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“AOC calls BS.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks for watching!
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Later in the pod, my interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: joined me at Crooked HQ for a very fun and
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: lengthy chat yesterday. But first, we have the results of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: our latest 2020 Polar Coaster series with Change Research. We're
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: also going to talk about the rising risk of a
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: recession and the Trump administration's latest attempt to limit legal
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: immigration in America. You won't want to miss this week's
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: episode of Pod Save the World. Tommy and Ben talk
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: about everything from the escalating situation in Hong Kong to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the really scary story in the New York Times about
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: how right-wing extremism is spreading around the world. Boston Celtic
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: center Enes Kanter also joined Ben in the studio for
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: an interview about human rights and why Turkey's president banned
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: him from returning to his home country. And if you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: want to see the height difference between Enes and Ben,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: watch the interview on youtube.com slash crooked media. You can
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: also see my full interview with AOC there as well.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So check out our YouTube channel and subscribe. A reminder
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that Saturday is our show at The Greek. We'll be
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: joined by Jemele Hill, Maggie Rogers, Amanda Seals, Best Coast,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Jim James, and we'll be donating the proceeds to organizations
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: at the forefront of the fight to protect voting rights.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So grab your tickets at crooked.com slash the Greek and
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: also check out our new merch at crooked.com slash store.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: We got brand new Friend of the Pod tees, which
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: are very cool. Finally, if you know anyone in North
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Carolina who isn't registered to vote or isn't sure, please
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: remind them that this Friday, August 16th, is the deadline.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: There is a special election for a House seat there
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: on September 10th, and if you want to know why,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: listen to Rigging North Carolina on Crooked Minis with our
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: political director, Shaniqua McClendon. Okay, let's kick things off with
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the results of the latest in our 2020 Polar Coaster
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: series with Change Research. This time, we polled nearly 2,000
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: general election voters in the state of Wisconsin, and we
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: asked them all kinds of questions, including whether certain messages
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: made them more or less likely to vote for Donald
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Trump or the Democratic candidate in 2020. Now, before we
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  Speaker 2: get to the results, Dan, this particular poll was your idea,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and a fantastic idea it was. Why did you want
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to poll Wisconsin, and why did you want this to
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: be a general election poll instead of another primary poll?
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, a couple different reasons. One, there is
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a primary poll coming out every three seconds, and the media,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: friends of the pod, the Democratic voters are not lacking
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: for polls about who's winning the race. And they actually
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: haven't moved that much in a long time. So it's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: just sort of, we're constantly getting the stream of content.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So my thought was, what is an area that would
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: be of great interest that is not being polled? And
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin is probably the most important state as the map
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: currently stands for what's going to decide 2020. It's what
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  Speaker 1: we call the tipping point state. It's why Trump became president.
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  Speaker 1: It's the clearest path for Democrats to get the White
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: House back as to flip Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the three
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: states that Trump flipped, and also wanted to do this
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: poll differently, to do it in a way that made
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: it look more like the campaign polls that we've been
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: working on our whole life as opposed to the media polls,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: which are totally fine, but I felt like this was
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do in part because we wanted
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to be able to provide some guidance and advice to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the larger progressive universe about what the poll says may
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: work in Wisconsin.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so just to go back to what you
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: were saying about the tipping point state, the reason we
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: call Wisconsin the tipping point state is if Democrats win Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 2: it is almost a sure thing that we have also
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: won Pennsylvania and Michigan because the demographics in Wisconsin are
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: tougher for us than Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It's still possible
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: that we could lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all three
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of them again. But the reason we say Wisconsin is
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  Speaker 2: tipping point is it is the toughest of the three.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And the reason it's so important is because if we
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  Speaker 2: do lose Wisconsin, as you say, Dan, the path to
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: 270 narrows. We could replace Wisconsin with Arizona, which is
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: another very important state. But of course, Democrats haven't won
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Arizona in a presidential contest in quite some time, even
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: though we did win it in 2018. So Arizona is
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a possibility. But yeah, that's why we call it a
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  Speaker 2: tipping point state. And Yes, on campaigns, on the Obama campaign,
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  Speaker 2: in 8, in 12, on other campaigns we've been on,
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  Speaker 2: frequently when we put a poll in the field in
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  Speaker 2: a swing state like Wisconsin, we would test various messages
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  Speaker 2: about our candidate and about the opposing candidates, about the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Democrats and about the Republicans. And from those messages, we
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: would get a good sense of where voters are, what
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: issues are important to them, and which contrasts with the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: other party and the other candidate are most effective at
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: actually moving voters and persuading them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the difference, right? A media poll is designed
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  Speaker 1: to give readers of said media outlet a window into
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: what is happening in that state at that moment, right?
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  Speaker 1: It is a snapshot in time. In a campaign poll,
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  Speaker 1: it's interesting to know what is happening right now, if
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: only to serve as a baseline, but the whole point
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: of the campaign poll is to figure out not what
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: is happening right now is how to change the outcome
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  Speaker 1: And so we tried to design this poll in a
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: way that more resembled that than a typical media poll.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Without further ado, let's talk about some of the results.
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  Speaker 2: And we'll start with the standard horse race stuff before
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: moving on to the more interesting message testing. In Wisconsin,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: the president's job approval rating is 48% approved, 51% disapproved,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: much higher than it is nationally. His approval rating on
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the economy is even higher, 50% to 48%. Overall, 46%
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  Speaker 2: of all voters say they will definitely or probably vote
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: for whoever the Democratic candidate is. 45% of voters say
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: they will definitely or probably vote for Trump. 3% say
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: they'll vote for a third-party candidate. And 6% are undecided. Dan,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: what do you think of those numbers? Surprising to you?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Concerning, but not surprising. I mean, we would love to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: get a poll that said that Trump's national approval rating,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: which is 42, 43, depending on what measure you use, was.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: That would be his approval rating in the swing states.
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  Speaker 1: But he is polling at what is a very viable
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: win number for him in Wisconsin. And just to give
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you some perspective, Trump is at 48 here. When Barack
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Obama won Wisconsin by nearly seven points on Election Day
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  Speaker 1: in 2012, his approval rating in the exit polls was 48%.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: That is concerning.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: And just to dig into these numbers a little bit,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there are certain groups of voters who will
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: probably decide the election. You know, one thing we saw
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: with the electorate in Wisconsin, it is extremely polarized. So,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: you know, Trump is only getting 3% of Democrats. The
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Democratic candidate is only getting 2% of Republicans, right? So
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: both parties are very polarized. Independents, who are 35% of
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the electorate in Wisconsin in this poll, lean Trump 43
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: to 41. So he's got a slight lead with independents
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in this poll. And then there are a couple other
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: sort of swing groups here. The People who voted for
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: a third party in 2016, who currently make up about
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a quarter of the undecided vote in Wisconsin, they lean
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: towards the Democrat by 30 to 22 percent. And then
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: the 2016 non-voters, people who did not vote in 2016,
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  Speaker 2: but who say they are going to vote in 2020,
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  Speaker 2: they make up about 16 percent of undecided voters. They
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: lean towards the Democrat by 45 to 30 percent. So
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  Speaker 2: there is some opportunity for the Democratic candidate with 2016
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: third party voters and non-voters. But, you know, still a
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: lot of work to do in that category as well. Dan,
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  Speaker 2: what do you think about sort of the swing groups here?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that's exactly right. And it speaks to like
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  Speaker 1: what we've tried to talk about in politics more generally
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  Speaker 1: as early as 2020, which is you can't find, particularly
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: in these Midwestern swing states, you're going to have to
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: do both. And by that, I mean, we're going to
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  Speaker 1: have to persuade some people who voted for a third
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  Speaker 1: party candidate or voted for Trump last time, and find
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  Speaker 1: some people who didn't vote in 2016 and turn them out.
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  Speaker 1: There's just very little margin for error in these states.
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  Speaker 1: Some other states like Texas and Florida and North Carolina
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  Speaker 1: have these very large pockets of unregistered, likely Democratic voters,
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  Speaker 1: often voters of color, that you can go out and
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  Speaker 1: organize and get to vote. And that alone, if you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: could pull off that feat, could tip those states. These
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  Speaker 1: Midwestern states have been incredibly have been registered. You know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the sort of the low-hanging fruit has been taken from
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  Speaker 1: recent elections. They have shrinking populations in a lot of cases.
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  Speaker 1: And so there's just, the formula for victory requires new
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: voters turning out the base and persuading some folks in
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  Speaker 1: the middle. And I don't even mean the middle ideologically.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I just mean people who either identify as independents or
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  Speaker 1: voted for Trump in the past. So you're going to, like,
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  Speaker 1: this poll reinforces the idea that the path to victory
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and to get to 270 is... sort of
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  Speaker 1: is not an and-or strategy. It's an and-both strategy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're not going to talk too much about
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: the Democratic candidates because for all the reasons we mentioned
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  Speaker 2: at the top. Also, you know, non-early state polls don't
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: tell you too much about the race. This isn't an
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  Speaker 2: Iowa poll or a New Hampshire poll. The candidates aren't
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: campaigning here, so you shouldn't take it too seriously. But
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I will say that Elizabeth Warren has the highest favorability
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: among Democratic voters. 83% favorable, and is currently leading the
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: horse race in Wisconsin at 29%, followed by Bernie Sanders
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  Speaker 2: at 24%, Joe Biden at 20%, and everyone else in
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  Speaker 2: single digits. Dan, anything to say about the Democratic race
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: before we move on to the good stuff?
