Latest / Pod Save America / Trumpworld Takes on Taylor Swift

Transcript

Trumpworld Takes on Taylor Swift · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Leah Lutman.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the standoff between Texas and the federal
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: government over the border has some Republicans talking about civil war.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Other Republicans believe that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's relationship
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: is a deep state psyop to reelect Joe Biden. And
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the president's most likely opponent has now been held liable
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: for sexual assault by two juries and is about to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: spend more time in court than the campaign trail over
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the next few months as he faces 91 felony charges.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Just a normal week in politics. And I am so
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: lucky to have Leah as co-host today because she happens
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to be a law professor and a Swifty who co-hosts
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Crooked's Strict Scrutiny podcast. Leah, good to have you here.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It is wonderful to be here.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Such an exciting week. We also have an interview later
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: in the show that Dan did with two top Biden
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: campaign officials, Deputy Campaign Managers Quentin Folks and Rob Flaherty,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about their plan to win, strategy to fight misinformation, the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: ground game, all that kind of good stuff. So tune
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in for that. But first, it's been a while since
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we've talked about the many trials of Donald Trump, but
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the criminal defendant Republican frontrunner is now facing a set
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of rulings that could cost him hundreds of millions of dollars.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: as well as four criminal trials that could result in
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: years of prison time. I'll note here that this doofus
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: is currently beating every other candidate in the polls. But Leah,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: let's start with the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: where a Manhattan jury awarded her $ 83. 5 million in damages
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: over defamatory statements made by Donald Trump. This lawsuit was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the second of two from E. Jean Carroll. Last year,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: another jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: her and defaming her and ordered him to pay $ 5
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: million in damages. Trump has obviously said he'll appeal the decision,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and his lawyer, Alina Haba, already made and then retracted
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a baseless accusation that Carroll's lawyer had a, quote, mentor-mentee
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: relationship with the judge. And here she is at a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: press conference after the ruling outside the courthouse.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I have not spoken because I respect my ethics while
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I'm on trial.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But let me now speak about what has happened.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I have sat on trial after trial for months in
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: this state, the state of New York.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Attorney General Letitia James, and now this.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Weeks, weeks, why?
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Because President Trump is leading in the polls and now
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: we see what you get in New York. So don't
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: get it twisted, whoever asked me that question. I am
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: so proud to stand with President Trump. But I am
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: not proud to stand with what I saw.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: In that courtroom.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: And the behavior I saw in there, some of which
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: was reported widely today, gave us the most perfect record
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: on appeal. And even if I needed it, which I don't,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: we were stripped of every defense. Every single defense before
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: we walked in there. And I am proud to stand
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: with President Trump because he showed up.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He stood up.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: He took the stand and he faced this judge.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: And you know what?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I'll continue to do so with him.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Don't get it twisted, Leah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: She respects her ethics.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: First of all, very excited that you're about to interview E.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Jean Carroll and her lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, for strict scrutiny.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That's going to be out as a special episode on Friday, right?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're so excited about that. It's additionally special because
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: at one point, Robbie Kaplan was my lawyer, and I
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: also got to help with some of the briefing in E.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Jean's case when Trump was arguing that he was just
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: carrying out the duties of being president when he was
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: defaming her. So we're super excited about that interview.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Let's talk about the case for a bit.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Can you start by just quickly reminding us why there
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: were two trials and what the juries found?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there were two trials because they separated out
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: defamatory statements Trump made while he was president from statements
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Trump made after he left office because there were legal
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: questions about how and whether the case should proceed when
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: it was about statements Trump made while he was in
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: office and while he was president. So they just walled
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: off the statements he made while he was in office.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And the initial trial, the one that occurred previously, was
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: on the underlying assault claim and the statements Trump made
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: after he left office. So the jury in that case,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: of course, found that Trump committed sexual assault and defamation.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And Rudy, if you're listening, I just want you to
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: know that I said sexual assault, not rape. He's really
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: big on that and thinks that's a good line. So
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to respect that. But this most recent
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: trial was about presidential statements. So Judge Kaplan limited the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: trial that began, you know, this most recent time to
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: just one issue. And that's the damages that, you know, E.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Jean incurred while Trump defamed her in office.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And the reason... that they didn't have to adjudicate once
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: again that Trump committed sexual abuse is because basically Judge
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Kaplan said, you know what, one jury already decided this.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: You don't get another bite at the apple here to
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: try to defend yourself. And this is why Trump didn't
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: speak a lot. And this is one of their complaints, right,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: that they didn't get to, that they wanted to like
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: relitigate the sexual abuse claims.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a complaint against like very basic architectural rules
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: for how federal courts and trials work. Like once an
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: issue has already been litigated and decided, it is not
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: consistently litigated for all perpetuity.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So we heard Alina Haber there make a claim that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: some of the behavior in Kaplan's court gave her and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Trump the perfect record on appeal. What do you think
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: about their chances of winning on appeal?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Not great. So, you know, just as a general matter,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: it's really tough to overturn a jury's findings. The Seventh
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Amendment to the Constitution actually limits court's ability to second
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: guess jury findings and determinations. It says no fact tried
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: of the United States. Then according to the rules of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the common law. So that's kind of the general rule.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: But she could, you know, challenge procedural stuff like did
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: the jury receive proper instructions or was the judge correct
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: in admitting certain evidence? But and this is a big
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: but like the record on appeal is actually not so
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: perfect because the lawyer at trial is supposed to. preserve
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: a challenge, you know, at the trial in order to
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: make it on appeal. And Alina Haba was just forfeiting
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: and weaving procedural objections left and right. You know, Judge
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Kaplan would say, do you have any objection to this
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: video coming in? She'd say no. And then she'd change
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: her mind later. And he'd tell her, no, like you
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: already told me this was cool. So, you know, if
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: you don't make a valid objection to evidence when it
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: comes in or to rulings when they're made, it's just
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: tougher to challenge them on appeal.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Are you saying that Alina Haba is not one of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the great legal minds of our time?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know, I am saying a la Arrested Development, something
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: along the lines of I have the worst fucking attorneys.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of what we got here.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Well, did you see that Trump posted last night that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: he's interviewing law firms to represent him for the appeal?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So I guess I guess that means she's out of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: a job.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, maybe.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I think part of the reason why he selected her is,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: you know, he thought she had whatever charisma, you know,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the MAGA world thinks makes for charisma. And that's not
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: obviously the same type of skill you might want for appeal.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: But also it's just, you know, evidence that even as
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: she was so proud to stand with Donald Trump and
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: say all of the insane shit that went into that,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: like he was still going to toss her to the
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: curb and just utterly humiliate her after she humiliated herself.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: As he's done with almost every single person who's ever
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: worked for him. Yes. So the Washington Post reported that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Trump is convinced that he'll find a, quote, political mechanism
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to get around the fines, even if his legal appeals fail.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Is that just nonsense or what?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I really don't know what they mean by a political
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: mechanism to get around the fines. I mean, he's going
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: to try to appeal and maybe they will get a
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: court to possibly limit the punitive damages just because conservative
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: and Republican judges have been hostile to plaintiff's lawyers and
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: punitive damages. But I really don't know what kind of
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: political mechanism they are talking about possibly doing here.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: So how do the courts enforce monetary judgments like this one?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Does Trump have to pay now? Can he pay later?
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Can he wait till appeal? And can he pay with
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: campaign funds?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So he has a choice. He could post the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: cash now and say, I have this money and here
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: it is. I'm obviously not going to give it to
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the plaintiff just yet while I'm appealing, but basically showing
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: he could pay it. He could alternatively post a bond
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: that would require him to pay some additional fees. But if,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: you know, he's not actually going to fork over the money,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: then there will be lengthy legal processes where, you know, E.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Jean's lawyers basically try to get Trump's assets and use
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: them to satisfy the judgment. So they might try to, like,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: attach some of his property there. And say, you know,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: if you don't actually have the cash to pay me,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I get Mar-a-Lago and we're going to sell that. And,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: you know, we'll use that to satisfy the award. So,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: you know, it just kind of depends what he does.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: But he does have some options, you know, as to
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: whether he can pay with campaign funds. You know, he
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: certainly cannot just appropriate money that people donated to an
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: election fund and use that to pay judgments. But depending
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: on the terms that people gave to his PAC, he
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: has been using his PAC money to pay for legal defense.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And so it depends a little bit like what they
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: told people when they were contributing to the PAC, like
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: what that money could be used for.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. So we're also waiting for a decision in
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Trump's civil fraud trial, which we could know by the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: time you all listen to this. The state of New
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: York is seeking to recoup $ 370 million in illegal profits
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Trump allegedly made by lying about his wealth to get
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: better loans. The judge has already said that Trump committed fraud.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: The decision is about what he'll owe and whether he
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: can keep doing business. How big of a deal is
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: this case? Like, how bad is the crime and how
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: bad could the punishment be here?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, the crime is just difficult to describe just
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: purely by the figures. This is so much money he
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: has alleged just to have totally, you know, lied about.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I He exaggerated his wealth something by like $ 3 billion
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: and valued Mar-a-Lago at something like 10 times more than
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it was actually worth. That's just huge numbers. And the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: judge has already concluded he overvalued Mar-a-Lago at one point
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: by like 2300% more than it was worth. And of course,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Trump says all of this is like a fraud on
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: me rather than like a fraud on the state of
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: New York and the people. But as to how bad
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: the punishment could be, you know, you noted kind of
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: what the state of New York is seeking. We're also
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: waiting on determinations about whether Trump is going to be
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: allowed to continue to do business in the state and
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: whether other Trump entities, you know, the court will order dissolved.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: We know the judge is not exactly a fan of
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the Trump team's legal strategy, if you can call it that,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: to date. You know, he called them like, legally preposterous
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: and said they were misstating black letter law and at
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: one point sanctioned the lawyers $ 7, 500 apiece. But, you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: as we've seen time and time again, like, the courts
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: are trying to treat these cases– out of an abundance
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: of caution and trying to give Trump every benefit of
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the doubt so their judgment can't be second guessed. And
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: so I don't know that we are going to see
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the sort of like huge number some people are expecting.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Like I think it'll be somewhere between like 300 and
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: 400 million, not necessarily like the vast amounts that have
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: been predicted elsewhere.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Still, when you combine the E. Jean Carroll damages with
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: these potential damages, I saw somewhere that He's estimated to
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: be like 600 million– have 600 million dollars in like
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: liquid assets right now. And so that would put a–
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: There go like two-thirds of them. Pretty big dent in
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: his– Yeah. And I know he's like apparently worth billions,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: but that's all tied up in real estate and other assets.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: In foreign countries, in foreign banks.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: In foreign countries, of course.
