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Let the Blame Game Commence! · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Tuesday was for voting. Wednesday was for processing.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And Thursday was for blaming. Blame, blame, blame, blame. Just
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: 48 hours after Americans went to the polls, the Democratic
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Party recrimination, soul-searching, post-mortem, blame game, pick your cliche has begun. Plus,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and some critical good news for Democrats, Senator Jackie Rosen
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: looks like she's going to hang on in Nevada. We'll
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: talk about the latest updates with the ballots still being
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: counted in House and Senate races. all across the country
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and what it all means for fighting back against Trump's
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: second term agenda. I just hurt saying that. But first,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, Kamala Harris officially conceded to Donald Trump in
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a phone call and then gave her concession speech at
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Howard University, where she hoped she'd be giving her victory
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: speech the night before. Then on Thursday, Joe Biden gave
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: his first public remarks since his vice president's crushing loss.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Here is a sampling from each.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: To the young people who are watching, it is okay
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: to feel sad and disappointed. But please know it's going
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: to be okay. On the campaign, I would often say,
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: when we fight.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: We win.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: Here's the thing. Sometimes the fight takes a while. That
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: doesn't mean.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: We won't win.
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: That doesn't mean we won't win. The important thing is
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: don't ever give up. Don't ever give up. Don't ever
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: stop trying to make the world a better place.
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: We're leaving behind the strongest economy in the world. I
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: know people are still hurting, but things are changing rapidly. Together,
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: we've changed America for the better. Now we have 74
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: days to finish the term, our term. Let's make every
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: day count. That's the responsibility we have to the American people. Look, folks,
• 2:23
  Speaker 6: you all know it in your lives. Setbacks are unavoidable,
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: but giving up is unforgivable.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Getting harder and harder to tell the difference between him
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and Dana Carvey. So both Biden and Harris offered versions
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of it's going to be OK. This is, of course,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: after they both spent their respective campaigns hammering the stakes
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of a Trump presidency. Obviously, that's a tough balance to strike.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think? And any other reactions to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: either of their speeches?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I find that we're going to be okay. Pretty insulting
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: and patronizing, to be honest. You're both giving these speeches
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: because your theory of politics and of the future was wrong.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: We all were wrong. We're collectively wrong. That's just a fact.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And I have great respect for Kamala Harris and the
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: campaign that she ran and the hand she played. It
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: was a very difficult hand. But they're just not in
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a position to reassure us right now And they don't know.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: We don't know. And we will make it through. I
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: hope so. I believe so. I think we have to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: fight to make it so. But a lot of people
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: will be hurt. If we keep sliding back on reproductive freedom,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of people could die. If we have mass deportations,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: there will be the children of American citizens who will
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: not be okay. If there are rollbacks on LGBT rights,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: there will be trans people and gay people who will
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: not be okay. So I am not really in the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: market for bedtime stories right now. I would like a
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: little bit less reassurance and more vigilance. And I think
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: politicians getting up there and being our mommy and daddy,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I'm just not interested in right now.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Anyone else want to take the other side?
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: No, I want to.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Can I take a middle ground? These are impossible speeches
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: to give. you're there to simply just acknowledge your own
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: defeat and then thank your supporters and that you kind
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: of have to do it. None of them are great.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Some of them are remembered more fondly than others. The
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: hard part here is the absolute dissonance between the message
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: 72 hours ago on the campaign trail and right now
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: about what a danger Donald Trump is, that he is unstable, unhinged,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: will be governing without guardrails. And I think both the
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: vice president and the president could have done more to
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: acknowledge people's fear, people's pain they're feeling right now, their
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: anxiety about what's going to come in the country, to
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: speak to the fact that for the second time in
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: three presidential elections, a woman has lost to someone like
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. I was just talking to my wife who
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: was talking to her mom about never having seen a
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: woman elected president and trying to explain to her six-year-old
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: daughter why that hasn't happened. And I think This is
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: hard to do, but a lot of people don't feel
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: okay right now. A lot of people aren't sure that
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: we're going to be okay. A lot of people are
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: very worried. And so doing a little more to speak
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: to that, I think would have been appreciated in the moment.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just to echo on Dan's point, we got a
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: text from a friend I love who's like, I'm really
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: surprised you guys didn't mention Kamala Harris's race and gender
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: and the reasoning behind why she lost yesterday. And the
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: reason for me is I have no doubt that it
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: was a factor in a lot of voters' decision, but
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: I don't have any data to ground that opinion in
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: right now. And I also don't want the takeaway from
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: that conversation to be, well, now the Democrats can never
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: run a woman for president again. Because I do not
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: think that's true. I actually think, I think that would
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: be the worst lesson to take away. So I think,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: just to address, you know, what Dan said up front,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: I found both of their speeches to be like gracious
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: and decent, and especially for Kamala Harris. Because think about,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: she just spent 100 days pouring everything she had into
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: this campaign. She's exhausted. Even in her private moments, she's
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: thinking about this campaign. She hasn't slept enough. And she's expected,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: I think, to actually take on a bit of a
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: parental role in the tone of her remarks and to
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: comfort supporters and voters and people that loved her. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I understand that that might be grating to some people.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Like there's a naive version of like, we're all going
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: to be okay. It's like, no, you don't know that.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: I think their point is we are all now charged
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: with fighting to make sure that we're okay, especially for
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: people that have it worse for us. And I think
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: that was the takeaway I got from them.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't bump me as much just because I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: think we're going to be okay. It's just almost everyone
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: understands that it might not be true, but it's what
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: you want to hear because people want to be comforted
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: in a time like this. I'm sure we're all getting
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: texts from people and emails that are like, are we
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: going to be okay? Are we going to be okay?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And I don't assure anyone we'll be okay, but we
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: can be okay. It's possible that we can be okay.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: We don't know. I don't actually think it's useful to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time predicting whether we won't be
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: okay or we'll be okay. I think it's about as
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: useful as predicting election winners, which is why I don't
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: really focus on that.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: Net silver modeled our okayness a thousand times.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Which I don't focus on that as much, but I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: kind of just took it as like leadership is about
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: trying to comfort people or inspire people or whatever. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I take your point for sure, but I don't think it's,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: it didn't really bump me as much.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I had the same reaction to, similar reaction to Barack
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Obama's remarks after the election in 2016.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You know, what's funny is our friend Terry Zuplat, who
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: is a speechwriter with us in the White House, just
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: has a new book out. And I was doing a
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: book event with him. And in his book, he talks
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: about how the only time in his life he'd ever
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: been disappointed with Barack Obama was that speech. But then
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, looking back on it now, all
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: these years later, I'm glad he said what he did
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: at the time. Because at the time, everyone didn't want
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to hear that. But he's like, you know, he was right.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: He was right. So even though Biden and Harris both said,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: nice things about each other in their speeches. It's knives
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: out at the staff and advisor level. People close to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: both camps have been making their case to reporters. Pro-Biden
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Democrats saying the president would have done better and that
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Harris could have run a better campaign. Pro-Harris Democrats saying
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it was Biden's fault for deciding to run for reelection
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in the first place and waiting too long to step aside.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: Should we do a blanket caveat, which is that, so
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: we don't all have to repeat it, Running a presidential
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: campaign and putting it together in 100 days is nearly impossible.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: She did an incredible job. The biggest moment of the
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: entire campaign, maybe the only one that mattered, was the debate.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: And she did better than anyone could possibly have expected.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: So blanket caveat, now we're going to nitpick.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: Starting at the top because I don't want.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: To just repeat ourselves.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Happy to nitpick. I was just giving someone else space
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: to speak.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, do you want to start with which side
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: do you?