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  Speaker 1: No, I think it's interesting that Warren is winning. It
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: probably tells us more about her surge nationally and in
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the early states than it tells you about who's going
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to win Wisconsin, because there are going to be several
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: cataclysmic political events that happen that shake up the race
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and win over the field between now and then. The
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: four early state contests most obviously will change the race.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting, but it's not why we're doing this.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I should say, for people who look into
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the crosstabs, if you look at the favorability ratings for
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: all of our Democratic candidates in the field among all voters.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: They don't look great right now. They're all underwater. But
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: people should know that one reason for that is because
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of these Democratic candidates are not getting high
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: percentages among Democrats right now because they're all fighting it
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: out in the primary. So if you have a candidate
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: that you really like, you're also likely to say that
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: you don't like as much of the other Democratic candidate
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Where there's a nominee, usually those numbers will change. But
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I should say, even among a general electorate right now,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Warren has the highest favorability ratings. That is driven by
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the fact that she has the highest favorability ratings among
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Democrats themselves. Okay, so we talked about Trump's strengths in Wisconsin,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: his overall job approval, and the current advantage that he
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: has on the economy. Let's talk about his potential weaknesses.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: We tested a series of positive and negative messages about
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Overall, the anti-Trump messages were more persuasive than
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the pro-Trump messages. And the most persuasive anti-Trump messages, the
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: messages that made voters say they were much less likely
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: to vote for him, largely had to do with Trump
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: being a phony populist who governed as a plutocrat. The
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: most persuasive message was about Trump proposing nearly a trillion
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: dollars in Medicare cuts to pay for his tax cut
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: for the rich. It made voters say they were less
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: likely to support Trump by a margin of 38 points.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Several messages were close behind that one. Trump using his
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: office to enrich himself and his family business. Trump's failed
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: trade war with China. And Trump's record on outsourcing. There
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: was also one non-economic message that was very effective. A
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: reminder that Trump has been credibly accused of sexual assault
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: by more than a dozen women. Dan says, You came
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: out of campaign retirement. You wrote an entire strategy memo
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: for Democrats about these findings. What are your takeaways and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: what's your advice? Sure.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: So the first takeaway, as we pointed out at the top,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: is that Trump is very strong in Wisconsin. He's much
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: stronger in Wisconsin than he is nationally, and that's because
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of the demographics, but for two other reasons. One, he
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: has strengthened the economy. His economic approval rating in Wisconsin
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: is a few points higher than his actual approval rating
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and higher than his vote share. In the poll we conducted.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So that is an advantage to him. The second advantage
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: he has is that he has managed to weaponize immigration
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in the state. Immigration is by far the number one
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  Speaker 1: issue picked by Trump voters, Republican voters, and even independents.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And so that is to Trump's great advantage. But what
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I was really blown away by in this poll is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: that for all of Trump's dominance of the media, the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: fact that Trump is talked about, covered 24-7, and the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: bulk of that coverage is negative. Voters are woefully unaware
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of very important parts of his record. And because Trump
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: has a history of being a liar, has a checkered past,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and has erratic behavior, voters are willing to believe these
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: attacks against Trump. They are persuasive to them. And so
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I think it identifies both a reality in the media
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  Speaker 1: environment that– there's always that thing about Hillary Clinton. She's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the most covered but least well-known– the most famous unknown
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: person in America. And there's a lot of truth to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that when it came to who the real Hillary Clinton is,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the person she was. But with Trump is people know
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a lot about a few things about Trump, but they
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: happen to be the things that according to our poll
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: are not particularly persuasive to voters. Voters have no idea.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that he's proposed cutting Medicare to pay for his tax cut.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: They have no idea what the actual impact of his
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: trade policies are. They have no idea that he supports
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a new NAFTA plan that is supported by the big
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: drug companies in Wall Street, in the big corporations. They
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: have no idea that he supports a new NAFTA. And
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I thought this was really interesting, and this isn't included
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in my memo because I haven't yet figured out the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: right way in which a campaign could use this, but
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the fact that they don't know about The accusations of
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: sexual assault against the president show that there's this giant
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: gap between what is being talked about and what is
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: breaking through to voters. And so there is a real
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: opportunity to move the race against Trump by exposing voters
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: to these pieces of information that matter to them that
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: would not get to them otherwise. They're never going to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: be covered. They're never going to break through. all of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the noise and the frankly legitimate stories that the media
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: is covering. And so there, there is opportunity here. And
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: what is interesting about it is one of the hardest
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: things in a campaign when you're running against an incumbent
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: is to introduce new information to voters because they generally
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: have paid a lot, paid attention to what the incumbent does.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: They have a sense of who they are, sense of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: what they've done. But when it comes to Trump, there
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are huge parts of his record that are entirely unknown
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to the public and therefore they are surprised by it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And frankly, it makes them question their support at numbers
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that I have rarely seen in a presidential race for
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: an incumbent running for re-election.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was also surprised too. And look, when we
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: asked people, okay, here's some information about Donald Trump, the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: way that we'd say the question is, we'd read them
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: the information about Donald Trump and then say, does this
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: make you more likely to support Donald Trump, less likely
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: to support Donald Trump, no difference. And the fact that
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of these messages are the ones that I
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: just talked about, moved not only Democrats, that's obvious, but
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: moved independents, who Trump is leading among by two points
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: currently in Wisconsin. You know, moved independents by 10, 20
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: points on some of these issues, said that they were
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: much less likely to vote for Trump. And even some
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: of them moved some Republicans, you know? So, and I
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: think the other important thing is, it is not just
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: negative information about Trump himself, his behavior, his offensive statements
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that is persuasive to voters here. It is negative information
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: about Trump's policies and the impact they're having on people.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a key point. It's about, you know, with, uh,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the tax law and the Medicare stuff, it's about now
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to see potential cuts to Medicare with the
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: trade war. It's Wisconsin farmers are hurting from this and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Trump's bailing out, uh, you know, big agribusiness and China, right. With, um,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the Trump enriching himself, he's enriching himself and his businesses
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: at the taxpayer expense, right? So every one of these
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: messages that talks about how these policies or his actions
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: or his behaviors actually affected people are more persuasive to voters,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: which I thought was interesting because I don't think we
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: connect those dots enough.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Looking at this poll, I identified three areas
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that Democrats could focus their messaging on. One, eroding Trump's
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: advantage on the economy. And when you tell people about
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: what his actual policies are and the actual impact of them,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: what it does is it undermines his strength on the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: economy because it hits him on the fact that he
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: is full of shit, that he ran as a populist
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: but is governed as a plutocrat. Two, hit him on
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Medicare cuts. The media narrative is Democrats are committing political
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: suicide by talking about Medicare for all. But in our poll,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Trump's Medicare cuts are a much bigger vulnerability for him
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: than any Democratic position on Medicare for all or some
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: form of that plan is. And third is hitting him
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: on his failure to drain the swamp and the fact
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: that not only did he fail to drain it, he's
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: profiting off that corruption. And you can do those three things.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And the way to do that is it is not
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: going to be holding press conferences and getting stories in
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: The New York Times. It is going to be through
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a sustained, targeted digital advertising campaign. This part is a
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: hypothesis on my part based on this poll, and we
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: would need more polling to see it. But what I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: think makes these attacks effective is, one, it's new information.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: That's the most important. The second part is it is specific,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: fact-based information. It is not overheated political rhetoric. It doesn't
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: sound like a political ad. It is introducing voters to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: information they did not otherwise know in a factual way.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: In the same way that in a previous non-fucked-up media environment,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: people just get it from watching the news or or
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: reading the newspaper. And then doing it over a sustained
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: period of time, because one important point in this poll
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is we show people all this information, and it did
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: not move the horse race dramatically, which tells me that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: telling people these things once is not enough to fully
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: move them away from supporting Trump or out of the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: third party or undecided category, but it starts the process.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: So you're going to have to do this over a
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: sustained period of time. It's also because people who have
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: not made up their mind about Donald Trump are the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: people who where politics is not the most central part
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: of their life. They don't follow it 24-7. Sadly, they
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: may not even listen to this podcast. Over time, you
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: can move people there. There is a roadmap here that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I think works in Wisconsin and probably works in a
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: lot of other places. But if it can work in Wisconsin,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: it can work in all the other states that are
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: slightly easier to win in Wisconsin, because this, Wisconsin is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of the core states, as we pointed out, probably the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: hardest one that Obama won in 12 for a Democrat
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: to win in 20.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I think your last point about people who aren't paying
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: super close attention to politics is so important too, because
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: you know, we live in a world and a bubble
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: of people who pay super close attention to politics. That's
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the Twitter bubble. That's the cable bubble. That's everyone we
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: sort of talk to. And so you get a lot
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: of people when you say, oh, well, you know, Trump's
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: going to propose this cut to Medicare or this thing, whatever.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: And they'll say, oh, that doesn't matter. His people don't matter.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Democrats already know that bubble. You know, it's like, no,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: there's a ton of people out there, most people who
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: are not paying attention to every up and down of
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the news cycle and every new piece of information about
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. They are living their lives. They are busy.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: They are doing other things, right? Like they may catch
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: a chyron on cable news or they might look on
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Facebook every once a day to check out the headlines,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: but they are not following every contour of this race
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: right now. And the only way to break through to
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: those people is through a sustained advertising campaign. That is
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: not magic. That is nothing new. That is how campaigns
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: have been run for many, many, many years. But it
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: just seems now like because so many people, a lot
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: of people listen to this podcast, us, everyone else, because
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: we're so tuned in to the news every single day,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: we assume that everyone else is thinking the same thing.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I think there is, I'd make two other points. One,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: what I think proves that Trump is getting a lot
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of coverage, but the issues that matter most to voters
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: or the things that could change their position on Trump,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: they have not seen as relevant in this poll. In
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the sense that two of the least effective attacks that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we tested were one about the Russia investigation, and the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: other one was, interestingly enough, about the ACA and Trump's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: plan to repeal it. And that tells me that voters— this