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yet another reason why he, I'm sure, is running for president,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: because if he becomes president again, not only can he
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: make a lot of the criminal cases go away, but
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: he can also continue to collect money from foreign governments.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Two birds, one stone.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Moving right along, Donald Trump's next trial should be the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: federal charges for attempting to overturn the last election, but
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the case has been paused. while we wait for the D.C.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the defendant's claim
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: that he should be immune from prosecution because he was
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: president at the time. And I guess trying to overturn
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the election is just part of your official duties as president. Leah,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: it's now been three weeks since oral arguments. The three-judge
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: panel seemed quite skeptical of Trump's appeal, rightly so. What
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: has taken so long?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's honestly really shocking and really disappointing that
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: it has taken them this long because this is now
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: delaying the trial and we don't know to what extent.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: You know, we know from the oral arguments, as you
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: were saying, the judges were skeptical. We also know the
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: oral argument had actually narrowed the issues to just like
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: one pretty discreet one, which is whether a president, former
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: president could be prosecuted. convicted before they were impeached or
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: without being impeached. And so that's the only issue that
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: is just like a completely frivolous legal argument. It should
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: take two minutes to write the opinion explaining that. And
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: so it's really anyone's guess what's happening. I mean, my
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: only guess, my best guess is one of the three
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: judges on the panel who heard oral argument is a
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Republican appointee. And I wonder whether she is holding up
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: the opinion because she could say, well, maybe I want
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: to write separately. And therefore, the court won't issue its
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: opinion until she finalizes her separate writing. Maybe she is
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the most senior. I mean, she is the most senior
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: judge on the panel. And so she might have taken
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: the opinion for herself and is just taking a really
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: long time to get it out there. And it's really dispiriting.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's happening, but it's not good.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And even though she's a Republican appointee who could be
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: taking her time, she did express skepticism of Trump's argument
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: during the oral arguments, right?
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, she did. Absolutely. But, you know, still, it is
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: a partial win for him just to delay the proceedings,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: you know, and potentially until after the election. And so
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: she might not be willing to just utterly embarrass herself
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: by adopting these insane arguments. But, you know, maybe, right,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: she's at least willing to slow walk the proceedings and
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: give him that.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: What's your best guess for how long the trial might
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: be delayed past the proposed March 6th date? I saw
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: on Politico today that even if the issue is resolved
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: this week, now the trial wouldn't begin until late April
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: at the earliest?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're looking at early April at
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: the absolute earliest because, you know, we're now several weeks
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: out from the opinion. And Judge Shutkin had basically assumed
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: if all goes quickly, then I can start March 6th.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And We're now basically into April based on the D.C.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Circuit's delay. And so even if Judge Chutkin does everything
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: in her power to move this as quickly as possible,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: now we are looking at earliest April trial date and
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: more likely later.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: And the D.C. Circuit's opinion here isn't necessarily the end
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of it because Trump could ask for the full circuit
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to hear the case and then the Supreme Court could
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: decide to take it out. Do you think that both
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of those things are possible?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Well, he's definitely going to try to delay it further.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And so there's no reason that he won't ask the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: full D.C. Circuit to revisit the panel opinion and then
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: to ask the Supreme Court to do so as well.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And that's where part of the additional delay comes in.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: It's not just the three weeks that the D.C. Circuit
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: has held onto this case, but the additional delay from
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: any further proceedings. And the D.C. Circuit can try to
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: limit this and basically say– well, we are going to
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: issue what's called the mandate and basically allow the trial
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: courts to take the case again and start up the
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: trial unless Trump seeks further review within like a week
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: or two weeks in order to try to basically speed
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: things along. But they haven't really shown an inclination to
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: do so to this date. And so it's hard to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: know how much additional delay those further proceedings might create.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Clock is ticking. I mean, I'm trying to imagine a
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: trial which, and this is probably the biggest of all
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the trials, but happens in like May, June, as we're
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: getting close to the conventions. Like that's, I mean, I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: don't hate that if we're like going into the convention
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: with the Trump trial and potential conviction, but at some
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: point you wonder as we get too close to the fall,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: what happens. And if the Trump people start arguing that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I know that DOJ has a,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you know, nothing within 90 days of the election, but
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that doesn't apply to court cases. They're actually ongoing.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to say, right? Never really encountered
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: this sort of situation before. And you add to that
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: additional problems with delaying a trial and having a conviction,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: possible conviction, closer to the presidential election would be, depending
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: what happens in the disqualification case that the Supreme Court
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: is going to hear, it's possible the court will say
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: something like, You can't actually be disqualified from office unless
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: and until you are convicted of something that amounts to insurrection.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And so there could be subsequent litigation after any January
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: 6th verdict in this D.C. case where people say, well, again,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: assuming Trump is convicted in the event he is convicted,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: this criminal conviction might actually provide a basis for disqualification
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: that didn't exist before the verdict.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Well, speaking of that, the Supreme Court will also hear
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: arguments next week on whether the state of Colorado can
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: keep Trump off the ballot because of the 14th Amendment's
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: clause that bars government officials who, quote, engaged in insurrection
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: or rebellion from holding office. Illinois just dismissed a 14th
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Amendment challenge to Trump's candidacy. Maine's with Colorado. I can't
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: imagine this Supreme Court ruling that Trump can be kicked
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: off the ballot, but I'm curious— What the liberal justices
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: will do here. What do you think? What are your
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: thoughts about this case?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're the ones I'm definitely going to be
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: watching because there's no way that the chief justice wants
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a 6-3 ruling reinstating Trump on the ballot with only
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Republican justices ruling in Trump's favor. So it's possible that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: the Democratic appointees have some power here at least to
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: shape the ruling, that is to control how the court
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: might reinstate Trump. Trump on the ballot. Of course, it's
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: also possible like the real nihilists and like MAGA heads
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: on the court, you know, the other five Republican justices
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: will just ignore them and the chief and write a
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: five justice opinion that says this was the most peaceful
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: transition of power ever. So hard to know, but I'm
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: definitely going to be listening to see like how the
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Democratic appointees might be trying to signal they would possibly
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: be open to some grounds for reinstating Trump because they
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: do actually have some power here. You know, as far
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: as my own thoughts, you know, I think this case
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: is hard because, as you were saying, I also think
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: there's just no way this court disqualifies Trump. On the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: other hand, all of his legal arguments for getting back
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: on the ballot, they just stink. You know, they're like
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: his first argument. The one they lead with is that
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: insurrectionists can be president because the 14th Amendment doesn't apply
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: to presidents like Trump. Insurrections can't be in the House
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: or the Senate.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: That one seems a little weak to me. Right, right.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: But the one position that insurrectionists can hold is being
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Like, this just does not hit,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: you might say. And so it's hard to know exactly.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, sometimes an opinion just doesn't write,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: but I still think the court is going to reinstate
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Trump on the ballot. It's just hard to know what
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they're going to say, again, because the arguments for doing
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: so are just so odd.
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I keep trying to think of how they could craft
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: an argument that keeps him on the ballot, that doesn't
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: deny the reality of everything that happened and that has
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: been already. I was wondering if they might say something like,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: even though the court found that he was guilty or
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: that he participated or that he fomented what happened on
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: January 6th, That's not what the Constitution was talking about.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And that was the Constitution was just talking about the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Civil War. And this doesn't apply here. Like, I'm wondering
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: if it's something like that.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, who knows? Obviously, this is a court
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: that is mostly fine, sometimes making totally embarrassing legal arguments
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: in order to give Republicans what they want. And so
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: who knows whether they're going to say that the events
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: of January 6th didn't rise to the level of what
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment calls an insurrection, or
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: whether what Trump did didn't actually engage in insurrection. I
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: don't know that they really want to write an opinion
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: and go through every single Trump tweet and statement that says,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: this is fine, this is fine, this is fine. But again,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: who knows?
