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Speaker 3: This summer, America celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 3: But if you actually sit down and read the Declaration
Speaker 3: of Independence, you'll notice something wild. Buried right near the
Speaker 3: end is a brutal rant about and this is a
Speaker 3: direct quote merciless Indian savages. As it turns out, relations
Speaker 3: with Native nations weren't just a footnote in the American Revolution.
Speaker 3: They were central to it. Think about the Boston Tea Party,
Speaker 3: the colonists literally disguised themselves as Native Americans. Later, the
Speaker 3: country's very first attempt at a government collapsed, largely because
Speaker 3: it couldn't handle the sheer power and sovereignty of Native nations.
Speaker 3: First America is hosted by journalists Rebecca Nagel, who hosted
Speaker 3: Crooked's excellent This Land podcast, along with leading Native historians.
Speaker 3: It completely reframes howard democracy was actually built, which feels
Speaker 3: pretty relevant in our current political moment. Find First America
Speaker 3: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: Welcome to pots of America.
Speaker 5: I'm John favrec I' John love it, Tommy Vietor new
Speaker 5: studio looking good, guys, and if you're listening to this,
Speaker 5: only you're good. This is the moment that you're gonna
Speaker 5: want to watch us on YouTube. Subscribe to the Potza
Speaker 5: of America YouTube channel because we have a brand new
Speaker 5: studio here.
Speaker 4: It's awesome, all refurbished.
Speaker 6: Look at this.
Speaker 4: I know it's exciting. All right.
Speaker 5: On today's show, we're going to talk about the democrats
Speaker 5: new twenty twenty eight primary calendar, which puts South Carolina
Speaker 5: first and has already set off a debate about who
Speaker 5: that helps. We'll also talk about one Democratic leader who
Speaker 5: seems beyond help, DNC chair Ken Martin, the subject of
Speaker 5: not one, not two, but three leak filled stories about
Speaker 5: the party's financial crisis. Then we'll cover Trump's trip to
Speaker 5: Michigan in the Senate race there, as well as the
Speaker 5: latest with the Iran war and the biggest bombing of
Speaker 5: the weekend, the President's performance at the rescheduled White House
Speaker 5: Correspondence dinner. Finally, Ben Wickler stopped by the studio to
Speaker 5: talk about the DNC drama that was Constant Gubernatorial primary
Speaker 5: Drama and his brand new drama free book. This is
Speaker 5: the plan, all right, guys, Let's start with the biggest
Speaker 5: news from over the weekend that will impact the outcome
Speaker 5: of the twenty twenty eight presidential election. We have a
Speaker 5: new primary calendar.
Speaker 4: It's here.
Speaker 5: On Friday, the DNC's Rules and by Laws Committee voted
Speaker 5: to make South Carolina the first primary state on January
Speaker 5: twenty second, twenty twenty eight. It will tentatively be followed
Speaker 5: by Nevada on February first, New Hampshire a week after that,
Speaker 5: New Mexico a week after that, Michigan the next week,
Speaker 5: and finally Virginia on February twenty ninth, before a bunch
Speaker 5: of other states vote in early March on Super Tuesday.
Speaker 5: The new calendar still has to be approved by the
Speaker 5: full DNC, which will meet next month, but there's already
Speaker 5: one potential stumbling block. New Hampshire has a law that
Speaker 5: requires the state to go at least one week earlier
Speaker 5: than any other state primary. The DNC's proposed solution is
Speaker 5: for the New Hampshire Democratic Party to fund and hold
Speaker 5: its own primary that's separate from the official state primary.
Speaker 5: But it doesn't sound like New Hampshire Democratic leaders are
Speaker 5: on board with that plan just yet, or.
Speaker 4: Republican leaders or Republican leaders right.
Speaker 5: There's also been some grumbling from a few progressive activists
Speaker 5: that they're putting stuff.
Speaker 4: I say a.
Speaker 5: Few because actually this is like progressives upset with South
Speaker 5: Carolina and then it's like a Jacobin op ed and
Speaker 5: like one comment from Hassan Piker, but there's a few
Speaker 5: progress Yes, yes it was because I did my diligence.
Speaker 4: I started writing, and I'm like, Okay, this headline is great. Anyway.
Speaker 5: There's been some grumbling that putting South Carolina first gives
Speaker 5: an advantage to more moderate establishment candidates, But we'll get
Speaker 5: into all of this before we get into what we
Speaker 5: think about the proposed calendar. Do you guys want to
Speaker 5: talk about why this is such a big deal and
Speaker 5: how much you think the earliest state calendar matters.
Speaker 1: I'm just nostalgic for when we were in Iowa rigging
Speaker 1: the caucus for booting ENSI and this didn't work.
Speaker 6: This is the things we get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we probably shouldn't have rigged it for him to
Speaker 3: only be revealed like four or five days later.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so much for Iowa to misstep. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: was got.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the early state calendar, in its
Speaker 3: totality just could not be more important. It's the whole
Speaker 3: ball game from the Obama perspective, like Obama's not the
Speaker 3: nomine if he doesn't win Iowa because it gave us
Speaker 3: a huge momentum and it made people over the country
Speaker 3: believe that he could win. But also it taught us
Speaker 3: how to organize and we put in place those organizing
Speaker 3: practices in all the future caucas states and mopped up
Speaker 3: delegates againstillary Clinton as we went forward, so kept paying
Speaker 3: out dividends during that long, drawn out, awful primary process.
Speaker 3: The order will also determine, you know, what policy areas
Speaker 3: get highlighted, like, for example, Iowa being first meant that
Speaker 3: we talked about ethanol, probably far too much for far
Speaker 3: too long.
Speaker 4: That will now we may never talk about him again.
Speaker 3: It may not be as big of an issue we
Speaker 3: know of New Mexico, a southern border state. We'll see
Speaker 3: if immigration is more salient this time around. In Michigan,
Speaker 3: we'll probably hear about autos and unions. In Virginia, maybe
Speaker 3: doze is an issue again, right, you have a lot
Speaker 3: of government employees in northern Virginia. It also gives more
Speaker 3: power to different demographics and you know types of voters,
Speaker 3: older voters.
Speaker 4: White voters, black voters.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: So that's been a big part of the conversation that
Speaker 3: we'll get into in a minute. But I do think
Speaker 3: like figuring this out is essential and it really does
Speaker 3: help and harm specific candidates.
Speaker 1: So I'm a counterpoint. I don't know that I agree
Speaker 1: with that, So I think you're right. The schedule in
Speaker 1: early two thousand and eight was very important, in part
Speaker 1: because Iowa was perfect for Barack Obama to prove that
Speaker 1: despite being a black candidate, he could put together a
Speaker 1: coalition of white voters that were hyper engaged, and we
Speaker 1: built a great organization on the ground. Had Hillary not
Speaker 1: had a surprising win in New Hampshire, it probably would
Speaker 1: have been over sooner. But that allowed the race to
Speaker 1: go back and forth. But it's interesting is the way
Speaker 1: the race ultimately goes back and forth. It was told
Speaker 1: as a momentum and narrative, but in reality it was
Speaker 1: often more about the demographics of the voters in each state,
Speaker 1: kind of ricocheting back and forth, as like the fundamental
Speaker 1: dynamics of the race didn't shift. On the other side,
Speaker 1: you have Joe Biden.
Speaker 6: Becoming the nominee.
Speaker 1: He loses in Iowa, he loses in New Hampshire, but
Speaker 1: he says, wait for South Carolina. He's able to overcome
Speaker 1: those early losses because they had set expectations, and he
Speaker 1: comes out of South Carolina with so much momentum that
Speaker 1: he's able to clean up on Super Tuesday and become
Speaker 1: the nominee. So I do think it's important to me.
Speaker 1: What I think is the most important is where the
Speaker 1: actual swing states fall in the schedule, right where Michigan is,
Speaker 1: for example. But sometimes I think we get into this
Speaker 1: idea of the order of states mattering, when in reality
Speaker 1: it's partly about the order but also about managing expectation
Speaker 1: and how campaigns fare over the next few contacts. It
Speaker 1: can winnow, but I don't know if it's like a a.
Speaker 3: Diffs such as orders New States too. I mean, like
Speaker 3: let's say if it was instead of South Caroline, Atlina
Speaker 3: and Nevada, Newmpshire, was Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona. Like, that's sort
Speaker 3: of what I'm getting. Yeah, having these new states in
Speaker 3: there will just change the issues and demographics.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's two factors here. There's order and then there's states, right,
Speaker 5: you know, I do think I think you can make
Speaker 5: an argument that order doesn't matter as much as everyone
Speaker 5: thinks it does. I think that which states, the composition
Speaker 5: of the states in the early window is hugely important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I was getting in a speciality of them,
Speaker 4: and especially now that there are five, I think.
Speaker 5: You're probably going to have a slower momentum build over time.