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't say that voters don't care about those things, not
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: far from it, but that people know them. which one
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of them, the Russia part, is obviously due to the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: massive amounts of coverage it has gotten, rightfully so. But
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the second one is actually a credit to the Democratic Party. Like,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: look at Wisconsin, which had a governor's race where the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: ACA and Scott Walker's support for getting rid of it
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: was at the centerpiece. You had congressional races. You had
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Tammy Baldwin running a Senate race. And so in Wisconsin,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Democrats have done a great job of making sure voters
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: know that Trump is wants to repeal the ACA, that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: electing Republicans will lead to the repeal of the ACA.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And so that's moved people into our camp. It's probably
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: why a Democrat is winning by one right now. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to finish the job, we're going to have to tell
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: them new things. It doesn't mean don't talk about those things,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: but of course we're talking about it, but there's new information.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: But what is different in this media environment than previous
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: campaigns is people would think you were fucking bananas in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a previous cycle if you told them that you should
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: start advertising the general election in the summer of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: year before. Traditionally, people might think you were crazy. Some
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: people So people will be wrong. Some people would think
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: you were crazy for doing it in the summer of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the year of the election, that you should wait till
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the part when people pay attention. The problem we have
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: now in our incredibly crowded media environment is it just
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: takes time. And you also have the capacity to target
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: your ads through digital platforms that didn't exist anymore. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: there is an imperative to do this now. I will
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: say there's a lot more work that needs to be done.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: There is some good news. I'm Priorities USA, the leading
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Democratic super PAC, has made plans to go into Wisconsin,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I think, sooner rather than later. It's a state where
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: they're going to start. I think there'll be other efforts.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: It's also not just advertising. These messages are also that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: can be used at the door. They can be used
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: on the phones and they can be used in people
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: doing digital organizing themselves as they are communicating with their
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: undecided voters, swing voters, et cetera, in their lives. either
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in actual human conversations, if those still exist, but on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Facebook or wherever else. This is a roadmap for how
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you persuade people.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: The other thing that popped into my mind as I
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: was reading some of these messages and which ones were
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: most effective is, isn't the best way to run against
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump to turn him into Mitt Romney? I mean,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: all of this reminded me of the attacks we ran
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: against Mitt Romney in 2012 when we made sure that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: voters understood he had plutocratic policies, whether it was the
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: when he picked Paul Ryan as VP. And we talked
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: a lot about Paul Ryan's budget to cut entitlements, to
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, to pay for a tax cut,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: whether it was Romney's record in business of outsourcing. I mean,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: all of this stuff started reminding me of the ads
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: and the contrast that we made with Mitt Romney in
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: twenty twelve. Yeah.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I think it was pushing on an open door with
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Romney because he was a multimillionaire private equity executive who
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: literally built a car for his elevators. And then would
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: constantly say things like he doesn't care about the very
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: poor and 47% of people aren't real Americans and all
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of that. And so that was a... So it's a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: little bit pushing on open door with Romney. It's a
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: little harder with Trump because he's branded himself as this
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: blue collar billionaire working populist. But the advantage with Trump
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: is The voters did not like Romney's policies. They found
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: him to be– wasn't someone they really wanted to hang
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: out with. But they thought he was a good person.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Where Trump has an advantage on some populist credentials that
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: can be eroded enough to move votes against him. But
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: he is someone that you can connect his plutocracy with
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: his corruption and these policies that he does. are benefiting
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: him and he is benefiting from a corrupt system that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: he is maintaining. And so there is this other area
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that comes because even voters who like Trump have real
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: questions about his character.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So the other interesting thing we did across a range
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: of issues, we also tested the Trump Republican message against
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: the progressive Democratic message and then the less progressive Democratic message.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So the way we did this, like say on healthcare,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: we basically said the Republican message is what Trump and
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Republicans have been saying on health care, right? We want
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but we want to
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: protect pre-existing conditions. It's obviously bullshit, but that's their message
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: that's getting to voters. So we tested that. And then
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: on the Democratic message, we tested one Democratic message that
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: was a form of the public option and one that
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: was about Medicare for all. And I will say that
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: we tested Medicare for all in the most favorable way possible.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: We said that under Medicare for all, you would have
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: to leave your private insurance for a government plan, but
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: you would be able to keep your doctor. The Medicare
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: for All message did a bit better with Democrats than
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: the public option message. But while independents were evenly split
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: on the public option, they were negative towards Medicare for
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: All by a 13-point margin. So that's something to keep
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: in mind for Democrats. Racial inequality. We had one message
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: from Democrats that mentioned reparations and one message that mentioned
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: investing in communities of color and doing whatever we can
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: to end discriminations. The message that mentioned reparations was by
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: far the most negatively viewed of any message that we tested,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: with low marks among independents and even relatively low marks
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: among Democrats. The other message, however, which talked about alleviating
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: racial inequality by ending discrimination and investing in communities of color,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: was one of the most successful messages that we tested.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So language matters. The way we talk about things matters.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And context matters too, right? In the Medicare discussion, Nothing
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that I've seen of these says that Democrats can't either
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: win or fight to a draw on these issues. But
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the one on reparations, for instance, is I'm sure that
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: came as a surprise to a lot of less. You
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: have to be pretty deep into politics to know that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: that has been a topic of discussion in the context
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic primary. And so I'm sure that much
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: like the negative information against Trump, hearing that probably has
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: there's a shock value to it that moves numbers.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so the other thing, and this sort of
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: surprised me, there were no clear winners on immigration, climate,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and guns. So on these three issues, the difference in
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: support between the more progressive positions on immigration, that was
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: decriminalizing border crossings and healthcare for undocumented immigrants. On climate,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: it was the Green New Deal. And on guns, it
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: was gun licensing. There was not that big of a
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: difference between support for those positions than the support for
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: the more moderate positions, which were pathway to citizenship for
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: immigration and investing in clean energy for climate, and background
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: checks for guns. They were all sort of within the
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: margin of error. So I thought that's maybe an indication
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: that we should be a little less concerned about the
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: heated debate in the Democratic primary over which position is
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: more politically palatable than we currently are.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say a lot less concerned.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: A few other takeaways I found interesting, and then you
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: can say any more that you found interesting. We did
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: test a series of positive and negative descriptions of Donald Trump,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and between 47% and 53% of voters agreed with every description,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: except one. Trump drained the swamp, which only 33% of
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: people agreed with, while 66% of independents and even 27%
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: of Republicans disagreed that Trump drained the swamp. So no
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: one believes that that bullshit happened, or at least not
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of people. And then the descriptions, again, the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: descriptions of Trump that where most voters, including most independents, agreed.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Trump is corrupt. Trump is focused on himself, not you.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Trump fights for the wealthy and corporations, not working people.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And Trump is an ineffective leader. Those were the most
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: popular descriptions of Trump. One of them was Trump is
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: a racist. Voters are split here. 49% agree and 50% disagree.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So that was much closer in Wisconsin. And I think
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the only other thing I want to mention is that
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Republican views on race and immigration, as you might expect,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: are not great. By 56% to 15%, Republicans think immigration
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: does more harm than good. 24% of Republicans don't have
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: a problem with separating children from their parents. 34% of
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Republicans think that when non-whites are a majority, it will
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: be mostly a negative thing. And 84% of Republicans think
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that discrimination against whites has become as big of a
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: problem as discrimination against people of color. What do you
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: think about that, Dan?
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Not great. It's really not great.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Was there anything else that stuck out at you before
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: we move on?
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: No.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I think we've sort of hit all the key points.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin's close, but it is winnable. All of these things,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: all the ideas here, the messages, where the race stands,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: leads us to the fact that Wisconsin's going to be
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: incredibly close. The when the votes from Wisconsin come in,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and they often come in late, that we'll know who's
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: going to be President of the United States, is my guess.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And the other thing I'd say is that I'm really
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: glad that, I know this is my idea, so I'm biased,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: but I'm really glad that Crooked Media and Change Research
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: did this, because I think it at least serves to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: start the conversation about what Democrats need to do and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: moves the conversation just beyond simply the state of the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary, which is very important but we should be
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: walking and chewing gum. And it was between watching Tommy's
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Instagram stories about Iowa and writing an old-school campaign strategy memo,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: there have been waves of nostalgia this week for that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: previous part of our lives.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I will also say, too, that our friend Ben Wickler
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: is the new chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: I sent him these results before we announced them just
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to see what he thought. And, you know, Ben's reply was, Well,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: this tells me what I knew, which is that Wisconsin
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: is going to be close. And also, there's no one
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: single magic message or silver bullet. You know, there's a
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: lot of good messages here that we can work with.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But what this really means is we need to organize, organize,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: organize in Wisconsin as much as possible. We need to
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: mobilize and persuade as many voters as possible. This is
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: going to be one on the ground. And if you
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: want to help, if this poll has worried you or
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: concerned you or you care about Wisconsin, which you should,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: You can go to wisdems.org slash volunteer to sign up
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: to volunteer. If you're near Wisconsin or you're in Wisconsin,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: you live there. Or if you're not, wisdems.org slash pod.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: That is a special link where you can go and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. They could use your help.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: They could use your funding. As we know, this whole
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: 2020 election could come down to the state. And Ben
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: is putting a fantastic organization on the ground there. They're
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: registering voters as much as they can. They're knocking on
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: doors and persuading people. They're finding people. every last persuadable
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: voter in Wisconsin. So go help out, do what you can.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: We need Wisconsin. Okay, so we just talked about Trump's
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: strength on the economy in our Wisconsin poll. Until now,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: that strength has been based on a steady stream of
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: good headlines about a growing economy and low unemployment. But
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: on Wednesday... The Dow fell 800 points amid several signs
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: that indicate the American and global economies may be headed
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: towards a recession, including a shrinking German economy, slowing manufacturing
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: in China, and what Trump called, in all capital letters,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: a crazy inverted yield curve here in the United States. Dan,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: what the hell was he talking about? And how concerned
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: should we be about these warning signs?