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Finally, Georgia, that's felony racketeering and conspiracy charges against Trump,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Rudy and their Ocean's 15 co-defendants for trying to steal
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the election in that state. The defendants are already asking
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the judge to disqualify District Attorney Fannie Willis and her
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: entire office from the case based on an accusation that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Willis had a romantic relationship with a lawyer she hired
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to help with the case, which allegedly has created a
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: conflict of interest. So Willis is supposed to file a
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: legal response by Friday. The judge will decide in mid-February.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And we just learned that both Willis and Nathan Wade,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: who's the lawyer that she's alleged to have the romantic
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: relationship with, were just subpoenaed to testify. Can you talk
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: about what the conflict of interest in this case is
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to be?
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So it's not how a conflict of interest arises in
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: like the usual way when it's about a prosecutorial conflict
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: of interest. Like the usual case would be something like
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: where a prosecutor has a relationship with the judge who's
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: supposed to oversee the case or the defense counsel who's
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: supposed to be their adversary or a witness who's supposed
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: to be like a neutral fact observer or a juror
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: who's supposed to decide the case. And If two prosecutors,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: you know, within the DA's office were dating, like, nobody
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: would care. And that would obviously not be a conflict
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: of interest. And so, you know, I like the alleged
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: conflict here arises, of course, because, you know, Fonny Willis
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: hired Nathan Wade. And so the conflict of interest argument
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: goes like, well, Wade used the money he got from
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Willis's office to buy, you know, some vacations they went
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: on and that benefited Fonny Willis. But it's not clear, again,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: that that rises to the level of a conflict of
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: interest that actually matters, you know, for purposes of like
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: the DA's posture vis-a-vis any of the defendants or the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: case itself. You know, I think it's a bad look, right?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: And if it's true, right, it's bad judgment and it
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: gives them something to harp on that, you know, there's
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: no need to give them. But it's not the kind
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: of conflict of interest that people usually think about when
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: they're worried about prosecutors' conflicts of interest.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I thought from reading all the stories
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: about this. Like, how likely do you think it is
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that Willis gets thrown off the case?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's pretty unlikely. Again, because, like, at worst,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: it's self-dealing, something that might kind of benefit her. But
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: it's not clear, again, that that comes at the expense
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of fair proceedings involving any of the defendants or the process.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, that's just kind of my intuition.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: If she doesn't get thrown off the case by the judge...
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Can the Republican governor or legislature try to remove her?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, they can certainly try. You know, there's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: bill in the works where the Georgia House of Representatives
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: just passed a bill to establish the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: This is something they had tried to do previously, but
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: they said their new commission that would allow, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: state officers to discipline or remove prosecutors had to be
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: set up with the approval of the Georgia Supreme Court.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And the Georgia Supreme Court basically said, like, get out
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: of here. This is illegal and we can't do this.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: And so now they're trying to do it again without
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: the involvement of the Georgia Supreme Court. It's unclear if
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: that bill will pass. It's unclear if it does, if, again,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: it would be upheld under state law. But, you know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: it is possible they will try some maneuver to remove her,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: but hard to know exactly what that would look like.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And even on the off chance that she is removed,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like the case still goes forward, right? Like this does
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: not damage in any way the case itself.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: No, it just causes additional delay as new prosecutors come
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: in and they have to get up to speed. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: of course, that delay is going to benefit the defendants.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's not going to make the entire case
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: go away.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we talked about immigration last episode, but there's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: one part of the border drama we haven't covered yet.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: The standoff between Texas and the federal government that's gone
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court and is causing some Republicans to
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: fantasize about civil war. In case you all missed it,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the fight is over who has the authority to control
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a park in the city of Eagle Pass on the
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Texas-Mexico border, a place where migrants often cross into the U.S.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Federal government says that the U.S. border control, which apprehends
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and processes asylum seekers, says it should have control of
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the park The state of Texas, which wants to immediately
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: arrest and deport the migrants, says its state officers should
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: have control of the park and has put up miles
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of razor wire that Border Patrol says is too dangerous
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and preventing them from doing their job. The Supreme Court
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: ruled in a 5-4 decision that Border Patrol can take
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: down the wire while the case plays out in the courts,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: or at least they can't be punished by the state
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of Texas for taking down the wire. But so far,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Texas is still blocking access to the park Republicans in
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: red states and in Congress are siding with Texas, encouraging
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the state to defy the Supreme Court and casually musing
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: about civil war. Let's listen.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Instead, you do what Texas is doing.
• 25:46
  Speaker 8: You dig in, you fight, you hold the line, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 8: you never give in when our national security is constantly
• 25:53
  Speaker 8: being threatened by the traitorous actions of the executive branch.
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: Stand with Texas, hold the line, and never back down.
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: The thing is, the Supreme Court can't enforce its own rulings.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: So once red states decide not to go along with them,
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: if the red states say, okay, I don't care what
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: you think.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: We're going to do it anyway. What happens then?
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: What happens when federal agents try to destroy border fencing
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: and state troopers stand in their way? Does Biden send
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: in the military at that point? These might not be
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: hypothetical questions for long. The last civil war was unimaginable
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: until it wasn't.
• 26:30
  Speaker 9: Marjorie Taylor Greene's absolutely right. The Supreme Court decision yesterday
• 26:33
  Speaker 9: puts the as Clay Higgins said, kind of a civil
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: war between the federal government and the state of Texas
• 26:38
  Speaker 9: on the defense of the realm, on the defense of
• 26:40
  Speaker 9: the United States of America and her sovereignty.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: If you're going to defy, here's how it works.
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: Press conference flanked by your most loyal Texas Rangers. I'm
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: ignoring the Supreme Court's decision. I will enforce the border
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: of Texas. If you're going to arrest me, you have
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: to go through the Texas Rangers.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Great stuff. Great stuff. Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Got the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Oklahoma governor in there, got a member of Congress from Texas.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: It's my understanding that Texas isn't actually defying the court's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: order just yet. Is that right? And can you explain
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the ruling and sort of what happens next here?
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: So it's a little difficult to explain the ruling and
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: assess whether, you know, Texas is defying it, although I
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: agree they're probably not. But that's just because there wasn't
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: much of a ruling at all. You know, the 5-4
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: decision offered no reasons. We don't know why the court said,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: you know, the federal government can cut down the wires
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Texas put up or, you know, Texas can't punish the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: federal government for doing so. We don't know why four
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: justices thought, you know, the federal government can't cut down
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: the wires or Texas can punish them for doing so.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: So all we have is this like very technical bottom
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: line holding of the court. that allows the federal government
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: to cut down wires without Texas imposing some penalty on them.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: But this was not a lawsuit by the United States
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: seeking an order requiring Texas to leave the area and
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: give them clear access. That being said, the bigger issue
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: in the case and the gist of the court's ruling
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: is that the federal government can take down these barriers
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Texas has put up because Texas wants can't obstruct federal
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: immigration officials from enforcing federal immigration law. So that seems
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: to imply, you know, Texas can't obstruct them in other
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: ways as well. But because the court didn't give reasons
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: for their decision and didn't come out and say that,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you know, it's harder to say Texas is doing anything
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: that like really defies what the Supreme Court said, much
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: less you know, they're holding or ruling. So, you know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: that's kind of what's going on. And I think that's partially, like,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: what is emboldening Texas, along with the fact that you
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: have four justices who apparently think Texas can nullify federal law.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. Yeah, that was, I was listening to you
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: guys talk about this on strict scrutiny, and that's the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: part that really jumped out at me, that there are
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: four justices, and it is, of course, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and Thomas, of course. So federal agents, federal border patrol
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: has jurisdiction in, Anywhere 25 miles within the border. Right.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And so that's federal law and they get to enforce
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: federal law. And the idea that the states can ignore
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: federal law or federal enforcement of the law is just
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: fucking bonkers. So, like, I don't know where the four
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: justices were. And of course, like you said, they didn't
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: write an actual opinion here. So we don't know.
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're basically saying Texas could create a fortress
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: around a crime scene and not allow the FBI to enter,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: even if the FBI had authority to investigate the crime.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: And we don't know why they think that. It's truly
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: not so. And I think, again, part of what is
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: emboldening Texas here is one of the justices who joined
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: the majority and said, like, knock it off, Texas, is
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Justice Barrett. And she has some really kind of quirky
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: views in this space where it is possible. She just
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: didn't think that the courts had the authority to enter, like,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: the specific injunction or remedy that they did. But she
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: might think that Texas is acting legally. And Texas is
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: just kind of free to speculate here because... She didn't
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: explain like why she voted against them and none of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the other justices did as well. And so they're just
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: pushing the limits of everything that the court has given them.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Will the Supreme Court end up deciding this larger issue
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: about sort of who has authority here and actually write
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: an opinion about it?