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: Great.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: Now I'm going to nitpick. So the substantive critique from
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: the Biden people seems to be two things, that she
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: abandoned the kind of anti-populist messaging and that she failed
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: to respond to millions and millions of dollars of these
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: anti-trans ads that ran on every football game we ever watched.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I didn't find those to be unfair or unreasonable criticisms.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, the 10th time I saw the Kamala is
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: for they, them ad, I wondered, boy, do Trump people
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: know something that we don't know about how effective that
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: ad is. And the New York Times reported today that
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: when Future Forward, the big Dem super PAC tested the ad,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: it moved the needle 2.7 percentage points in Trump's favor.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: And that the Harris campaign tested a response ad that
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: didn't work well in focus groups. So they never ended
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: up using it. And I think maybe it's fair to
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: say that letting that go unresponded to was a mistake.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Here's the problem with that. In the states where Kamala
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Harris campaigned the hardest, those are the places where she
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: outperformed what happened in the other states. Those are also
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: the states that saw the most number of ads. So,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you just, if you just said, okay,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: what was the effect? I mean, it's hard to measure
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: all these different competing variables, but if you just said,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: all right, there were states where they ran anti-trans ads,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: and there were states where they didn't. Trump did better
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: in states where they didn't run those ads. That's just
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a fact of what happened.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Well, a lot of those ran nationally.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Even so, there was $ 100 million dumped in Pennsylvania of
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: anti-trans ads. And you can say, all right, well, what
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: was the impact of that money? Maybe it made things
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: harder for her to claw back. Maybe she would have
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: done better if those ads weren't there. I just don't
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: think we know right now. Broadly speaking, that's why, like,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: The one nagging feeling I have is that that kind
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: of is resonating with me is because we felt it
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: a bit at the time, which is that answer on
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the view. How would you do differently than Joe Biden?
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And she says, well, I can't think of anything. Or
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: when she's asked about why she how she changed her
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: record from 2020, she had answers that were about, well,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I haven't changed my values. And they tried to deal
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: with what was, I think, an incredibly difficult, substantive critique,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: which is you're in the Biden administration. You don't represent
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a break from the Biden administration. how do you respond
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: to that? They tried to kind of weave a kind
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: of more like vibes based message based argument against that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And then in the same on her, how she differed
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: because there, it was hard to answer that question of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: how she had differed from the position she took in
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the 2020 campaign. And I say, okay, could that be
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: something that has an impact? But even still I say, okay,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: maybe those were bad. Maybe those were a problem. Fine.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: I am still, it still seems very difficult for me
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to picture how she overcomes the fact that she had
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: a hundred days to run this campaign. And so I
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: am much more amenable to an argument about Joe Biden's culpability.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And actually, I'm less angry about the decision to seek reelection.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think it was right. I think we're paying
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: for it. But I'm more angry, actually, about the month
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: after that debate when what happened was unequivocal and he
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: made that campaign even shorter, eliminating the chance to even
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: have a debate about who the nominee should be and
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: also leaving her such a short, short space to mount
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: a credible campaign.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: I mean, I just, I.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Struggle with this entire conversation. I can, I can pick
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: 17 things that maybe could have been done differently. I
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: can't pinpoint any of them or all of them that
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: lead to a different outcome in this race.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And so the way I think to think about it
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: going forward is to try to figure out what from
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: the campaign sort of overlaying what the campaign did with
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the results on what we can learn in terms of
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: going forward. Like what are better approaches, better strategies, better messages.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: On that note, I do think, it's funny, for a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: campaign that was so good about tailoring their message to
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: what tested well, the, and this was like a hobby
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: horse of mine during the campaign, the price gouging stuff,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: like she started with it and then it sort of
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: fell off in the middle of the campaign somewhere and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: then they kind of brought it back. And the economic
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: agenda was framed more as small businesses, this gonna maybe
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: give you this, gonna maybe give you this. And there
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of bite against corporations that were doing
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: bad things. And again, I'm just talking about going forward.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I think it would be useful for Democrats to hammer
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that because you do need, people are angry, people are dissatisfied,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: mostly with the economy. And I think it is fair
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and also politically useful to go after corporations that are
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: making record profits and screwing people over. When they are
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: screwing people over, you don't have to say all corporations
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: are bad or capitalism is bad. Not going to comment
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: on any of that. But, like, I think it's a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: good thing to do. And she had a record on
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: those issues as attorney general that I think was very effective.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And even voters that I talked to when I brought
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: up her record, that moved them.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: I think maybe the way to think about this is
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: the Democratic economic message has not worked in 12 years.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: It did not work in 2016. It did not work
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: in 2020. We lost on the economy. In 2022, we
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: won despite our economic message. We lost the voters who
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: cared about inflation.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Did we have an economic message in 2022?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Well, we had Biden's economic record. Biden did all these things.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: He talked about them. Democrats ran, they did run a
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: decent number of economic ads, but we won the voters who,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the 27% of voters who said abortion was their top issue.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: We lost the 31% of voters who said inflation was
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: their top issue in 2022. Their economic message did not
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: work here. Yet, once again, when you go through all that,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: you test all the individual policies, all our policies are popular.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: but we're getting hammered on the most important issue in
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: every single election in modern history. And that is a
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: thing we're going to have to figure out to go
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: forward because Donald Trump has built what looks like a
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: multiracial working class coalition that could dominate politics for a
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: very long time.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I understand why everyone's calling it like the anti-trans ad,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: but I would even go one step further and say
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that the, that ad had an economic component to it
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: because it was, what was it about? Taxpayer funded gender
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: reassignment surgery for inmates who are undocumented immigrants. And it
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: got right to the heart of a Republican argument that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Democrats are giving your tax dollars away to everyone else,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: all these different interest groups, identity groups, people that aren't
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you and you're struggling, right? Like that is what that
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: ad was saying, which I think to the extent it
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: was effective, you know, Republicans have tried to run other
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: anti-trans ads over the last several years in other races
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that have not been effective.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: They've been a waste of money.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: They've been a waste of money and they failed.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: It just sounds crazy. It just sounds like a crazy, wait,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: they're doing that? That sounds crazy to me. How can
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that be true?