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Well, we should be concerned for sure. And the I
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: am not an economist, which I know will come as
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: a shock to all of you listening to this pod
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: all the time. I know, I know.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: What is that nonsense?
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: But the crazy inverted yield curve is a sign that
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: has been used to indicate a coming recession in previous times.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It involves the difference in price between two-year term bonds
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and 10-year term bonds, I think.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Don't at me if I got that wrong. And so, yes,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: there are very real warning signs in the economy. Some
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of them are global and beyond the scope of what
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: What Trump is doing, right, is just a reminder that
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: presidents only have a limited impact on the economy one
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: way or the other because we live in a global economy,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: for better or for worse. But the second part of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: this is that Trump is playing a role in this
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: with his trade war and just generally erratic leadership and
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: bad relations with all of the key players who would
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: help us solve this problem.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's an important point. I mean, look,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: like you said, we traffic in political nerd Twitter. If
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: you look on econ nerd Twitter, you'll find a whole
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: bunch of arguments that say, you know, an inverted yield
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: curve has preceded every recession in the past 50 years.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: And so we should all, you know, freak out and
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: a recession is coming. There's also plenty of analysis that says, no,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: it's wrong this time. We're going to be OK. Maybe
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: there are signs of slowing, but a recession's not imminent.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: So you can find either kind of analysis. But I
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: think the important... What's scary to me is thinking about
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: going into a recession or, God forbid, going into an
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: economic crisis with Donald Trump as president because you and
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I lived through both a presidential campaign that then turned
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: into an administration that started with an incredibly horrible economic crisis,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the worst since the Great Depression.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: And....
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It ain't easy to govern through that. And the way
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: that the world got through that is, you know, A,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, a lot of other world leaders
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: worked together. They were incredibly close. They pulled the global
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: economy together back from the brink by all working together.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: We do not have that situation right now. Trump has
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: pissed off most of our allies. We have sort of
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: right-wing authoritarian governments rising around the world. So it to me,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: thinking about what and our political situation at home and
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: our political situation and the political situation in many other
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: countries around the world is horrible. I mean, people, the
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: political systems and democracies are in crisis all over the world.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: And trying to imagine Donald Trump and the Republican Party
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: that controls most of Washington right now using the tools
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: necessary to pull us out of recession or pull us
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: back from the brink of crisis. Um, you know, I
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: simply don't have a lot of confidence in that to
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: say the least. Yeah.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it in, we dealt with this both
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: in 2009 when there was an actual financial crisis, but
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: for much of Obama's first term, United States strengthened as
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: slow as it was, but it strengthened faster and more
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: solidly than Europe. And you've been in part because Europe
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: is so interconnected. And we spent most of the first
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: term spending Obama spending hours and hours and days and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: weeks and months working with Europe to help prevent Europe
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: from stumbling into another financial crisis, either spurred by debt
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: in Greece or a whole host of other issues. And
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: it was incredibly complicated. And we were able to navigate
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: it for a couple of reasons. One, the government was
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: stocked with people who were experts in financial crises, because
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: that's who we hired, because that's what we were in
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: when we were elected. And it's people in these incredibly smart,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you know, technocratically brilliant folks in the National Security Council,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: National Economic Council, Treasury, State Department, et cetera, who had
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: worked on these issues before and had relationships with all
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the players. They knew how to work with the EU
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: or the European Central Bank or the IMF, and they
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: knew people in all the key countries in Europe. And
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: so there was a group of really smart people, U.S.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and foreign, working to solve this problem. And the other
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: part that was really important was President Obama had very,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: very strong relationships with Angela Merkel, David Cameron, who, while
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a member of the conservative party who had a terrible
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: austerity agenda, was a smart guy and he and Obama
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: trusted each other, and Hollande in France, who was in
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: charge of that. And they, like at every summit, they
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: would get together, they'd work on these issues till late
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: in the night, and none of that exists now. You
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: don't have the, many of the jobs in which you
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: need people to work on this stuff, are empty or
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: they're filled with some Republican pundit who had a good
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Fox appearance at the right time. And the people in
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: charge of it, the director of the National Economic Council
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: is a TV pundit. The director of the National Security
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Council is a TV pundit that no one likes and
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: most people are scared of. And the head of the
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Treasury Department is the guy who was the producer of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Suicide Squad. So we are not sending our best to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: deal with what is an incredibly complicated problem.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: And if you want a preview of how Trump might
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: handle a recession or an economic downturn, you just look
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: at his fucking Twitter feed for yesterday. He's going to
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: attack the Fed. Attacking the Federal Reserve is like his
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: number one strategy here because he's going to want them
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: to cut interest rates even more. He's going to blame China.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: And then he's just going to lie and tell everyone
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that everything is wonderful, even though it's not. And I
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: don't think he has a lot of other tools in
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: the toolbox to deal with whatever might happen.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just, I'd ask you one question. John,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: who appointed the current Fed chair?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I believe it was Donald Trump, Dan. It was.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It was. He is attacking the guy he picked for
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the job.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't be the first time.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: There's an article in the Post, I think yesterday or today.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I read it yesterday. I don't really know when things
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: show up in the paper anymore. But it basically says
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: that when you talk to people in administration, there is
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: no plan. No one is talking to anyone. The only
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: strategy is to try to cyber bully the Fed into
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: additional rate cuts. And there is a problem here, which
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: is In a normal world, if the U.S. were to
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: hit recession, there is a strategy for getting you out
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: of recession, which is you stimulate the economy with a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: combination of government spending and putting money in people's pockets
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: through tax cuts or other ways, like a payroll tax
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And the problem we have is
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Trump just took, Trump and Republicans took $ 1. 5 trillion out
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of the rainy day fund and used it to buy
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: yachts for rich people. So the cupboard is empty. We
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: don't have smart people dealing with it. We have already injected,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: quote unquote, stimulus in the economy. We did in such
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: an ass backwards way that it did nothing for the economy.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And we're staring down the barrel of something very scary.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: It's not great. Let's talk about the political significance of
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: an economic slowdown. Nate Silver tweeted the other day that
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: he guesses that lowering the GDP by 1% would reduce
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Trump's reelection chances by 10 to 15%. That was just
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: sort of back of the envelope math from Nate, I'm sure.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: But what do you think of sort of the political
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: significance of an economic slowdown?
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Nate's math is right. Who am
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I to question Nate Silver's math? But I certainly agree
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: with his point, which is the stronger the economy, the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: better chance Trump has to win. Even in a stronger economy,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: as we talked about in the section on the Wisconsin poll,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: there are ways to undermine that economic strength and still
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: win the election. But this is bad news. And there's
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of smart political analysis that shows that Trump's
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: strength is helped propped up by the fact that the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: economy is going well, or seems to have been going well,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and that it creates a permission structure for a lot
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of people who don't like Trump's tweets, they don't like
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: his racism, they have other concerns about him, but if
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the economy is going well, why change horses mid-race? And
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: so a shift in that dynamic would change the election fundamentally.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Now, how do you think Democrats should handle this? Because,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I remember when Democrats were in power, you know,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: we would frequently point out that it seemed like Republicans
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: were rooting against the economy, rooting for recession, rooting against America. Obviously,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Democrats don't want to seem like that. How do Democrats
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: sort of talk about Trump's economic record or how he's
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: handling the economy without sort of seeming like we're rooting
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: for recession, which I'm certainly I'm certainly not. And I
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: don't think anyone wants a fucking recession.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's a twofold strategy. One is don't accept
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the premise that the economy is good right now.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Parts of the economy are good. The stock market is high,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: or at least it was until this week. The unemployment
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: rate is low. Those are good. Wages have still barely budged.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: The costs of health care, college, housing have all gone up.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: The health care premiums have gone up under Trump. What
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the American dream, the middle class bargain is, are purported
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: to be, has suffered under this president. And so I think, one,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: just don't accept the premise of the argument. You don't
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: have to say it's great now, but boy, it's going
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: to get bad, and then we'll show Trump. And the
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: other part of that is Democrats should have policies that,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think they need to come out with an
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: economic stimulus package or something like that right now, but
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: they do have to acknowledge that there are storm clouds
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: on the horizon, and their policies and their rhetoric should
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: reflect that. And then I think the third And final point,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: not for the Democratic Party, but for our voters is
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: if a recession is coming, this is the worst news
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: of all, is it may start towards the end of
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Trump's presidency, but it may not be felt to have
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a massive political impact until a Democrat gets in office.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And so if the idea, like we can't swap out
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Mueller for the recession in our view that someone is
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: going to save us from Trump. We still have to
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: do all the same work. We still have to make
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: all the same arguments. And there is always sometimes a
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: sense that the scales of political justice will balance and
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: something will, some exogenous event will come in here and
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: knock Trump out of the White House. And nothing that's
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: happening here suggests that that's going to happen. This is
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: still all going to happen on the margins. And Trump
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: will be running for, even absent a serious immediate financial crisis,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Trump will probably be running for re-election in a much
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: better environment than Barack Obama was in 2012 when Obama
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: won by a pretty large margin.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: So one of the economic headwinds that Trump is directly
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: responsible for is the trade war. He started with China
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that he is now losing. And so according to Business Insider, quote,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross went on CNBC to
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: explain the administration's decision to delay a portion of the
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: planned tariffs until December 15th, which would have affected the
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: rest of Chinese imports into the United States. He cited
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: a desire to protect shoppers from any adverse effects during
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: the holiday season. Given the goods affected, it included laptops,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: cell phones, toys, and video game consoles, among others. Asked
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: by reporters about the delay on implementing tariffs on Monday,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Trump said, quote, we're doing this for the Christmas season
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: just in case some of the tariffs would have an
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: impact on consumers. Dan, what's going on here? I could
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: have sworn our president has told us over and over
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: again that China pays for the tariffs just like Mexico
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: pays for the wall. What's all this about the consumer?