Speaker 5: But if you have five states in the early window
Speaker 5: before Super Tuesday, and the two last states are very
Speaker 5: big states like Michigan and Virginia, both of which are
Speaker 5: also going to be competitive states in the general election,
Speaker 5: especially Michigan, you are going to know a lot by
Speaker 5: the time Super Tuesday rolls around about who can put
Speaker 5: together a campaign that could win almost any demographic group
Speaker 5: in any region of the country. And like, I find
Speaker 5: it hard unless you now we Democrats award delegates in
Speaker 5: each of these states proportionally, unlike Republicans do a lot
Speaker 5: of winner take all states, so they might who knows,
Speaker 5: they might change that for twenty eight as well on
Speaker 5: their side, So you could see a situation Super Tuesday
Speaker 5: and beyond where it's like an Obama and Hillary.
Speaker 4: Fighting out a delegate battle.
Speaker 5: But I tend to think that having five states go
Speaker 5: and that many states and that many votes in that
Speaker 5: period of time is going to pretty much tell you
Speaker 5: who's the who's down by the time you get to Superdoo, right.
Speaker 1: Right, They all like, by the time you get through
Speaker 1: those early states, you've been in whiter states, you've been
Speaker 1: in Latino states, You've been a state with a bigger
Speaker 1: African American population. By time you get to Michigan, you
Speaker 1: have some like sort of prominent urban areas that have
Speaker 1: been you know, strongholds for Democrats.
Speaker 6: You've gotten a good sense of the entire picture.
Speaker 1: Could you achieve that same thing if you did swap
Speaker 1: into Texas? In Oklahoma, Texas is a big Hispanic population,
Speaker 1: It's also a border state. Oklahoma is a very white electorate, right,
Speaker 1: might bring out more hyper engaged Democrats in the same
Speaker 1: way that say, like in Iowa would in the past. Whatever,
Speaker 1: I think the part of the reason South Carolina was
Speaker 1: able to play such a big role in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Is Biden said explicitly, wait for South Carolina, you can't
Speaker 1: become a demo. You will not be there will not
Speaker 1: be a Democratic president who doesn't have strong support among
Speaker 1: African Americans. And then he wins so handily in that
Speaker 1: state that kind of proves that case, and he kind
Speaker 1: of is able to march onto the nomination after in.
Speaker 5: Terms of how much it matters, though, Like you got
Speaker 5: to imagine every single campaign in waiting is after Friday's
Speaker 5: announcement is like now finally starting to plan their strategy.
Speaker 5: I mean like it is everything for a campaign knowing,
Speaker 5: oh god, the state's go first and in order. It's
Speaker 5: like every decision is made around that.
Speaker 3: Where you travel, what operatives you hire, like yeah. And
Speaker 3: also there were people who are talking about waiting until
Speaker 3: after the midterms to figure this out.
Speaker 2: I was like, what are you talking about? You can't
Speaker 2: possibly do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I saw that, some of the progressives were like
Speaker 1: sort of and I had the same things.
Speaker 6: Who's actually upset about this?
Speaker 1: But you know, oh, South Carolina is a boon to
Speaker 1: more moderate candidates. Well, that's sort of about what you're
Speaker 1: saying about the African American electorate not being as far
Speaker 1: to the left as some like the more sort of
Speaker 1: the wider part of the of the Democratic base. But
Speaker 1: now for the first time, you might have instead of
Speaker 1: candidates spending six months in you know, Atkrew White Iowa,
Speaker 1: you're going to have people spending months and months and
Speaker 1: months in South Carolina. And it's like, well, that's a
Speaker 1: great opportunity for the left to prove that they can
Speaker 1: appeal beyond their sort of online and sort of more
Speaker 1: less diverse audience.
Speaker 5: With Iowa and New Hampshire finally being dethroned as the
Speaker 5: first two contests, how do you guys think that changes
Speaker 5: the race and strategy of these campaigns.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just worth point of the Both states actually
Speaker 3: have laws on the books mandating their place in the order.
Speaker 3: The Iowa law says the caucuses have to be held
Speaker 3: at least eight days before any other primary or caucus.
Speaker 3: Iowa officials currently want to punt on that fight until
Speaker 3: after the mid terms for whatever reason, but we'll see
Speaker 3: what they do. I kind of don't think they're going
Speaker 3: to fight it. New Hampshire is going to go down
Speaker 3: swinging in part because you have a Republican governor who
Speaker 3: is not going to agree to move it, I don't
Speaker 3: think the day of the primary. So then they're going
Speaker 3: to be asked to pay for a party funded primary.
Speaker 3: And if they don't, I mean there's real consequences. I mean,
Speaker 3: if a state party refuses to abide by the rules,
Speaker 3: the penalties are now they lose all their delegates at
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty eight convention. That's up from losing fifty
Speaker 3: percent of your delegates, and they have to pay a
Speaker 3: two hundred and seventy thousand dollars fine and lose DNC
Speaker 3: membership voting rights until the fine is paid off. So
Speaker 3: that's pretty serious for them.
Speaker 4: And there's penalties for the candidates.
Speaker 3: It's even worse for the candidates. You lose all your
Speaker 3: delegates from the entire early state nominating window and you're
Speaker 3: prohibited from a participating in DNC.
Speaker 4: Rule like todata.
Speaker 5: So New Hampshter's going to put on a party run
Speaker 5: a separate party run primary, or else they are just
Speaker 5: going to take themselves out of the early state window altogether.
Speaker 5: That those are the only two options because no one's
Speaker 5: going to deal with these panels the state of New Hampshire,
Speaker 5: the candidates, and so I think what they're all grumbling
Speaker 5: about right now, and what I saw like Kathy Sullivan,
Speaker 5: who was a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman, because
Speaker 5: I had asked about this on Twitter and she replied,
Speaker 5: She's like, look, we have we're trying to spend money
Speaker 5: to elect two members of Congress in twenty twenty six
Speaker 5: and a senator to hus members and a senator, and
Speaker 5: now we're going to need all this money to put
Speaker 5: on a primary Like that is a big undertaking. So
Speaker 5: I'm sure maybe some of this will be bargaining to
Speaker 5: try to get some money from the DNC, which we'll
Speaker 5: get to just to put on the primary.
Speaker 4: But that is a big it's you know, it's a
Speaker 4: big deal.
Speaker 5: There's a possibility if New Hampshire bows out because they
Speaker 5: don't have the money, they don't want to do this.
Speaker 5: The only other Northeastern state that applied that would slide
Speaker 5: into that slot is Delaware, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 5: Do you guys like where the DNC landed on this
Speaker 5: group of states in this particular order.
Speaker 1: I would have liked more swing states, but look, I
Speaker 1: am not maybe like I just I have so much
Speaker 1: PTSD from two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: where the calendar was treated as being this very, very
Speaker 1: important thing, when in reality, the experience of working for
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton in that period was she would always do
Speaker 1: do well enough that she could justify going to the
Speaker 1: next contest, but not so well as to change the
Speaker 1: dynamics of the race. And to me, I'm glad, like
Speaker 1: I'm glad Michigan's there. I think it is actually good
Speaker 1: that you no longer have this situation where the first
Speaker 1: two contests that draw so much attention in time for
Speaker 1: so long are these very white places that don't reflect
Speaker 1: the broader Democratic electorate. But beyond that, I do think
Speaker 1: in the end, part of the strategy is where you compete,
Speaker 1: but also part of it is just how you tell
Speaker 1: a story about where and when you're going to do best.
Speaker 3: So I look, I'm sad to see I will go
Speaker 3: because I know all the downsides of Caucasus, We've talked
Speaker 3: about them, but there is It forces you an invest
Speaker 3: in organizing, It forces you. It incentivizes a nicer brand
Speaker 3: of politics because you want to be your opponent's second
Speaker 3: choice for reasons, don't have to get into so I
Speaker 3: think that will be missing that. Actually I reached out
Speaker 3: to a bunch of people who worked in politics just
Speaker 3: to like get their opinions on what they'd seen, and
Speaker 3: their responses range from it's good and I like it,
Speaker 3: it's impossible to know yet because of New Hampshire too,
Speaker 3: this is going to boom around, boomerang back on us
Speaker 3: and be a disaster. So what was the argument for
Speaker 3: that that it's just going to be messy. New Hampshire
Speaker 3: are going to screw everything up once we get to
Speaker 3: Northern Virginia. You're going to have like DC, you know,
Speaker 3: media market spend, people like making a big determination and
Speaker 3: it will just kind of be a mess and who
Speaker 3: the hell knows about what New Mexico wid whatever, Like
Speaker 3: just one person's opinion I felt. My personal take was
Speaker 3: I feel like the DNC and the RBC did a
Speaker 3: pretty good job of navigating a very challenging process. I
Speaker 3: don't think the New Hampshire piece is solved in any way,
Speaker 3: share or form. I think we're whistling past the graveyard
Speaker 3: on that, and that's something that's going to have to
Speaker 3: give there.
Speaker 4: The thing is gonna get What do you mean, Like.
Speaker 3: I just I think New Hampshire is going to fuck around.
Speaker 3: They don't have the money to pay for this aready
Speaker 3: run process, and the Republican governor is not going to
Speaker 3: move the state. So I just I don't know what's
Speaker 3: going to happen here.
Speaker 1: I think, can you end up with a primary where
Speaker 1: just the the candidates don't participate?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean Joe Biden won New Hampshire with a write
Speaker 1: in and they head the delegates didn't right, Like it
Speaker 1: was like that.
Speaker 4: No, but that's it.
