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: like the worst idea I could ever imagine. But Senator
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Murphy and some of the other sponsors of the bill
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Their theory of the case is basically, let's prove this.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Let's pass this law. Let's get something done on a
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: bipartisan basis and prove that the NRA can't make us
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: pay a political price and then try to build on
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: that success. I wonder if you agree with that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so impressed with Senator Murphy and others who
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: worked on that. But this guy has been so persistent
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: over the last decade and never been deterred, never despaired,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: never gave up. And I think is proving that progress
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: is possible and is the first to say what he's
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: been able to bring to the table and get the
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: president to sign is wholly insufficient to the challenge we face.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: And yet it's proof that this work pays off and
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: it's one step among many we have yet to take.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: I think that is not lost on the people of Texas,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: on the families in Uvalde. We're now 13 weeks since
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: 19 kids were slaughtered in that classroom along with their
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: two teachers. kids whose bodies could only be identified by
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: the shoes that they were wearing, doctors who saw those
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: kids afterward and talked about how that high impact, high
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: velocity round literally liquefied the soft tissue that it met
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: in their bodies or in their heads. Those families, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: they are Republicans or Democrats or folks in some cases
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: who've never been politically engaged before, to a person want
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: us to take action and make change and ensure that
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: no other family has to go through what they are
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: experiencing right now and what they'll frankly live with for
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: the rest of their lives. So that was some cause
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: for hope for us here in Texas, because you're right,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Abbott may have only made things worse after Sutherland Springs
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: and Santa Fe High School and Midland Odessa and El Paso,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: and now Uvalde by signing permitless carry into law. But
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: there's an answer to that. And that is all of us.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: We can change the person in power and have someone
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: who will work on things like at least raising the
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: minimum age of purchase from 18 to 21. That mayor
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: in Uvalde who had words for me when I showed
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: up at that press conference the day after that shooting,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: he and his council members unanimously sent a letter from
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: the Uvalde City Council to Greg Abbott saying, hey, please
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: call a special session and just raise the minimum age.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: No reason this guy at 18 years old could buy
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: not one, but two AR-15s, hundreds of rounds of ammunition,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: perfectly legally. send off such signals that his friends called
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: him the school shooter before he ever walked into the school.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: We can do better than this. So to show that
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: common ground between Republicans and Democrats demonstrates that this is possible,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: but we're going to need political leadership that will do this.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Abbott's called a special session to go after trans kids,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: to go after critical race theory, to make it harder
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: to vote in Texas, cannot be bothered to call a
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: special session to save the lives of kids. And most
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: kids in Texas have already started the 2022-2023 school year,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and literally not a thing has changed to make it
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: less likely that they'll be shot in their classrooms, just
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: like those kids in Uvalde or Santa Fe High School
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: or so many others across the state of Texas.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: One trend that we saw in the 2020 election is
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a shift towards Republicans among Latino voters, both nationally and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in Texas, especially working class Latino voters in more rural
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: areas around the Rio Grande Valley. What are you hearing
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: when you go to some of those communities? Because obviously
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: one issue is people who just haven't voted before. Another
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: issue is people who had voted for Democrats, but decided
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to now vote for Republicans. And what do
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: you hear from those voters? And what are you saying
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to them to persuade them to give you a shot?