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it seems like perhaps Trump may have diverted from
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: his traditional role as fact-based straight shooter. And it may
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: have been lying to us about these tariffs.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great cell phone there by Donald Trump
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: just admitting that he's been fucking bullshitting us for a
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: long time on this. How should Democrats talk about Trump's
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: trade war? I mean, we tested a pretty great message
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: in our Wisconsin poll. Great because it was one of
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the most persuasive messages we tested. It basically read like this.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump started a trade war with China that is
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: hurting Wisconsin farmers. And he's now borrowing more money from
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: China to bail out huge corporate farms, including some based
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: in foreign countries. Again, this is all true. Go Google it.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: It's all true.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think trade is a, even before these
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: economic headwinds, trade was a massive political opportunity for Democrats
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: because it's a huge part of Trump's strength. It is
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: what I think helped him appeal to a lot of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the Obama-Trump voters in these Midwestern battleground states. Because it
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: was different than the message that Romney was giving or
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: McCain was giving in 08 or any traditional Republican. But
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: what he campaigned on and what he's done in office
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: are two very different things. And you can hit him
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: both because it is an incompetent execution of his trade strategy.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: And I mentioned this in the Wisconsin section. The fact
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that he is pursuing a second NAFTA that is good
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: for corporations and bad for workers is– is another huge vulnerability.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: So I would run very hard at Trump's strength and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: sort of ignore the traditional political advice where you go
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: at their weakness. I would go at Trump's strength on this.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: And I do think that there is an interesting... The
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: politics of this are really interesting, and you can connect
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of Trump's recent tweets with his decision to
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: enter a trade war with no exit strategy, which is
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a very Republican way of entering wars. And he has been...
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: unable and unwilling to side with the protesters in Hong
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Kong or criticize the Chinese directly because he is in
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: a place now where the Chinese can help control his
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: ability to get reelected because he needs them to blink
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: in some way, shape, or form to let him back
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: out of the corner on the trade war to give
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Trump some sort of win to help him. And so
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: because of that, he's forced to side with the autocrat
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: over the democratic protesters in China. And the second thing,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I think, if we're just connecting Trump's crazy Twitter feed
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: to what's happening in the world is the bad news
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: about China, the bad news about the economy, the drop
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: in the stock market yesterday of 800 points is directly
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: related to Trump's incredibly offensive, incredibly disgusting tweet today about
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib because he knows he needs
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: to change the conversation away from the economy and his
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: own actions on the economy. And so Like he definitely is.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: You sense a vulnerability in what he's doing by reading
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: his tweets.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's important you mentioned that last part about
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: the tweet today, because the other thing that happened this
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: week that sort of illuminates Trump's strategy, which is to
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: make the race all about race and immigration and white
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: identity politics, is that the Trump administration announced it was
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: moving forward with a plan designed by C-plus Santa Monica
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: fascist Stephen Miller to deny green cards to legal immigrants
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: who currently use or are likely to use public benefits
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: like Medicaid, housing assistance and nutrition assistance. The rule expands
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: the so-called public charge language that's been on the books
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: for more than a century. During the press tour for
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the announcement. Acting Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Cuccinelli offered his own Emma Lazarus remix when he said
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: that the words on the Statue of Liberty read as follows,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: and I think we have a clip.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Would you also agree that Emma Lazarus's words etched on
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the Statue of Liberty, give me your tired, your poor,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: are also part of the American ethos? They certainly are.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Give me your tired and your poor who can stand
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: on their own two feet and who will not become.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: A public charge.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: That plaque was put on the Statue of Liberty at
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: almost the same time as the first public charge law
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: was passed. Very interesting timing.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Very interesting. What a historical fun fact, Dan. I did
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: not know that that was the end of that poem,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: did you?
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: No.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: People don't know about the Statue of Liberty B-side. I mean,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: it's like, what the fuck? I mean, we have taken,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Ken Cuccinelli is one of the dumber men in all
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of politics. I mean, his, obviously his views are atrocious
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: and offensive, but It's also just sort of what a
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: fucking knucklehead he is that he would stare in the mirror,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: give that answer, and then think it was a good idea.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: It would be believable and not laughable.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, look, it's important to understand here
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: in context of the whole conversation we've been having on
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Trump and the economy and his potential weaknesses on the
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: economy with the messages that contest against him. This is
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: a rule that could hurt up to 26 million legal
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: immigrants in the United States, people who are here legally.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: And the attempt is to try to get them to
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: leave or to try to deter people from coming to
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: this country, immigrants who are people of color, who are poorer,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: from coming to this country in the first place. And
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: what Trump wants from this rule, what Miller wants from
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: this rule, is for people to think, okay, they're protecting
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: working class and poor white people, and they are punishing
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: working class and poor immigrants who don't belong here, right?
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: This is the message that they want to get out.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: What they don't want people to know is their policies
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: are hurting working class and poor white people as well.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: They're cutting Medicaid for everybody. They're cutting food stamps for everybody.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: They're fucking over everybody with their tax cut that is
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: going to the wealthiest people and to no one else.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: With their trade war that's hurting farmers in the Midwest.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: With all of the other bullshit they're doing. Donald Trump
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: is enriching himself and his family and he is fucking
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: over everyone else in this country. But what they want
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: you to think, what their message is, is that they
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: only want you to believe that they're fucking over immigrants.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: And I think that's an important point to make. Yeah.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: And just a couple other points on this truly un-American,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: inoffensive policy proposal from the Republicans, from Trump. One is
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: that it is not going to save us money. It's
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: going to cost us money because people are now not
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: going to get to see a doctor when they're sick,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: so they're going to go to emergency rooms. People are
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: not going to have access to food and other welfare services,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: so they're going to get sick faster and it's going
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to cost the public more money. It is short-sighted and disgusting.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: And it is the proof in the pudding, to your point,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: that this is not about building walls, protecting us from
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: fake right-wing fever dreams of MS-13 or anything else. It
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: is about making America white again. This is about getting
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: people of color to not come here and the immigrants
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: of color who are here to.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Leave.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: That is what this is. It is saying the quiet
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: part out loud. People can have all kinds of positions
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: on immigration in this country, but what this is, it
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: is white nationalism. That is exactly what this is. And
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the third point I would make is it is fucking
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: disgusting to do this days after a white nationalist inspired
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: by the rhetoric of this president and the Republican party
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: went to a Walmart in El Paso and shot people
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: because they weren't white. It is a specific policy delivered
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: in the white house briefing room that speaks to the
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: fears of white supremacists and, and tries to paint this
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: inaccurate picture of who immigrants are and what they bring
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: to this country. And it is disgusting. And he should
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: be called out on that.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: And, you know, before the, uh, A conservative intellectual zamboni
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: machine comes and tries to say, oh, this is about
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: saving money. And this is about saving fucking money. Because
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: if the Trump administration wanted to save money, they wouldn't
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: have spent billions of dollars to bail out foreign farms
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: because of their trade war that's hurting farmers in the
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: United States. They wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars on
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: a tax cut. that went to mostly wealthy people. They
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars in a tax cut
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: that also encouraged companies to outsource jobs from this country.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: They spent all kinds of money on things that help
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: rich people and don't help most people in this country
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: at all. So it's not about fucking saving money either.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: It's not about saving money. It's not about illegal immigration.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: It's about making sure that this country is whiter. That
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: is it. That's the reason.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: We should have some sort of public charge rule for
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: corporations and billionaires.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Right, where if you must depend on some sort of
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: government subsidy... Or if you declare bankruptcy in one of
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: your businesses, you should have to forfeit your tax cut.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the biggest fucking public charge in this country.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: When we come back, we will have my interview with
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. With us in studio today, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Congresswoman,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: welcome back to the pod.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Hi, thank you for having me.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: So this is the first time we've had you on
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: since you took office. I remember in the first year
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: of the Obama White House, there were quite a few
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: times where we looked at each other and said, wow,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Washington is even worse than we said it was on
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: the campaign show. Have you had moments like that?
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, I have had moments like that. In other ways, though,
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: It has been better than what I expected.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Where has it been worse and where has it been better?
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Worse in that I see how laws are made and
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: I am shocked. Sometimes I feel as though if people
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: really saw what our legislative process was like, it would
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: be a national scandal sometimes. But it's been better in
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: that I actually... I think I was more cynical about
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: the capacity for change even going in. And now I
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: actually surprisingly believe that it's even more possible than I
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: had thought going in. Not that I thought it was
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: impossible going in, but seeing how a lot of these
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: dynamics work, I feel more hopeful now more than ever
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: about the possibility of grassroots politics.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: What has made you more hopeful than you thought you'd be?
