Latest / Pod Save America / “Fear and Bloomberg in Las Vegas.”

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“Fear and Bloomberg in Las Vegas.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, we'll talk about what's at stake in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the Nevada caucus with the help of the best political
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: reporter in the state and a moderator of this week's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Democratic debate, John Ralston of the Nevada Independent. But first,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Dan and I are going to get through a lot
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of news from the choices facing Democrats in Congress about
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: whether to keep investigating Donald Trump to all the ways
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Mike Bloomberg is already shaping this primary. Two quick housekeeping notes.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: A new episode of Love It or Leave It dropped
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: on Saturday featuring Cara Brown, Larry Wilmore, some guy named
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Ronan Farrow, who also joined to talk about his podcast,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Catch and Kill. Check that out. Great episode. Also, a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: big thank you to all of you who have helped
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: us raise $ 150, 000 for our Leave It All on the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Field Fund. This is our fund to help build the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: ground game for the Democratic nominee. And to start, we're
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: looking to raise $ 500, 000 to support Organizing Corps 2020, which
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: is recruiting, training, and paying 1,000 organizers on the ground
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in key battleground states ahead of the general election. To
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: help make this happen, please donate at votesaveamerica.com slash field. Finally, Dan,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: happy book day. It's finally here. It's here. It is here.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: It is here. The book is out today, Untrumming America,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again is out.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered it. I will not
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: torture you with a long, overwrought pitch, but I hope you,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: if you have already bought it, I hope you enjoy it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: If you haven't bought it, I hope you do. It's
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: a project that I feel feels more important every day
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: as we head into this next topic on our podcast.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That's it. That was a short, perfectly wrought pitch.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: It took several months, but I finally got the right
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: wroughtness for a pitch.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's a fantastic book. Everyone, please go buy it. It
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: is incredibly useful in the environment that we find ourselves
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: right now. Okay, let's get to the news. There's a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: lot of it. I want to start with Trump, who
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: hasn't learned a single lesson from being impeached, despite what
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Susan Collins may tell us. He's using the Attorney General
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and the Justice Department to protect his criminal friends and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: investigate his political enemies. More than 1,000 former DOJ officials,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: along with nine Democratic senators, have now called on Bill
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Barr to resign. And a National Association of Federal Judges
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: has just called an emergency meeting over the crisis. It
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: keeps getting worse. Just before we started recording, he... commuted
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the sentence of former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich. He pardoned
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Bernie Carrick. He then said to reporters on the tarmac
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: while he was doing this, I am the chief law
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: enforcement officer in the country, which is not true. Is
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: it not true? It is not true.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It wasn't true. It wasn't true.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't true. That was the job of the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: attorney general up until now. So all of this is,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you know, Very serious, very scary, completely unprecedented. So the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: question is what to do about it. And the question is,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: what are the Democrats in the House doing? Well, according
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to The New York Times this weekend, quote, top Democrats
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: say that oversight of the president will continue. But Speaker
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi made clear that the emphasis must shift in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a closed door meeting. She described the party's message as
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: health care, health care, health care. And Hakeem Jeffries, who
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: was one of the impeachment managers, said, quote, Trump's erratic, corrupt,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: unconstitutional behavior speaks for itself at this point. Dan, is
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: this the right thing to do? And is it the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: right political strategy for the Democrats at this point?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Before I answer, you should know that Brian just, Portler
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: just stormed through the wall like the Kool-Aid man.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Brian has strong feelings about this, which we all, which
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: we all had a friendly debate about in our office
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: slack over the weekend when the story broke, um, You
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: can start answering the question and I will try to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: faithfully offer Brian's position on this as well.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Look, I think this is the exact right thing to do.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And like, I don't want to do like narrator voice meme,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: but we have to, this is not an either or.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Democrats are going to do oversight, but what they recognize
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: as every piece of data tells us is that what
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: voters care about is healthcare and the economy. And so
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: it's critically important that our candidates, whether they are running
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: for the state legislature, Congress, the governor, or the White
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: House talks about those things. And I think it's important
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that we don't lose track of that very important fact
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: that what voters care about should drive what we say.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I also think, I mean, let's work backwards here from
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the question, what do we do to stop this lawless,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: reckless behavior, right? Like what is the best, how can
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: we stop it? What's the best outcome? Like, Let's say
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the House uses all the investigative power it has. Subpoenas
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: John Bolton, which now they say they don't think they're
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: going to do. Subpoenas all the other DOJ officials who
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: left or the ones who might have complaints. Impeaches Attorney
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: General Barr. Investigates more criminality and corruption, right? Like, what
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: is the best possible outcome here? Because is there anything
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: at this point that's going to get any Republican... To
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: change their mind and say, yeah, let's do another impeachment.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Let's impeach him for good this time. Now, you know,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Brian will say, and Brian has said, that during impeachment,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact that Trump was being impeached and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: there were hearings going on in the House, like, you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: stopped him from committing even worse crimes. But, like, I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: don't really think that at this stage a second impeachment
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: hearing or even a whole bunch more House hearings is
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: going to prevent this guy from doing whatever he can
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to try to win this election, punish his enemies, help
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: his friends. He's just going to keep doing this because
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: he knows that Republicans, in a moment where he was
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: clearly guilty of that which he was accused of, they
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: protected him. Every single one of them, even the so-called vulnerable,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, they protected him.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: They will protect him at all costs. The only way
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to stop this is to win the elections. And if
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the only way to stop this is to win the election,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: then you have to ask yourself, what is the best
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: way to win the election? And it is exactly what
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you just said, Dan. The best way to win the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: election is to talk about issues that move voters. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: what Bill Barr is doing, these are not issues that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: move voters as much as issues like healthcare and kitchen
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: table economic issues. That's just the way it is. And
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: no one has presented me or any of us any
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: data that says otherwise.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, you did an entire podcast series that talked
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: to voters who answered this question. It's easy to get
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: worked up over this because it's like, it's being framed
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: as talk about healthcare and let Trump commit all the
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: crimes or try to stop Trump from committing crimes. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: you can see why when framed that way, it seems
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: problematic to people because we generally should be, at least
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Democratic voters, anti-presidential crimes. But there are entire staffs of
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: people who work for House committees who are going to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: keep investigating. And if they uncover things, other crimes, corruption,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: they will expose that to the public. It'll get out.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: They'll tell reporters. They will do things. They may even
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: have hearings. But we have to recognize two things. One,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: you point out the most important. Republicans have announced to
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the world they are pro-presidential crime. So there's nothing we're
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: going to discover, do, say, no hearing, no subpoena, no
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: witness that is going to change that fact. That can
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: only be changed at the election. at the ballot box.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: The second thing is Trump has thumbed his nose at
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: checks and balances. And so I am sympathetic to the
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: position of Pelosi and others, which is if we say
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: we're going to do a bunch of oversight and then
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: end up with no witnesses and no documents, how is
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: that helpful in any way, shape, or form? As our
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: old friend David Axelrod always used to say, you never
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: want to roll out the big cannon. And then when
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: you light the fuse, a little flag that says Powell
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: comes out, that's sort of how this would be, which
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: is like, we're going to subpoena Bolton, and then we're
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: going to subpoena Bolton, and then Brett Kavanaugh and the
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court are going to say Bolton can't testify. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: it's like, until we change the fundamental structural problems that
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: begin with winning this election, we're going to end up
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: right back in this place.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I want to really emphasize the point on
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: voters as well. Like, you know, the people that I
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: spoke to in the wilderness focus groups, they do not
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: like Donald Trump. And that includes the people who voted
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. The Trump voters, the Obama-Trump voters I
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: spoke to in Milwaukee don't like him. They know he's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a bad person. They know he's a liar. One guy
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin even called him an ass clown. But they
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: know all that. What they don't know still is that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: he's coming for their health care. What they don't know
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: is that he's coming for their retirement. What they don't
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: know is that he's coming for their kids' education, that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: he's taking money from factories in Wisconsin. to build his
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: fucking wall, which we just heard about this weekend in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: a report. They don't know any of that stuff and
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: they don't like any of that stuff. And we can
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: definitely do both. We can continue investigating and we can
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: have a message that's focused on healthcare and the economy.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: But as we all know, a good campaign message requires
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: discipline and it requires prioritization. And you can't be talking
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: about multiple things every day because then nothing breaks through
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: when you do that. You have to choose what's most