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: When I ask and when I listen, whether here in
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: El Paso or down in the Rio Grande Valley or
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: along the Texas-Mexico border, it is overwhelmingly the economy. Now,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I'll give you an example. In the Eagleford Shale, if
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: you have one of those great oil and gas jobs,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: you are making $ 60 an hour. If you don't, you're
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: on food stamps. Donald Trump in 2020 had an incredibly powerful, simple,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: compelling argument. It was just jobs. And specifically, it was
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: oil and gas jobs in South Texas. Biden, unfortunately, did
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: not have a message, at least not one that was
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: heard in South Texas. There was no money spent by
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: that campaign. And Republicans showed up and they were hungry.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: And Democrats literally, this was 2020, it was a pandemic.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: And so I understand the excuses, but Democrats literally phoned
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: in the work. Republicans were on the door. They were hungry.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: They really wanted this. And Regardless of ideology or partisanship
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: or any other thing, and all those can be important,
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: I always give it to the gal or the guy
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: who's going to work harder than the other person. I've
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: shown up now seven times in the Rio Grande Valley,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: as you all know, not the easiest part of Texas
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: to get to. I show up to do big public
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: town hall meetings, all comers welcome, no holds barred. Anyone
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: ask any question, ask it in English, ask it in Spanish.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: talk about the things that are most important to people.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: And when we do, we make connections on the economy
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: where Greg Abbott shut down all trade on the US
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Mexico border for more than a week earlier this year.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And it just hammered the shit out of these communities,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: these import export businesses, literally their traffic dried up and
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: moved to New Mexico and to Arizona. Two thirds of
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: the produce that we consume in Texas was on those bridges,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: literally just rotting in the back of those trucks. That's
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: not lost on those voters there. But to the point
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: I was making earlier about prosecuting the case, I can't
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: just assume that people will make those connections. I've got
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: to be there to say, hey, Greg Abbott did this
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: to your community. And here's what I propose to do
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: that's different. Not only am I going to support U.S.-Mexico trade,
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: we're going to raise the minimum wage from $ 7. 25, where
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: it still is today, to $ 15 an hour. We're going
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: to expand Medicaid because you live in the least insured
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: part of the least insured state in in America. We're
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: going to make sure that we invest in your public
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: schools because your teachers and counselors are making a fraction
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: of what their counterparts across the nation are making. I
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: believe in you. I'm going to invest in you. I've
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: heard you. We're going to partner with you and follow
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: your lead. And it really does seem to be paying
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: off for whatever polls matter today. Not only are we
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: polling better than Abbott in these communities, we're polling better
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: than Biden did in 2020. And though he did worse
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: than Clinton did in those communities. He was doing far
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: better than he's doing now. So that's a fairly low
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: bar that we passed. Now we really just have to
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: build on it. And that's why I'm going back on
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: the 1st of September to Edinburgh and to Brownsville. We've
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: just learned, I hope, as a party, you just can't
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: take anyone for granted. No one's yours for life, regardless
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: of how they voted before, the color of their skin,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: any other identifying characteristic that would differentiate themselves from anybody else.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: You've got to go out there and fight for them.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: And so the only way I know to do it,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: maybe not the most sophisticated way, is to show up
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: in person, be there, listen to folks, and try to
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: earn that vote. And I think that's what we're doing.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned earlier, we were talking about Greg Abbott
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: on gun laws and how extreme he has been or
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: continues to be. The other extreme policy position that we've
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: been hearing about from Texas for a while has been
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: anti-abortion activists passing these draconian bills. That became more of
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: a direct threat to everyone in the state when the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court Dobbs decision came down. How did that decision
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: impact what you're talking about and what you're hearing from
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: voters and whether it is or isn't motivating people? Because
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: we're starting to see, you know, instances like in Kansas
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: where folks are coming out because they don't want the
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: government restricting the kind of healthcare women can get.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's so important. to remember that 50 years ago,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: half a century ago, abortion was just as illegal in
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Texas then as it is today. And it was Texas
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: women who ended up delivering for Texas women. So Jane Roe,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: as you all know, was a Texas woman, but her
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: two attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey, who still lives
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: in Dallas, Texas, successfully prevailed upon an all-male United States
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court to win protection for the right to privacy
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: to make these very personal and painful decisions. Texas women
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: came through in 1972, 1973. I'm confident Texas women are
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: gonna come through in 2022. And I see it wherever
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: we go. I mentioned being in Greenville, in Hunt County. And,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: you know, unless you're from there, you're not passing through there.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: You have to, you know, you have to wanna go
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: to Greenville or Hunt County to be there. We had
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: a gym for 500 people, reached capacity, 300 more waited outside.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And I guarantee you, those 800 folks coming out in
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Greenville are not there primarily to see me or to
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: rally for the Democratic Party. They are there to fight