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Yes. Right.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So it turns out there's a third option here, beside
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: it being the Biden campaign's fault or the Harris campaign's fault.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It was the Obama campaign's fault. It was Obama's fault.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Here's a blind quote given to Politico by an anonymous
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: former Biden staffer. Quote, there is no singular reason why
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: we lost the But a big reason is because the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Obama advisors publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: didn't even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: signed up as the saviors of the campaign only to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn't Obama.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Those outdated Obama-era playbooks that won him two presidential campaigns,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the best record of any Democrat since Roosevelt. But anyway...
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I just have to say something about this one.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: No, go. The floor is yours.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I am going to generously assume that the constant anonymous
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: sniping from Biden world about Obama or Kamala Harris and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: everyone who worked for them is coming from like the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: same three or four people. That's going to be my
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: generous assumption. And it does not reflect the views of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: most of the Biden folks. Just stipulate it like Tommy's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: stipulation earlier.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: Blank a caveat.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Blank a caveat.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: We all agree.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: Now we're going to nitpick.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's decision to run for president again was a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: catastrophic mistake. It just was. And he and his inner circle,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: they refused to believe the polls. They refused to believe
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: he was unpopular. They refused to acknowledge until very late
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that anyone could be upset about inflation. And they just
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: kept telling us that his presidency was historic and it
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was the greatest economy ever. We just heard him again
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: say that it's the greatest economy ever. Clearly, 70, 80%
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: of voters don't believe that. They don't believe that about
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: their own personal financial situation, but they just keep telling
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: us that. And then after the debate, the Biden people
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: told us that the polls were fine and Biden was
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: still the strongest candidate. And they were privately telling reporters
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: at the time that Kamala Harris couldn't win. So they
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: were shiving Kamala Harris to reporters while they told everyone
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: else not a time for an open process and his
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: vice president can't win. So he's the strongest candidate. Then
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: we find out when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that the Biden campaign's own internal polling at the time
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: That's what their own internal polling said. So like, I
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of, I don't have a lot of.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: I just, I don't know what it means by the
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: Obama era playbook. I think what Dan said yesterday about.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: They're just mad.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: They just don't... But let's just try to unpack it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: I think what Dan said yesterday about trying to examine,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: re-examine all the money Democrats spend on field programs is
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: something that, it's a conversation worth having because, like, I
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: don't want to overreact here because in 2020, there were
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: people saying, well, the Biden people were too scared to
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: get out of their house and knock on doors and
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: did everything virtually, and that's why the margins were closer, right?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: So we kind of learn a new lesson every cycle.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: But I think it's worth thinking about that spend and
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: the opportunity cost. That said, all that infrastructure was in
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: place when Joe Biden was the nominee. This wasn't like
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: an Obama thing or a Kamala Harris thing. And then also,
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: part of this could be Democrats do need to go
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: back to the drawing board when it comes to figuring
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: out what is the coalition that we assemble to win, right?
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: The Obama-era coalition... that is, it seems to be, we've
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: lost it. That is gone. But on the idea that
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden would have won, I think is what the
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: subtext of that comment was. Again, there were polls showing
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: 80% of voters thought Joe Biden was too old to
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: get a second term before the debate. And then we
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: all watched the debate. And then in the last few weeks,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: Biden was campaigning and he said, uh, we need to
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: lock Trump up. He created a controversy over whether Trump
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: supporters were garbage. He said, you know, the weird thing
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: about slapping Trump on the ass, like, His moments on
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: the campaign trail weren't flawless either.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: You can't, you cannot.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: It's absurd.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Two points.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I want to stay for the record.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I also think all the TV money ad should be
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: rethought too. But more importantly, the idea that Joe Biden
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: was going to do better in this race than Kamala
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: Harris is on its face absurd. No one is making
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: that case.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: There's zero data to support that. There never has been ever.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: And no one is making that case with their name
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: to it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to end by saying, like,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: if someone would like to put their name on it
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: or even come here and talk to us about it
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: right here, we can have a nice civil conversation about it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: They're more than welcome. And it's a lot better than
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: just sniping to Alex Thompson and Politico and whoever else
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you want to snipe, you know, leak to, which is
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: what they've been doing.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: For a year.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: The suboptimal place we were put in after the debate
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: was to go from a close to 0% chance of
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: winning to someone who had a chance, but was probably
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: an underdog in the race. And that's where we went.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: And that's how it ended.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: We know that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: We know that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: We know that. Because over 100 days of an extraordinarily
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: well-run campaign, she clawed her way back on all these
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: metrics on which Biden was doing much worse. And she
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: lost by, what, two points.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: And I like.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe one sign for hope in all of this is
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: there's going to be a lot of infighting. There's a
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: lot of people with different points of views about the future.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: We have to be generous with one another. We have
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: to listen to one another. We have to be open
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: to one another. But we can all unite in knowing
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden would have lost and deserves a lot
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: of blame for the situation that we're in. And maybe
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: that's something that can bring us all together.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, also when Harris became the nominee, Obama people,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Clinton people, Biden people, like they all came together in
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that campaign to And got really close to winning, you know?
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: And they all worked really well together. And they all
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: put their heart and soul into it and they worked
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: their asses off, right? So it's like this idea that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: there's all these divisions and blah, blah, blah. It's like
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the people who just continue to do this, it's crazy.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Because a lot of people that had a whole bunch
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of different bosses all came together to work hard to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: try to get her to win. So beyond the Biden-Harris sniping,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: there have been a number of other broader critiques about
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party that we can talk about. Bernie Sanders,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: who over the summer had lobbied for Biden to stay
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: in the race, but then became one of Harris's most
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: effective surrogates, released a blistering critique of Democrats' whole strategy
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and identity, saying, quote, It should come as no great
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: people would find that the working class has abandoned them
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and then blamed the big money interests and well-paid consultants
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: who control the party. and he expressed skepticism that we'll
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: be able to learn our lesson. He later told the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: New York Times, it's not just Kamala, it's a Democratic
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: rather than understanding that the vast majority of people in
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: this country are working class. What did you guys think
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of Bernie's critique? Is he right that the Democratic Party
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: has abandoned the working class?