Speaker 5: It's either they find the money to put on the
Speaker 5: primary or they're out. There's no other out, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, Like that's and it's just it's going
Speaker 5: to be up to them to figure out if they
Speaker 5: can get the money or.
Speaker 3: You have the DNC threats work. No major candidates actually
Speaker 3: go there. But there's super packs muck around in New
Speaker 3: Hampshire and stage right in efforts so they can show
Speaker 3: strength and they get new.
Speaker 4: Cycles at it. Right, So there's all these weird ways
Speaker 4: that they can kind of mess around. So who knows?
Speaker 2: On South Carolina?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think South Carolina being first, I agree
Speaker 3: with you, like South Carolina first isn't like a massive change.
Speaker 3: I think it's a reflection that black voters are the
Speaker 3: base of the party, either half of the primary elector
Speaker 3: right there. I think the talk of what you always
Speaker 3: hear from South Carolina people is we have the track
Speaker 3: record of actually picking the nominee with who we vote for,
Speaker 3: and like, that's true, but that's because they went the
Speaker 3: field was winnowed, and then it gets to South Carolina,
Speaker 3: so they voted for you know, South Carolina voters picked Obama,
Speaker 3: Clinton and Biden. My guest is South Carolina will now
Speaker 3: just kind of be the winnower. It will be the
Speaker 3: filter function that Iowa, New Hampshire were. I do agree,
Speaker 3: it's a real bomber that it's just it's not about
Speaker 3: ground state like you do all this organizing in these
Speaker 3: early states and then the candidates never go back to them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 5: And look, the reason that is is because the laws
Speaker 5: already in the books, and if you look for other
Speaker 5: states with heavy populations of black voters to go first,
Speaker 5: you have to find a state with a Democratic trifectus.
Speaker 5: They can move the primary date and it's a whole mess.
Speaker 5: So I sort of feel the same about South Carolina.
Speaker 5: But I think they did. I think for South Carolina
Speaker 5: going first, they did a really good job of then
Speaker 5: balancing out the rest of the calendar because you have
Speaker 5: I mean, they have diversity, all kinds of diversity, right,
Speaker 5: racial diversity, geographic diversity, ideological diversity. I also like that
Speaker 5: the first four states are small states, and so the
Speaker 5: kind of retail can painting that you got in Iowa
Speaker 5: New Hampshire, and this will be true if Delaware takes
Speaker 5: New Hampshire spot you get. So you'll have South Carolina,
Speaker 5: which is a relatively small state, Nevada, same thing. New Mexico,
Speaker 5: which is a brand new to this process, which is
Speaker 5: pretty small.
Speaker 4: I just don't know what to think of that one yet.
Speaker 5: It's New Mexico is interesting. So you have in that state.
Speaker 5: New Mexico's overall voting eligible population is forty five percent Hispanic.
Speaker 5: That is the largest percentage of any state in the country.
Speaker 5: They also have a significant Native American population. Is that's
Speaker 5: the first time that we have in early state with
Speaker 5: a pretty significant Native American population. Like you said, tell me,
Speaker 5: it's a border state, which I think is great. We
Speaker 5: have a democratic trifect there, so they should be able
Speaker 5: to move that no problem. It is more non college
Speaker 5: the voters there than some of the other states, which
Speaker 5: I also think is helpful because you're going to want
Speaker 5: to prove that you can win non college voters and
Speaker 5: not just not just highly college educated voters. That you
Speaker 5: get a New like you get a New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: What is the different function than of like in their
Speaker 1: theory that Nevada plays versus New Mexico's No. Mada also
Speaker 1: has a big Latino population. It is compared to other states,
Speaker 1: a lower percentage of college voters. Also has Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: which is a huge important center for unions.
Speaker 6: Right is that?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What is the different?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What is the what is other than just this is
Speaker 1: how it shook out, And I'm glad. I liked having
Speaker 1: Nevada early when we were there. That was one of
Speaker 1: the last trips we took before COVID.
Speaker 5: Look, I I was on record saying this last time.
Speaker 5: But boy am I happy. We'll be spending a lot
Speaker 5: of time.
Speaker 1: It will have no choice, we have to go. Sorry,
Speaker 1: So what is what is in there? What is the
Speaker 1: theory of the different role in New Mexico versus Nevada plays?
Speaker 1: New Mexico is a border state.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't even know if there's a theory
Speaker 4: of that being different.
Speaker 5: What I took it as is North Nevada and South
Speaker 5: Carolina we're battling for first, and uh, you know that
Speaker 5: South Carolina party chair was like, well, if if Nevada
Speaker 5: goes first, what does that state of black voters that
Speaker 5: they don't matter as much? And I think you pointed
Speaker 5: stup to me, love it. So does that mean the
Speaker 5: reverse is true?
Speaker 4: Then the Latino voters?
Speaker 5: And so now by having two states with significant Latino populations,
Speaker 5: and Nevada also has a a significant black population as well,
Speaker 5: not as much as South Carolina, but it does, then
Speaker 5: you get then you basically have two states in the
Speaker 5: early window that have pretty heavy Latino populations.
Speaker 1: I'll make another case for this now that I think
Speaker 1: about it. South Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico. These are states
Speaker 1: that are not that cold in November, December, January. That
Speaker 1: is a very that is cool.
Speaker 3: That's what we want for us.
Speaker 5: It's just going to be New Hampshire and I guess Michigan.
Speaker 5: Michigan will be cold too.
Speaker 3: It'll be very cool.
Speaker 5: What do you guys make of the like the South
Speaker 5: Carolina disadvantages progressives a progressive candidate.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably right.
Speaker 3: I mean that the South Carolina Democratic primary electorate, it's older,
Speaker 3: more moderate than Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada. About forty
Speaker 3: percent of South Carolina Democratic primary voters were college graduates.
Speaker 3: About half identified as liberal, which is less than earlier contest.
Speaker 3: This is I think twenty twenty exit polls. They're more
Speaker 3: likely to be working class, more likely to go to
Speaker 3: church once a week older. Biden won South Carolina twenty
Speaker 3: twenty because you won with black voters, but he did
Speaker 3: especially well with black voters over sixty. He and Bernie actually,
Speaker 3: I think tied with black voters under thirty. So I
Speaker 3: do think it's likely to be demographically set up to
Speaker 3: be more moderate.
Speaker 1: As we were saying before, like if you're saying that
Speaker 1: you think South Carolina is a way to put a
Speaker 1: roadblock in front of progressives, you are saying that a
Speaker 1: black electorate is a roadblock in front of progressive Now.
Speaker 1: I think the point that would be made in response is,
Speaker 1: as Tommy said, a generational thing, not a demographic thing.
Speaker 1: But of course it's both, and we have seen like
Speaker 1: you know, you see this in Michigan, playing out that
Speaker 1: one of a duel's challenges is trying to kind of
Speaker 1: build support in the black community. And I feel like
Speaker 1: this is an opportunity for the left if they want
Speaker 1: to start building a bigger coalition that can win in
Speaker 1: contest like this, right, like because South Carolina that is
Speaker 1: where Bernie goes down.
Speaker 6: In twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Like, if that's that is, that is the test, and
Speaker 1: it may not happen this election. You're right, it may
Speaker 1: be harder because of this. But also at the same time,
Speaker 1: even if if South Carolina was third, fourth, or fifth,
Speaker 1: this test was always there, the candidate that that wins
Speaker 1: black voters is going to be the nominated.
Speaker 5: Well, this is where I think that the order matters
Speaker 5: maybe less or at least can cut both ways. Because
Speaker 5: let's say South Carolina is does advantage more moderate candidates. Well,
Speaker 5: then you know, so a fifth of South Carolina primary
Speaker 5: voters describe themselves as very liberal, which is relatively low.
Speaker 5: And then you go to Nevada and a third of
Speaker 5: voters there describe themselves as very liberal. So like, if
Speaker 5: you're a progressive, lefty candidate and you don't do well
Speaker 5: in South Carolina, you hang on and you go to Nevada,
Speaker 5: you go to New Hampshire or Delaware, you go to
Speaker 5: you try you know, like so there's there's basically there's
Speaker 5: a state on the map in that early window for
Speaker 5: any kind of ideal, ideological flavor or you know, different
Speaker 5: kind of voter that you can get. So I don't
Speaker 5: worry as much about that. I wouldn't worry if I
Speaker 5: was a progressive candidate or if I was an establishment
Speaker 5: candidate on like the order that way.
Speaker 3: One under discussed change though, is Nevada going from a
Speaker 3: caucas state to a primary state, which I think is
Speaker 3: will medically to disadvantage progressives potentially because there's you know,
Speaker 3: some progressives tend to organize well in these caucas states,
Speaker 3: and unions tend to do better than unions tend to
Speaker 3: do really well in caucas states, which interesting to see
Speaker 3: how that kind of cuts I don't know yet.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the fact that there's no Caucasus means it's disadvantaging.
Speaker 5: I mean that that's yeah, Progressives do better in Caucasus
Speaker 5: for sure, but even without the Caucus, and Nevada will
Speaker 5: have like a more liberal primary life sure than South Carolina.
Speaker 5: Dan made an argument in his Saturday message box, the
Speaker 5: South Carolina going first massively advantages Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4: What do you guys think about that?