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, it depends. You know, it's possible that the
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: United States might try to file another case in which
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: they seek an injunction against Texas from, you know, obstructing
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: this area at the border, in which case that issue
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: might go, you know, up to the Supreme Court. You know,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: whether that results in an actual opinion of the court
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: depends a little bit on whether, you know, the court
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: decides to write an opinion. And second, whether the case
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: makes its way to the Supreme Court as a kind
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: of final matter rather than in this emergency posture, just
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: in the shadow docket. And so just don't know.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Liz Cheney said on last week's show that what worries
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: her most about a second Trump term is that he'll
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: just ignore rulings from the Supreme Court, much like Texas
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and many Republicans are now threatening to do. What is
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the history of disputes like this? And what are some
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: potential resolutions that don't involve civil war is a question
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I have to ask now here in 2024.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: So it's actually kind of like a long history and
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: a somewhat complicated history because, you know, in the early
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: days of the Republic, you had presidents like Andrew Jackson
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: basically saying the Supreme Court has made its decision. Let
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: them enforce it. You know, that's somewhat apocryphal. But, you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: that was an instance where the Supreme Court told the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: state they couldn't actually, you know, prosecute individuals on, you know,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: federal Indian lands. And the state did it anyway. Then,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: of course, there was the Civil War. And then there
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: was Brown versus Board of Education, where you have states
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: just openly resisting and defying and trying to obstruct the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court's decision requiring integration. And then last summer, you
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: have Alabama basically thumbing its nose at the Supreme Court
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: decision that invalidated Alabama's legislative map and said it violated
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Act. And Alabama came back and said,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: how about we enact the same map anyway? So how
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: do these all get resolved? Well, one, as you know,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: there was a civil war. You know, another is that
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the other branches of the federal government step up. You know,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: in the case of states defying the Supreme Court's ruling
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: on federal Indian law, there the states later kind of
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: defied President Andrew Jackson on federal tariffs. And so he
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: ended kind of standing with the Supreme Court and ordering, right,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: federal officers to enforce the federal tariffs and basically standing
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: with the Supreme Court against the states. And that's kind
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: of what happened in the aftermath of Brown versus Board
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: of Education as well. You had presidents deploying federal troops
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: in order to help enforce the Supreme Court's decision. And
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: then the final option is the Supreme Court kind of
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: unanimously tries to shut this stuff down. That was part
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: of the story of Brown. That was why it mattered
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: so much to Chief Justice Warren to have a unanimous decision.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: So it looked like the court institutionally was putting down
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: its foot and saying, knock it off. And I think
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: that's also partially why Alabama gave up in the legislative
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: map fight after the end of last term, because the
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court, again, seemingly unanimously, basically said, Alabama, you can't
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: just come back and adopt the same set of maps
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: that a majority of the court just invalidated. And so,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: you know, some combinations, some of these things might actually
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: get the states to, you know, stand down, whether that is,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: you know, President Biden actually trying to say, no, like,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: we actually are going to cut down these razor wires and,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to deploy federal officers to enter
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: this park and you need to let us, whether that
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: is the Supreme Court actually coalescing around the idea that,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: States need to respect the court's ruling or some other combination.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: But it's tough because on some level, we– We want
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: there to be some capacity for other institutions and politics
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: to work around the Supreme Court. We don't want the
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: fact that the Supreme Court overruled abortion rights because the
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: court doesn't think women are people entitled to have rights,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: meaning that we all must treat women as second-class citizens
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: as well. That seems bad. And the court is doing
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: all kinds of fucked up things. And For that reason,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: it's like lost some credibility and people on the left
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: should be calling for the court to lose credibility and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Democratic administrations to work around, you know, decisions that the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: court reaches that are really lawless, like say the student
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: debt relief decision. But instead, you have like segments of
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party screaming that the court isn't conservative enough and.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: you know, if the next election or the following election
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: results in a Republican president with a Republican Senate, like
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: they're going to get an even crazier Supreme Court and
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: their Supreme Court appointees, like they will be convinced that
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift actually is a dark state psyop. Like that's
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the future we are headed to.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, there's two takeaways that I have from this. One,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: which is like, and you guys made this point on
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: strict scrutiny, the next election, is so important for the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and people have not focused on that yet,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: because very likely that if Trump wins, Alito and Thomas
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: retire and are replaced with much younger and even crazier
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: right-wing judges. And the four justices who decided that states
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: can just ignore the federal government in this case are
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: proof of that. And then also, if I think about
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Liz Cheney's point, like if Trump wins, the difference between
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: A Democratic administration trying to get around a Supreme Court
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: ruling in legal ways and looking for legal avenues to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: get around a Supreme Court ruling like rulings on abortion
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: versus Trump who could just say, yeah, basically pull an
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson and say, like, go ahead and force your decision. Yeah, no,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I think it seems it seems a little scary.
• 35:31
  Speaker 8: Not great.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: OK, you mentioned Taylor Swift. We do have one last
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: critical issue to cover before we get to Dan's interview
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: with the Biden campaign. The MAGA movement isn't just at
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: war with the federal government and the Supreme Court right now,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: but with two American institutions that are far more trusted
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and beloved, Taylor Swift and football. Now that the Kansas
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: City Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl, Trump world
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: has completely lost its mind over the relationship between the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Chiefs star tight end, Travis Kelsey. and the biggest pop
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: star on the planet. Here is just a brief compilation
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: put together by The Recount and us of the Fox
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: News meltdown over Taylor and Travis.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: We have had enough of Taylor Swift for now.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: She shouldn't be liberal.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: She should be a total conservative, given everything.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: The Pentagon PSYOP unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: into an asset. The New York Times just speculated she's
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: a lesbian.
• 36:22
  Speaker 10: Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in
• 36:26
  Speaker 10: various sports, only to be cut from the team, at
• 36:28
  Speaker 10: which point they become obsessed with some grown man who
• 36:32
  Speaker 10: gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a
• 36:34
  Speaker 10: ball around while promoting poison death shots and child slave
• 36:37
  Speaker 10: labor through various brand deals and endorsements.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: So sad.
• 36:41
  Speaker 10: Just imagine for a moment if people were as dedicated
• 36:43
  Speaker 10: to Jesus as they are professional sports.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So, Leah, Rolling Stone reports that the Trump campaign is
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: planning on waging a, quote, holy war against Taylor. I truly...
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: truly hope that they talk about her every day from
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: now until the election. As a longtime Swifty, what's your
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: take on this shrewd political strategy?
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: So as Taylor Swift said in her most recent Vault Track,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you're losing me. Like, what is going on here? When
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Elmo tweeted out the other day, like Elmo is just
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: checking in, how is everybody doing? He was talking about
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: these freaks. And I don't want to perpetuate like the
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: deep state psyop narrative about Taylor Swift, but it is
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: a little curious that she basically predicted some of this
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: in Mean from Speak Now, where the lyrics are, And
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: I can see you now, like years from now in
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: a bar talking over a football game with that same
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: big loud opinion, but nobody's listening, washed up and ranting
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: about the same old bitter things. And honestly, I could
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: go on, but it's just keep doing this. I love it.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Keep doing it. Vivek Ramaswamy also, he thinks the deep
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: state is rigging the Super Bowl for the Chiefs. The
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Chiefs who won a Super Bowl against the 49ers in
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: 2020 when Donald Trump was president, but I guess the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: deep state was involved in that too. Pizzagate promoter Jack
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Posobiec said, Kanye tried to warn us about the Taylor
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Swift PSYOP and we didn't listen. And he also said
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that Travis and Taylor are, quote, high-level ops used as
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: info warfare tools of statecraft for the regime. Trump advisor
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and proud Islamophobe Laura Loomer said Democrats are going to
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: GOTV campaign, if only. Scott Walker wonders why liberals are
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: interested in the opinions of a white man who does
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: work for Big Pharma and his girlfriend who flies on
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: private jets. Again, Scott Walker was the governor of Wisconsin
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and he ran for president. What is fucking wrong with
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: these people?