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So my problem with the statement, so I largely think
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: that there is a directional view critique that I agree with.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: When Bernie came on Ponce of America and talked about
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: we're not talking enough about corporate influence over politics, the
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: money in our politics, we're not talking enough to those
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: concerns of the working class. I believe that. I agree
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: with that. I think the nuance that is missing here
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: and I think is important is Joe Biden, when he won,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: and one of, I think, his great achievements and one
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: of the things we talked about when we were beseeching
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden to step aside is that he listened. He
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: brought in Bernie Sanders. He brought in Elizabeth Warren. He
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: put Lina Khan at FTC. He canceled student debt. He
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: pursued an incredibly progressive economic agenda. Now, I think we
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: should think about why did that not resonate with people?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Why did people not believe that? Why did people not
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: see the effects of that? Why did people still not
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: trust Democrats as messengers? I think those are really important
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: questions that Bernie Sanders is going to be very helpful
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: in figuring out how to solve. But I think to
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: say carte blanche, Democrats abandoned working people, is I think
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: to embrace part a reality of our politics and the
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: influence of money on our politics and in part to
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: embrace a Republican critique and Republican vibes. And I just
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: think those things need to be separated out.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel Bernie's like rage here and he's got
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: some fair points in his analysis of votes we're losing
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: is absolutely right. But I think the harder thing to
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: reckon with is the fact that Bernie Sanders and Joe
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Biden worked together to pass COVID relief money, cap the
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: price of insulin. They passed the child tax credit while
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Republicans voted against all of those things. The Biden administration
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: was great on antitrust and breaking up corporations. Joe Biden
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: fought for unions. He went on the picket line and
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: then Donald Trump campaigns with Elon Musk, famous union buster,
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: and wins those working class voters. And so the question is,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: how does that disconnect happen? And how do we fix
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: that politically? Because we're doing the right things substantively. Not enough.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Not enough. And the messaging wasn't perfect, right? I've criticized
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: the lack of economic messaging on the campaign before. but
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: we're not reaching the voters we need to reach.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: We've been dealing with this since the Obama years. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I know President Obama thought, well, we should prove that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: democracy can deliver. And if we deliver for people, for
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: working people, then they'll, like the Democrats, Joe Biden certainly
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: had the same theory. And I've thought that would be
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: true as well over the last several years. And I
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: do think that's one of the things we have to re-examine,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the idea that if we deliver for working people, economically,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: they will automatically... start voting for Democrats? Because I think
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: it's more complex than that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: The economy in politics is a cultural issue. We think
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: of it in Democrats as a substantive issue. What are
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: the policies we can stitch together to prove to them
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: that we will fight for them?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: But it's all vibes.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump doesn't have a policy director. He has three
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: policies about taxes. That's it.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And all of them would screw working people. Yeah.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: But we're losing because the vibe that he gives off,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: he is coming off as someone who was fighting for
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: a certain set of people. And we are not giving
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: off that vibe. I think you can have a fair
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: critique about whether the Harris campaign used as much populist
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: messaging as perhaps it could. Maybe that doesn't feel particularly
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: natural to her. She's not Bernie. She's not Elizabeth Warren.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: She's not even Joe Biden of like Scranton Joe era.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: But there's a broader.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Issue here is that we are approaching the issue wrong.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: The last time we won an economic fight was in
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: 2012 when that was a cultural war. That was an
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: identity issue culture war We had better policies that supported that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: That's not really what it was about.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And just in case you think we're just simping for
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Obama here, like we get a lot of help because
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Mitt Romney was the opponent.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: You know, and just seemed like a rich guy.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: You know who else is a non-touch rich guy? Donald Trump.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: How culturally, this is to your point, how culturally different
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: did Donald Trump and Mitt Romney seem even though they're
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: both rich guys?
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: But it's worth pointing out, right? Barack Obama wins a
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: throw the bums out election. He, he, he wins in
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: 2012 against a plutocrat running a campaign against the plutocrat,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: which is an exception to the rule. Donald Trump wins
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: a throw the bums out election. He loses his reelection
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: when he's now the establishment. Then he wins another throw
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the bums out election.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And so I do think part of like, I want to,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I actually agree with everything that we're saying, but I
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: also like, there are signs here that we can point
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: to that, like, Part of this is the energy Donald
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Trump brings, but part of it is also he got
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to just, he is a walking fuck you. That is
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: how he won in 2016. He built an even broader
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: coalition of people who wanted to say fuck you this time.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: And there's lessons we can learn from that, but we
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: also shouldn't, I think, overlearn those lessons. And it's a
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: different fight when we're fighting as outsiders taking on an
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: incumbent in a country that is extremely angry at the establishment.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: One more point in this to Bernie's point that we've
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: become the party of identity politics rather than understanding that
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: most people are working class. It did make me think
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that after 2016, after Trump won, it became this sort
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: of like punchline in liberal spaces that, oh, it was
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: economic anxiety because someone said, oh, some people voted for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Trump because of economic anxiety. And then you were mocked
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: if you said that because really everyone just voted for
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Trump because they were a racist.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: Or a misogynist.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Or a misogynist. And like a couple things can be true.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: There's like a lot of people who say racist things
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: and misogynistic things and who voted for Donald Trump partly
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: because they like that. There's also people who just, they
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: did have economic anxiety and voted for Donald Trump despite
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: his racism and misogyny. And I think that, you know,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that's one thing if we're going to be introspective going
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: forward is that like, yeah, there's some people who are
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: just racist who do racist shit. And then when we
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: hear that, we don't necessarily have to say, well, that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: means that everyone who voted for Donald Trump the economic
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: anxiety thing was just bullshit. Because it clearly wasn't.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: That argument runs into a real problem when his largest
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: gains were with Latinos.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I just want to push back to Bernie, though.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Kamala Harris did not play identity politics or highlight her
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: identity at all on the campaign trail.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: At all.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: The opposite happened, where Republicans called her a DEI hire.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: So they played identity politics in the most racist, sexist
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: way possible, and the Democratic Party did not do that.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: She went out of her way, I would say.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That doesn't mean the Democratic Party writ large... Hasn't
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: focused on identity as part of the coalition. Well, we'll
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: get to this campaign.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get to this when I think we're going
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: to talk about it. But like sometimes a lot of
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: what people are directing at Kamala or at Democrats, they're
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: directing actually at the commentariat. They're directing at Twitter, directing
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: at social media.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And it's so hard and infuriating because it's like we
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: can't control those people.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: We've tried.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: There's not a mute button at the DNC for all Democrats.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: But, you know, you know, Tommy, you talked about the
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: effect of like organizing and field and like, you know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Ben Wickler pointed out all the ways in which organizing
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin was what allowed them to be in a position
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to keep the Tammy Baldwin seat despite the incredible national swing.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: And I think there's like I want to just like,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I am not ready to say that organizing
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: or field did not matter in this race. But what
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I do want to figure out is Donald Trump didn't
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: need it. He did something else.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: He did podcast. He had these influencers behind him. And like,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: what is he doing instead of field that we should
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: be doing too?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a good segue.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: In a way that being online is now real life.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, that's a good segue to, we're going to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: take through some of the other theories making the rounds here.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And the first is, Harris should have done more to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: meet voters where they are, as they say, including but
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: not limited to going on Joe Rogan. And more broadly,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats need to run the kind of candidate who can
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: go on those kinds of shows and mix it up.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I think we're all in agreement there. Is anyone not
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: in agreement?