Speaker 1: So I saw that and I thought, huh, that's interesting
Speaker 1: from Dan. And then I went back and looked at
Speaker 1: the South Carolina polling from before Kamala ended her campaign.
Speaker 1: And she drops out in the end of twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: before any votes are cast, But in the closing weeks
Speaker 1: of the year, there were polls that had her somewhere
Speaker 1: between say, five to twelve percent. I think she sort
Speaker 1: of like ticking down a bit as we got closer,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, maybe that's true, right, But part of
Speaker 1: the reason she ended her campaign when she did is
Speaker 1: she just wasn't gaining traction, even in a state.
Speaker 4: Like South Carolina. Yeah, where do you think some mean?
Speaker 3: I think you know. Basically, the argument is that black
Speaker 3: voters are half the elector in South Carolina, that Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris has the most support from black voters by far
Speaker 3: in polls, she has sixty nine percent favorability with black
Speaker 3: voters plus forty two. You're right that, like her presidential
Speaker 3: run in twenty twenty, did not end well in South
Speaker 3: Carolina or any state. But that was just a bad
Speaker 3: campaign that didn't end well for her, And I think
Speaker 3: four years of being VP probably changed a lot of things.
Speaker 3: I think certainly it look does it make her the
Speaker 3: front runner? Yes, But being the front runner's double edged sword,
Speaker 3: because the early states are not necessarily about winning. All
Speaker 3: the early states about expectations, management and exceeding expectations in
Speaker 3: the early States. And when you're the early on front
Speaker 3: runner and everyone assumes you're gonna romp in South Carolina
Speaker 3: for the following reasons, it puts a big old bulls
Speaker 3: eye on your back, and the media looks for better,
Speaker 3: more interesting stories to tell for them.
Speaker 4: That's what That's what I thought.
Speaker 5: And it's like, as soon as South Carolina's over, now
Speaker 5: you've got four other states for that month, including two
Speaker 5: very big ones at the end. And does anyone think
Speaker 5: that the media, like, no matter how good of a
Speaker 5: campaign she's running, is going to be like, yeah, it's
Speaker 5: the Kamala Harris front runner story all through February.
Speaker 4: Like that's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So it goes from like, oh wow, South Carolina advantages
Speaker 1: is Kamala Harris to Kamala Harris is the only candidate
Speaker 1: that has a state.
Speaker 6: If she loses, it's over right.
Speaker 4: That's true, definitely true.
Speaker 5: Well, the other thing we haven't talked about is if
Speaker 5: Wes Moore runs or Rafael Warnock, like she's not the
Speaker 5: only black candidate that might run for president, and then
Speaker 5: you could have black candidates splitting votes you could have
Speaker 5: and then you know, it's interesting, Like the two things
Speaker 5: that you need to know before we're starting to think
Speaker 5: about how the race is going to go and plan
Speaker 5: your strategy as a campaign. One is the early state calendar,
Speaker 5: which is now locked. Two is the composition of the
Speaker 5: field exactly. You need to know who's running, who's gonna
Speaker 5: split what vote, how they're going to like that that
Speaker 5: part we don't know yet. But like there is a
Speaker 5: situation too where if it's just Kamala Harris, if she's
Speaker 5: the only black candidate running and she's doing really well
Speaker 5: with black voters in South Carolina, then because the state
Speaker 5: is more moderate overall, and you have a bunch of
Speaker 5: white moderates running aside from Kamala Harris, then they're all
Speaker 5: splitting a vote and then maybe the progressive candidate or
Speaker 5: two does even better.
Speaker 4: So just and that's just an example. We have no idea.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, yeah, I do think, like, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the kind of like Pete Budajeedge, who has historically
Speaker 3: had a really hard time with black voters, like it's
Speaker 3: probably now a disadvantage. Bernie Sanders, were he to run again,
Speaker 3: was probably a bit of a disadvantage for the reasons
Speaker 3: we just discussed. A lot of the conventional wisdom is
Speaker 3: also that AOC came out of this new primary process
Speaker 3: helped because she does well with latinos and with labor.
Speaker 3: We'll see if she runs, we'll see if that's true.
Speaker 3: But I'm mostly with you guys that like a lot
Speaker 3: of the early attempts to kind of you know, handicap
Speaker 3: this race are just silly.
Speaker 4: We don't know what it's going to look like.
Speaker 5: Ron Brownstein, who digs into these demographics and them better
Speaker 5: than most, he said that the only one through line
Speaker 5: for all of the states is the candidate who's going
Speaker 5: to be able to do best with black voters and
Speaker 5: white college educated voters as well, is probably going to
Speaker 5: do the best because aside from Nevada and New Mexico,
Speaker 5: you don't have a lot of states with non college,
Speaker 5: big non college populations, and he was like, you know,
Speaker 5: last last candidate who have done that to bring that
Speaker 5: coalition together is Barack Obama. Right, it's the white Libs
Speaker 5: and the black Democrats. So we'll see.
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Speaker 5: Speaking of the DNC, seems like Ken Martin had a
Speaker 5: bad Sunday uh The New York Times Notice and the
Speaker 5: Bulwark all ran stories about what The Times calls the
Speaker 5: troubled broke Democratic Party. The Time story was certainly the
Speaker 5: newsiest and most damning for Martin. It includes a story
Speaker 5: about him throwing his phone at the desk of a
Speaker 5: junior staffer, which resulted in a formal HR complaint, and
Speaker 5: another where Martin freaked out on a call about the
Speaker 5: party's finances because he thought his staff was planning.
Speaker 4: A coup and they were like, no, we're just talking
Speaker 4: about the money.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: No coup sounds like just the usual leave it freciating
Speaker 1: the name.
Speaker 5: But the real meat of the story is the party's
Speaker 5: financial struggles under Martin, which are quite real. We already
Speaker 5: knew that the DNC is two million dollars in debt
Speaker 5: after taking out a fifteen million dollar loan, and more
Speaker 5: than one hundred million dollars behind the RNC and fundraising,
Speaker 5: but apparently the situation is so bad that the DNC
Speaker 5: is asking vendors not to invoice them until after the midterms,
Speaker 5: and for the first time, the DNC will not be
Speaker 5: transferring any money to the House and Senate committees to
Speaker 5: help them win the midterms. According to the Times quote,
Speaker 5: party officials are now reckoning with the fact that they
Speaker 5: must begin to repay one point sixty six million dollars
Speaker 5: of the loan's principle per month starting in January.
Speaker 1: Otherwise, pretty nice building will be shame. Is something more
Speaker 1: to happen to it?
Speaker 5: What'd you guys make of these stories? Did anything in
Speaker 5: them make you more worried than you already were?
Speaker 1: Can I just read a great entry in one of
Speaker 1: my favorite parts of an insider story like this, which
Speaker 1: is a leak about leaks quote. It pisses me off
Speaker 1: when I see leaks out of this building, mister Martin said,
Speaker 1: according to four people who had heard the remarks, adding
Speaker 1: no more.
Speaker 4: I don't know that that reporters like this.
Speaker 1: Is gonna go for so funny.
Speaker 6: Then no more.
Speaker 1: It's just a brutal thing.
Speaker 6: Leaks about leaks. I love it.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's tough.
Speaker 3: So I reached out some of the DNC staff Ken
Speaker 3: Martin's defenders. I can offer that perspective. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you guys want to start with reflections on the story.
Speaker 4: No, no, you can. We'll reflect after that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what they would say is, what's em bursting
Speaker 1: a video over here? Let's hear them then thank you
Speaker 1: for doing the work.
Speaker 4: I'm great grateful to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you make one phone call, you.
Speaker 4: A Woodward in this building.
Speaker 3: So they would point out that through June of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six, the DNC raised more money than the DNC
Speaker 3: did in the entire twenty seventeen twenty eighteen cycles. I
Speaker 3: love that talking a comparable period. Yeah, when Democrats did
Speaker 3: not hold the White House. They also argue they had
Speaker 3: more cash on hand than the DNC did in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: So their argument is the media narrative is that this
Speaker 3: is like some historic disaster, when in fact, like there's
Speaker 3: recent precedent that there actually have improved upon. They would
Speaker 3: also say, like, let's look at the investments or we're making.
Speaker 3: The DNC gave one hundred thousand dollars to the Mississippi
Speaker 3: Democratic Party right before a special election that broke a
Speaker 3: Republican super majority. Obviously good thing. The DNC gave money
Speaker 3: to South Carolina and now, for the first time in
Speaker 3: fifty years, South Carolina recruited a candidate to run in
Speaker 3: every state house race, state wide race, and congressional race.
Speaker 3: So that there's sort of a talking point where in
Speaker 3: ken substack about this where he's like, we ninety percent
Speaker 3: of the races, we've overperformed or won. I think that's
Speaker 3: taking credit for the political environment and people being mad
Speaker 3: at Donald Trump. But you know it's evidence, right, It's
Speaker 3: results matter now. I also talked to some people who
Speaker 3: worked in the DNC in that period of twenty seven
Speaker 3: to twenty eighteen period for Tom Perez, and they'll say,
Speaker 3: the thing you have to remember is that everyone hated
Speaker 3: the DNC in twenty seventeen because they blamed them for
Speaker 3: Hillary losing, and they blamed them for Bernie getting screwed.