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: for and work for change. And that Dobbs decision, the
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: total abortion ban with no exception for rape, no exception
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: for incest in the state of Texas that starts at
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: conception in a state that has one of the highest
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: rates of maternal mortality in the world. Because as you've
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: foreclosed options to seek an abortion, you've also turned them
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: away for cervical cancer screenings, family planning help, just to
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: see any kind of doctor at all.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: People are meeting the moment.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: And it's one of the very silver linings, I guess,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: in this really dark sky that's descended over the state
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: of Texas is people aren't having it. And they're going
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: to do everything they have to do in order to
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: change it. And I do think we saw that in Kansas.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: I know that I'm seeing that on the ground across
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: the state of Texas right now. And you better believe
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: that will show up in The votes counted on the
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: night of November 8th. I mean, the polls have us,
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Quinnipiac says five down. Others say two down. Others say
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: seven down. We're probably somewhere around there. But I don't
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: know that polling can measure the anger, the deep drive,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: the work ethic that people in Texas have that's going
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: to produce the victory that I know we're going to
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: see on the night of November 8th. This decision, the
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: extremism of Greg Abbott, that's going to have a lot
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: to do with the result that we see.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Somehow in the middle of this campaign, you managed to
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: write a book about voting rights called We've Got to Try.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: It seems as if people who care about voting rights
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: nationally and especially in Texas haven't had a lot to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: celebrate lately, speaking of dark clouds. And, you know, one
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: of the more pernicious effects of voter suppression is that
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: it makes people think, like, why even bother if the
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: system is so rigged? Why should I even do this?
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: What do you say? What do you say to that?
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I started this book about two years ago trying
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: to answer that question because there's this temptation to despair,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: very understandable given the attack on women's reproductive rights, the
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: LGBTQ community in the state of Texas, the fact that
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: our electricity grid does not work when it gets too
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: cold and literally people freeze to death in the energy
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: capital of the world. The way I see it, these
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: things would not be happening if more people had the
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: ability to vote, if more voices were heard. This is
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: not a reflection of the majority of us or who
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: we are at our core as Texans. This is the
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: product of a very rigged system where 750 polling places
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: have been closed in the last decade, almost twice as
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: much as the next closest state. You know, a gerrymandered
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: system based on race where black and brown Texans are
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: drawn out of a congressional district to minimize not only
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the power of their vote, but John, to your point,
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: the likelihood that.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: They will vote at all.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: And so against that, I wanted to know what can
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: we do? And by looking at Texas history and specifically
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: this extraordinary story of a guy named Lawrence Nixon, a
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: black physician who lived in El Paso more than a
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: hundred years ago, I learned that not only can we
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: overcome this attack on democracy and voting rights, we've overcome
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: it before against much greater odds. This guy was fighting
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: against the white primary. 1923, the state legislature here said,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: if you're black, you can't vote, literally. Like, no, how
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: many jelly beans are in the jar, or here's a
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: literacy test, or quote the state constitution, just in black
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: and white forbade African Americans from political participation. This guy
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: fought it. He said, I've got to try when he
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: was told that he could not vote. Won two Signal
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court victories, finally won integration in 44, and it
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: set the path for the first Texas president, LBJ, to
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: sign the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965. So
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: it's an extraordinary story, and it happens here in Texas,
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: which again, today is the epicenter of voter suppression and
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: voter intimidation. the toughest state in the nation in which
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: to vote, toughest in which to register. And yet that
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to be our future or our fate. We
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: can change that, but it's going to take extraordinary courage,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: really tireless work, and it's going to take a lot
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: of people. And thankfully, in this campaign, as an example,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: we've got 83,000 folks who volunteered to take shifts, knocking
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: on doors, registering people to vote, having conversations with folks
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: who've been the very targets for suppression, and intimidation. So
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: the stories in this book are stories of people like
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: Lawrence Nixon or Opal Lee, who walked from Fort Worth, Texas,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: she's now 95 years old, to Washington, DC, to prevail upon,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: you know, first President Obama, and then President Biden and
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: members of Congress, to make Juneteenth the first federally recognized
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: holiday in decades, and a holiday that recognizes the work
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: that's taken place, but also the work left to be done.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: So some pretty inspiring people here in Texas who remind
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: us that we can do this because we've done it before.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: So I hope that people read the book, take some
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: inspiration from these stories as I have, and then put
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: in the work to make sure that we come through.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Man, I feel bad following up that hopeful, optimistic question
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: with this dark shit from me. But the flip side
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: of all the good things you're trying to put into