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to grab it. I just think it's
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: more complicated than she should have gone on.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I'm talking again. Sorry. Looking towards the future. Forget about
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: like nitpicking the past. But like, yes, I think in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the future, the whole conversation, like, why are you talking
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to this horrible person? You shouldn't be on the set
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: with them. You're legitimizing them is like.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Also, there's been a few people saying like, well, we
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: need a Joe Rogan of the left. And we were
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: talking about this yesterday, which is like, that to me
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: is quite stupid on two fronts. One is like, Joe
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Rogan wasn't built in some conservative lab. He's a, as
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Tommy was saying this yesterday, like he was a television
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: host and a fear factor guy, got into MNA, started
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: hosting this show and had built an audience. And then
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: people went to that audience. The second problem with that
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: is if there was a Joe Rogan on the left
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: that appealed to the kind of people Joe Rogan appealed to,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: he would be vilified by people on the left For
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: all of his heterodoxies and ways in which he annoys them.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: It is very annoying and terrible that Joe Rogan is anti-vax.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: He has stupid views on a lot of issues that
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I don't agree with. But Joe Rogan was somebody that
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: had had Bernie Sanders on. Dan, you said this yesterday.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: When Bernie Sanders put out that Joe Rogan endorsed him,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: people fucking went after him.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: For that.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: And you know what? People are right to find Joe
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Rogan's noxious views noxious, totally. But I think we should
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: be honest about the ways in which we've kind of pushed,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: like there's this conservative media ecosystem that is directly partisan,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: right-wing conservative, covers politics every day. But now around it,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: there is this collection of comedians, entertainers, influencers who are
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: not political and but feel much more comfortable on the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: right than they feel on the left. And so I
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: am less interested in should Kamala Harris go on Joe
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Rogan or should we have a Joe Rogan on the
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: left and more thinking, A, how do we build the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: progressive version? We're trying to do that here at Crooked,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: but we need help of that kind of partisan infrastructure.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: And then how do we make those nonpolitical hosts that
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: have huge followings feel as welcome in our world and
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: we as welcome in their world as they now currently
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: feel on the right without giving up on our values,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: being honest about where we disagree, but being willing to
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: go there and those people feeling comfortable with us.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think that Lovett handled the infrastructure
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: piece of this, and I talked about it last episode.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: But I think Rogan's sort of become a proxy for
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: a broader conversation about, like, should Kamala Harris have let
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: her rip a little bit? You know what I mean? Like,
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: should she have gone on Joe Rogan? arguably the biggest
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: media platform in the country? Yes, obviously she should have.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: But if you watched Trump's three-hour rambling mess of an interview,
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: we all had kind of a Rorsak test about what
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: was our takeaway. And I think the takeaway for a
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: lot of people was he didn't sound like a politician.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: We made fun of him saying he does the weave.
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: We called it being a rambling, incoherent old man. We
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: thought he did pretty well. Well, yeah, but like, you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: so I think that's the question is like, should Democrats
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: have to find ways to communicate to people where they
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: don't sound like they're reading a script or talking points?
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: Cause that was the narrative. You started to hear a
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: lot about Kamala Harris. There was a lot of tick
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: tocks where people ask, Hey, like Bruce, what do you
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: want for dinner? And it's like, well, I grew up
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: in a working class family with a four Micah table
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: or people were, that was kind of a meme that
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: people were making fun of her because she was so
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: on message. Charlamagne asked her about this directly. She gave
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: a good answer. Well, it wasn't great. We don't know.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, she gave an answer that you worked in
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: the moment, But maybe it was a sign about a
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: broader challenge that was never addressed.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: There are two separate issues here. One, there is what
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: we say and how we say it, right?
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: There's what we say.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: The words that come out of our mouth. And as
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: we talked about in our last podcast, which feels like
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: seven years ago, but was yesterday, that Democrats sound too
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: much like politicians. And that is not Kamala Harris herself.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: That is everyone, right?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And also like 90% of Republicans too.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, J.D.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Vance sounds terrible. He's bad in these forums. The second
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: issue is how we get people to hear what we're saying.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: And that's what we are failing dramatically as a party.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: We have not yet figured out how to get our
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: message in front of voters who do not consume news
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: as a hobby. And you can see that in part
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: in the giant gap between how common it is in
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: the battleground states where we spent several billion dollars to
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: communicate to those voters and.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Where we didn't.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Lost six points nationally, three points in the battleground states.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: And that's because those people, they are consuming some information.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: but they are not getting our side of the story.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: We do not have a capacity as a party to
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: tell our story on our terms to our voters. And
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: that is, we don't fix that problem. None of the
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: other things are gonna matter. We can have a thousand
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: messaging discussions about how we talk about the economy or
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: how we sound more like a human as has been
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: your hobby for us for 20 years. And it won't
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: matter because no one will fucking hear it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we could spend another billion dollars in ads. and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: battle to a couple points down.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Or just that we were talking about this before we recorded, like, ugh,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: all this fucking conversation about Tony Hinchcliffe's joke and the
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: WhatsApps about the Puerto Rican community vote coming out in droves.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: It didn't matter.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: None of it was real.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Or maybe it was real in the maybe 30% or
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: 40% of the country that was tangentially touching the campaign,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: but that there's this vast tens of millions of people
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: who are silent. We are not talking to them, and
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: they are not talking to us. And so We can
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: run these campaigns and maybe they'll help at the margins,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: but those, but winning or losing will be determined by
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: the vibes in a place we don't reach.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Another take. This one's embodied by Wednesday's Brett Stevens column.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a good day at Pod Save America
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: when we're going to Brett Stevens.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: It's been a while since we've done that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I will say Reid included this because he said he
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: was getting some texts from friends about the Brett Stevens column.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: And as he said that, I woke up and I
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: had a text from my friend about the Brett Stevens column, too.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: No text from my friends about Brett Stevens.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Not me, never. Not a friend anymore.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: So Brett thinks that we're too annoying and elitist as
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a party, that we focus too much on scolding voters
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: into appreciating Joe Biden's economy and achievements. We all talked