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: important to communicate And then you have to have everyone
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: say that. And this is what fucking Fox News and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the Republicans do every single day. And, you know, this
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is true about this issue and like everything else that
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. Like we have to. prioritize
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and we have to have some discipline in what we
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: talk about every day because in this media environment, it
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: is very hard to have any single message break through
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to voters. And paid media can help. The ads, the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: television ads can help. They certainly did in 2018. But
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: we also need our candidate voters. And all of the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: allies on the left, basically everyone who doesn't want Donald
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Trump to become president, to be singing from the same hymnal.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And we will be saying this five million times between
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: now and November, I feel like.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Because we understand that repetition is important. We will be
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: singing from the same hymnal repeatedly until November.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, Dan. All right. Let's talk about Mike Bloomberg.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: who's already spent a few hundred million dollars to get
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention, and he has. And he doesn't
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: even seem to mind that a lot of it has
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: been negative. So last week we talked about the stop
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and frisk stories. We have talked about his redlining comments.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: But now over the weekend and the days before that,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: there has been quite a few more stories. Here's just
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a few examples. We are definitely leaving some out because
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: this is only an hour or so, this podcast, He
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: compared both the ACLU and teachers unions to the NRA,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: said they were all extremists. He said he's never been
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in favor of raising the minimum wage. He talked about
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: cutting Social Security and Medicare. He called Obamacare a disgrace.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And The Washington Post did a story about how dozens
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits have been filed against
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: his company, mostly in the 90s, including a woman who
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: alleged that Bloomberg told her to, quote, kill it when
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: he learned she was pregnant. and a complaint that he
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: yelled the following at an employee who was having a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: hard time finding a nanny. Quote, It's a fucking baby.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: All it does is eat and shit. It doesn't know
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the difference between you and anyone else. All you need
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is some black who doesn't even speak English to rescue
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: it from a burning building. Dan, our democratic savior, has arrived.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And as of this morning, he will be on the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: debate stage Wednesday night.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: So....
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg's response to these stories or his campaign's response, he
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: really hasn't spoken much himself over the last couple of days.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It's involved some apologies, some denials, some claims that he's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: grown and evolved on certain issues. And, you know, if
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you look at all the policies he's rolled out so far,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: they now look like the policies of a mainstream Democrat,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: not a progressive Democrat, but a mainstream Democrat, even though
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: he was a moderate Republican mayor. who was more liberal
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: on issues like climate change, gun control, choice, immigration. But really,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that was it. That was it. So how does he
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: run for the Democratic nomination with all this baggage? And
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: how problematic do you believe these stories are?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Well, we know how he runs for it, which is
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on television ads.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: It was reported today that between when did Bloomberg get
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: in the race? January? December? I don't know.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: What year is it?
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Is it 2021? Is this thing over yet?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Have we been sitting here in the studio talking about
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: this for the last 10 years, 15? I don't know.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: It's Groundhog Day. He's been in the race three or
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: four months and he has spent more money on television
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: ads in that three or four months than the Obama
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: campaign spent in all of the 2012 election.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: It is an.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Ungodly sum of money. And it has worked for him
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: in the sense that he is now up. He's in
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: second in the polls and tied for first in some
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: of the Super Tuesday states, according to polls. The question
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of how problematic it will be is there two parts
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: of that question. The first is, is it going to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: stop him from being the nominee?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Is it a problem in a general election? Probably. Right now,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: we are living in a world of Mike Bloomberg, the brand.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: If you have a television, almost anywhere in America, all
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: you know is that there's this mayor who fought for,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: who took on, takes on Donald Trump, fights for progressive
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: issues and is loved by Barack Obama, which we will
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: get to. And on Wednesday night, you will see Bloomberg,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: the person with the record and the personality and the,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: and the, and the skills will, and we will see
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: whether that candidate matches up to the hundreds of millions
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of dollars in ads. But it's been, uh, it is interesting.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: I would say one more thing about this, which is
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: all of this information is theoretically very problematic for him.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Only if people know, We were talking to one of
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: our good friends who was very interested and involved in politics.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And that person asked me, how come no one has
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: written the story about Bloomberg's complicated relationship with Obama? And
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, they did. It was written in the
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and some
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: other places. But nothing breaks through in that way. So
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: if voters don't know about it, all they're going to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: know is the guy in the ads. And this is
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: sort of a test for how much goodwill can you
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: buy if you have unlimited resources.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about why these stories could
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: be a problem for him on the electability front. But
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I think before that, I mean, obviously he has spent
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: an ungodly record amount of money to get his message
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: out and to get his brand out there in front
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of voters. I think it's worth asking why is it
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: appealing to voters so far? Why has it been appealing?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Because like you said, he's in third place in a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: lot of the polls, some second place. He is doing
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: very well with black voters. What do you think it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is about Bloomberg that has been appealing to people so far?
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I think Democrats are desperate for someone who can win.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: And all the other candidates have been going through a year-long,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: super harsh spotlight of all of their flaws. And so
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: every voter is very well acquainted with whatever quote unquote
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: electability problems Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: or Bernie Sanders have. There's been none of that conversation
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: around Bloomberg. He's just sitting out here removed from the
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: process with no scrutiny, no conversation. In some ways, I
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: think he is just becoming a placeholder for people who
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: have very real concerns about whether any of the top
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: five candidates who are still in this race can win.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And I do think he is, you know, there's a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: difference between Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, and the biggest.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Difference is the money. About $ 60 billion worth.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Right, I was going to say, the number one difference
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: is the money. But, you know, Steyer has, like, saturated
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the airwaves in the early states to not much success.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And I do think, you know, there's a couple things
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: about Bloomberg that I think are appealing to some of
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: these voters, and you're hearing this from people already. You know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: number one is, They like the fact that he has
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: this much money. They think it somehow inoculates him against,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever Donald Trump's going to do in the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: general election. And I think that case is suspect, but
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons. I also think Bloomberg's tactics
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: in this race so far.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He's basically saying, like, you know, I'm a I'm a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: rich asshole from New York, too, but I can take
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: on Trump. I'm going to be tough. And most of
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: his message has been anti-Trump.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Like the the message has been and his his slogan
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is Mike will get it done. And it is a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: slogan about electability. And it's also a slogan about effectiveness.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And we know from a lot of the research we've
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: seen that one of the big things that moves people,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: moves undecided voters or swing voters against Trump is that
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: their complaints about Trump is that he has not been effective.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: He has not been an effective president. And Bloomberg gets
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: up there and say, look, you might not like everything
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: that I've done, but I was a very effective mayor,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: three-term mayor of New York City. I'm a business guy.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I was successful at that. And, you know, he is
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: basically a placeholder for a lot of, and these, you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: particularly college-educated voters who think to themselves, what I really
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: hate about Trump is his personality, is a lot of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: his more odious policies, a lot of his more offensive bullshit,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And what we need is
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a bigger bully than Donald Trump who's richer than Donald Trump.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And that's how he'll win. And that's how we'll win
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: in November. And I just think it's really worth talking
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: about why talking about Bloomberg's appeal because I don't necessarily
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: think it is rooted in a lot of substance or fact.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And I think that if Democrats are going to beat
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg or prevent him from becoming the nominee, I think
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you have to speak to his main appeal to voters,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: which is this sort of mirage of electability that he's
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: got going right now.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real question of how durable Bloomberg Let's
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: just take that 19% in the Marist poll today as
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: fact or indicative of where the race currently stands. So
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the question is, how durable is that? Is that real?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Is that just something he paid for? And then once
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: either he faces scrutiny or other candidates start competing in
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: those states, that number will drop? That's a real question. Historically,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: we have seen, not at the presidential level, but at
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the state level, self-funding candidates buy a bunch of really
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: ethereal support that collapses once there's an actual, once you're
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: comparing them against another person, not just, I don't know
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: how to describe it, but just like right now it's unimpeded.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: There's no one else on the air. Once they have