Speaker 4: So money wasn't really coming into doors.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they walked into the building with seventeen million
Speaker 3: dollars in debt. The major fundraising team had been laid off,
Speaker 3: so they were had a standing start, and at least
Speaker 3: thirty million dollars of Ken's fundraising total was Kamala Harris
Speaker 3: raising money to retire her own debt. So I think
Speaker 3: those people would also conceide, like, yeah, that twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen period fundraising wasn't good, but comparing to the
Speaker 3: not good period is still bad.
Speaker 5: Also, they still in that election did transfer money to
Speaker 5: the House and Senate committees, which they're not going to
Speaker 5: do this year.
Speaker 1: Well, it's also, hey, in this game that we're losing,
Speaker 1: we actually have more goals than the previous team. So well,
Speaker 1: you're not playing against the DNC from twenty eighteen, you're
Speaker 1: playing against the Republicans in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: So the last point I think I'm just making response
Speaker 3: to the Ken Too, is like, Okay, you're telling us
Speaker 3: you've raised all this money, but you're still two million
Speaker 3: in debt. Like that suggests mismanagement and misspending, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, It's like a double the talking point
Speaker 3: is a double edge story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my my feeling about it, which is like
Speaker 1: before sort of diving into all these stories like oh
Speaker 1: there's a massive fundraising problem at the DNC. We're being
Speaker 1: out raised by a huge amount, and then you read
Speaker 1: the defense, it's like, wow, actually, you know, it's we're
Speaker 1: out of power, but they're they raise the fundraising is
Speaker 1: actually comparable, if not better. Okay, then where did all
Speaker 1: the money go out? And then the test is if
Speaker 1: you really are going to say that we've been it's
Speaker 1: not a fundraising issue. We've been using the money to
Speaker 1: kind of build infrastructure, well, then it's incumbent upon you
Speaker 1: to show how that's going to benefit Democrats in the
Speaker 1: mid terms and beyond, and then you think, well, hold on,
Speaker 1: that was the strategy. Where So, right now Democratic candidates
Speaker 1: have been out raising. Republican candidates are in the Republican
Speaker 1: House Committee and the Republican Senate Committee are out raising,
Speaker 1: not not to the same degree as the DNC, R
Speaker 1: and C, but are outraising the candidate committees. And the
Speaker 1: RNC has over one hundred million dollars more on hand
Speaker 1: than the DNC does.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: Before the Supreme Court ruled that the party parties could
Speaker 1: spend at the same lower rate as candidates, there's an
Speaker 1: argument to say, you know what, the DNC should raise money,
Speaker 1: get it out the door for building infrastructure, focus fundraising
Speaker 1: for the candidates. Those candidates can then buy ads at
Speaker 1: a cheaper rate than the parties. But that advantage is
Speaker 1: now gone, that doesn't exist anymore, and so they have
Speaker 1: more money in their super PACs, their their candidate their
Speaker 1: their candidate committees have more money, and the RNC has
Speaker 1: more money and all of that is just puts puts
Speaker 1: the Republicans at a huge advantage for buying ads. Over
Speaker 1: the Democrats. And so then you say, well, uh, that
Speaker 1: is the statuok, regardless of what money went out the door, Like,
Speaker 1: that is the situation right now. So what do you
Speaker 1: do to get out of the hole. The answer isn't
Speaker 1: to point to how much worse it could have been
Speaker 1: or how much different. It is like, we are behind.
Speaker 1: How do you close that gap?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and doesn't seem like there's any answers on that
Speaker 5: from the from the DNC. And it's not like they
Speaker 5: are sort of denying any of the stories.
Speaker 3: You didn't throw the phone. It slid next to someone
Speaker 3: else who didn't own the phone.
Speaker 5: Rufus Gifford who we all know. Rufus He was on
Speaker 5: the Obama campaign. He was the finance director of the
Speaker 5: DNC Toothful near You. He worked there for eight years.
Speaker 5: He wrote the substack today. He loves the place he worked.
Speaker 5: He was the finance director on Obama's reelect, on Biden's reelect.
Speaker 5: So he's been around for a long time. He didn't
Speaker 5: have a dog in the fight on Ken versus Ben
Speaker 5: or anything else. But he said in his subject post
Speaker 5: the DNC is spiraling towards irrelevance, and that Ken Martin
Speaker 5: is a good man with good intentions, but simply not
Speaker 5: meeting this critical moment, and his chairmanship is beyond saving.
Speaker 1: And wait till that email goes out where he says
Speaker 1: to everybody coming to that big DNC meeting, one slice
Speaker 1: of pizza per person. That's all we can do right now.
Speaker 1: No second slices at this meeting. I was just just
Speaker 1: we cannot afford it.
Speaker 3: I once worked on a campaign where our paychecks were
Speaker 3: delayed until the next year to make like the FEC
Speaker 3: report look better, so we had more cash on hand.
Speaker 3: And by the way, it didn't suggest a healthy campaign,
Speaker 3: and the things were going well. But then a reporter
Speaker 3: called and asked one of our spokespeople if staff had
Speaker 3: been asked to delay their paychecks to make our FEC
Speaker 3: report look better. And this flag said no, because we'd
Speaker 3: just been told that we would not be getting paid
Speaker 3: over Christmas.
Speaker 4: We were not asked.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was a memory Lane.
Speaker 5: I mean, I said the question. I was like, what
Speaker 5: can be done about this? Because we're all in this
Speaker 5: situation together, We're all, you know, like we all need
Speaker 5: the DNC to be successful, in the Democratic Party to
Speaker 5: be successful. You know, there is a scenario. We were
Speaker 5: talking to someone where once we have a nominee, the
Speaker 5: nominee of the party installs their person to the DNC
Speaker 5: and you know, tries to go around Ken and raises
Speaker 5: all the money. But you know, between now and getting
Speaker 5: a nominee, we need to figure like the party needs
Speaker 5: to figure something out on like how to raise the
Speaker 5: money that we're gonna need, especially with the Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 5: As you said, love it where now the Democratic National Committee,
Speaker 5: it's going to be really really important for them to
Speaker 5: have a ton of money before there's even a nominee.
Speaker 3: This is a you know, like this is the terrible
Speaker 3: fundraising and the autopsy report and the interview with you,
Speaker 3: this is all compounded into a crisis of confidence with
Speaker 3: DNC leadership and it is just not going to improve.
Speaker 3: And it's time to make a change, I think, and
Speaker 3: I think Chuck Schumer and Hackeing Jeffries need to go
Speaker 3: to Ken Martin and say we got to do something
Speaker 3: different here, and they need to get someone else in
Speaker 3: there that just has confidence of big donors of parties,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And yeah, like we it just can't overstate
Speaker 3: how important this Supreme Court ruling is in terms of
Speaker 3: erasing the Democratic Party advantage that we used to have
Speaker 3: because small dollars would flow to our candidates who would
Speaker 3: get preferential rates on ad bys, and then you'd have
Speaker 3: Republican super PACs having to spend ten times the same
Speaker 3: amount for the same ad Now that advantage is gone, yep,
Speaker 3: and we are. That just makes a hole even deeper.
Speaker 3: And so like like if I'm Chuck Schumer, like you're
Speaker 3: trying to win a set of majority, if you're hockeing Jeffries,
Speaker 3: you're trying to become speaker, this is existential for.
Speaker 5: Them, I mean beyond those because for them, it's like,
Speaker 5: you know, the midterms are in a couple of months,
Speaker 5: that ship is sailed. Every Democrat running for president, every
Speaker 5: one of these campaigns is in their interest to like
Speaker 5: BacT together on this, to like all go to these.
Speaker 3: I don't think it should have saled for the midterms.
Speaker 3: I think you could get a new person in tomorrow
Speaker 3: who could bring like a bunch of big donors to
Speaker 3: send a message and raise one hundred million dollars in
Speaker 3: like a couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: I really like think although I think on that though
Speaker 5: the only reason I say that is because if yes,
Speaker 5: but then why not just send the money right to
Speaker 5: the d SEC and the d triples c.
Speaker 4: There's no need to give the DNC money before the midterms.
Speaker 1: Sure is again like I'm taking Ken's work like I
Speaker 1: read your long stop stack. But if you look at
Speaker 1: like the like what his claim is, then there's actually
Speaker 1: is a.
Speaker 6: Fair amount of money coming in.
Speaker 1: And so what I don't understand is like there's this
Speaker 1: sort of like hand ringing, Oh, there's nothing we can
Speaker 1: do before November if you're if there's this little amount
Speaker 1: of money on hand, but like what something like eight
Speaker 1: point six million is coming in every month at the lead,
Speaker 1: Like why can't there be a change in priorities where
Speaker 1: you kind of do say, from this point forward, we
Speaker 1: are going to be devoting these resources towards winning in November,
Speaker 1: and this is the amount that's going to be directed
Speaker 1: towards this as opposed to whatever kind of the longer
Speaker 1: term kind of money that's going out the door per month.
Speaker 1: Is Like, that's what I don't That's what I came
Speaker 1: away I was confused by.