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: about that. Yes. Agree there. that we too quickly respond
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to even reasonable critiques of progressive ideas by labeling them
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: racist or misogynist or transphobic, and that by going so
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: hard after Trump's crimes and trying to get him off
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: ballots under the 14th Amendment, we ended up validating the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: narrative that we were using the levers of power against him.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Who wants to take any of that?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I just want to just note that he begins this
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: column about how Democrats are kind of pedantic and priggish
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: with an anecdote about a jazz era chess master.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Brett Stevens is not, he's not in touch with
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the working folk.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Or particularly self-aware.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: This is a man who tried to get a professor
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: at a random college fired because that guy tweeted something mean. Yeah,
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: that's right. Yeah, called him a bed bug.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: So maybe not the best messenger.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: In the interest of a good debate, right? Take Brett
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Stevens out of it. Let's just go with the message.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, it is stupid to tell people the
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: economy is great when it is not. Yes, it is
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: stupid to demand that someone agree that Joe Biden is
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: actually FDR if they don't feel that way. Yes, it
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: is stupid to scold someone who has different views. But again,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: we're saying like it's exasperating because there's not a Democratic
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: Party mute button where we can shut up all our
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: annoying supporters. He also talks about the prosecutions. Kamala Harris
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: and Joe Biden couldn't tell Merrick Gardenland who to prosecute
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: or not. They couldn't tell Alvin Bragg what to do.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: We couldn't tell prosecutors in Georgia what to do.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: Did the prosecutions galvanize Republicans behind Donald Trump's candidacy and
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: probably help deliver him the primary? Yes, but no one's
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: in charge of all of this.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Also, Donald Trump broke the law. Maybe people who break
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the law should be prosecuted for breaking the fucking law.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the idea that like, okay, I would like to stipulate,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Democrats are annoying.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: Correct. Present company included.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Democrats are annoying. However, the things that annoyed you personally
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: aren't necessarily the reasons Donald Trump won. No, I do
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: not believe that the Colorado case about the 14th Amendment
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: is what drove turnout in Arizona and Nevada. Give me
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: a fucking break.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: I had forgotten that happened.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: I did too.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I was forced to read this Brett Stevens column out
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: of professional obligation.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: And what is also frustrating, as we were saying, is
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of what annoys people like Brett Stevens and
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk and all these people that are talking about
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing They're not really talking about Democratic politicians.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: They're talking about Democratic activists. They're talking about shit they
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: see online.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: If Twitter was gone, probably most of the people who
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: piss off the Bret Stephens of the world, they wouldn't
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: even hear their critiques. But it is. Look, there is
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a scolding, right? And I think for those of us online,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: not the Democratic politicians, when someone says something that you
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: don't agree with, or that you think is racist or
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: sexist or transphobic, one thing you have to think about
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: is what does labeling that person racist, misogynist, transphobic, what
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: does it get you? What does it do, right? Sometimes
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: it's just like, well, I did it because I'm angry, right?
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: So it's like, that's fine. But in terms of like
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: building a political, you could also say, here's why that's wrong.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Here's why I think that's wrong. Here's why that was hurtful,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: what you just said, right? Though there was a like a,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: from 2017 to now, the like, check your privilege and
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: do the, like, it just doesn't, it doesn't bring people in.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: So that is the only point.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: But I would just say like, these are not the
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: people running and losing elections. These are just people on
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: the internet. And so to me, it's like, okay, what,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: what is it? What is it? What does that say
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: about like the democratic apparatus and the kind of candidates
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: it's producing? And I was thinking about this anecdote, which
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: is that Hillary Clinton failed the bar the first time
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: she took it. And it turned out that she had
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: studied incredibly hard as she did for every test she's
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: ever taken, but she had somehow, I can't remember the details,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: but she had studied for the wrong version of the bar.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: The bar had changed. And sometimes I feel like Democrats
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: are front of the classroom kids studying really, really hard
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: for the wrong test. And a lot of our candidates
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: feel like front of the classroom kids. And I think
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: of Barack Obama, who had a front of the classroom brain,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: but back of the classroom vibes. Bill Clinton is kind
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: of like that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: Some like.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Sanders is kind of like that. These are really smart
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: people who are a little bit annoyed and kind of
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: throwing spitballs at the teacher.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: And like that, like the- Gretchen Whitmer has that vibe
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: in Michigan.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: And so like, I just, I am going to try
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: to be on guard because by the way, I'm a
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: front of the classroom kid. And like, I like front
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: of the classroom. I was a Elizabeth Warren voter. Because
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: they built it. They should have a shrine in the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: front of the classroom for Elizabeth Warren in front of
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: the classroom person. But Donald Trump is not that. And
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: he appeals to a lot of people. And I think
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: in part because of that. And that that is my
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: takeaway from Democrats are annoying.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: There's I think I think we're missing a point here,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: which is there are annoying Democrats. None of them have
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: been our presidential nominees recently.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: They're not our Senate candidates. Republicans are also annoying. They
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: also have very intolerant views. They also respond to people
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: in insane ways. The Republicans have an apparatus that lifts
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: up the worst of Democratic commentary, whether it's a Twitter person,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: a random state senator from Maine.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Or by the way, now just fake. They will make
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: up something crazy that sounds like a leftist would say.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: This is the power of libs of TikTok. Fox has
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: been doing this for decades now to make the caricature
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: of Democrats seem real to lots of voters. We do
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: not have a similar apparatus to do that about Republicans.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Do you remember in our intro video for a while
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: at our live shows, we had that guy who used
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: the example of Hitler? He was a random state senator,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: I think, from Oklahoma.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: That's so good, yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Hitler is an example of how you can make it
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: from the streets to success.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Then Donald Trump said something, then he praised Hitler, and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: then he became president. What a country.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: But there is no apparatus to make that guy incredibly
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: famous and emblematic of Republicans. And that's something that goes
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: back to the other point about how we're losing the
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: information warfare.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: But also, Trump, Tucker Carlson, some of the biggest voices
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: in conservative media, they call Democrats demonic and evil. And unpatriotic. Yes,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: it's insane. And it's just no one cares. The Antichrist.