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to actually come down from earth and engage in the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: race and be in debates and go to town halls
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: and do press interviews, Bloomberg is doing none of those things.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: He's not exposing himself to any scrutiny. So once he
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: actually has to adhere to the laws of political gravity
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: will it pull him down? And that is an open question.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: The argument against it is that people are so scared
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: of losing to Trump and now so convinced of the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: quote unquote fatal flaws of the current set of non-Bloomberg
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Democratic candidates that he may be able... He's basically bought
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: himself a buy into the final round of the playoffs here.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: From a pure tactical and strategic perspective, what do you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: think of how Bloomberg has been running that campaign, how
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: he's been spending all that money?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's brilliant. I mean, he has done everything
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: you would do with unlimited resources. And it is, we've
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: never been in a situation where a campaign has not
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: had to make a decision. They can do both, right?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: It's like, sometimes you have like two or three different
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: types of ads or different strategies, and you have to
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: pick one of those because that's what your budget says.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg just writes a bigger check. And you can experiment
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: with all kinds of things. Like sort of infamously or controversially,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: he paid a bunch of meme creators to create Bloomberg memes. Now,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: if you're operating under a limited budget, you may say
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: that's a high-risk strategy that could end up being a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: waste of money and blow up in our face. For Bloomberg,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: he does it. If it works, great. If it doesn't,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: write another check. And so I think it is very
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: smart how they've done this. I think his campaign team
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: is very savvy. It is a strategy... available to them.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: No one else could do this. And I imagine that
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: if the Sanders or Buttigieg or Biden or Warren or
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Klobuchar campaigns also had $ 55 billion to spend, we would
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: also think they were geniuses.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think the other thing that he's done,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and this is sort of right out of the Trump playbook,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: is he has just made himself be the center of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the conversation, right? Not just with the paid ads, but
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: now in the way that the media is covering him, right?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And even the controversies, even these these bad stories about
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: him have kept him in the middle of the conversation.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And he has basically blocked out all of the other
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: democratic candidates aside from really Bernie Sanders from getting any
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: kind of real coverage, right? Like, you know, Pete Buttigieg
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: did really well in Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Haven't heard much about Pete. Haven't heard much about Elizabeth Warren.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Haven't heard much about Amy Klobuchar, even Joe Biden, right?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Like all of these candidates that I think would be
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: getting more coverage in any other environment, um, Bloomberg spending
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and Bloomberg's controversy and Bloomberg just being out there all
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the time has sort of taken away from that.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And out there has a very specific meaning here because
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: it's not like the people who did your strategy for
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: being out there is do a thousand interviews, which is
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: a good strategy. The Bloomberg one is just buy lots
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: of ads and do lots of things that generate attention.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: The one thing I think they are doing that is clever,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I think is like the They want to fight with Bernie.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: They want this to be a Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: conversation for the next two weeks because that makes people
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: think that's where this is going. So I'm going to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: start supporting Bloomberg as opposed to Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: as you point out, it drowns out the oxygen from
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: all of the– that was a terrible mixed metaphor, but.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: You get what I'm saying– I was going to say
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: something about blotting out the sun. I don't know what
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Blotting out the sun. That is an appropriate metaphor. I've
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: been out for a very long time today on book day.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And I've been talking nonstop since 6 a.m. But like
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: his best chance, and it is a long shot, which
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: we should talk about, is to get to a one-on-one
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: competition with Bernie Sanders very quickly. And starving Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: and Warren from attention is the fastest way to do that.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: So what do you think of the Bloomberg ads? And
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: there's another one out today. that highlights what he seems
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to believe was a close working relationship he had with
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: his good pal Barack Obama.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Did that sigh come through on the microphone? Because it
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: was quite audible on my end. We should stipulate that
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: basically several candidates have run this ad. Biden has run
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: a version of this ad. Warren has run a version
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: of this ad. Pete Buttigieg has called himself Obama, or
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: his campaign has called him Obama. I think it's not
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: fair to Pete Buttigieg, but they have made very explicit
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: comparisons between Barack Hussein Obama and Pete Buttigieg, two people
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: who seem like peas in a pod, if you ask me.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: But the Bloomberg ad is, I think, the most tenuous
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: of all of them, which is, one, it's ubiquitous. It
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: is everywhere. I had the TV on here in New
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: York City last night and just bombarded with Bloomberg Obama ads.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Even I have a firsthand knowledge of this relationship, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I was almost convinced. I was like, oh, yeah, they were. Oh,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. That's not right. And they had a
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: very complicated relationship. They definitely worked together on some of
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the issues you talked about, like climate change, gun control,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: other issues like that worked together after Sandy. But Bloomberg
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: did not endorse Obama in 08. He sort of endorsed
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Obama in 12, but it came five days before the
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: election and it was.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: It was the most tepid. I remember at the time
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: being annoyed by it. I have the sentence that is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: most annoying from this tepid endorsement in 2012 that was basically, yeah,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it was right after Hurricane Sandy. It was like a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: week before the election. And at one point in the endorsement,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: he says, this is from Bloomberg about Obama, quote, and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: which basically could have been a fucking Romney ad.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: It basically was. And I remember thinking at the time,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I would rather have not had his endorsement than have that.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And I would note that when Bloomberg says Obama did
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: not unite the country around an agenda of shared sacrifice,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: he is referring to cuts in Medicare and Social Security.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: That's right. His argument to Obama was, I love the guy.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: He's pretty good on climate change, but man, he didn't
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: want to cut Medicare and Social Security. And so I'm
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: unhappy about it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's not really great. And look, you don't
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: have to over-exaggerate it here, right? Like you said, he
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: has been not just because now he's running for president,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: he's been for a long time, Bloomberg, very good on
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: gun control. He's been very, you know, he did spend
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of money helping elect Democrats in 2018 and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: other times. He's very, very good on climate. He's probably
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: done more than most politicians in the country on climate
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: all around the world.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: You know, and on immigration as well, too. But like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that's fine, but you should know that on just about
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: every other issue, he's just a moderate Republican. And and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: not even moderate in some ways, right? And he's had
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: all these very sort of odious comments that keep coming
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: out throughout his career. And, you know, look, I think
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the other thing that's tough here is there's a lot
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of folks on the left who spent a lot of
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: this campaign telling us that Pete Buttigieg is some centrist
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: shill and not a good enough Democrat, and Joe Biden
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: is not a good enough Democrat, and Amy Klobuchar is
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: not a good enough Democrat. And it's like, Now we
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: have someone in Mike Bloomberg who really isn't a good
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: enough Democrat, who really is a moderate Republican. And because
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of times they spent this entire campaign telling
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: us that good mainstream Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Amy
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Klobuchar and Joe Biden aren't good enough for us, it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: going to be harder for a lot of people to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: believe that that's true about Mike Bloomberg when it is
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: true about Mike Bloomberg.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: This is the fable we will tell our children. A
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: boy who cried centrist.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So... You know, a lot of these
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: stories that we've seen over the last couple of days
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: seem like they've been pitched by some of the other
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Democratic campaigns. We've heard just about all of the Democratic
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: candidates go after Bloomberg this weekend. Why do you think
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they're so focused on him when Bernie's the front runner
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: in the next two states and Bloomberg's not even on
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the ballot?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I think the reason they are most focused on Bloomberg
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: is panic, right? The strategy today has been whatever your
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: path is, win Nevada, win South Carolina, win outperform expectations
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: there and get into the one-on-one battle with Sanders. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: now you have Bloomberg out there who's not on the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: ballot in either of those dates is sort of evading
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: scrutiny and basically blocking you from that position. And so
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: you have to do something about it. And I think that's,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: what's driving it. And I think there's a belief with,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I think some merit that his support is pretty soft and,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and a little bit of relevant information would like the
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: stuff you mentioned at the top of this segment, could
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: move voters. And so they are headed in that direction.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I think they're also probably pretty annoyed. You know, they're
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: out here like, you know.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be annoyed.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, they're out here taking the Bolt bus
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: back and forth to the headquarters and Bloomberg is flying
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: people on a private jet places.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: So, you know, this morning there was another poll out.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: It was a qualifying poll for this week's debate. Bloomberg qualified.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So now he and he has announced he is going
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to the debate in Nevada. on Wednesday night, even though
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: he's not actually competing in Nevada. Now that Bloomberg is
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: in this debate, what do you think is a good