Speaker 4: There's just there's a vicious cycle. And you know, Wickler was.
Speaker 5: As usual very generous and kind, didn't want to shut
Speaker 5: over Ken Martin. But you know, when there are stories
Speaker 5: like these, it just deepens the problem because now who's
Speaker 5: going to want to give money to the d n
Speaker 5: C after reading stories like this? Right, like, and so
Speaker 5: it's a it's a vicious cycle. I did think one
Speaker 5: more funny moment from the New York Times story is
Speaker 5: he's like he's he's got this staff meeting and he's
Speaker 5: trying to like pluck everyone up, and he says, my
Speaker 5: success is your success. So the weaker I am, the
Speaker 5: weaker all of you are, which is true.
Speaker 3: It's just a weird thing to say to your stats.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this seems so inspiring. I don't know, that's the
Speaker 5: best pep talk I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think it's a get through. Like
Speaker 1: the other thing too, is any like if you're a
Speaker 1: presidential Canada starting next year, and they're like, well, what
Speaker 1: do you think of Ken Martin, you would just like,
Speaker 1: you know, the president will choose a new DNC chair,
Speaker 1: right like, we will have a better you know, they're
Speaker 1: all going to say they're going to choose a new
Speaker 1: dn C chair. So it's just like, let's move that
Speaker 1: up a little let's get this, let's get through the
Speaker 1: minterm swamp this guy out, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just like when when we swapped Kamala for Biden.
Speaker 3: I think the DNC raised like a billion dollars in
Speaker 3: one hundred days. You know, there's a lot they could
Speaker 3: do it, Strift, we were to make a change, I think,
Speaker 3: you know what. In Ken's substack, he says, we must
Speaker 3: communicate and organize year round. While one of the things
Speaker 3: that we learned in this New York Times story is
Speaker 3: that after the Pat American interview, Ken has only done
Speaker 3: like one local TV hit.
Speaker 4: So I'm not saying people in Erie got.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 3: It is primarily a fundraising job, right, We don't expect
Speaker 3: him out doing to be out doing message events. But
Speaker 3: Rufus Skifford then his substack made the point that when
Speaker 3: the DNC chair does a lot of TV that gets shared,
Speaker 3: that gets seen by donors, it makes them want to
Speaker 3: donate and be involved and kind of like keeps you
Speaker 3: in the mix. And then also you have like the
Speaker 3: DNC has got a lot of great staff and they
Speaker 3: must feel beyond demoralized and they're supposed to be doing
Speaker 3: things like year around. You know Research and Comms and
Speaker 3: Digital on Republicans. They're doing mobilization. They have this big
Speaker 3: like Creator program, you know, the RBC. The Rules Committee
Speaker 3: just diuch a really good job on the calendar, and.
Speaker 1: You need more hype reels for Ken and it's just
Speaker 1: like Creators.
Speaker 3: I just feel bad for this team of people, not
Speaker 3: just because the phones are flying, but because, like you
Speaker 3: feel like your work is getting denigrated in the news
Speaker 3: all the time, and you don't have the leadership you
Speaker 3: need and you know it's important, and like it just
Speaker 3: must be frustrating not to be able to fix it.
Speaker 4: Just because the phones are flying.
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Speaker 5: So Michigan's in the early state lineup because it remains
Speaker 5: one of the most critical swing states, and this false
Speaker 5: Senate race there is going to be one of the
Speaker 5: most hotly contested. The primary already is hotly contested. Trump
Speaker 5: with there on Monday to tour a GM facility and
Speaker 5: appear alongside Mike Rodgers, the Republican nominee for Senate, who
Speaker 5: will face off against either Abdul elsa Ed or Hailey Stevens,
Speaker 5: though neither were mentioned during Trump's speech. He did, however,
Speaker 5: go hard at the DSA wing of the party.
Speaker 7: If they're siding with the radical left communists taking over
Speaker 7: the party. They want, in other words, the normal socialists
Speaker 7: who can destroy a country too, they're not going fast up.
Speaker 7: Communism is the greatest threat to our country and history,
Speaker 7: including even World War one, World War two, Pearl Harbor
Speaker 7: or nine to eleven. I mean, this is a serious.
Speaker 5: Threat in that order, World War one, World War two,
Speaker 5: Pearl Harbor, nine to eleven. It was like the normal socialist.
Speaker 5: Then he caught in said he's like the normal socialists
Speaker 5: who could also destroy the country normally.
Speaker 3: You gotta not forget that that's important to hit What
Speaker 3: was that Cold War fever dream?
Speaker 2: Nonsense?
Speaker 4: Very weird.
Speaker 5: I was kind of surprised that Trump held back from
Speaker 5: mentioning the Senate race. What do you guys think that's about.
Speaker 5: I think he's suddenly a stickler for the Hatch Act.
Speaker 4: It was an official event.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 5: Neither did Mike Rogers, Like I thought they would be.
Speaker 5: I thought he would hit a duel.
Speaker 1: I thought it was all well, yeah, I mean, Abduall
Speaker 1: wants a fight with Trump right now, right, Presumably Democrats
Speaker 1: would love to watch Abduell be in a fight with
Speaker 1: Trump right now. So maybe the idea would be if
Speaker 1: you if you pick this fight, you're going to take
Speaker 1: attention into the race. And but they kind of want
Speaker 1: Abdul to come out of the thing.
Speaker 6: So I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well that's the thing, right, Like what you'll hear from
Speaker 3: Haley Stephens supporter is that the Republicans want to face
Speaker 3: the duel because they think he's weak. If that were so,
Speaker 3: you would think that they would elevate him in this
Speaker 3: moment right before the primary. It's weird that they didn't.
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I mean, it could just be
Speaker 3: because Trump is dumb and forgot his name and like
Speaker 3: you know, was supposed to do it as a communist rep.
Speaker 5: And there is some evidence too that that they do
Speaker 5: want that, because Mike Rodgers was like there was a
Speaker 5: recording of Mike Rodgers on a call with Dinners saying like,
Speaker 5: I think if it's a duel, were in good shape.
Speaker 5: And so you know there is evidence for that. But
Speaker 5: they it remarkably disciplined from from Donald Trump there, or
Speaker 5: maybe it wasn't disciplined.
Speaker 4: Maybe you just forgot.
Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't care, right, or is there any Is
Speaker 1: there any argument that Trump and Rogers think if they
Speaker 1: publicly pick a fight with a duel it helps Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 6: Is there any can you make that argument?
Speaker 1: Like that's why I mean, Rogers is behind the scenes
Speaker 1: and the kind of kind of to try to be
Speaker 1: like I'm excited about a duel, which is the perfect
Speaker 1: thing to help Haley Stephens.
Speaker 6: It's not a public fight. Uh yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 5: They also might be thinking that if Hailey Stevens wins,
Speaker 5: you know, they don't want to. They want to they
Speaker 5: want to label them both as communists.
Speaker 6: Right, they don't want to do it.
Speaker 5: Brian Kemp treatment, Yeah, right, Hayley Stevens wins, They're not
Speaker 5: going to like, oh, we really wanted to, you know,
Speaker 5: like they're gonna act like she's as left wing as possible.
Speaker 4: Right, That's what they do. Meanwhile, Abduel, who.
Speaker 5: As you know, we're all supporting in the race, was
Speaker 5: quoted in Playbook on Monday morning telling donors on a
Speaker 5: private call, a lot of these private calls, these zooms,
Speaker 5: you got to you gotta get these zooms.
Speaker 4: They're not that private, no kidding.
Speaker 5: So he was telling donors at a private call that
Speaker 5: all the money and political power being used against him
Speaker 5: makes him look like David against Goliath, presumably meeting both
Speaker 5: Haley Stevens and Apek, and how if he wins, he'll
Speaker 5: have a massive platform and will start primary e Senate moderates,
Speaker 5: including John Fetterman. What'd you guys think of his assessment
Speaker 5: of things?
Speaker 3: I mean, like, I say, this would love for abduel,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was not good. You know, Like
Speaker 3: my first argument would be, you gotta win the general
Speaker 3: election first and then talk about this stuff like you're
Speaker 3: spiking the football in the thirty yard line. Let's win
Speaker 3: the primary. Let's win the general, then you can maybe
Speaker 3: talk about twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 4: If you want.
Speaker 3: Also, I'm sure what happened was he was trying to
Speaker 3: pump up donors and supporters. But you have to know
Speaker 3: this stuff is going to leak. It always leaks, and
Speaker 3: the ogre comment is getting taken out of context like
Speaker 3: people are so justin Bie.
Speaker 5: He said, oh sorry, I didn't mention that he said
Speaker 5: this will help me put an ogre.
Speaker 3: On a pike, right, which is about John Fetterman. People
Speaker 3: are suggesting he was comparing Hailey Stevens to an ogre,
Speaker 3: it does not sound like he was doing that in
Speaker 3: any way. But also, don't call John Fetterman an ogre.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not helpful. I think it kind of
Speaker 3: plays into this belief among a lot of Democrats that
Speaker 3: the left wing of the party is far more focused
Speaker 3: on going after moderate Democrats than Republicans. Let's I too
Speaker 3: find John Fetterman very frustrating on a lot of issues,
Speaker 3: but he's an elected Democrat senator in a swing state.