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But again, I'm just living for this.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Every day I wake up and I go and read
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the internet about their latest comments about Taylor Swift because
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: it just it gives me life. And, you know, as
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: she said, like, I don't start shit, but I can
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: tell you how it ends. This is not going to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: go well for them. But, you know, like, on a, like,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: slightly less humorous note, this is obviously part of just
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: their whole our strategy is misogyny thing. And they think, right, that, like,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: they can use Taylor Swift as just kind of the
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: image of that. Like, let's punch on, like, some other
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: woman because, like, we just think that is, like, a
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: political strategy to get together, like, all of the dads, brads,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: and chads and, like, try to get that through 2024.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I also think.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: It's just a symptom of how these people are so
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: fucking online and they all need to go touch grass. Like, just,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the Chiefs-Ravens game was the most watched AFC
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: championship ever. Over 55 million people tuned in. Taylor is
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: currently on the highest grossing tour of all time. over
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars, 151 shows across five continents, 4 million
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: tickets sold in the U.S.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: Alone.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: She's playing as 72,000 people a night in the United States.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Morning consult at a poll in 2023. 53% of adults
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: in the United States said they were fans of Taylor Swift,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: of whom 44% identified as Swifties. Of the fans, 52%
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: were women, 48% were men, and only about half were Democrats.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So like the popularity is so broad. Taylor Swift and football.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: This is what they have decided to pick a fight
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: on Taylor Swift and football. Like a, they are threatened
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: by a wildly popular American icon with Nashville country music
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: roots and a lovable meathead at NFL star. Who's from
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Ohio and plays with the Kansas city chiefs. Like it's just,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it is. These are the people. It's so funny. It
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: is so funny.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: It is. And yet, I do not want to be
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: overconfident that this insane, deranged, unhinged thing is just going
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: to inevitably result in America realizing that these people are
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: weird freaks and cannot rule the country. Because yeah, you
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: look at it and you try to explain to people
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: what's happening, and it's inexplicable, and it just underscores, obviously,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: these people cannot be allowed to run things because they
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: really think that this is a deep state And that
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: they are trying to rig the Super Bowl. I mean,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: don't you think that the deep state has like slightly better,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: more important things to do than like set up a
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: pop star and an NFL star tight end? I don't know.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I really love it and actually do think it's a
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: it could be a bigger deal only because it plays
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: into what I think is maybe the most damaging thing.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: political caricature of republicans that happens to be true is
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: that they're fucking weird uh and this is like why
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the this is one of the reasons one of the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: many reasons why the desantis campaign failed and that's what
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: people hate most about this republican party right they're gonna
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: they're gonna tell you who to love they're gonna try
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to get involved in your health care decisions they're gonna
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: tell you what to read they're gonna tell you not
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to like taylor swift they're gonna tell you not to
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: like football like No one wants to be governed by
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: these freaks. You know, there was a story about Donald Trump,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: but noticeably, even Donald Trump, who kind of gets this,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: has not been yet out there just like shitting all
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: over Taylor Swift. He said he likes her music less
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago when she came out against
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Marsha Blackburn running in her home state of Tennessee. And
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: she came out and endorsed Biden in 2020. But even
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: he kind of knows like to back off.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: It's true, although the Rolling Stones story did suggest he
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: was bragging privately about how he was more popular than
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift, to which I say, like, say it to
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: my fucking face, you fool. But yeah, no, it is
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: something to behold for sure. I feel like a litmus
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: test for a presidential candidate should be, like, okay, I
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: say Taylor Swift, what's your response? And, you know, Joe
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Biden's like, I don't know, I'm in my red era.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: And Donald Trump is like, she's a deep state psyop.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And the fact that they've all also trained their ire
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: on Travis Kelsey only because he took a fucking COVID shot.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: He took the vaccine. And he appeared in a Bud
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Light commercial because they also hate vaccines that save your
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: lives and Bud Light.
• 43:12
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: It's awesome. It's awesome. I can't get enough of it. Okay,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: two quick housekeeping notes before we go to break. Vote
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Save America is back with a brand new political action
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: finder that curates volunteer opportunities specifically for you. Just check
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: a few boxes and Vote Save America will pinpoint the
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: volunteer opportunities that'll make the biggest impact from your state
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: all the way to the White House. We also have
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: a beautiful and very helpful new website. So check it out.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Head to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to get started now. Also,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: a new episode of Dan's exclusive subscriber series, Polar Coaster,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: just dropped. This one's about how exit polls work and
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: what they tell us about the general election. To listen
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: to this episode, make sure you're a part of Crooked's
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Friend of the Pod community by heading to crooked.com slash friends. Now,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: when we come back, Dan talks to Biden deputy campaign managers,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Quinton Folks, and Rob Flaherty.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Joining me now are two of President Biden's deputy campaign managers,
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: Rob Flaherty and Clinton Folks. Guys, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: Hello.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Dan.
• 44:20
  Speaker 11: Thank you for having us.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: I got to start with the most important question of
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: the day. Which one of you wants to take responsibility
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: for scripting the Super Bowl with the NFL and Taylor Swift?
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: Well, we've had a lot of meetings dating back to
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: the beginning of the campaign about this, and we're just
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: glad to see a payoff.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: That's right. Well, glad to see it's in the bag.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: Today in the New York Times, there was yet another
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: story about the Biden campaign battle plan. I've read some
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: of the posts. I've read some in Axios, Politico. Everyone's
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: got a story of the battle plan. Can you guys
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: give me the actual, your actual short version of your
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: plan of how you're going to go about winning this election?
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 11: I mean, look, I think one of the things that
• 45:00
  Speaker 11: we have to do right out of the gate is
• 45:02
  Speaker 11: really define the choice that voters are going to have
• 45:05
  Speaker 11: in November. Right now, we know a lot of voters
• 45:07
  Speaker 11: aren't paying attention necessarily to this. They are living their lives.
• 45:11
  Speaker 11: They're doing things. But, you know, we have to define
• 45:13
  Speaker 11: the choice as much as possible. We've come out of
• 45:15
  Speaker 11: the gate very quickly doing that. We've seen the president's travel,
• 45:19
  Speaker 11: you know, Valley Forge, South Carolina, big speeches about the
• 45:22
  Speaker 11: freedom and democracy of it all to really put into
• 45:25
  Speaker 11: perspective what this campaign is going to be about. While simultaneously,
• 45:28
  Speaker 11: that's the 30,000 foot. But look, we're going to win
• 45:31
  Speaker 11: this in the states. We've got to staff up and
• 45:33
  Speaker 11: build infrastructure in the states. in order to be able
• 45:36
  Speaker 11: to make sure that we have the folks on the
• 45:37
  Speaker 11: ground knocking doors, doing the calls and texts. And then obviously,
• 45:41
  Speaker 11: you know, Rob can talk about this a little bit more, but,
• 45:43
  Speaker 11: you know, there's going to be a paid media aspect
• 45:45
  Speaker 11: of this too. But the messages coming out of this
• 45:48
  Speaker 11: campaign are really going to matter, not just the contrast
• 45:50
  Speaker 11: with Trump, but also the vision that President Biden and
• 45:53
  Speaker 11: Vice President Harris have for America. And then we've got
• 45:56
  Speaker 11: to have those firing from all these different places that
• 45:59
  Speaker 11: I just mentioned.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: One of the things that was in some of these
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: stories recently is that you guys have been ramping up
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: in the states in particular. There had been some criticism
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: late last year that you were behind sort of previous
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: re-election campaigns. What's the status of the organization you're building
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: out in the states?
• 46:16
  Speaker 11: Look, I mean, I think that one, I would say
• 46:18
  Speaker 11: to that criticism is that every campaign is different. You've
• 46:20
  Speaker 11: got to build a campaign that's going to work for yourself.
• 46:23
  Speaker 11: And I think that some of these historical comparisons, I mean,
• 46:26
  Speaker 11: 2020 was COVID. But from the perspective that we are,
• 46:29
  Speaker 11: all of our battleground states, we're going to have leadership
• 46:32
  Speaker 11: teams in place before the end of this month. So
• 46:35
  Speaker 11: we feel like we're tracking along there. We've got some
• 46:37
  Speaker 11: exciting announcements coming up, hopefully today and tomorrow about that.
• 46:41
  Speaker 11: But we've got state staff in all these battleground states,
• 46:44
  Speaker 11: and then we're going to continue to build out from
• 46:46
  Speaker 11: there and capacity build and really start bringing in the
• 46:49
  Speaker 11: volunteer and the organizers, getting them trained up on our
• 46:51
  Speaker 11: messages to then be able to get that out. So
• 46:53
  Speaker 11: we feel very comfortable where we are.
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: And also, we've been advertising since last year in some
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: of these core communities in our battlegrounds. We've been running
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: organizing pilots on the ground in a couple of states.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: We've been sort of experimenting with the tactics that are
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: going to help scale us up, and we have a
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: good battle plan from here.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: You mentioned that people are not yet paying attention. We've
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: sort of seen that in at least diminished turnout on
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: the Republican side in Iowa, sort of lower TV ratings
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: for some of the election nights, and certainly in previous years.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: I read a report in one of these stories, I
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: think it was in the Post, that was attributed to
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: your guys' campaign point that showed that a sizable chunk
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: of undecided voters did not yet believe that Donald Trump
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: was going to be the nominee. Is that what you
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: guys are really seeing out there in terms of sort
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: of the less engaged electorate?
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: It's 100% true, at least in what we're seeing. You've
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: got a lot of voters who are still making up
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: their minds because they've got a lot going on. They
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: are not paying attention to politics. They are opting out
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: of paying attention to politics. And Trump is sort of
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: gone in their minds. And so You know, in a
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: lot of sense for these for these voters, the election
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: hasn't even started yet. So we've got to do the
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: work now of communicating with them, raising the stakes of
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: the election, but also being ready for when they do
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: start to tune in, which may sort of be more
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: of a trickle than a bang. And so we've got
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: to start, you know, communicating with them early and working
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: on raising the stakes.
• 48:19
  Speaker 11: Which is also why you see a concerted effort for
• 48:21
  Speaker 11: us to do that, which is trying to bring the
• 48:23
  Speaker 11: general election forward, right? Like regardless of what happens or
• 48:26
  Speaker 11: delegates and numbers, again, this is going to be a
• 48:29
  Speaker 11: choice about, you know, what we feel like President Biden
• 48:31
  Speaker 11: and Vice President Harris are bringing to the table and
• 48:33
  Speaker 11: what the Republicans are putting forward. So we're intentionally trying
• 48:35
  Speaker 11: to move that up to make these people, you know,
• 48:38
  Speaker 11: really get to this mode where we feel like people
• 48:40
  Speaker 11: are going to be paying attention.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: These are our candidates. Let's go.