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: the world is a lot of what we're hearing in
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: conservative media which is increasingly conspiratorial and sometimes violent rhetoric.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, Tucker Carlson's show is just like agitprop about
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: the great replacement theory that's led to real world violence.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Trump's inspiring supporters to attack the FBI, both rhetorically and
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: then someone actually took him up on it in Ohio.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: I see videos of your events where you're out there
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: on the road, you're trying to talk to people and
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: like bring people together, but you also have folks showing
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: up with AR-15s, maybe to protest, maybe just to kind
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: of be intimidating. You're on the front lines. What does
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: it feel like out there? Are you concerned about where
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the rhetoric is going? Are you concerned about, I don't know,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: the safety of politicians who are just trying to do
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: their jobs?
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm concerned about all of this. I think
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: you all see this and feel it. And I think
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: anybody looking at this country today should be able to
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: see it. Certainly the history books written decades from now
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: will be will illustrate this or demonstrate that this is
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: a defining moment of truth for us. We are about
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: to either save and restore this democracy or lose it forever.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: And I don't know a better way to put it.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: And I guess that can sound dark. The other way
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: to look at it is, I mean, how many generations
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: have the great fortune to fight for the right to
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: vote in this democracy? I mean, you know, Johnson in
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: that amazing speech in 65 where he's been inspired by
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: John Lewis, who was nearly killed crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, says, look,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: at Concord, at Appomattox, and now in Selma, all of
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: us fighting for this right to vote, this great democracy,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: and laying that charge at the feet of the members
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: of Congress, like, look, you all can do something about this.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: And by the summer of that year, he was able
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: to get an almost all white Congress, including many significant
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: senators and House members from the South to expand the
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: franchise and create the first true multiracial democracy in American history.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: We are a generation now that has that fight before us,
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: as theirs did overcoming Jim Crow. And in this book,
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: we've got to try to tell the story about what
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: happened in Texas post-Reconstruction, where African-Americans still held elected office,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: still nominally were able to vote and came up against,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of the precursor to the Ku Klux
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Klan in the state of Texas, these armed vigilantes who
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: would go in and literally steal the vote at polling locations,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: very reminiscent in some ways to me of what happened
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: on January 6th, 2021. You'd have legitimate lawfully decided elections
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: and this very violent white minority that would come in
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: and literally steal the ballot box, shoot people, open violence
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: and civil strife in some of these counties in Texas.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: And then United States Congress and very well-meaning people catch
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: wind of this, hold these hearings, investigate it, come up
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: with an elections bill, not unlike the one that we
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: have on the table right now in the United States
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Congress that will allow for federal protection for voting rights
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: in the states of the former Confederacy and throughout the
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: rest of the country for that matter. And you have
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: this pro-democracy party, the Republicans at the time. They have
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: a majority in the House. They have a majority in
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: the Senate. They just elected a guy who ran in
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: part on a platform of protecting the right to vote.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: And this elections bill passes the House. It's gonna pass
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: the Senate and it gets hung up on a filibuster.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: And they're unable to get it done.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: This is by 1890.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: And so you wait 75 years until 1965 and LBJ
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: building on the work of Lawrence Nixon to truly realize
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: that opportunity that was present back in 1890. Part of
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: the message from this book is we may be at
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: an 1890 moment where if we don't get our act
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: together and save this democracy, how many decades will we
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: be in the darkness again, or will we ever get
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: it back at all? So that's why I use the
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: language that I'm using. I think this is a now
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: or never moment. I don't know that you get a
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: 2024 unless you come through big in 2022. Because to
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: your point, Tommy, there are people in positions of power
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: and now running for greater power who deny the legitimacy
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: of the last presidential election. And I guarantee you will
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: deny the legitimacy of the vote if their candidates don't
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: prevail in future elections. We've got to win this one
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: this time and no bigger battleground than the state of Texas.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: This is the epicenter of it all. Win it and
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: it forever changes what is possible and I think protects
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: our democracy going into another historical presidential election. So it's
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: all on the line and nowhere more so than right here.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Beto, it's always great to talk to you. It's so
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: inspiring to see you out on the trail again and
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: to see you continue to be in this fight with
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: such determination and such joy. So we appreciate that and
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: good luck out there. Stay safe.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you both.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, We just wanted to let
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: everyone know that the book that no one was waiting for.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Nobody.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Is now available for purchase. It's called Breaking History, a
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: White House Memoir by Tommy's favorite public servant, Jared Kushner.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: It is for some reason 492 pages.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Just wait. 492 pages.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: What?