Speaker 3: Let's beat the Republicans first and talk about that. And
Speaker 3: I think my other just like big picture comment for
Speaker 3: a duel is take every sentence where you say I
Speaker 3: and replace it with we. This campaign is not about
Speaker 3: you and what you're going to do in twenty eight
Speaker 3: or whatever. It's about the movement. It's about what we
Speaker 3: are going to do to make people's lives better, the
Speaker 3: issues we're going to elevate, like the way you're going
Speaker 3: to fight for Michigan. I just think it was it
Speaker 3: was not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the second interview, or this is the
Speaker 1: second sort of Uh, the first was an interview, this
Speaker 1: was least recording. But the second time we've gotten sort of, uh,
Speaker 1: this sort of tone for me that Semaphore interview, I
Speaker 1: think was that at a similar level of like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's like hostility and kind of uh like
Speaker 1: grandiosity to it. But also it's punditry. And as a rule,
Speaker 1: if you're a candidate and you're doing punditry, that is
Speaker 1: a mistake. That is, if you think of the growth
Speaker 1: always with the donors, but the donors, everyone's a.
Speaker 4: Tray with the donors. Is the worst set is that
Speaker 4: it's just that's where it happens all the time.
Speaker 1: That's where Mitt Romney says fifty two percent.
Speaker 4: Barack Obama says bitter guns and religion.
Speaker 1: Like that, Like Hillary, I think Deplorables was the classic
Speaker 1: was that was a fundraiser?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, fundraisor.
Speaker 1: So so it's a common trap that you're sort of
Speaker 1: like analyzing the electorate and if you're doing that as
Speaker 1: a candidate, by the way, which is something he understands
Speaker 1: in his interviews where he's actually very like he did
Speaker 1: an interview with uh Dasha Burns and even she was like,
Speaker 1: my god, you're on message throughout this entire thing, but
Speaker 1: kind of lets loose one. I think he thinks he's
Speaker 1: in prior it. The other part of it, too, though,
Speaker 1: is like it's got to be frustrating because you're campaigning
Speaker 1: against Hailey Stevens, who's getting all this attention for having
Speaker 1: this awe shocks pure Michigan thing and then Apax dropping
Speaker 1: like thirty million dollars on their head. They're like, put
Speaker 1: a sort of salad in in his fucking hands.
Speaker 4: Uh, we'll see, we'll see what the odds are.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think for progressive candidates that tend to do
Speaker 5: well have a sunnier disposition. There is they do express anger,
Speaker 5: of course, but there's a sunnier disposition. And what Abdul
Speaker 5: has nailed is the liberal patriotism. And we saw that
Speaker 5: with the when the protester Jake Lang, like you know,
Speaker 5: interrupted one of his events and he talked in they
Speaker 5: basically they shotted him out with the USA chan and
Speaker 5: Dull give this speech. So he's got he's got that
Speaker 5: part down. But you can't be also, you have to look,
Speaker 5: you have to be happy all the time and not
Speaker 5: be uh and uh and not be hostile to your opponents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's the key.
Speaker 1: I was like, there's something deeper that this is not
Speaker 1: about Abdul.
Speaker 6: There is a like.
Speaker 1: A bad faith critique from the left that takes I
Speaker 1: think what is largely a true argument about the influence
Speaker 1: of money and politics. And by the way, it's just
Speaker 1: for saying, like what's happening in Michigan is fucking crazy.
Speaker 1: This is the biggest outside spend by APAC. Ever, it's
Speaker 1: thirty maybe on any Senate race ever as in a primary,
Speaker 1: all being dumped on his head like that is what
Speaker 1: is on television and the ad like that. There's two
Speaker 1: ads that are going around that are like that are
Speaker 1: just like really manipulative to like say that like a
Speaker 1: duel is bad for women, right, taking some quotes out
Speaker 1: of context. But at the same time, like when Whitmer
Speaker 1: endorses Hailey Stevens, it's because she's bought and sold, right,
Speaker 1: And like I don't believe Gretchen Whitmer is bought and sold,
Speaker 1: and I don't think most Democrats in Michigan believe Kretcha
Speaker 1: Whitmer is like bought and sold.
Speaker 5: She backed to Hailey Stevens because she probably thinks Hailey
Speaker 5: Stevens is a better chance of winning.
Speaker 3: That's it, and it doesn't help you probably to attack
Speaker 3: in pretty personal terms, a very popular democrat in the
Speaker 3: state you are trying to represent. And my guess, you
Speaker 3: know there's some old bad blood there from twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: when they ran against each other.
Speaker 1: But so when and when I'm doing.
Speaker 4: Just got to eat shit. That's the whole that's that's
Speaker 4: running for politics.
Speaker 1: And so like when Abdula is asked in that interview
Speaker 1: about like whether he identifies as a socialist, he says,
Speaker 1: I don't identity like what, and he actually won't answer
Speaker 1: where he disagrees with Bernie and AOC and he says, like,
Speaker 1: I just don't identify as a socialist. I like appreciate
Speaker 1: some version of I appreciate capitalism. I'm sorry, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be a nuanced guy. I'm a nuanced guy, right,
Speaker 1: But that nuance doesn't like especially I get why in
Speaker 1: the heat of a primary. But like you know, when
Speaker 1: like you say, the root of our housing problem is
Speaker 1: is corporate money, When the root of this problem is
Speaker 1: corporate money, It's just like I get why it works
Speaker 1: on the stump, I get why it's a valuable way
Speaker 1: of simplifying what's happening, but I think it starts to
Speaker 1: feel I don't know, like uh like like turning this
Speaker 1: race into like a black and white Manichean struggle, which
Speaker 1: is what comes off in these private conversations.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So.
Speaker 5: Trump also used the Michigan appearance to provide an update
Speaker 5: on his uh on again, off again war and Iron,
Speaker 5: which suddenly appears to be off again after Trump threatened
Speaker 5: a massive attack last week. The US officials told reporters
Speaker 5: that the shrinking supply of air defense systems was at
Speaker 5: least partly responsible for the pause, which Trump, of course
Speaker 5: blamed on Biden. We also find out this weekend that
Speaker 5: the four service members who recently died in the Around
Speaker 5: War are no longer listed in the Pentagon's casualty count
Speaker 5: for the Around War. Instead, the Pentagon moved the tally
Speaker 5: of their deaths to a new section generically called Overseas
Speaker 5: Operations Casualties. They also updated the number of injuries to
Speaker 5: over six hundred. Here's what Trump had to say about
Speaker 5: the war on the flight to Michigan and at his
Speaker 5: event there.
Speaker 7: Well. Iron took a meeting over the last fourteen days
Speaker 7: and the ass very nicely please stop. Let's me and
Speaker 7: that's where we are right now.
Speaker 4: To see what happens to me.
Speaker 7: When the fuel comes down, which it did for a
Speaker 7: little while. Then they didn't behave and I had to
Speaker 7: go back, and now they're behaving again.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like playing a banjo.
Speaker 5: Is it like playing a banjo? It's like, in what
Speaker 5: way is the around war like playing a banjo?
Speaker 1: I think I know what that is.
Speaker 3: Tell me.
Speaker 1: I think that what he is thinking of is the
Speaker 1: song that goes back and forth from the film Deliverance,
Speaker 1: but a bum bum bum bum bum bum bumb but
Speaker 1: a bum bum bum bum bum bum bum.
Speaker 6: In the film Deliverance.
Speaker 5: I know, I know that that is what I'm still
Speaker 5: struggling with, so back and forth, because it back.
Speaker 1: And forth, it's going to squeal like a pig in
Speaker 1: this one, I think. I think, I think, I think
Speaker 1: it's us fuck sucks.
Speaker 4: I don't know, Tommy, What's what do you think? What's
Speaker 4: what's going on right now? I mean, we're losing the war.
Speaker 3: The Straight of Horror moves was once uncontested, and now
Speaker 3: it's contested. And I think in the long run. Iran geographic,
Speaker 3: you guys noticed on the map that's where it is.
Speaker 3: It's in the Straight of Horror. Moose so I feel
Speaker 3: like they have the upper hand there. The New York
Speaker 3: Times reported that American intelligence agencies believe that Iran's new
Speaker 3: Supreme leader, Mushta Bahamane, is far more interested than his
Speaker 3: father in acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: So that's good.
Speaker 6: That's not what JD. Van said.
Speaker 1: I thought that they were becoming friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the father had sworn off nukes. There was a
Speaker 3: fatwa against them. Obviously the people questioned that, but many
Speaker 3: anealists thought it was a genuine sentiment. And now there's
Speaker 3: quite an argument for getting a nuclear weapon. I think
Speaker 3: the long term impact of the war as is is
Speaker 3: like just it's going to be sporadic economic disruption for
Speaker 3: a very long time potentially, and that increases the likelihood
Speaker 3: of US service members getting killed or wounded. The same
Speaker 3: goes for civilians and Iran, by the way, and anyone
Speaker 3: living in the Gulf, you know, in a base where
Speaker 3: the Iranians are firing at, I mean, people are getting
Speaker 3: killed all the time.
Speaker 4: It is led.