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Well, I think so many of our decisions are based
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: on public sentiment. And I believe that if we can
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: really unlock the ability to transform and change and focus
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: on moving public sentiment, then we can really open up
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: our possibilities of what we're capable in D.C. And granted,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: I think that I and our team and some other
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: members are in a unique capacity. We haven't had this
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: strange fusion of politics and pop culture in this way since,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: I think, frankly, the 60s. But it's an enormous opportunity
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: that we have, and I think we should use it.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: So on an issue like immigration, where Democrats couldn't pass
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: on their own a clean humanitarian funding bill that included
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: protections for migrants and children, Where do we go from here?
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Is there no choice on immigration but to wait until 2020?
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: What progress do you think we can make between now
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: and then?
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I do think that out of all of the issues,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: immigration is probably the most difficult within the Democratic Party.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: I think that it is the single most challenging issue
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: within the party because we have members from all over
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: the country and we have members that won really tough districts.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: And immigration is the one issue that really touches a
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: big nerve. And so it's a challenge. It's a really
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: big challenge. And it's one that, for me, coming from
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: a district that's 50% immigrant, I come from one of
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: the most diverse districts, arguably the most diverse district in
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: the country in terms of languages spoken. Over 200 languages
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: are spoken in my community. And it's tough to reconcile that.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: It really does get very difficult sometimes.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: What lessons did you learn from the last sort of
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: immigration funding battle for next time?
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Well, I learned where a lot of the fault lines are.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: And a lot of these decisions, you know, when we
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: talk about how legislation is made, it's made a lot
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: of times. There's a long process where people are kind
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: of writing it and toiling over it. But really, the
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: chips fall within 48 hours.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: Everyone finds out whether we're going to vote on a
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: bill 48 hours before that vote happens. And so a
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: lot of times there's this massive scramble looking for things
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: because a lot of people who see these bills initially
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: are only those folks where the bill has moved through
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: that committee, where they've been able to really comb through it.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Not everyone may be on that relevant committee where there
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: may have been a hearing on it or not. And
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: so one of the things that I've learned is where
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: those fault lines are.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: I've also learned where some of our strong points are
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: as a party and where some of our weak points
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: are as a party. I think internal communication is a
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: weak point within the party. And even between the Senate
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: and the House, that immigration bill, I think Schumer thought
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: some things were happening. Pelosi thought something else might have
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: been happening. And members within the caucus didn't know what
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: other members of the caucus were trying to do. And
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: so it created this huge tension out of a lack
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: of communication.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: I think. It does seem like so much of the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: immigration debate is driven by fear. Politicians have the fear. Obviously,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: there's fear among voters. I mean, to me, it seems
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: like even hopefully long after Donald Trump is gone, this
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: is going to be a dominant political issue, not just
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: in America, but around the world. We're going to have
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: more asylum seekers, more refugees, more climate refugees. How do
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: we start changing the politics around this issue so that
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: in districts that aren't like yours or that aren't on
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: the border, it's not driven by fear?
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: Well, this is really tough because there's the short-term political
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: work that a lot of people are engaged in, which
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: is winning elections. And then there's the long-term political work,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: which is transforming the ethos of the country and really
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: debating our long-term values. And immigration, as you said, this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: is going to be a global issue. Climate change alone
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: is going to drive hundreds of thousands of people to
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: be changing and migrating across the world. And people... say that.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: And especially on the right, they think it's a joke.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: But a lot of our wars and a lot of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: our conflict is going to be over droughts. It's going
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: to be over lack of resources. It's going to be
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: over food shortages in many parts of the country. People
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: are going to be forced to migrate. They are already
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: migrating because places where they once lived are no longer livable.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: And frankly, migration is within our human nature. Mm-hmm. Ever
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: since the dawn of humanity, humans have migrated. It is
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: as natural as eating and breathing. And we're going to
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: have to figure out how to show people that it's
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: actually really not a big deal. We see, if anything,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: it's positive where migrants go, regardless of their background, regardless
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: of how poor or rich they are. Where migrants go,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: prosperity follows. And there is a myth that the president
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: is peddling because he's peddling a zero-sum vision of the world.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: But it really deepens to having national conversations about race,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: and they're very uncomfortable. And I think that a huge
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: part of this moment right now is because we've been
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: kicking this can down the road, and it's been getting
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: worse and worse and worse. And there's a huge fear
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: around a changing America. And we can't avoid that conversation.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: And we want to in the short term to win
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: an election. But if we keep not talking about it,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: it's only going to get worse.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: Well, this is, you know, I keep having this thought
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: about the 2020 election where to me there's this central
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: tension where, you know, Donald Trump wants to make this
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: election about race and immigration and white identity politics. And
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's a fight that Democrats have to join
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: that we can't avoid. At the same time, you know,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: we just did a poll in Wisconsin, and it was
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: a messaging poll. And the messages that moved voters furthest
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: away from Trump were economic in nature. It was about
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: his Medicare cuts, his tax cuts, his trade war with China.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: How do we sort of reconcile the need to battle
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump on race, on issues of race, but also
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: get an economic message through that we know will sort
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: of galvanize a majority of people?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the things that we need
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: to do is really dismantle this idea that it's either
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: race issues or class issues. We need to learn how
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: to talk about this intersectionally. And it's going to take
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: a lot of white people. We need white people right
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: now to do the work. We need white people to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: organize themselves. And to do that kind of work, you know,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: in my campaign, there was this really phenomenal local organization,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: but they're also national in nature. They were once known as, well,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: they're still known as Surge Stand Up for Racial Justice.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: In our community, they've kind of spun off into their
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: own local community organization. But it's It's white people talking
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: to other white people about race. And that, I think,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: is a lot of what we're going to need in
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: addition to a whole lot of other work because racism
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: is economic. And we need to, a lot of the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: long-term work that we have to do on a lot
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: of different issues is educational. And there's a reason that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is using racism as a cudgel because it's
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: how he gets away with, his corruption. It's how he gets,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: that's how he steals the bag. You know, it is,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: it is with racism.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a point too where racism doesn't only hurt
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: people of color, it hurts white people as well because
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's base isn't making out any better.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: From what's happened.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: And he's going to use racism and he's going to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: try to, the reason he's trying to center issues of race,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: of immigration, et cetera, is to sink the economic agenda.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: He's trying to eclipse it And the only reason that
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: that has power is because we refuse to talk about it.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: And so race is going to be an issue. And
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: the key is if we're going to allow him to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: define that conversation or if we're going to assert ourselves
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: into that space and define that conversation.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: You gave a speech that went viral last week where
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: you called on young people who find themselves being radicalized
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: by white supremacy to quote, come back because there's a
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: mother waiting for you. I know there's a teacher waiting
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: for you. We will love you back. You are not
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: too far gone. It struck me as a message that
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: conveyed something that you don't hear much in our political conversation,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: which is grace. What made you want to say that?
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Well, a lot of it does have to deal with
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: the fact that I have listened to those moms. I was.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: Maybe a day or two before, I was actually at
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: the mall in Queens. My now goddaughter, we were getting
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: a christening dress for her. And I was in this,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: I was actually in a Disney store. And one of
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: the employees at the store came to me and said,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: I'm so thankful that you're representing us. And she said,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: my son is kind of falling into this funnel and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: it's really hard to feel like I'm losing him. And
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: I hear this all the time about families that are
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: being torn apart by this radicalization and it's hurting so
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: many people. And this political polarization, it's not just within
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: our politics, it's personal. People's marriages are strained. Their friendships
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: are strained. They feel like they can't even talk to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: their loved ones. And that is the power of white supremacy.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: That is what this cult-like culture that the president is
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: cultivating is doing to us. And the only way that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: we're going to get past this is with grace. And
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: it's not grace on both ends. It's not just the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: white supremacist and it's not just young people that are
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: falling into this funnel. We need to have grace with
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: ourselves and to acknowledge our past mistakes. And I think
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: in our conversations about race, the immediate emotions that come
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: up are defensiveness. You know, like if I, for example,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: pointed out something that you may have said in this conversation,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: it's like, well, I didn't mean that, you know, there's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: this defensiveness that comes up. And I think that we
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: have to show that conversations about race can be safe
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: and they can be, even if you have made a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: mistake or even if you have stepped into outright hatred,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: that the conversation can still be safe. It can be
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: loving so long as we are at least open to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: the possibility of moving forward together.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I struggle with this all the time because I'm
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: an Obama person. I worked for him for a long time.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: I have this desire to not see this constant polarization
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: and political warfare. Trump becomes president and there's this debate about,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: you know, are Trump voters racist? And clearly you see
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: the rallies, you see some of the stuff online and
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: there's racism there. And then I wonder, like, I don't
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: necessarily want to vilify people who vote for Trump, but
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: at the same time, you also need to call racism out.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: And I don't know how, even beyond Trump, I don't
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: know how we ever sort of piece this back together
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: or Where are the spaces for these conversations? It's not Twitter.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: No, it's certainly not. Well, first of all, I think
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: the biggest mistake that we have, and it's a trap
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: that gets set by the right, whether intentionally or unintentionally,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: is just the frame of asking, is blank racist? That
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: is something that we have to pull ourselves out of.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: It's not about asking whether Trump voters are racist. We
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: need to talk about racism, not racism. racist. Racists, it's
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: a very two-dimensional, boring conversation. Is something racist? Yes or no.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: And then you debate it. What do you do about that?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: We need to talk about racism, its contours, its histories,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: where it manifests, how it's used. Because like all winning
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: political phenomena, whether they're good or bad in your opinion,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: they rely on coalition building. So Trump relied on a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: coalition and a core part of that coalition were racists
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: building a coalition with all sorts of other people that