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: Different audiences.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Well, they call Democrats... They think... They're calling, like, Democratic
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: politicians that, you know? And what happens is they try
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: to say that we think of other voters like this.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: They take that.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: It's deplorable politics.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: It is deplorable and garbage.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: And again, but they're allowed to say, like, I mean,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: imagine if, like, Elizabeth Warren was like, I was in
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Tennessee the other day. What a fucking dump it is.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't be seen as politically helpful, but Tucker Carlson
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: can rant against San Francisco as a place.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Trump said nothing.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Detroit was a shithole, basically.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, I picked up votes.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And again, I was going to say, again, those people
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: can say it and they won and we're losing. So
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that's something to think about first. Maybe it's not fair.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe the world as it is is not fair, but
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: maybe we should think about how to win.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: But also, that's why I go back to Kamala Harris
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: saying we're all going to be okay. And it's like,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know, are people in the market for that?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Is that what the leadership we need is right now?
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It seems like people want a little bit more anger
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: and a little more antagonism. And we can do that
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: in a.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Way that's- We should yell at voters more?
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying we should yell at voters.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying- We should call them more racist? That's
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: not- I know, I know.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Obviously, I'm not what I'm saying, but I just, there's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: a kind of, there's an imperious- Brett Stevens is annoying.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Some good points.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: But so are we. Everybody's annoying.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: He's had some good points. Lastly, there are those who
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: say this wasn't really about Trump at all. It was
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: about prices and the global anti-incumbent mood. We talked about
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: this a little yesterday. And we are in danger of
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: overlearning our lesson because MAGA only works for Trump. What
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: do you guys think?
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Yes. The biggest factor is the political environment that supersedes
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: every tactical, strategic decision that the Harris campaign made, that
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: the Trump campaign made, the Trump campaign. Chris LaCivita and
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Susie Wiles will be seen as geniuses because they won
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: this race in the most favorable political environments anyone could
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: possibly imagine. And that's just how it works. Yes, it's
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: true that MAGA only works for Trump, but Reagan only
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: worked for Reagan, but then they won one more election
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: after that. And the coalition that Reagan built lasted for
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: three presidential cycles. And Bill Clinton kind of had to
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: win with the Reagan coalition. It did not change.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: Again until 2008.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: So we had 28 years of basically the Reagan coalition working.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: And the urgency of our task is to make sure
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: that the Trump coalition does not exist beyond this election.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: And it's not a guarantee that that automatically falls by
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: the wayside if Donald Trump's not at the top.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: Of the ticket. Yeah.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, John Byrne Murdoch at the Financial Times had
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: this chart for the first time since 1905. Every governing
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: party facing an election in a developed country this year
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: lost vote share. First time that's happened since 1900. And
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: that is like center-left party, center-right, far-left, whatever it is.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: So there was an anti-incumbent mood. I do think that
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: there's also been this rise of authoritarian movements all across
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the world. And you can, I think, adequately blame inflation
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: for sort of accelerating that. But it was also the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: forces were there before the pandemic causing this too. And
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I think one of the projects we have to figure
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: out is like how we drain the appeal of autocratic
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: regimes and demagogues so that people who might feel economically stressed,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: sort of like they've been left behind, overlooked, whatever it
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: may be, actually don't vote for them and then vote for,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: you know, pro-democracy candidates. Yeah.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this too. And it's like, you know,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of people listening have been feeling
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: this too, which is like, how did this happen? How
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: is it even close? It doesn't make sense. I still
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: can't make sense of it. And I do think, well,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: also look back on this era and say, we went
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: through a traumatic once in a hundred year pandemic. Millions
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: of people died. It messed with all of our mental health.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: It messed with our sense of safety, our sense of security,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: our sense of the world. And I think what we're
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: talking about here is, yeah, maybe it really is just anti-incumbency, right?
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Maybe it really was just anger and inflation, but we
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: got to make sure the door doesn't lock behind us
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: because that's the risk here. And I think even if
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: it is true, I think we should live as if
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: it is not. We should do everything we can to
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: fight back because if this does represent a real kind of,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: of a real change, we have to figure out how
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: to argue our way out of because of what Dan said.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: I think anti-incumbency is very real and the largest driving factor,
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: but I, and I'm not suggesting you guys are doing this,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: but I don't think we can let ourselves believe that
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: that was all of it. I do think Trump has
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: a unique appeal in the Republican Party and he outran
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: lots of down-ballot Republicans and he's a noxious person person
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: and in many ways, the worst candidate we all could imagine.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: And somehow we did better than we thought. And we
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: need to sort of reckon with and understand that. And
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: then also there were discrete issues where voters were like
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: telling us for a year that they're mad about something
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: and the democratic party refused to listen. And my biggest
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: hobby horse on this is Gaza. The war was raging
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: for a year that Biden administration walked through the uncommitted
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: vote process, a hundred thousand plus people voted uncommitted in the,
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: in the democratic primary in Michigan. And they didn't change
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: a fucking thing about the policy. And then the DNC
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: comes around and no Palestinian is allowed to speak and
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: Arab American, Muslim American voters feel pushed out. And then
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: when you look at precincts in Dearborn, Trump won Dearborn,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: Michigan with 42.8%. Harris got 36. Jill Stein got 18.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: It's half Middle Eastern. In 2020, Biden won almost 70%
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: of the vote in Dearborn. And again, I'm not suggesting that.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: Those margins would have changed the outcome of the election. Obviously,
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: there are broader forces at play. But when voters are like,
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: we hate this thing you're doing and you keep doing it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: And what we're talking about here is outsourcing U.S. foreign
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: policy to Bibi Netanyahu, one of the worst people on
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: the planet besides Donald Trump.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: The Trump of his country.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Should listen to them. You can't just not course correct
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: in a situation like that.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: I think we are also not fully analyzing the impact
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: of COSID when we limit it only to Michigan.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Definitely.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Because there are like 4% of voters in the exit
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: polls said that foreign policy was their top concern, which
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: to me, I find personally shockingly high.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Hey, those are my people. Trump won them 55-39.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: But it's just the year-long impression about Democrats to young
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: voters because of the Biden administration's approach to Gaza mattered.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a gigantic shift among young voters, particularly
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: young men.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: Is it only Gaza?
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: Of course not. But it did become a reason not
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: to trust the party among voters we need.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say too, it's not, I mean, just,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: you know, we're all in support of the Ukraine against
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Putin's invasion here. But when you look at polls and
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: you listen to focus groups, what comes up even more
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: often than Gaza is like, why are we sending money
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to Ukraine or Israel and Gaza?