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: Let's have this throw down fight that we know we're
• 48:45
  Speaker 11: headed towards.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: I take it from the statement you guys put out
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: right after the race was called in New Hampshire that
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: as far as you're concerned, Donald Trump is the nominee
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: and the general election has begun and you're not trying
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: to extend the Republican primary or holding out hope for
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: Nikki Haley. Is that right?
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, ultimately we don't get to decide, but,
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: you know, it looks like it's going to be Donald Trump.
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: We are ready for him. We are in general election mode.
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: He's getting into general election mode. So, you know, we
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: got to be ready for all of that and we're
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: full steam ahead.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: In addition to people sort of opting out of politics,
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: it's also never been harder. to get political information, right?
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: The information ecosystem has changed dramatically.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: And I was.
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: Thinking about this, Rob, in your context, which is you
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: oversaw a lot of the digital communications that you oversaw
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: the digital communication efforts for President Biden in 2020. What
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: has changed since then? And how are you adjusting your
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: your strategy to reflect those changes?
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: I think the biggest thing is even since 2020, like
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: the media environment has gotten not just fractured, everybody says fractured,
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: but it's actually, it's gotten more personalized. And that's like
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: the TikTokification of everything, you know, all of that. But
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: it's also that people are, there's just sort of like a,
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: like a avalanche of bullshit coming at people in their
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: day to day. And, and they are starting to retreat to,
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: sort of the people that they know that they can trust.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, even on, you know, one context, one thing
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: in digital, Adam Masseri earlier this year, CEO of Instagram,
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: said 50% of the stuff that gets shared, the majority
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: actually of stuff that gets shared on Instagram is in
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: private groups. Like people are talking to their friends more.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: And so you started to see this split between like,
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: I think it's Ryan Broderick has Garbage Day. He talks
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: about the public internet and the private internet. Like there's,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: that is the biggest thing. And so you've got where
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: people are kind of consuming information and where people are
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: talking to their friends. If you're doing a digital strategy
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: or communication strategy, you need to, in the first bucket,
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: be in as many places as possible through your paid
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: and your earned. And then in the other bucket, you
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: got to be talking to people through their friends and family.
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: That's why we ran the paid media sort of campaign
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: that we ran last year to get those learnings on
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: what is the best media mix with the right voters.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: How do we actually reach them?
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: It's why you've seen the president talk to influencers and
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: content creators. And it's why our organizing pilots are focused
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: on getting people to share content with their friends, like
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: You need a strategy to think about all of that.
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: I'll say one other thing that is, you know, 70%
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: of media spend in the 2022 cycle from political campaigns
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: went to linear broadcast television and 30% went to everything else.
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: So when I say linear broadcast television, I mean like
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: cable broadcast, like all the, you know, you tune in,
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: That's like not how people get information anymore. They're in
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: more places than ever. When they're in those more places
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: than ever, they are then in further more places than ever.
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: And so it means that we can't have this sort
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: of lopsided way of targeting voters. We just got to
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: go– we got to go everywhere.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: So you sort of have to get– I've heard some
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: people also describe this as like the new– like if
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Twitter was where people talked about politics in 2012 and 2016,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: it's now family group texts, right, and WhatsApp chats, et cetera.
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: How do– like– Do you talk a little bit about
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: how you try to, we want to get inside of
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: those conversations, like by empowering people to share content, just
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: because I get that's the question I get all the
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: time is if that's how people are communicating, how do
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: we as volunteers help and how can they do that?
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: So there's a couple of different things. Like one, you know,
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: we're sort of playing around with like relational organizing tools.
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: Reach is sort of the big one that we use
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: and it gives folks sort of a bucket of content
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: that they can share at a regular basis with their
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: friends and family. But also like there is like a
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: fundamental to this, which is like, it's not enough just
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: to share a graphic. Like, It needs to sound like you.
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: And so it's how we train folks on messaging, authentic communication.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Like that's a.
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: Whole new bucket of training we have to think about
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: when it comes to what volunteers do with their time. Obviously,
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: like story itself, all that stuff has been around forever.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: But it's this question of, all right, how do you
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: translate that to a Facebook post? How do you translate
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: that to a text to friends? Because also like, I
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: don't know, I'm in group chats. Like if I'm just
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: posting Biden campaign graphics all day, I'm going to get
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: booted out of that group chat really fast.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: Which would be really embarrassing for you personally.
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: It would be very embarrassing for me, which is why
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: I don't have any friends because that's all I do
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: all day. So, you know, it's like we have to
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: sort of train people on those authentic conversations. Like one
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: example we always kick around is that actually like one
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: of the things we've seen to be most authentic is
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: like someone sharing an article that's like gas prices are
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: going down. Like that is creating an ethereal commentary about
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: the economy that is not necessarily tied to Joe Biden,
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: but is achieving our goals. So It's got to be
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: a little bit subtle touch. So we're thinking about a
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: lot of that in the context of how we train
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: our vols and push them out, but also how we
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: think about these sort of relational conversations that are happening
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: in that space too.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: Quentin, talk to me a little bit about how you
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: guys see the map heading into 2024. Is it the
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: same six states? Is North Carolina really a potential expansion state?
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: Any other surprises out there?
• 53:39
  Speaker 11: I mean, look, I mean, you know, we in order
• 53:41
  Speaker 11: to win a presidential election, you've got to get 270
• 53:44
  Speaker 11: electoral votes. And the idea is to not put all
• 53:46
  Speaker 11: of your eggs in one basket. I mean, I think
• 53:48
  Speaker 11: we all know sort of the big ones, you know,
• 53:51
  Speaker 11: in no particular order. But, you know, you have Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada,
• 53:56
  Speaker 11: North Carolina, Florida. You know, these are all states that
• 53:59
  Speaker 11: we're looking at. We have to make sure that we're
• 54:01
  Speaker 11: going to be able to compete and make changes as these,
• 54:05
  Speaker 11: you know, campaign goes along. I think if you look
• 54:07
  Speaker 11: back at 2020, I don't think people thought that Georgia
• 54:10
  Speaker 11: was going to be in play until it was.
• 54:12
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 54:12
  Speaker 11: And you've got to make sure that you're able to
• 54:14
  Speaker 11: pivot and build and sort of, you know, mobilize at
• 54:18
  Speaker 11: any given point in any of these states. And so,
• 54:20
  Speaker 11: you know, when you're talking about, you know, the presidency,
• 54:24
  Speaker 11: you know, being able to do that, this is not
• 54:26
  Speaker 11: something that you can just stand up overnight. And so
• 54:28
  Speaker 11: you have to have investment spread out across these states
• 54:31
  Speaker 11: in order to be able to sort of turn that
• 54:32
  Speaker 11: spigot on, for lack of better phrasing, when you need to.
• 54:36
  Speaker 11: in order to make sure that you can capitalize on
• 54:38
  Speaker 11: any moments that present themselves over the campaign.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: So you'll put staff in North Carolina and Florida in
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: this early phase here?
• 54:45
  Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, we definitely will.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: Obviously, this is the question that everyone asks is the
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: obsessive topic of the press, but it's also something that
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: in any political conversation you hear is about President Biden's age.
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: We had this Gallup poll out the other day, which
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: showed that two-thirds of Americans wouldn't vote for a candidate
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: over 80. They also would not vote for a convicted criminal.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: So things are not great on either side here. Talk
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: to me a little bit about your strategy for dealing
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: with the age issue as the campaign goes on, particularly
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: among members of President Biden's own coalition.
• 55:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, like the age concern is
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: nothing new. I mean, this is a thing we were
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: dealing with in 2020. And we found it was actually
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: pretty easy to dispatch with by showing voters the president
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: doing stuff. And that sort of remains true. I mean,
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: there's just sort of an asymmetry. Like the president is
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: governing– to deliver results, but not necessarily, you know, be
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: the most entertaining thing. And so we're up against, you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: all these sort of clips of things that are taken
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: out of context or all of that. I think like one,
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: the president has started to acknowledge it and make jokes
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: about it and all of that. But two, I think
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: we have to recognize that like the end of the day,
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: like voters aren't going to vote on age. They're going
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: to vote on the issues that matter to them. And so,
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: you know, to us, it's like we got to go
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: talk about that stuff, what we've delivered for folks You know,
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: the sort of policy agenda that we're on and all
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: of that. This is, in our sort of view, is
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: a concern that is wide. Lots of people talk about,
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: but it's actually not that deep. Um, and, uh, you know,
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: the sort of, uh, people vote for who's going to
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: fight for them. And at the end of the day,
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: you know, this is an election between, uh, a 77
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: year old man who, uh, has taken away people's right
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: to an abortion, who has, uh, cut taxes for his
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: rich friends, uh, and, you know, is out for unhinged revenge, uh,
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: and a guy who's three years older than him. Right.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: Um, it, I mean, the polling obviously shows that people
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: for whatever reason are more have bigger concerns about President
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: Biden than Donald Trump on the age issue. You guys
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: have had some fun. President Biden did it in South Carolina.