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, what?
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: He was an advisor in the White House for four years.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: What is he writing for 492 pages? It's received one
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: of the worst book reviews I've ever read in the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: New York Times. which called it soulless, and then goes
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: on to say, Kushner looks like a mannequin and he
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: writes like one. That's one of their nicer lines. Tommy,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: would you like to share some of your favorite parts?
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I know you've been waiting a long time for this.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, listen. So Jared is the worst. He bought his
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: way into Harvard. He married his way into power. And
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: now he's trying to ghostwrite his way into the story
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: he wants written about himself. And I just don't think
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: we can let him do that. This, I think, was
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: my favorite paragraph in this book review. Who wrote this
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: book review? Can we do a little Should do a
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: little fast Googling here. We got to give this person
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: the credit they deserve. That's a good idea. This book
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: is like a tour of a once majestic 18th century
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: on and rejoices in what's left amid the ashes, the
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: two cinched bathtubs, the gravel driveway, and the mailbox. Then
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: later it goes on to say, reading this book reminded
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: me of watching a cat lick a dog's eye goo.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Because he's such a suck up to Donald Trump.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: My favorite part is the review talks about how Jared
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: recalls every drop of praise he's ever received, such as
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: these lines are in the book. You deserve an award
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: for all you've done. Jared's a genius. I've been in
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: Washington a long time and I must say Jared is
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: one of the best lobbyists I've ever seen. And then
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: the book reviewer goes on to write, a therapist might
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: call these cries for help.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I love that too. By the way, the reviewer is
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: an individual named Dwight Garner.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And he's been writing book reviews for the New York
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Times for quite a while.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Since 2008. I just want to say, Dwight, you're a
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: brilliant writer.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: He does make a point towards the end that I
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: think really captures Jared too and how useless he is
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: in general. Because he's like, look, he's not, Jared's not
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: going to impress any like moderates or Democrats. No one
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: likes you. Jared's not like an intellectual heavyweight by any means.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So who is this book for? It's certainly not for
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the MAGA base either because they don't trust him. Right?
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: They like their Don Juniors. They like Donald Trump, right?
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: They don't like Jared Kushner. So he ends up calling him,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: he says, he's a pair of dimples without a demographic.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: That was beautiful.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Which I think that is true.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: There's just the utter lack of self-awareness. There's a description of, um,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: breaking up with Ivanka and then getting back together and
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: it kind of going down on, uh, Rupert Murdoch's yacht.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: And they say they're having lunch at Bono's house in
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: some town in the French Riviera. Rupert stepped out to
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: take a call and He walked back in, whispered something
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: in my ear about buying the Wall Street Journal. And
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: then he's like, after lunch, Billy Joel, who also been
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: with us on the boat, played the piano while Bono
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: sang with the Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof. First of all, Jared,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: you're like, Jared's occupying this world of, does he just
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: hang out with 70-year-olds all day long?
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: You just hang out with the Murdoch family?