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: debate strategy for the other candidates? It seems to me,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: looking at the news over the last couple days, that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: they are going to come guns blazing on Bloomberg. And,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know, part of me thinks, like, I understand why
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: they're doing that for all the reasons you just said.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And I do think it would be weird if they
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: didn't hit Bloomberg. Like, of course they should take that
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: opportunity to do so.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: But.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I could see a debate where most of the debate
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: is focused on all these candidates hitting Bloomberg. And basically
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: what happens as a result of that is status quo.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Bernie remains the front runner. No one has challenged Bernie.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And if you're Bernie Sanders, that's great. But if you're
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: any of the candidates not named Bloomberg who's trying to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: win the Democratic nomination, I don't know if it's the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: best strategy. But I don't know. What do you think?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, once again, challenging, but you're exactly right about
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: what the likely dynamic here is, which is everyone's going
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: to go after Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders is going to
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: continue to be the person in the poll position for
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the Democratic nomination. regardless of what happens to Mike Bloomberg.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Because if Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar want to stop Bernie
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Sanders from being the nominee, they have to stop Bernie
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Sanders from winning Nevada or South Carolina. And attacking Mike
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg does not accomplish that goal in any way, shape,
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: or form.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I guess I want to know what you think is
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: sort of the most effective way to run against Bloomberg.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I saw some candidates, Bernie did this, Warren
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: did this, finally take on this notion that Bloomberg is
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the most electable Democrat, which I believe is the primary
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: appeal to most voters. And, you know, Elizabeth Warren was
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: in some interview over the weekend where someone said, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: is it is it worth it to make this deal
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: with the devil? where you accept a nominee who can
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: spend unlimited money to get the nomination and potentially beat
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And Warren rejects the premise of the question.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: She goes, well, I don't think it's a deal with
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the devil because I don't think he's the most electable Democrat,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and here's why. And I do think that going after
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: his electability is the most effective way. I mean, I
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: think you could get up there on stage and say,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: people think that Mike Bloomberg is going to be the
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: best person to face Donald Trump. This could be Donald Trump's,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: in many ways, dream candidate. He's going to lose, Bloomberg
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: will lose the Democratic advantage against Trump on the issues
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that voters care about the most, like health care and retirement,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: because he's called for Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and not raising the minimum wage and all these things
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: that we know actually move voters. And you know that
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Trump is going to absolutely hit him as an out-of-touch
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: global elitist who runs, literally runs the fake news. It
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: is right in Trump's message wheelhouse to take on Bloomberg
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: like this. I don't know. What do you think?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that strategy is right, which is you
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: have to take on the elephant in the room. The
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: elephant in the room at this time may be the
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: electability of a moderate Republican. And I think that has
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: been true always throughout this campaign is that we've danced
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: around the electability question in so many ways. And when
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: candidates have actually taken it on, either arguing for themselves
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: or arguing against another candidate, they've actually had success in
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: moving numbers.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Because it's what people care about, right? Elizabeth Warren was
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: on a rocket ship to the nomination until... Buttigieg and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Biden made a case against her electability. I don't think
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that case was accurate. And I think she suffered from
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: it through a lot of misogyny in the media and
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: in the electorate, but they took it on, right? And
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: no one has made that case against Sanders. And if
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: we don't, if you don't make it against Bloomberg, he
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: is going to continue to skate by here. So I
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: think that's exactly right. And I think, you know, it's just,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: if you were to like take a step back and
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: like get yourself out of the Twitter cable news bubble
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that we currently live in, You were to say to yourself, okay,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: this is an election that's going to be decided primarily
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. We're going to have to
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: persuade Democratic-based voters, mostly African-Americans, to turn out at a
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: higher level than in 2016. We're going to have to
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: persuade some white, non-college-educated voters. Who is the best person
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to do it? Is it the Wall Street-adjacent billionaire- Mayor
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: of New York, most famous for taking on Big Soda.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Is that the best person to do it? Like on paper,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: that doesn't make a ton of sense. I think Bloomberg's
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: electability case is very limited and it has not been scrutinized.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: And maybe he is the most electable, we don't know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: but I think you can make a counter argument to it.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And I'll be curious to see if people do that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: And as you pointed out, that may be very much
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: to Bernie Sanders' advantage.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Look, I think the The electability case, to be fair,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the electability case for Bloomberg is, I think that, you know,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: back to the wilderness, those Romney Clinton voters I spoke
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to in Arizona outside of Phoenix, the former Republicans, these
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: are the kind of people who won us the House
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: in 2018. They are not definitely Democrats. They are still
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: swing voters. And they are, you know, primarily in the suburbs.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: They're college educated voters. Some of them are former Republicans.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Some of them are independents. Some of them are just
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats who go back and forth. And, you know, Bloomberg
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: probably has a better chance of capturing these voters than
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: some of the other candidates. And, you know, I think
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Bernie is going to struggle with these voters. But the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: question for all these candidates when you're talking about electability
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: is you might gain those voters, but what do you lose?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And I do think if you've seen sort of Bernie's
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: appeal among younger voters and And not just an appeal.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's crushing among younger voters. There's a real
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: risk that a lot of young people don't turn out
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: for Mike Bloomberg. There's a real risk that a lot
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of people go third party.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: They vote for the Green Party candidate if Mike Bloomberg's
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the nominee. And so I don't think when we think
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: about electability, we can't even though I've been I've been
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: talking about this a lot. We can't just think about,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the college educated suburbanites. You have to think
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: about a bigger coalition than that. And I do think
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that is a big concern I have about Bloomberg's electability case.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's math, right? There are three legs to electability stool, right?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: And they have to add up to the win number
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: in enough states to get to 270. And that win
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: number is somewhere between 48 and 50.1, depending on third-party candidates.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: And it has to be one leg is increased turnout
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: among Democratic-based voters, young people, voters from communities of color.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: as you said, Romney-Clinton voters and quote-unquote Obama-Trump voters. Every
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: candidate that we talk about is going to have more
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of one and less of another one in that group,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: but you've got to have enough to get to where
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: you need to be. There are questions about everyone we've
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: talked about, but there are also questions about whether Bloomberg
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: is going to... He may get the Romney-Clinton voters, but
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: he may suffer with the other two groups and not
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: get you to a number that you win by.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Nevada, where early voting is already underway
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: ahead of Wednesday's debate and Saturday's caucus. There haven't been
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: too many polls, but the 538 average shows Bernie in
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the lead at around 26 percent. Biden at 15 percent.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Warren and Pete at 11 percent. Steyer at 10 percent.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Klobuchar at 8 percent. 36 pledged delegates are at stake. Dan,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: what makes the Nevada caucus different than Iowa?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The Nevada caucus is different than Iowa in several respects. One,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: they're not using an app.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll get to whether that's a good idea or not.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: They're using an iPad, I guess.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: They're using something that looks and smells like an app
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: on an iPad, but it's not an app.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: They're calling it a tool.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, a tool. I think the biggest difference is that
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: there is a culture of caucusing in Iowa that dates
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: back decades. And this is the third Nevada Democratic Presidential Caucus.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: And we know very little about it. We have very
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: little way of knowing how it's going to go. And
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: they have early vote. And early vote is very interesting
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: because I think it does expand the type of voters
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: who can come. And certainly Las Vegas, which is the
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: biggest pocket of voters and Democratic voters in Nevada, is
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: a place where shift work makes it very hard for
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: people to show up at a caucus site for hours
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: on end. And so this early voting process, I think,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: diversifies the group of people who may be able to
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: participate in this very time-intensive process.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So we have the early voting that that's going
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to be very different, you know, and the, and the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: electorate is, is, is different here as well. Obviously Iowa
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: was 90% white, um, in Nevada, 30% of the population
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: is Latino, 10% black, 19% are immigrants. Um, it's very
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: union heavy. And so, uh, it is a much more
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: diverse population in almost every way. Um, There's also, you know,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the viability threshold is different in each precinct depending on
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the number of delegates, which is interesting, too. So it's
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: 15 percent in some places as high as 25 percent,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I believe, when there's fewer delegates at stake, which is interesting.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So it seems like Bernie may be a favorite here
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: or at the very least Politico reports that at least
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: three rival campaigns say that the best they can now
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: hope for is second or third because they believe that
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Bernie is going to win. And of course, the polling
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: shows him in the lead. What would a win in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Nevada mean for the Sanders campaign?