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: You've done it on digital stuff with Donald Trump getting
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: confused between Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi at that rally
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: and some other stuff. Is there an effort there just
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: to sort of show that Donald Trump has lost it?
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: How are you factoring those two things in between building
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: up your guy to show he has the vitality to
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: do capacity to do the job and undermining the other guy?
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of the day, you got
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: to do everything.
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: And so we're going to talk about the president's agenda
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: and his accomplishments and everything he's been able to get done.
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: And also, you know, we got to hold Donald Trump
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: accountable too. And he makes slip ups that if Joe
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: Biden made, we'd be talking about for weeks, every single night.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: We got to make sure people see those at scale too.
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: And some of them are very perplexing and hard to
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: understand as well. So So it's all about service and
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: doing both things.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:45
  Speaker 11: I mean, I agree. It's both and, right? I mean,
• 57:47
  Speaker 11: he's going to make mistakes and we're going to capitalize
• 57:49
  Speaker 11: on them. But it is really important that we're getting
• 57:52
  Speaker 11: out there what we want to do for people and
• 57:54
  Speaker 11: not making it. So this is not going to be
• 57:56
  Speaker 11: over-indexed on just Trump negative and hoping that that's going
• 57:59
  Speaker 11: to be enough. This is going to have to be
• 58:02
  Speaker 11: both and situation that I mentioned and talk about what
• 58:04
  Speaker 11: the president wants to continue to do for the American
• 58:07
  Speaker 11: people and then use that contrast to show that like, look,
• 58:10
  Speaker 11: this is completely and wildly vastly different than what Donald
• 58:14
  Speaker 11: Trump wants to do.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: All the polling shows, and I always attribute this a
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: lot more to the media environment than anything that like
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: the White House or the president has done, but it's
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: just there's this huge gap between everything that was accomplished
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: by President Biden and what people know he has accomplished
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: over How– and there were a lot of efforts like
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: some of the ads that ran last year and you
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: see this sometimes in some of your social and a
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: lot from the White House is these are all the
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: things that we did in the past. How important is
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: it to educate people about something that happened in the
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: past as a predicate for what you can do in
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: the future versus what a second term agenda looks like?
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: How are you guys sort of thinking about the prioritization there?
• 58:55
  Speaker 11: I think it's extremely important. I think one of the
• 58:58
  Speaker 11: things is that there's just such a litany of accomplishments.
• 59:01
  Speaker 11: Sometimes it's hard to get credit for all of them.
• 59:04
  Speaker 11: I think you've seen the vice president say that you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 11: this administration needs to brag more. But, you know, at
• 59:10
  Speaker 11: the same time, I think that they sort of put
• 59:11
  Speaker 11: their heads down. And when this flurry of accomplishments were coming,
• 59:15
  Speaker 11: they were just on to the next one to continue
• 59:17
  Speaker 11: delivering for the American people. But I do think it's
• 59:19
  Speaker 11: very important, particularly when you're talking about a lot of
• 59:22
  Speaker 11: base voters who have sort of an apathy towards this
• 59:25
  Speaker 11: electoral system because, They feel like they're promised things and
• 59:29
  Speaker 11: then nothing gets done. I do think that this monochrome
• 59:32
  Speaker 11: of sort of promises made, promises kept is extremely important
• 59:35
  Speaker 11: to those voters to say, look, I'm not just coming
• 59:38
  Speaker 11: around again because it's election season. I came, you know,
• 59:41
  Speaker 11: you voted for me. You sent me to the White
• 59:42
  Speaker 11: House last time I got in there. I did real
• 59:45
  Speaker 11: work and I said I was going to do these
• 59:46
  Speaker 11: things on the trail in 2019, 2020. And I got
• 59:49
  Speaker 11: into office and I delivered them. And in some cases,
• 59:52
  Speaker 11: I delivered them even when the Supreme Court, even when
• 59:54
  Speaker 11: Congress was standing in my way, And I want to
• 59:57
  Speaker 11: continue doing that work. So I think it's very important
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 11: that we do that. And I think depending on who
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 11: the audience is, it may be more important. I think
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 11: a second term agenda is important for everyone. But I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 11: really do think that it is very, very important to
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 11: let people know that this president made promises and he
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 11: got into office and did the best that he could
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 11: to deliver on them and in our minds delivered very well.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: Plus, like, The what matters because I think it informs
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: the why, right? Like if you look at this election,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: it's a choice between Donald Trump who's getting up every
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: day and running for office to accrue power, get revenge
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: for last time, keep peddling his unhinged conspiracy theories, and
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: help him and his buddies get rich and pay less
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: in taxes. Where you have Joe Biden who's running because
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: he gets up every day thinking about what's best for
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: working families. And like that choice is articulated through the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: accomplishments that, you know, the president has been able to make.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: And also another thing to remember, Dan, is like a
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: lot of these voters, we talk about these undecided voters,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: not only do they think Trump's not going to be
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: the nominee, they like don't really remember.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: The Trump years.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 8: You know?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: And, you know, like, that's like, I think, a really
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: key point is, you know, they need to sort of
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: be reminded on, you know, all the things that he
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: did to the negative, too. So that, I think, in contrast,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: also is like a really, really important point.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: It's, you know, obviously, campaign messaging is like larger narratives
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: and stories about everything. But is that sort of the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: core contrast you're looking at, what you just defined there,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: which is Biden's out there fighting for you, and Donald
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: Trump's fighting for himself and his rich friends? Is that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: kind of the the crux of the whole matter right there.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Well, more or less.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: And also, you know, if it's not, it should be,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, no, it is.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: Uh, and, uh, and you know, with that, it's, he's,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: you know, I think people, we have seen the sort
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: of resonance of the fact that he is out, uh,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: to get revenge and the fact that he is out to, um,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: you know, uh, sort of, uh, increase the, the sort of, uh,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: Ability for people to participate in the system through political violence,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: like all this stuff. It's that fundamental choice, though. It's
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: like who's looking out for you and who's not.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 11: And this stuff adds up, too. I know that people,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 11: you know, when we talk about freedom and democracy, it
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 11: sounds sort of, you know, ethereal and pie in the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 11: sky when we talk about it. But they all add up.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 11: And like the president was sort of mocked when he
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 11: ran against on this against Trump, you know, four years ago.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 11: But he's the only person to beat him. And I
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 11: think that that really matters. And I think that there's
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 11: pieces of these elemental things that they all add up.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 11: It's economic freedom. It's reproductive freedom. It's freedom to go
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 11: to places of worship and go to schools and not
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 11: worry about gun violence. It's all of these things that
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 11: add up to this point that Rob is talking about
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 11: here that we have to continue to make the case to.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 11: So it's exactly what you laid out. It's that Joe
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 11: Biden's fighting for people and Donald Trump is not. And
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 11: in the process of what he wants to do, it's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 11: actually destroying our democracy and taking away your freedoms.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: I did notice that the president called Donald Trump a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: loser on multiple occasions in his speech in South Carolina.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Was that– is that intentional? Do you want to just
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: remind people that he's a loser, undermine his strength, or
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: was the president just getting kind of excited out there?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Well, Donald Trump lost.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: And so when you lose, you're a loser.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: There you go. You would pass the Washington Post fact
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: check with that.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I hope no KOs for you.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 8: That's right.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: No, but look, I mean, at the end of the day,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: the president's calling him for what it is. And, and, uh,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: I think it is important as Donald Trump pedals, like
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, um, for his own political gain, uh,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: and maybe to bruise his, his, his hurt ego or
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: help his bruised ego, uh, you know, that, uh, he lost.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: One, you know, one other issue that obviously has been, uh,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: pretty divisive with the democratic coalition is, is around Gaza
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: in Israel. And, you know, we've had people showing up
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: at events, um, protesting the president, and obviously all the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: polling shows that there's some division there. And there was
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: this report that in a visit to Michigan, some local
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: leaders did not want to have the meeting.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: What are you guys thinking?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: How are you guys thinking about addressing that in your
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: outreach and your messaging to try to bring the Democratic
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: coalition back together?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 11: Well, look, one thing in regards to sort of what
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 11: you mentioned about Michigan is that our campaign and the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 11: administration is going to continue to try to engage with folks,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 11: even when they're upset. The president, from the moment that
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 11: this has started, has never approached what's happening through a
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 11: lens of being sort of politics and what it's going
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 11: to do to numbers. He's honestly approached it every day
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 11: from a position of being commander in chief and being
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 11: a leader. And we feel like that is also in
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 11: stark contrast with Donald Trump and the Republicans as well.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 11: And so even though there's policy differences between you know,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 11: within our base on this issue, the one thing that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 11: the president has instructed both his administration and the campaign
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 11: to do is continue to engage with these people, let
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 11: them know that they have a place in the Biden-Harris coalition.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 11: But again, this contrast piece is that we clearly see
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 11: what happens when people disagree with Donald Trump. He threatens
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 11: political violence, he threatens revenge, you know, and so we
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 11: feel like, you know, we have to point that out.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 11: And also on this issue, you know, in particular, getting
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 11: into some of the nitty gritty on it, it's like,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 11: you know, Trump and the Republicans, We saw the sort
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 11: of rhetoric that they use, no humanitarian aid, let's level Gaza.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 11: We saw them, you know, Trump institute a Muslim ban,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 11: be extremely xenophobic. And so, you know, again, that's not
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 11: to replace that. We're willing and have been trying to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 11: engage and have dialogue with leaders in this space and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 11: will continue to do so. But the way that the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 11: president has handled this situation is in stark contrast and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 11: his experience to handle this situation on a foreign policy
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 11: level with all the things that are going on across
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 11: the globe these days. It's not a time for us
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 11: to go back to somebody who literally would tweet and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 11: could start World War III. That is what I remember
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 11: under a Donald Trump presidency, as I'm sure a lot
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 11: of people do. And so we're going to continue to
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 11: engage with folks, listen to folks, have candid conversations, honest
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 11: conversations with folks, and bring them into our fold on
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 11: this issue.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: Rob, a lot of, you know, obviously reaching younger voters
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: is the hardest thing in politics. So many of them
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: are now getting their news on TikTok. For all sorts
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: of national security reasons, the president and the White House
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: don't have a presence on TikTok. How are you thinking
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: about how to reach these young people on TikTok if
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: the campaign and the president cannot be there officially for
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: whatever reasons?