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: could be susceptible to racist views if they were blanketed
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: and layered and made people feel good about it not
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: being a racist thing. And so there are a lot
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: of people who support Trump that genuinely don't believe that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: they are racist because we do not talk about or
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: educate people on recognizing racism. And because we do not
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: do that, it just allows itself to just, we get
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: caught in this debate of, is something racist? And then
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: a person uses their defensiveness and they say, well, it's
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: not racist because I'm not racist and I believe this
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: thing because it's economic in nature.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: Right. I was just listening to a podcast where some
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: of my Democratic friends who are very smart, have been
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: on winning presidential campaigns, said that their biggest fear in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: 2020 is that we nominate someone who has taken positions
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: that are not supported by a majority of people in
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: states that add up to 270. Do you think there
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: is anything valid about that fear? And what do we
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: sort of do about that fear?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I tend to think that people, a
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: lot of folks, especially in D.C., sometimes misunderstand the average voter.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: I think that people think that voters are more ideological
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: than they are. I think that people think that voters
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: cast their votes based on policy positions more than they
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: actually do.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: And I think that what is actually important is how
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: we message our positions, how we not even defend them,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: how we evangelize them, how we talk about a vision
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: for our future. And the only vision for our future
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: that I think is winning is an audacious one. And
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: whether you like it or whether you hate it, a
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: wall is a vision. It's a tangible vision. that is
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: symbolic and representative and galvanizing. And if we do not
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: have an ambitious, inspiring, galvanizing vision, I think we risk
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: losing even more. And it's not about, you know, and
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: it's all about how you message these issues that I
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: think is more important than the actual positions that people take.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: And that I think has always been the historic weakness
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party. It's something that we do not
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: have institutions for. Republicans, messaging lines. I mean, you see,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: you watch Fox News. Any old schmo that's in the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Republican Party goes on CNN and says, or it goes
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: on Fox News, and they'll use the same words, the
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: same terminology. Their messaging is completely unified. And it's aggressive
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: in winning over the electorate.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: I always wonder why we have this problem on our side,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: because A lot of these messages from Democrats are polled, right,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: which is a problem all in itself.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: I believe it's a huge problem.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: But the polling is not completely off, right? Like, we
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: know that the polling would probably tell us what you
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: and I believe, which is some of these economically populist
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: messages really resonate. Somehow, though, when they say it, when
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: the candidates say it, it doesn't ring true. You know,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, you ran a campaign where whether someone agreed
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: with you or not, they saw you as... authentic and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: inspiring and believing in what you were saying. What advice
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: do you give your colleagues and friends who are running
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: in some of these tougher swing districts?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, first of all, we have to become
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: master storytellers. I think anyone who's in public service needs
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: to be a master storyteller. It's not just about being
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: a legislator. We have to be It requires so many
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: different skills. We have to be legislators. We have to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: be policymakers. But there's this idea that if you're a
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: good enough legislator, you should just win reelection because you're
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: good at your job. But that is clearly not how
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: politics works. We have to be master storytellers. And so
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: my personal advice in terms of storytelling is to tell
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: our stories and to make arguments with your five senses
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: and not five facts. Use facts as supporting evidence, but
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: you need to communicate and tell the stories in terms of,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: you know, the smells that other people are smelling, the stress,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: how your heart is beating. We need to show that
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: we are having the same human experience. And too often
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: it doesn't come across that way because, frankly, a lot
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: of people aren't In D.C., a lot of policymakers aren't
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: having the same human experience as a lot of people
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: in the country. And that is what Trump has tapped into,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: the visceral. And I think our politics is our best
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: when our head and our heart align, when the visceral
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: also matches with the academic and when our facts align.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: are not separated or not that we have this hierarchy,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: but that they are put together because because emotions are
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: also information as well. And if we I think are
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: the amount of resentment that happened in 2016 that I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: think led to the Democratic loss was the fact that
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: we were telling implicitly. I feel like we had been
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: telling people that what they are seeing is not what
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: is happening. And that created a lot of resentment. And
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: people wanted to punish those who were doing that. And
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: I think that was an outlet for that.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: How much do you think sort of our own history
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: plays a role? I see you do this a lot,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: which I think is really effective, is talk about FDR or,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of line up progressive beliefs with progressive
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: traditions and American traditions. You know, and I think Obama
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: used to do this a lot and say that, you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: Patriotism isn't sort of airbrushed history and wearing a flag pin.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Patriotism is the civil rights movement. That's at the core
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: of what this country has been about. Do you think
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: the Democrats do that well enough? Do you think we
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: should do it more?
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: I think we need to do it more. And it's
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: not just about recounting the story. It's about saying this
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: is who we are.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: At our best.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: At our best, but this is also not even just
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: at our best, but it is who we are now, too.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: But We have to tell our story because America has
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: always been a story of people who want, of some
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: folks who want to cling to their own small vestiges
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: of power and prevent us from progressing. And those who
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: have been able to galvanize and bring us together and
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: move us forward. And it's always a stutter step between
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: those two things in that move towards progress. And we
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: need to tell... our story, because a huge part of
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: hope is not just, you know, hope isn't optimism. And
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: it's not just this naive belief that things will get better.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: Hope is saying, this is where we've been. We have
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: already done this. We can do this. There's a strategy
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: for doing it, but we need to take a leap
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: and we need it will only happen if we are courageous.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: It will only happen if we take a risk. And
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: there's this idea that we can win without taking any risks.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: And that is not, it's just not how the world works.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: One of the things that sort of scares me about
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: this coming election is, you know, in a way, we
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: were able to run by saying, you know, the greatest
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: risk you can take is doing the same thing over
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: and over again. And because George W. Bush wasn't going
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: to be president again, there wasn't as much fear in
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: the electorate. And so people were willing to take a
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: risk on someone completely new. I feel like heading into 2020,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: the emotion that sort of pervades everything, especially among Democrats,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: is this fear that we're going to lose to Trump again.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: And it's making a lot of Democrats more cautious than
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: they would be. And I sort of worry that that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: caution could lead to a bad place.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: I completely agree. I mean, just from your gut and
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: It's unfortunate because this is how authoritarians typically come into power.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: But coming from your gut, which so many voters vote
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: on their gut more than people want to admit, especially
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: in Washington. But if you have two options in front
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: of you and one is self-assured, has a direction saying
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: this is where I want to go. I know some
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: of you may disagree with me, but I believe that
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: this is my diagnosis of the country. This is our solution.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: This is how we're going to move forward. Versus another
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: person that's like, I think this might be what it is,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: but not quite that, but this, that, and the other.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: You have a self-assured leader and you have, a timid one.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: People are going to go to where they feel a
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: sense of certainty. Right. Just policy questions aside.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: And so if you have someone that's constantly stutter-stepping and backtracking,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: that does not inspire confidence. In an electorate, especially in
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: a time as tumultuous as this one. And I think
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: what folks also need to realize is that this time
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: is not just scary because Donald Trump is president. This
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: time is scary. This time has been scary because people
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: don't know if they're going to be able to pay
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: their rent at the end of the month. People don't
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: know if when you wake up. if you walk out
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: of your house, if God forbid you get hit by
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: a car or slip off of a curb, if your
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: life is going to be over because your health costs
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: are going to be out of control. And that is
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: the uncertainty that people are actually feeling. And Trump is,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: is a huge destabilizing factor on top of all of that.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, a lot of
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: people are feeling an insane amount of economic insecurity as well.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: And it's, concentrated in the people that Trump is hurting
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: the most.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: And layered on top of all this, of course, is
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: the climate crisis. You know, so you propose the Green
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: New Deal. This is something that requires a mass mobilization
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: like we haven't seen since World War II. And it
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: requires it urgently. And it requires it at a time
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: when our political system is in crisis because one of
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: our parties has been radicalized. Where do we begin to
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: make real progress on this when, you know, our best
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: hope is a Democratic president, 51 senators, no filibuster, and
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: then you're still dealing with like Joe Manchin.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: It's a huge challenge, especially with Manchin as chairman of
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: Energy and Commerce in the Senate. This is where I
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: think a huge amount of public sentiment comes in. And
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: when we first introduced the resolution, one of the biggest
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: critiques that we get on the left is that it's
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: too much It's too sweeping. But energy policy is not
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: just about putting solar panels on everyone's roof. Our entire
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: system is incentivized to destroying our planet and the only
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: home that we live on. And so long as fossil
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: fuels are profitable and so long as low wages are profitable,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: people are going to be economically marginalized and feel like
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: a coal mine is their only hope. And and so
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: the reason it has to be so sweeping is because
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: we need to give our entire economy, I think, a
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: golden gate of retreat and decarbonization. And so so that's
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: why we have to you know, that's why we have
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: to make a renewable energy job just as good of
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: a quality as a coal job, because coal jobs are unionized.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: And a lot of solar panel jobs are like these
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: ad hoc, weird, hourly, or like you have horrible, catastrophic
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: health insurance plans. And that's a lot of the reason
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: why people don't want to switch over, too. And so
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: we need to address a lot of those underlying economic issues.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: And frankly, the Green New Deal, I think, in many parts,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: is also an economic stimulus package for Main Street. We
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: had no problem.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 3: Blinking or snapping our fingers and passing the stimulus package,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: which created a large amount of political resentment as well
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: because we bailed out Wall Street and did very little
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: for Main Street. And this, I think, is the answer
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: to that, is that I think when people say, oh,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: this is so expensive, well, we don't care when these
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: expenses go to bailing out big banks. But for some reason,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: the idea of bailing out a generation seems unconscionable.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: Do you think that the next president should prioritize a
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: Green New Deal, even over Medicare for all, like knowing
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: that a president has, I don't know, two major legislative
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: initiatives before the midterms?