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I think it would mean that he is headed towards
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: being the nominee. Not guaranteed that he would be the nominee,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: but he's in a very strong position now. He would
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: strengthen that position even further and put him in a
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: real spot to win South Carolina, which I think would
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: be rocket fuel heading into Super Tuesday, where he has
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of structural advantages given the states that are
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: included on that day. And when you say the campaigns
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: think he's going to win, one way of looking at
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: that is this is just expectation setting. But what I
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: do think is important knowing that in a state with
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: early vote, the candidates have data on who is early voting.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: And so they know whether people have early voted are ones, twos,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: or threes, or fours, or fives on their list. That's
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: a sliding scale of support level. And so I imagine
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: many of them are looking at this and seeing a
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: large number of Sanders supporters and the Sanders is building
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: up a lead according to their data, going into caucuses
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that may be insurmountable for the other campaigns.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: So if you're on the Biden campaign, if you're on
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the Warren campaign, the Buttigieg campaign, Globuchar campaign, like what
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: do you, what do you need to do now? If
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in those headquarters, like what is the strategy
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: here between, you see Bloomberg on the horizon and Super Tuesday,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Bernie sort of steaming ahead in Nevada You're thinking about
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: this debate on Wednesday. You're thinking about what to do
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in Nevada and South Carolina. Like, what's the strategy here
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: to sort of stop this before, as you say, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Bernie heads into Super Tuesday with momentum and then potentially
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: or at this point, very likely amasses a pledge delegate
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: lead on Super Tuesday that will be almost impossible for
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: another candidate to overcome.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I think you have to do something on Wednesday night
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: to stop Sanders' momentum.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that involves taking on the electability question.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: And I've seen many debates on this about, you know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: where yourself and others have raised on Twitter the question
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: of why are these candidates going after Bloomberg or someone
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: else as opposed to Sanders? And I hear people respond saying,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: does that really make any sense? Sanders supporters are 100%
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: committed to him. Like, does Biden actually have a chance
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: of getting them or Klobuchar or whoever else or Warren?
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: And the answer is, of course they do. I think
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Sanders has the highest, the largest number of committed supporters
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: who are locked into him no matter what else happens.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: But if we remember, in the last two months or so,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Sanders has gone from 13%, 14%, 15% in the polls
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: to 25% to 30%. So where did those people come from?
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: They're certainly not diehard Sanders people. They either came from Biden, Warren,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: or the undecided column. And so they are available to people.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: So you can.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: I think just people think that Sanders is at 25,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: and the only way I can beat Sanders is to
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: get to 26 or higher. And I don't think that's true.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I think Sanders may be locked in at 15, 16.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: He's not going to go below that. But some of
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: those people who support Sanders now used to support you,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: and you have to believe you can get them back
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: if you can make a compelling case about why you're
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: the person best suited to be Trump.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: And I do think this debate and then the debate
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: before South Carolina, this is like final chance here for
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: some of these candidates to really shake up the race.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And I would, you know, look hard at my debate
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: playbook and hopefully change it up from the last couple
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of debates for some of these folks. You know, especially
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I would say Joe Biden probably needs, you know, the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: next two debates probably needs to be the debates of
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: his life. And I think, you know, we've talked before
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: about how Pete probably needs to shake it up. Klobuchar
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: is always excellent at these debates and so is Warren.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: But at this point, being super on message and being
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: message disciplined is probably not enough to really shake things up.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a way to be explicit about
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: why you are the better choice for president compared to
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the other candidates without being nasty towards the other candidates.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: There's a way to contrast yourself and to challenge other
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: candidates without just resorting to all kinds of negative attacks.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And I don't know that anyone... has really been sort
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: of explicit enough. We talked about this after New Hampshire.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I was surprised that in Warren's post-New Hampshire speech, she
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: was more explicit about why her and not Bernie than
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I had heard her in quite some time. And I
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: think you've seen over the weekend, both Biden and Pete
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: have sort of been needling Sanders too. They've been sort
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of going around this. So look, if I were these candidates,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I would definitely... you know, probably take on Bloomberg like
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: they're planning to do, but I would try to probably
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: position myself between a Bloomberg and a Bernie if that's possible.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. You, if you're, if the strategy,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: you're not going to beat Sanders if your strategy is
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to go into the debate and take on Bloomberg.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Bernie is going to continue the director he's on and
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: that's it right now, whether, and I know sometimes we
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: say these things and people get mad or think we're
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: picking a can over another, but this is how the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: math is working. This is how the contests lay themselves out,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: which is right now, Bernie Sanders is winning and everyone
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: else is losing. And so you have to do something
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: to change. If you want to win, then you have
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: to do something to change that dynamic. And you basically
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: have the Nevada caucus, two debates, the South Carolina primary,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: and that is it. Unless you have a billion dollars
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: to spend on TV like Bloomberg does.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: So one challenge that Bernie has had to deal with
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: in Nevada is the fight that's erupted between his campaign
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and the very powerful Culinary Workers Union over Medicare for All,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: which the union does not support. because they say it
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: would replace the health care plan that they negotiated for
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: with their employers. The 60,000-plus member union has declined to
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: endorse any candidate, but they have distributed flyers that say
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Bernie would, quote, end culinary health care. Naturally, some Bernie
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: supporters have responded by harassing and threatening two of the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: women who lead the union, among others. According to the
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Nevada Independent, quote, the union and its leadership have been
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: referred to as bitches, whore, fucking scab, and evil entitled assholes.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: One email said, quote, this is your chance to fix
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: your mistake before the millions and millions of Bernie Sanders
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: supporters will find you and end your ability to earn
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a living. We will find you corrupt motherfuckers. Of that
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you can be sure and we will make sure you
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: wallow in poverty and suffering. Lovely, lovely. Altogether, the union
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: says it's received dozens of phone calls, more than 300
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: emails and thousands of tweets. So, Dan, you know, just
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: about every other Democratic campaign campaign, has criticized this garbage
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: over the last week. I've seen it from Warren, from Pete,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: especially from Biden and Bloomberg. Bloomberg cut a little digital
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: ad with some angry tweets from Bernie supporters. That's a
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: whole separate thing. Bernie responded to the Culinary Union incident
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: with a statement that said, harassment of all forms is
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: unacceptable to me and we urge supporters of all campaigns
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: not to engage in bullying or ugly personal attacks. He
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: also said, quote, anybody making personal attacks against anybody else
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: in my name is not part of our movement. We
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: don't want them. Question, is that enough? Is this a
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: political problem for Bernie? And should it be?