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, totally.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: Look, whether or not we had a TikTok on the campaign,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: I think would actually materially change our strategy a whole lot.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: I think that the core dynamics of the platform are
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: that people participate. anyone can post things and they can
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: get a lot of attention. That's kind of the magic
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: of it. And so for us, it's actually the work
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: of organizing and working through and reaching out to those
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: content creators and validators that I think is key to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: the work.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: That's sort of one bucket.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: I think the second bucket is how do we sort
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: of work to generate content through our volunteers and supporters?
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: So I think that's sort of a bucket of business
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: you're going to see the campaign start to work with more.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: And then three is.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: To like think about how people can kind of see
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: the president through their own eyes. The example I give
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: is when he was in North Carolina last week, the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: president sat down for a kitchen table conversation. And one
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: of the sons who was at the table made a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: TikTok that I think now has like 4 million views
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: and got picked up by the shade room and complex
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: and all this stuff. And, you know, I think that's
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: like a really important thing. It shows the president out there.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: It shows the people, him talking to people. And it
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: also shows people like, you know, being down to hear
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: what he has to say. And then that permission structure
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: work is really important. So all of that is the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: most important part of.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: A TikTok strategy.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: It is 75 to 80% of a TikTok strategy, and
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: it can be 100%. And so, you know, whether or
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: not we have an own platform, I don't think really
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: changes a.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: Whole lot about how we approach it.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: So misinformation and disinformation were a huge problem in 2016,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: big problem in 2020. Since then, it seems like a
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: lot of the platforms have backed away from some of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: their efforts to try to stem misinformation, disinformation. AI is
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: now involved. There was that robocall in New Hampshire using
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: an AI-generated version of President Biden's voice to tell people
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: the wrong election date. Inside the campaign, how are you
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: guys thinking about the fight against misinformation and disinformation generally,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: but also specifically AI, deepfakes, and that sort of stuff?
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: Well, first of all, it's important that the campaign has
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: to be aggressive about it and vigilant about it. And
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: both of those things are equally important, vigilant and aggressive.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: You know, the thing with AI is that it's not
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: necessarily bringing new stuff that didn't exist before the campaigns
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: didn't have to be worried about. Fake robocalls, that stuff's
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: been going on forever. Mis- and disinformation, that's been going
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: on forever. It is going to increase the speed uh,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: and potentially the realism, uh, that, that, that, that stuff
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: sort of presents. That means the campaign needs to be
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: watching it. And, and, you know, we've had sort of a, a,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: a tiger team that's been on the sort of monitoring
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: of this stuff, uh, from the jump. I think in
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: terms of interventions, it's like, you know, we have to
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: think about what a campaign can actually do. Uh, and, and,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: you know, at a certain point, sometimes mis and disinformation, uh, uh,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: has the, um, has the impact of inflaming people who
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: are never going to vote for us anyway. If it's
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: doing that, that is a society problem. But it is
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: not necessarily a thing the campaign needs to spend a
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: ton of resources on. But if it is moving or
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: demotivating voters, we need to care about. And so, you know,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: we do this research on a regular basis to see
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: which sort of mis- and disinfo narratives are actually moving
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: voters that we need and then run targeted interventions against them.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: And that might look like pay, that might look like
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: organizing outreach.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: All that stuff.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: Um, but you know, all that stuff is, is, is
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: stuff that is in the campaign toolbox. It's just going
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: to need to move faster, more vigilant, be more sensitive, uh, and, uh,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: and be watching.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: There are an exhausting level of narratives about this campaign,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: about how people are thinking about it. I think the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: New York times in a straight news article called it
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: a dispiriting slog that no one asked for.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Um, What do you guys think, which is.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: Totally objective and normal if you're writing a newspaper. Bit different.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: As you guys look at the dynamics of this election,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: what do you think everyone who's talking about this election
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: is getting wrong? What are we missing about how you
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: think it's going to play out?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 11: Look, I can tell you from coming to work every
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 11: day that there is no one who is approaching this
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 11: like our campaign team. Nobody in this office is approaching it.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 11: like it's a slog or like that democracy isn't on
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 11: the ballot. That's not just something that we're saying to
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 11: be catchy or for some slogan. We're actively working every
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 11: day and building like that is the case. I think
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 11: a lot of what people feel is sort of urgency
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 11: and they're scared. We're scared, which is why we're in
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 11: this fight, right? I think that people are, you know,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 11: deathly afraid of what a second Donald Trump presidency could
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 11: look like. And it sort of, you know, manifests itself
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 11: with these types of remarks. But, you know, one of
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 11: the things that we try to do is make sure
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 11: that we, first and foremost, are giving people the tools
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 11: that they can have to get involved, right? Whether it's
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 11: your listeners, you know, here, we want folks to get involved.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 11: The last election was decided by less than 45,000 votes.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 11: This is going to be a close election, no matter
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 11: what we do. We know that. We've been clear about that,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 11: honest about that. And we've also tried to clearly draw
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 11: the stakes of what could happen under a second Donald
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 11: Trump presidency by highlighting what he did in his first one,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 11: by what he's saying that he will do, the economy crash,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 11: repeal ACA, all of these types of things. But I
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 11: think that we just need people to get involved. And
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 11: I think that there is no lack of support, folks
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 11: wanting to help get involved. And our campaign just has
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 11: to continue to give folks the tools to do that.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 11: And so I don't want to take people's sort of
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 11: fear and anxiety about a second Donald Trump presidency that's
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 11: very real, And be defensive about it, because I think
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 11: that that's where it's coming from. And these folks, a
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 11: lot of whom are Democrats and want to help. So
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 11: that's how we view that. And we deal with those
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 11: things and just try to bring more and more people
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 11: into the fold and give folks the tools that they
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 11: need so that they don't feel that way or ease
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 11: the anxiety a little bit, although it's going to remain there.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 11: Until we're past election day.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: Past inauguration day is my guess.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: And it's also like it's only a slog if you
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: make it a slog, right? I mean, one of the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: things that actually the vice president has talked to us
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: about is how it's important to campaign with joy. And
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: Quentin's point is so right. A joyful, fun, spirited campaign
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 5: is made up of joyful, fun, spirited supporters.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: And that brings new people.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: Into the fold. And to that end, like I get
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: to look at the grassroots fundraising numbers all day, which
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: is a fun thing. One third of the people who
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 5: donated to our campaign thus far did not donate to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: us in 2020. Like that's new people coming in the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: door because they're excited about what we're doing. And so,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 5: you know, to Quentin's point, to the people who are
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 5: listening to this, you getting involved and talking to your
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: friends about why this election is important. And why it's
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: going to make a difference in their lives is the
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: thing that makes this a joyful and a good experience.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: Defeating Donald Trump is a fun thing.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: It is an important thing.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: It is a.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: Really meaningful thing for what it means to be in
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: this country. And you being a part of that really matters.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: And so that's why, you know, it's a slog if
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: you make it a slog.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: Well, let me tee you guys up here. So tell
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: people exactly, tell our listeners exactly where you want them
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: to go and what do you want them to do
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: if they want to join this joyous effort to make
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump a loser yet again.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: Well, you should joyously go to JoeBiden.com and sign up
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: or donate there or text Joe to 30330 and you
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: can join our campaign and we'll follow right up with you.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Quentin, Rob, thank you guys. Enjoy my hometown of Delaware.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: And now that I know you guys have a podcast
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: studio literally down the hall from your office, We will
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: talk to you again soon.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 5: Come on back to Pfeiffertown, Dan.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Anytime.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Dan.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: Bye.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 11: Thank you, guys.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Quentin Folks and Rob Flaherty for joining us.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: And Leah, thanks for co-hosting. This was so fun.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: All right. Everyone have a good day. We'll talk to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: you again on Friday. If you want to get ad-free episodes,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Wakim is our senior producer.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Reid Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: and Molly Lobel.