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: Like his father-in-law. It's pretty, he's a.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, he did do the whole Middle East peace thing. No,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: he did not do fucking Middle East. You have to
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: give him credit for that, Tommy. Doing Middle East peace
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: means a Palestinian state. I'm so pissed off at how
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: this has gotten bastardized and twisted by sociopaths like you.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Just because you get autocrats in the UAE to cut
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: a deal with the Israeli government because we pay them
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: off with some weapons. That's not Middle East peace. It's
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: a trade agreement. It's always Trump is bad. Trump is bad.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: The Abraham Accords, one of the greatest accomplishments of the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: 21st century. And you just can't even give it the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: kind of acknowledgement it deserves. I hope that you and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Ben read that part of the book aloud on Pod
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Save the World about his exploits.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: I think it'll just be insufferable. I've got like 200 pages.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to kick around an idea.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Back in the day, we had some fun bets on
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: this show. We had the Awesome Blossom or whatever and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: other associated things.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: During what year we were forced to tweet things against
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: our will? Yes, tweet against our will.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I wanted to put forward an idea for a competition
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: where maybe we crowdsource it or maybe we just pick
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: amongst ourselves the worst political biography and the loser has
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: to read it and write a two-page book report. John
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: and John have been resisting this because they're functionally illiterate
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: unless it's a bunch of tweets stacked together.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. How do you lose this? What is
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: the game?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know. We're talking about betting on races.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Tommy wants to write a two-page book report about Jared
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Kushner's book, and he's looking for a device to get
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: himself to the point where he can write that. And
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: so he's backed into this competition thing, which I'm ready
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: to compete. Do you want to do predictions? Should we
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: predict the midterms even though we're out of the prediction business?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I know, but we're not... And then.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: You guys come up with a contest. You feel an obligation.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Let us know. Maybe there's a contest that we could...
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Let us know what the contest is.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: We all feel obligated to have the rosier prediction because
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: we don't want to upset.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Anybody, you know? Their campaign doesn't win. We've got Dan Pfeiffer,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: the biggest optimist now. Dan's running around telling everyone that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Democrats are a lock.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Lock on.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I don't like who Dan has become with this optimism.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Dan has succumbed to optimism.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Dan is... We lost Dan in optimism. People complain about nepotism.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: I'm the one who got the steal here. That's maybe
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: my favorite thing. It's got to be a Trump quote.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: This is... I mean.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: The most... untrumped sounding quote in the history of regurgitating
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Trump quotes.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner. I'm going to be really sad if a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: bunch of people buy this book. Don't buy this book.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: There was also a review by Peter Navarro, uh, the
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: former trade advisor that took it down.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Not a fan of Jared's. Many of the Trumpers were
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: not fans of Jared's and many of the people who
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: worked in that White House.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: It was number one on Amazon today.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to bring that up.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Well, look, the truth sometimes hurts. I do think you
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: can easily kind of juice those numbers. Like there's no, listen,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Jared Kushner just got, um, a $ 2 billion check from
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: the Saudi government for his little investment fund, despite never
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: having invested money before. He will be getting probably a
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: 2% management fee on that money. And then if he
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: invests it and makes a profit, he'll probably get 20%
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: of those profits. So what I'm saying is he's a
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: shitty little rich kid sitting on a ton of Saudi
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: money now. I would be shocked if Jared didn't buy
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: himself or have someone buy for him a couple thousand
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: copies of this book, just to stuff in a, you know.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: We have authors on this show. We push books on
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: this show. Don't buy this book. And then go tell
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: your friends don't buy this book and then have them
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: tell their friends don't buy this book. Spread the word.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Was Abby Hoffman steal this book? Just no one needs
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: to read this book.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: You're not going to learn anything.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Anyway, thank you to Jared for writing it so we
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: could read that review because that was very enjoyable.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Great review. Dwight Garner. Dwight Garner, thank you. Come on
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: the show. Please never review anything that any.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: Of us read.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the review. Thank you to Better O'Rourke
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: for joining us today. And we will talk to you
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: on Thursday. Bye, everyone. See ya. Pod Save America is
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Olivia
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Martinez and Hayley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. and to our digital team,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.