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Well, it is a political problem in the sense that
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: it has caused real, real issues with the most powerful
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: labor union in one of the four most important early
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: state contests. So yes, that is a political problem. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: feel like this is such a complicated and fraught topic
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: because It is a conversation about what happens on Twitter
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: that is much more complex and nuanced than Twitter would allow,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: not being known as a place for complexity and nuance, where, like,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: let's put aside the politics for one sec. Do the
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: people who are being referred to here, are they indicative
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: of Bernie Sanders supporters?
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: No.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Right, no.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Are Bernie Sanders supporters responsible for all of the online
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: harassment of Democratic candidates?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: No.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Does it seem like more of the harassment of Democratic
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: candidates and other people on Twitter is by supporters of
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders than other people?
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Did Bernie Sanders say the right thing there? Yes, I
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: think he did. Could he say more? Yes. And I
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: do sort of want to separate two things that I
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: think get lost in this conversation, which is you have
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: the anonymous– people who are sending these, you know, who
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: are attacking people on Twitter, who are sending these death
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: threats to the culinary union and saying these horrible things.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Like that is one group of people. I do think
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: that Bernie Sanders has limited control over what those people do.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Right.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Like I think we, he has responsibilities to set a
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: tone and say the right thing. I think he has
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: done a lot of that. I think he could do more,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: but he is not responsible for all of those people.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Then there is a group of people who are more,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: who are sort of prominent blue check mark supporters of Sanders,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: who are very aggressive with a lot of people on Twitter,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: who have spread some, I think, false information in some cases,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: who have trafficked in conspiracy theories, but have not reached
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: the level of the sorts of, certainly not gone anywhere
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: near the sorts of things that have been directed at
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: lots of people, and particularly people of color and women
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: are the targets of this. Those people are a different group.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Those people are probably more responsive if the Sanders campaign
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: were to ask them to stop.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Like we have the, I don't even dig into the
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Liz Smith sock puppet controversy.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But I was going to just going to say, yeah, we, uh, you,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you try to explain that to someone in real life
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and you sound like a fucking crazy person. So, uh,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: go look it up everyone. If you want to, you
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: want to see what was going on this weekend.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: We really had a banner president's day weekend between the
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: sock puppet and all the other dumb stuff we did. The,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: and I do think the Sanders campaign could ask those
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: people to do better. Because they are hurting the Sanders
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: campaign because you have Bernie out here as much as
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: anyone and maybe more than any other candidates calling for
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: unity and saying that he will support the Democratic nominee
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: no matter what. And people who are very close to
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: the campaign going out there and calling people who don't
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: support Medicare for all murderers or attacking Elizabeth Warren in
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: ways that Bernie Sanders certainly I do not believe would
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: find acceptable. People who are spreading conspiracy theories. Could he
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: have more influence on those people? I think maybe. Because
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: people are doing a disservice to their campaign. Last point here,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: because I'm sure I was canceled nine points ago. Is
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: this a real political problem? It is a problem. I
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: don't think it is a giant political problem. And I
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: do feel sometimes when I hear these other campaigns talk
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: about it, like I think in many cases, they're answering
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: questions from reporters. So in fairness to them, and they're
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: defending their supporters and their staff from some of these attacks.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: But this is a process argument. And if they go
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: on the debate stage and make this a centerpiece of
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: their argument against Bernie... I think they will be playing
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: small ball at a time when they should be trying
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: to raise the stakes of the election.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you know, I agree with that. I mean, look,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people on Twitter asking us
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: why we haven't talked about this kind of harassment on
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the pod before. And honestly, it's not because I don't
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: find it disgraceful because I do. It's because most of
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the assholes who do it are very sad, small people
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: who are, you know, just desperate for attention and relevance.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And as you said, they don't represent the bulk of
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Bernie supporters who we've all met. I mean, we, you know,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we've said this before, we went to Venton, Iowa, we've
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: talked to other places, we know some of the people
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: on the Bernie campaign, and they're just not like that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: in any way at all. But, you know, it's out
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: there and it's fucking toxic. And it's not just bots.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: It's not just accounts with a few dozen people. It's
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's Twitter personalities and media personalities on
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the left. And you're right, they have not gone as
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: far as some of the people who've threatened the Culinary
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Workers Union at all. But they are still incredibly aggressive. And,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you know, they're spreading all kinds of theories that aren't true.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And a lot of us have been on the receiving
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: end of it, us included. And I think here's why
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: it's a problem. And I don't think it's a short-term
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: political problem, but I think it's a long-term political problem.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: It's not our vote that they have to worry about.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: If Bernie is the nominee, the fucking left-wing crazies in
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: our Twitter feeds can just continue attacking us all they want.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Bernie's still got my vote, and I'm still going to
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: do everything I possibly can to make sure he's elected
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: if he's the nominee. So you don't have to worry
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: about us. You can keep attacking us all you want.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: But let's not kid ourselves how difficult it is going
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: to be to run a Democratic Socialist against Donald Trump.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: It is not going to be easy. And let's not
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: kid ourselves about how difficult it's going to be to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: convince moderate, suburban swing voters who won the Democrats the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: House in 2018 and who we absolutely need in 2020
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: that Bernie is not some scary socialist, but that he
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: is a very acceptable mainstream nominee. And that job of
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: persuading those voters is harder when you have this minority
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: group of supporters out there spewing this garbage. Um, and
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: you know, when some, I see some people on his campaign,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: you know, respond to this and respond to complaints about
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: this by either dismissing the complaints or acting all aggrieved. Um, and, and,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: you know, exactly who I'm talking about that that's not
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: really helpful. You know, like I interviewed a couple of
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, I don't know when it was last week,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: maybe a fashion here.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Who's burning like 10 days ago.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Right. Fashion here. Who's Bernie's campaign manager. And I respect
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the hell out of Faz and he is such a
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: great campaign manager and he totally gets this. And he
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: tweeted after the culinary episode, quote, to those already in
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: our movement, stay focused. Don't get distracted. We're so close.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: We've got a job to do to fight for the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: working class and win to those not already in our movement.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Come on in. The water's warm. We welcome you. To me,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that is the exact right message. That is the message
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: that the candidate is spreading, and it's in Bernie's stump speech.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: So Bernie's on that page. And the people in the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Sanders campaign who are not on that message need to
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: grow the fuck up and act like people who could
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: be the country's only hope of beating Donald Trump. You
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: very likely could be leading this party very soon. And
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: you need to understand that this is a very large coalition,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: that you need a very large coalition to beat Donald Trump.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: And you can't have that coalition by scaring a bunch
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: of people off, by acting like a lot of these
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: people are acting. That's why I think it's a long-term
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: political problem. You're right. He's probably going to do really
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: well in Nevada, even with this culinary workers fight. I
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: don't know that it has much of a short-term effect,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: but I do think as we're trying to win in
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: November and everything has to go right to win, that
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: these people should spend their time promoting Bernie Sanders' message,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: trying to persuade people that it's the right message, that
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: he's the right candidate, and not spend their time either fucking,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: you know, diving deep into dumb conspiracy theories or just attacking,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the democratic establishment. Like the road to 270
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: is not mean tweets about Neera Tanden.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: That is brilliant. And unfortunately, like two words too long
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: to be the episode title.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: It also would really alarm a lot of people.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Neera most specifically.