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Like it's, it's all of it together. So you have
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: some people who like, as I am, are like, I
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: can't believe the fucking slaughter in Gaza is being allowed
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to continue right now. But also like, A lot of
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: other people, why are we sending so much money overseas? And,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: you know, you can argue about how much we're sending
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and relative to this and that and the other thing.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: But like, that's a, that's a message that broke through.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So did we fix everything?
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: I think so.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Any other, any other takes on how did you get
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: out of the top?
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: Do it for us. Does that work?
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about going forward. Uh, anyway, there's
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more. We're going to have a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: lot more research in some really smart people. Dan, you're
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: going to talk to some folks for a special Sunday
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: edition of Pod Save America, right?
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: I'm going to talk to Carlos Odio, our friend who
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: is an expert in Latino vote, and Sarah Longwell from
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: the Bulwark about, we're going to dig in the details
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: about what actually happened and maybe some lessons about going forward.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: And are you mostly just going to yell at her?
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: about campaigning with Liz Cheney?
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: No, I'm not going to do that.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: No.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: We forgot to talk about that, you know, clear disaster.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: Well, guess what?
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: We got a lot of podcasts to go. My sense
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: as a Democrat has been around a lot of losses.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: This conversation is going to continue.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: For a while.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Especially now.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been there. We're doing the same thing we've
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: been doing. All right, let's talk about the Senate and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the House where things stand with congressional control. In the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Nevada Senate race, it's looking better and better for Jackie Rosen.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: AP hasn't called it as of 1 p.m. Pacific time
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: on Thursday, but Decision Desk HQ and John Ralston's Nevada
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Independent have. The AP has called Pennsylvania for Dave McCormick,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: but Casey has not conceded. The Casey campaign still believes
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: there's lots of ballots that haven't been counted, and they
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: think they could come out ahead. So we shall see
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: on that one. In the House, it's a more fluid picture.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: There are 29 races that haven't yet been called. That
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: includes a lot of races that are, you know, probably
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: going to be the Democrats going to win or the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Republicans going to win, but the count just isn't done
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason. Within that number, there's about a dozen
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: swing races that aren't over yet. That includes Marcy Kaptur
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. who's ahead a tiny bit, and her race
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: has gone to a recount. And then, of course, races
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: in California and Arizona, where we canvassed, where the final
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: count will likely be determined by on-the-ground efforts to cure
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: defective ballots. Something's wrong with your ballot. You signed it wrong.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: You did something wrong. You get a call. You can
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: fix your ballot, and they will count it. Democrats, including
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: our friends at Vote Save America, believe there is a
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: path still to a razor-thin House majority. More on that
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: in a minute. Just so everyone understands... What's the real
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: world difference between a Republican trifecta, Democrats getting control of
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the House?
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: If we win the House, Donald Trump will pass no
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: legislation in his entire presidency.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: I like that.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: That's a big one. That's no national abortion ban if
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: they try to do that. No repeal of the Affordable
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Care Act. No budget cuts. No huge tax cuts.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: Gut the IRA.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: That's right. No gutting of the IRA. The CHIPS Act stands.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Thank goodness.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: It's creating jobs all over the place.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: It's funny the way you said it.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I know, I know. That's why I did it. What
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: do we know about the map and these uncalled house races?
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: What are you thinking? I mean, we know from 18
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that in California it does take a while, and then
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: at the end in 18, that's when a lot of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the Democratic ballots came in.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: It could take a while, and it's going to be tough.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: I think there's six races in California, two in Arizona,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: so it could be a while.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: And the question in California primarily is, Is the remaining
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: male vote that still has to come in going to
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: be as Democratic as it has been in previous elections?
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: If it is, we get a very good shot. Like
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: male ballots, not male versus female.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, male ballots.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: The male ballots we know are not good for us.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Did female send male ballots? If so, we got a shot.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a good take. Let's talk about the Senate.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: We know Republicans will get control. So here's the map
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: in 2026. We can flip Maine because Susan Collins is
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: there and either we beat her or she might retire.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Murkowski in Alaska has a wild card. I don't know.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: That's a wild card.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Here's a good one. North Carolina. Tom Tillis. That's a possibility.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And then it's like Texas again.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Sean Cornyn's up.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: It's Cornyn. So it's Texas.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: Tough.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: And then after that, it's Ohio, Iowa, because there's going
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to be a J.D. Vance replacement. Ohio, Iowa, Montana, been there,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and Nebraska again. So it is a... And to defend,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: we have to defend Ossoff in Georgia, Gary Peters in Michigan.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: And Tina Smith in Minnesota.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: Gene Shaheen, Mark Warner.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Gene Shaheen and Mark Warner. Yeah, so that's our... Ossoff's hard. Obviously,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Peters is hard. The defend seats aren't as hard as
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: they were, I think, this time around. But flipping... After
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: you get through Collins, it's a tough map.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: Tom Tillis should be beatable. He spells his name with
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: an H. Thaum. Yeah, that is stupid. Disqualifying.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: That is dumb. Okay, that's something, that's good. See, this
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: is the kind of creative thinking.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: I can say that.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of creative strategic thinking we need
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: As a baby named adult, Tommy, I can say that.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Now that we've talked about the stakes, let's talk about
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: what you can do. These uncalled house campaigns, they could
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: use your support. They need to fund legal challenges. They
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: need to keep paying staff salaries as the courts continue
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to count. And then an easy thing you can do
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: is help people cure their ballots. They need volunteers to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: help people do that and to reach out to people
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: to find out how you can help. You can just
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: go to votesaveamerica.com. It's really important. This message has been
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: paid for by Votes Save America. You can learn more
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: candidate or candidates committee. It's unbelievable I have to say
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: that every time.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we can. I don't think we
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: have to.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: I just don't believe it.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: What are laws anymore? Trump's president. You have to say
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: that every time?
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: What's going to happen? I mean, for us, again.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: We're on the wrong side of the law now.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: The first law the FEC ever enforces will be a
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: Trump FEC case against us.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Anyway, how are y'all feeling? You guys?
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: Terrible.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I'm doing the stages of grief in reverse.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I'm on anger today.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty mad.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: I woke up because I hit myself with too many
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: of the takes this morning.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Well, honestly, mad's better than sad, and I'm really enjoying
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: the stupid fucking takes.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: It is getting me putting one foot in front of
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: the other. All right.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Well, everyone, enjoy your takes, but more importantly, enjoy your weekend.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And Dan will be in your feeds on Sunday with
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: a great new episode, and then... Tommy and Lovett and
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at cricket.com
• 54:55
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• 54:57
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• 55:00
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• 55:11
  Speaker 1: randos you want in on this conversation. Pod Save America
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our
• 55:41
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• 55:45
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