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I think scientifically, we have no choice but to
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: put climate front and center. So in terms of that aspect,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: we have to do it. But I do think that
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: in making these massive investments, like if we're going to
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: make millions of jobs, I want those millions of jobs
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: to have health insurance and high quality. And that's why
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's necessarily either or. It's going to say,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: we're going to make this investment and these are the
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: requirements that this investment is funding.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Republicans have already tried to make you the
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: face of the Democratic Party heading into 2020. It's a
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: curious decision to me. I mean, I will tell you
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: that in our Wisconsin poll, your net favorability is higher
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: than most of our presidential candidates, including Joe Biden. What
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: do you think about this? How do you, you know,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: do you feel like there's an added responsibility because you
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: have been made this notorious star on the right?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's certainly a responsibility because there's
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: a certain power in that. And so, If they're going
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: to make me the focus, then I get to determine
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: as a proxy what they focus on. And so if
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: they're going to spend all of their time trying to
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: trash the Green New Deal, I think that's great because
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: the Green New Deal is enormously popular. Or like yesterday
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: in this like little tiff with Barstool Sports, if we
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: want to get into a fight and you're going to
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: be the anti-union side, I will take that any day
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: of the week. Please go on the record bashing unions.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: Please go on the record saying we shouldn't have health insurance.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: go on the record saying this country should only be
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: for white people. And I will gladly take up that
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: mantle and force them to be on the defense. Because
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: people say, oh, like, how risky is this if a
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: presidential candidate, you know, wins the primary on Medicare for all?
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: Are they going to be too far left? These other
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: schmoes are literal white supremacists, and they're not worried about that.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, come on.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: Like, this is an outrageous point to make. And we
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: have to be as galvanizing as possible.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: Is one of the reasons you jumped in on that
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: yesterday because it's so hard to get coverage of the
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: labor movement and unions? I noticed that you sort of
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: pick your battles on Twitter, it seems to me, very strategically,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: thinking that there are some issues that just never break
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: through in a normal political conversation. And you were saying earlier,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: if you can sort of fuse the politics with pop
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: culture and what's interesting, you can sort of get more
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: people to pay attention.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is something that I enjoy doing because
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: at my core, I come from the background of community organizing.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: And in my primary election, I won because I expanded
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: the electorate 68% over the last off-year midterm primary. I
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: talk to people who don't vote. That's my jam. I
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: talk to young people. I talk to people of color.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: I talk to working class people that say, Why should
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: I consent to be governed by the lesser of two evils?
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: This system doesn't work for me. I think one of
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: the biggest misconceptions that we have in politics is that
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: people who don't vote are apathetic. And if anything, sometimes
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: I find them to be the most passionate about politics,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: and they're just very heartbroken and dejected.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: How do you overcome that cynicism about the system that
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: I think, I understand it. I mean, I've talked to
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of these non-voters too, and Democrats say, these
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: should be our voters. They're younger voters. They're predominantly people
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: of color. They're poorer. And then, you know, some of
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: the solution is like, well, we can get there by
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: just sort of proposing more ambitious policies. But it seems
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: like there's something deeper going on.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: The only way you are going to get those voters
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: is by actually telling the truth.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And. Do you try to set expectations with them? Like,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go fight for you. But by the way,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: because one of the one of the worries I had
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: when Democrats won the House is, There's going to be
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of expectation from people who don't pay super
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: close attention to politics that Democrats won the House. Now
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: everything's going to be great. And we only control one
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: House of Congress, so we can't promise that much. But
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: is that going to create more disappointment?
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: Well, when I go back home, it's not about winning.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: It's about fighting. And every time I come home, people say,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: thank you for trying. Thank you for fighting for us.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: That's the number one thing that I hear when I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: go back home. And it's because they know it's not.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: I come from a district that is like D plus
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: 24 or something like that. People in my community vote
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: for Democrats no matter what, but they don't like Democrats.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not they don't love the party. And
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: I think that's the mistake that people that we have.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: We take we take young people for granted. We take
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: communities of color for granted. We take working class people
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: for granted. And we just say, oh, well, you're going
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: to vote for us no matter what, because we're the
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: lesser of two evils. So like you should there's this
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: entitlement that's like it's your fault you don't vote. It's
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: your fault that you don't vote. And if you only voted,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: we would pass all of these things for you. That's bullshit.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: That's bullshit.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: And that's why I unseated a 20-year incumbent that was
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: the fourth most powerful person in the party. And the
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: argument that I made, some people were saying, oh, well,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: he's going to be the next speaker. Do we really
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: want to give up that power to our district? And
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: I said, how much of that power has been used
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: to improve our lives? Yeah.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: How much of it?
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. think that's when people were saying, you know what?
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: We should have a change.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I don't always understand it because like, I
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: think politicians and people who've been in Washington for a
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: long time believe that people who are disengaged from politics
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: are They believe that everyone pays as closely attention to
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: politics as we all do. And so if they don't
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: automatically know that Donald Trump is the worst person on earth,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: if they don't automatically know that voting for a Democrat
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: is the best thing to do, then it's their problem.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: And I think we don't realize that people are busy
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: and living their lives. And there's a certain obligation that
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: comes with citizenship, but there's also an obligation on behalf
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: of our leaders.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: Well, not only that, but Deep in that message that
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: you're talking about where it's like, oh, well, you should
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: know that if you don't vote, Trump will win. Right.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: What you're saying, well, what people say, what that argument
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: says is you should vote for us for your survival. Right.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: We don't tell white folks in the Midwest that. Right.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: It's like we tell communities of color the other side
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: will kill you and we won't.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: Right. Isn't that an inspiring message to get to the polls?
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: Right. And so why is it a surprise that young
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: people don't vote, that working class communities don't vote? Why
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: is it a surprise that the union vote did not
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: turn out in 2016? Because none of these messages were galvanizing. And,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: you know, I think that we could have permanent majorities
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: if we told the truth and fought for people and
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: actually took a risk. And I think the reason people appreciate,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: even if they disagree with me, I hear this a
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: lot from even Republicans that I talk to that say,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: you know, I may not agree with you, but I
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: respect you, is because they know that it's not a show.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: Like they know that I am legitimately risking things to
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: make people's lives better. And I think that that's what
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: a public servant has to do. And I think that's
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: what all public servants have to do, regardless of your party.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: You It is a service. We have to risk and
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: sacrifice real things of ourselves, not pretend things. And I
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: think that that is what is winning. And I think
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 3: in terms of that ethos, people vote for ethoses as well.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: They vote for vision and ethos and how their communities
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: are galvanizing in a moment. I think that was a
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: huge reason why Bernie Sanders was successful in 2016. Because
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: no one had ever heard of Medicare for All and
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: tuition-free colleges. Like those were, I think we underestimate how
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: much these policies were put into the map and how
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: they've become mainstream in such a short period of time.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: Well, and it wasn't just his policies too. I always
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: remember thinking back to Bernie's announcement speech in 2016. And
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: the very first line of the speech is just, I
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: believe we need a political and economic revolution. And she's like, oh,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: you know what his worldview is. I saw you talking
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: when you spoke to David Remnick about sort of trying
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: to understand different candidates' worldviews and how important that is.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: What do you believe is the worldview that succeeds in 2020?
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the worldview, and this is also very
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: much from Obama's practice and Marshall Gans, too. You have
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: to tell the story of me, us, and now. And
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: that story of me, us, and now should coincide. The
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: worldview is the diagnosis after telling those three stories. And
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: so I think the worldview right now, and I think
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of candidates have kind of gotten this, but
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they're getting it just because it
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: polls well or because they've deeply internalized the reality of
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: America today. And it's that our system And our politics,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: our structure is designed to help the powerful. And we
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: do need to have these huge changes. We do need
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: a political and economic revolution, but we are at a
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: crossroads right now. And the crossroads, and I think we
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: have to tell the story of the crossroads, where our
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: nation is coming apart and it will continue to come apart.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: Or we can use this moment as an opportunity to transform.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: But there is no going back to where we were. Right.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: And I think that is the bitter pill that is
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: very hard for a lot of people to swallow. But
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: the America that we had, even under Obama, is gone.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: That is the nature of time. You know? The America
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: that we had with Obama, the America of George Bush,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: was forever gone.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: Right. And.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: We have to decide how we're going to transform. But
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: there is no staying the same anymore.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: And taking that step forward requires a certain level of
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: courage and ambition. But that's always been the way with us.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: Right. And as I think, as humanity evolves, we can
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 3: always evolve for the better. And I think we're almost
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: scared of living in a more advanced world. Because I
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: think that we have to.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: The way we advance as a society, a more advanced
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: society is one where everyone can go to the doctor.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: A more advanced society is one where every person has
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to educate themselves as far as they see
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: fit for their own lives. It sounds like science fiction
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: to a lot of people, but science fiction is written
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: for the societies we're going to live in decades from now.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: These policies are the ones that are policies of an
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: advanced society. So we're going to have to decide if
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: we're going to be a regressive society because we're used
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: to it, because we're used to barbarism and we're used
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: to $ 300 insulin. And we think that not having $ 300
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: insulin is quote unquote unrealistic or we can actually realize
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: that reality is what we create and that we have
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: all of the money to do all of these things.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: We just have to decide that this is going to
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: be our value as a country.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: This is great.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks to AOC for joining us. And we'll see you
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: at the Greek on Saturday night. I'll see you at
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: the Greek on Saturday night, Dan.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: I will be there.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: So, by the way, that will be our pod on Monday.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: And then Dan and I will be back on Thursday.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: Bye, guys. Bye, everyone.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: show is produced by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 4: to Caroline Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 4: and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 4: Milo Kim, who film
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: And upload these bad boys every week.