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: It's true. It's just like, it's, it's like I said,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: it's a, it's a, it's a question of effectiveness, you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: not even necessarily like, whether this is morally right and wrong,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: which we can talk about until the cows come home,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: but we only have so much time between now and November,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and it is an enormous task, and everyone has to
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: keep fucking focused. And that's exactly what Faz said, Bernie's
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: campaign manager. That is exactly what Bernie says himself. And
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: all of these people on the left who have large
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Twitter followings, look, I know you don't like us. I
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: know you're going to keep fucking tweeting at us. Fine,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: do whatever the fuck you want. But if you want
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: your candidate to win, you've got to shape up.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: I think that one relevant example of this, because I
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: can already see the tweets in response to this from
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: some folks, which is- Great. Favreau just said that our
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: mean tweets are going to keep centrists.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, right.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's the rude tweets. It's not rude fucking tweets.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: It's threatening culinary workers.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: And it's not just how do we appeal to independents
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: and moderate Republicans, right? I think the most interesting and
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: alarming example of where this is going is the fact
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: that Our friend, who we are 100% biased for, who
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: we work with, we support, Stacey Abrams, is currently being
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: attacked nonstop by people on Twitter because her group, Fair Fight,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: which is, I don't know, protecting voting rights, took $ 5
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: million from Michael Bloomberg, which she very nicely tweeted about
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: my book today, and I was very grateful for that.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: The replies to that are so fucking dark and depressing
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: because you have these people, many of them white, yelling
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: at Stacey Abrams, saying that she is a supporter of
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Stop and Frisk. If you just took a step back
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: and thought about that for a second, because she took
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Michael Bloomberg's money to protect voting rights.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. What do you think? You think Stacey Abrams
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: took the $ 5 million and pocketed it? You think she's
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: using it to win electoral office? No, she's using it
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: to protect voting rights.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: It will help Bernie Sanders if he is the nominee.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Right. It's just, it's unbelievable. Oh, I don't know, man.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But look, like I said, I am
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: saying this as someone who want like as as we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: have made it pretty clear in this podcast, it is
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: very likely at this stage, unless something changes dramatically, which,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: you know, it's politics and it's politics in the Trump era.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: So it certainly can unless something changes dramatically. Like Bernie
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Sanders is not just the odds on a front runner.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: He's like on his way to becoming the Democratic nominee.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: And that means that he we all need him to succeed.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: And I will want him to succeed as the Democratic nominee, abso-fucking-lutely.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that he has plenty of strengths, and
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: I am not as nervous as some folks in the
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Democratic establishment about him, though I, you know, certainly have
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: some concerns. But, like, it is in all of our
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: interest to have him succeed and to all be united
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: in doing this. And that includes his own supporters, and
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: that includes everyone on his campaign. And like I said,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I think there's some people on his campaign that we
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: all know who have figured that out and get that.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: And there's others who have not. So hopefully there's plenty
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of time to fix this between now and November, right?
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Can I just end this segment on a hopeful note?
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Which is I've been wandering around New York, getting up
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: very early, stopping to get coffee. And very early this morning,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: someone stopped me and they were a very nice listener
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: of Pod Save America. And they asked me if all
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: of us, the four of us were doing okay, because
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: we had seemed sort of dark recently. And I kind
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: of thought about it and I said, you know, I,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I do feel like maybe this has been a brutal
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: part of the process. You know, I think Iowa, how
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: everything played out there was kind of depressing considering how
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: sort of inspired we were by everything we saw up
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: until the moment they started failing to count the votes.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: And I, and you do see this in polls, right?
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Where people are starting, like people now overwhelmingly think Trump
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: is going to win, especially Democrats.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: You, you know, people are getting frustrated because the candidate
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: they love may not be winning or the candidate they
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: love the least may be winning. And it can like this,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: these next few weeks are going to be tough for
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, right? Like maybe you don't like
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Michael Bloomberg. Maybe you don't like Bernie. Maybe you love Bernie.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe you love Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg or Elizabeth
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Warren or Amy Klobuchar, whoever else. But I do think
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: for as dark and painful as it's been, particularly as
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Trump is on a presidential crime spree, like this is,
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying we're going to win this election, but
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: we can win it.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, we can win.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely winnable. It is so winnable. It's like right
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: there for the taking. And we know exactly how to
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: do it, regardless of who the nominee is. We have
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: the roadmap from 2018. And every person listening or speaking
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: into these microphones has agency in what's going to happen, right?
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Like we've talked about this before, but if you're filled
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: with angst or anger, we can just go do things, right?
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Like sign up with Swing Left or Indivisible or go
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: to Vote Save America and figure out what you can do.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: It's like, we do need to remember that if we
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: unify and we do the hard work of activism, we
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: will beat Trump. We have all, he has a lot
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: of advantages, but we can overcome them. And so it
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: is worth remembering that like, this is, this is very,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: we can win and we, we have to win, but
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: we can, we know how to do it. And we
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: just got to get through this always very dark, depressing
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: period where the candidates we love may not be doing
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: as well as we want them to be.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: I could not agree with that more. And, Look, this
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: was always going to be hard. This was always going
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to be pretty brutal. And I think part of this
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg temptation that's out there is a lot of Democrats
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: looking for an easy way out of this. Like maybe
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: this guy's our savior. Maybe someone else is our savior.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: We're always looking for someone to save us. No one's
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: coming to save us. It's us. It is entirely up
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to us what happens in this election. And when we
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: are going to select a nominee that a bunch of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: people do not like and was not their first choice,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: and perhaps when we select this nominee, that person will
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: even fall behind Trump or be too close to Trump
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: in the states we need, and then it'll be up
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: to us to go to those states and to persuade
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: the people who are on the fence or persuade the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: people who are not with us to be with us.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: And that's going to happen on the ground with all
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: of us. And it's not necessarily just going to be
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: the job of the nominee. And no one is magic.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: And no matter how much money anyone has or how
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: many what kind of credentials they have, it's not going
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to be easy to beat Donald Trump. And that's why
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: all of us need to be in it together. And,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: you know, you it was really smart that you said
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: this a couple of weeks ago that like a, you know,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: a weak nominee with a party united behind that nominee
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: is stronger than a strong nominee with a divided party.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: And so the most important thing, whoever wins, is that
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: we come together and work our asses off for that person.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: And all of these people would be one gazillion times
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: better than Trump.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Easily.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: Easily.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: It's just true. And you don't have to look at
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: what they're promising. Just look at their records. Okay. When
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: we come back, I will be talking to the editor
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: of the Nevada Independent, John Ralston. Joining us today, the
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: editor of the Nevada Independent and one of the moderators
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: of this week's Democratic debate, John Ralston. John, welcome to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: the pod.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: Hi there.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: So you're not only the most plugged-in political reporter in
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: the state, you also know the voting and demographic data
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: better than anyone. What have you learned so far from
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: the first few days of early voting?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: Well, there hasn't been a lot of data that has
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: been released or that the campaigns have been able to
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: extract from the party. It's been very, very slow. But
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: it does look like there's a ton of new caucus goers.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: More than half of those who have gone to early
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: voting so far have been new voters, which may be
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: a sign of enthusiasm for the Democrats here. It also
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: appears that they're getting very good turnout in northern Nevada,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: which is not not normally true. It's not nearly as democratically.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: as southern nevada so uh... i still think it's too
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: early to point any trends and we still have one
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: more day of early voting and we have caucus uh...
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: day and as you mentioned uh... things could be affected
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: by what what goes on in the.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Debate so uh... what's your level of confidence that uh...
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: nevada can avoid an uh... iowa style caucus debacle well
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: i say uh.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: many more prayers that i usually do every day and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: whatever prayers i'm saying the democratic party here is saying
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: more i was going to say listen Yeah, listen, they
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: are some of the best operatives in the country that
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: run the Democratic Party here. They are very, very good.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: But number one, the Iowa debacle, you know, screwed them
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: in the sense that they then had to discard their
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: app and essentially start from scratch. And they didn't have
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: much time to do it. And their messaging hasn't been
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: great to the campaigns or to the public. So people
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: are really unsettled. And so you get the national stories
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: coming out, which I expected, the kind of long-distance chaos expected.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: It could be worse than Iowa, all this stuff. But
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: no one really knows. They tried to reduce the wild
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: cards out there, but it's a caucus. Stuff's going to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: go wrong. It's run by volunteers. They're doing early voting,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: which they've never done before. No one knows how big
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: the turnout's going to be on Saturday. And don't forget,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: they have to transfer all the results from early voting
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: to into the precincts. They have to parse it by
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: precincts so they can do the viability calculations because, as
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: I said, it's a caucus.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: caucuses by nature are chaotic. And when you add in
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: early voting and some new technology, it's a tough mix.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: It's a tough mix.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, no one really knows is the answer. And
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: that's the truth.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So as you know very well, in 2008, Hillary
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: beat Obama 51-45% in Nevada, but we took home more delegates.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about the delegate math
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: and whether you've seen any of the campaigns organized in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: a smart way to take advantage of that math?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I think you guys set the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: guide path for everyone else to follow ever since because,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: as you remember, that was a really intense time here
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: and Hillary did end up winning and they were cheering
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: and then suddenly everyone realized That because you guys understood
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: how the delegates were apportioned by congressional district and you
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: were out in the rural counties and doing things nobody
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: else was doing, you won the delegate battle. It is,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: I think you'd agree at this point, much more about
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: momentum and continuing or blunting momentum than it is about
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: amassing delegates. However, you do see much more campaigning happening.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: in the rural counties by Democrats, who generally don't go
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: out in rural Nevada at all for fear of being
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: hung in effigy. So they've done a lot more of that,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: and they're very conscious of the congressional district apportionment. I
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: just think that the delegate battle early on in these
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: early states is overhyped. It's really not nearly as important
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: as momentum.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Right, because the delegates still are relatively small compared to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: what the rest of the states have to offer.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Why do you think Bernie has such a big polling lead?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Do you buy that he's really that far ahead? And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: what other campaigns do you think are in the hunt here?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: You know, it seems like every question requires all kinds
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: of caveats, right? Because the uncertainty out here of the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: caucuses and because it's always hard to poll in Nevada. Listen,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: I think most of the campaigns think that Bernie is ahead.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: And the reason they think Bernie is ahead is is twofold.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: First is the momentum that he's gathered from the first
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: two states. Secondly, he had a really good showing here
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: in 2016, you may recall. He almost beat Hillary here,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: and it was basically just a bunch of rag-tag folks
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: not being professionally run who managed to carry that off.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: Now they have some real pros running the operation here.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: They know how to organize, and they're harnessing that energy.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: So I still think he's the favorite with all the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: caveats about caucuses and about how we don't know what
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: the turnout is going to be. And most of the polling,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: such as it is, shows Bernie in the lead either
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: by a relatively small amount or almost 20 points. And
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: then everyone else clustered below him in the low to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: mid teens. So I think it's really, people think here,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: the campaigns think it's a battle for second place. Biden,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: I think, really sees this as his firewall, he's got
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: to do well here, or his South Carolina firewall collapses
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: and he's in big, big trouble. But also, I think
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren, who's almost disappeared from the conversation, right, has
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: a very good organization here. And so she's really pushing that, too.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: And Mayor Pete set up his entire campaign here. He's
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: got the second most staffers to Bernie's campaign. And they
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: never showed up well in the polls here, but they
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: wanted to harness any momentum they were able to gather
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: from Iowa and New Hampshire, and it looks like that
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: might be working. So it would be just closing my
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: eyes and throwing a dart at a dartboard to say
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: who is likely to finish in second. If you push me,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: I would say Biden appears to be building some momentum here,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: but he doesn't have nearly the infrastructure on the ground,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: which is, as you know better than anybody, very critical
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: for a caucus.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Indeed. Indeed. So you hadn't expected the culinary workers to
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: endorse and they didn't. Have you seen or heard of
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: any additional fallout from their fight with the Sanders campaign?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's having an effect on the rank
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: and file or limited effect?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Here's what I think.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: And you saw this. You recall this too in 2008
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: when right after Hillary won New Hampshire, the culinary endorsed
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: Obama and were not able to pull him to victory
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: in the popular vote. Very difficult. to suddenly turn a 50,000
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: to 60,000 member group around in a short amount of time.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: And by now, a lot of these culinary workers have
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: been working on campaigns, and by the way, including Bernie's.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: And so if the culinary had done a really hard
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: endorsement of Biden and then said, you've got to stop Bernie,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: I think they could have moved a lot of their
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: members to do that. And I still think that they're
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: relatively anti-Bernie, and certainly the people at the top of
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: that union are very upset about what some of his
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: supporters did, and they believe that Bernie has not done
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: enough to condemn them. So there's some really hard feelings there,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't appear that they're doing any messaging to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: their folks to vote for one candidate or another, which
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: I think hurts Biden.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So you got this debate Wednesday night. How do
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: you go about preparing to moderate a debate like this,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: and what are you most interested in people taking away
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: from this debate?
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: You know, it's really interesting because I've been through a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: couple of meetings. I just finished one trying to prepare
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: for this debate, and I'm one of five moderators of this.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: And I think that my attitude of these debates is
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: the format is way too restrictive, so it doesn't really
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: become a debate unless the moderators let it become a debate.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: And so I hope that that occurs. But listen. This
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: is the first debate in which Michael Bloomberg will be
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: up there with the other candidates. That creates a dynamic
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: unlike anything that we've seen. And you add that to
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: all the tension that's built up here in Nevada with
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: these candidates. As I said, there's this cluster below Bernie
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: jockeying for position and attacking each other. I think there's
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: going to be a tremendous amount of tension with Bloomberg there.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: And I know it's the cliche of cliches that elections
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: are about choices, but I just hope people get to
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: see the contrast between some of these candidates, and that's
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: what a debate should be, right? I'm hopeful, but it's very,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: very difficult. with that many candidates, and I guess that
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: many moderators.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if it's going to be the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: most congenial affair, but we just said the same thing.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: I think there is a way to talk about why
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: you're the best person to be president and contrast yourself
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: with your opponents without resorting to being nasty, you know?
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: And I don't know that any of them have quite
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: hit that yet in these debates, because I don't know
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: if they've been quite sharp enough.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, the nastiness quotient goes up as the closeness
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: of the campaign continues, right? And so that's just how
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: this always goes. I don't think that as moderators of
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: the debate, we should give in to that. We should
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: try to try to create or foster a discussion among
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: the candidates, a debate among the candidates on why they
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: are the best person to go up against Donald Trump.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: But you know this as well as anybody. Since you
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: train someone in this, it's hard to get a candidate
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: off their talking point.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: Right? And so it's very, very difficult. And so without
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: that many follow-ups and without a format that is more
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: unstructured than these are, it's very difficult to do.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, best of luck to you. We'll all be watching.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: And thank you for taking the time to do this.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I know you're quite busy this week, so I appreciate
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: you joining.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks to John Ralston for joining us today. We will
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: be back on Thursday with a post-debate pod after the
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night debate. So we'll talk to you then.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Good luck with the book tour, Dan.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: Bye. Thank you.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: every week. Bye.