Speaker 3: There's just growing instability. I mean you're now noticing, like
Speaker 3: the hu Thise rebels are getting involved in the war
Speaker 3: where before they had not. There's these reports that the
Speaker 3: Saudis or the Amorades are directly engaging with Iran and
Speaker 3: firing missiles or you know, bombs into their territory. So
Speaker 3: it's just the war's metastasizing and growing. It's wildly expensive.
Speaker 3: You know, we have Heseth and others going to Congress
Speaker 3: and they want a one point five trillion dollars Pentagon
Speaker 3: budget next year. I mean, that's insane. And the munitions
Speaker 3: issue is a really big, long term problem that you
Speaker 3: can't fix. There's all these interceptor missiles, there's the FAD system,
Speaker 3: there's the Patriot stockpile that's down by half. There's all
Speaker 3: these air to air missiles that are running low. There's
Speaker 3: the Tea Lamb or Tomahawks that would be like there's
Speaker 3: all these war games of US war with China where
Speaker 3: you run out of Tomawk missiles in like a week
Speaker 3: with the full stockpile, and now we're way down on those.
Speaker 3: And in many cases these cost millions and millions of
Speaker 3: dollars each and they can take as long as twenty
Speaker 3: thirty to replenish them. So it just feels like everything
Speaker 3: he's done has sort of made our posture weaker, both
Speaker 3: in the Gulf and Visa v China, which Trump ran
Speaker 3: on telling us was the big geostrategic problem going forward.
Speaker 5: And now one of the political problems of any war,
Speaker 5: which is US service members dying and being injured. Now
Speaker 5: they're handling that by just deciding to do some creative
Speaker 5: accounting where they hide the death from US for as
Speaker 5: long as they can, or the injuries or then now
Speaker 5: they're listing them. Listing them is overseas operations casualties is despicable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is like the options of well, he
Speaker 1: can escalate, right, it's actually it sort of mirrors what
Speaker 1: happens in our domestic politics where Trump's has Trump has
Speaker 1: to like threaten greater and greater chaos for the markets
Speaker 1: to take him seriously. Uh, And so the markets have
Speaker 1: to respond more forcefully in order to get him to
Speaker 1: back off whatever the latest threat is, be a tariffs
Speaker 1: or some other economic policy that would be destructive going
Speaker 1: after the FED.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: And so now he has to threaten this new every
Speaker 1: single You know, this is going to be an escalation
Speaker 1: on like anything we've ever seen. It's going to make
Speaker 1: the early stage of the war look like a fireworks show.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: Because he has to, because the only he has to
Speaker 1: ratchet up the threat because uh, that's I guess all
Speaker 1: he has in terms of trying to get some control
Speaker 1: over over Iran and get them to to sort of
Speaker 1: relent on the Strait of Hormuz. So that's one dangerous path.
Speaker 1: The other is some kind of increasing sanctions, economic crackdown, right,
Speaker 1: like to sort of try to squeeze around that way.
Speaker 1: And then finally it's like just saying we did it.
Speaker 1: But even that option, which is I think something we're like,
Speaker 1: oh well he should just declare victory and walk away,
Speaker 1: that's not really available anymore because that Iran will continue
Speaker 1: to control the strait.
Speaker 6: O her moves.
Speaker 1: The fake outcome where he says we got a better
Speaker 1: deal than Obama had, even if it's worse, is not
Speaker 1: available anymore because we've been so thoroughly sort of bodied
Speaker 1: by their ability to control the straight.
Speaker 3: I think this the way they changed the reporting of
Speaker 3: casualties is all about trying to get around the War
Speaker 3: Powers Act by saying the old war ended and this
Speaker 3: is a new war, I think. But it also sounds
Speaker 3: like they weren't really updating casualties in in a timely manner.
Speaker 3: And then sort of the standard way like there were
Speaker 3: reporters kind of watching the website where this is reported
Speaker 3: out and seeing it kind of bump around last week,
Speaker 3: go up and down, and they're like, what is happening?
Speaker 1: Even now the numbers aren't all in agreement, like it
Speaker 1: we don't have it, We don't have like a straightforward
Speaker 1: answer the total.
Speaker 3: Of the two conflicts, Operation Epic Fury and then whatever
Speaker 3: they're calling overseas operations and now eighteen dead, six hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty four wounded, and so they've also they've really
Speaker 3: not been very transparent about what those the wounded number means. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, it's mostly minor concussions that they went
Speaker 3: back to work, but you know, traumatic brain injuries from
Speaker 3: you know, a ballistic missile exploding near you. That's a
Speaker 3: big deal. And it also it's part and parcel to
Speaker 3: the Pentagon covering up the cost of the war and
Speaker 3: just not being transparent like I, you know, I have
Speaker 3: friends who are still in the military or people who
Speaker 3: are overseas will be like, you know, they're shutting down.
Speaker 3: You can no longer take photos on some of these
Speaker 3: bases because they're just so destroyed that they're basically rendered unusable.
Speaker 3: People had to be evacuated from some of these places.
Speaker 3: Like the cost of Basis just being like, you know,
Speaker 3: inoperable for many years to come now has not really
Speaker 3: been like fully calculated.
Speaker 1: Ye have pig Sat going in front of the Senate
Speaker 1: and saying this war costs thirty five billion dollars, but
Speaker 1: we need eighty billion right now in emergency. And then
Speaker 1: you're like, well, why don't you already have eighty billion
Speaker 1: in cash, and he's like, no, no, no, I've already
Speaker 1: decided what that's going for. And we have to do
Speaker 1: this because Biden spent all of our money on Woke,
Speaker 1: and it's like that may work in a Fox newshap,
Speaker 1: What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 4: How much this woke costs? All right?
Speaker 5: Speaking of bombs. On Friday, the White House Correspondence Association
Speaker 5: held its rescheduled dinner after a gunman interrupted the event
Speaker 5: back in April. It was a smaller venue, with a
Speaker 5: smaller crowd and more security, but Trump basically gave the
Speaker 5: speech he'd originally planned on giving, and bully, did he
Speaker 5: crush it.
Speaker 7: The other day, a senator I knew got a text
Speaker 7: a great guy from his wife, and she said, when
Speaker 7: you get home. I want to have you immediately come
Speaker 7: up the stairs and make love to me, and he
Speaker 7: said I can't do both.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 7: You know in other words, can't go up the stairs?
Speaker 7: And babe, does anybody get that? I thought that was
Speaker 7: actually pretty good. That was actually the only thing I
Speaker 7: thought was good in this whole freaking stupid space sit.
Speaker 7: They wrote that was the only good one, and that
Speaker 7: went down with not exactly great laughter.
Speaker 2: I think you know, in other.
Speaker 7: Words, you can't go up the stairs, were of them.
Speaker 2: So we're looking for term limits. Does anybody understand is we.
Speaker 7: Will have sloppy Chris Christi, one of the sloppiest human
Speaker 7: beings you'll ever made. Fighting. I would say I could
Speaker 7: mention the governor of Chicago, but I'm gonna mention instead
Speaker 7: Jerry Nadler. And they're fighting for a big piece of cheesecake,
Speaker 7: big fat piece of cheesecake. Who the hell wrote that line?
Speaker 7: Barack Hussein Obama hosted it. Do you know who that is?
Speaker 7: And he hit me hard And I have watched this
Speaker 7: clip thousands of times. They keep playing it because they
Speaker 7: think that was evening I decided to run for president.
Speaker 7: It was not. He actually showed a picture of the
Speaker 7: White House with a big Trump on top, like I
Speaker 7: put us on and you know, I'm sort of doing
Speaker 7: that when you think about it right now.
Speaker 5: We have all said previously the Trump can be genuinely funny.
Speaker 5: That was so bad that I almost started feeling sorry
Speaker 5: for Donald Trump, which has never happened, but like, that
Speaker 5: was incredibly painful, especially the sex up the stairs joke
Speaker 5: when he goes and then he's like, ugh, that was
Speaker 5: one of the better jokes, and then one more time
Speaker 5: he's like, cause it's like the those third explanation of
Speaker 5: the joke.
Speaker 3: Did you see that he stole that joke too for Yeah,
Speaker 3: from Brad Paisley lyric.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a classic borsch Belt joke, and it could
Speaker 1: have worked. The reason it didn't work is he we've
Speaker 1: done many of these speeches you're trying to get it's
Speaker 1: a it's a you're doing stand up ten fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: He was up there for an hour, an hour, an hour,
Speaker 1: and by the time he gets to that light hearted
Speaker 1: joke about senators being old, he described how much he
Speaker 1: hates half the people in the room, called Don Lemon Dunn.
Speaker 1: He said, Adam Schieve has an ugly fat head.
Speaker 2: He hates.
Speaker 1: Colbert compared Kaitlyn Collins to Dylan mulvaney, calls Josh Jossi unhiable,
Speaker 1: Pulitzer right right award, and then he's like, anyway, anyway, boy,
Speaker 1: you senators role these days, right. So of course by
Speaker 1: the time you get to that part, like they've been
Speaker 1: sitting there for forty five minutes, it's brutal.
Speaker 4: He's never read the speech. This is the other thing.
Speaker 5: It's like, you've got to I know, he thinks that
Speaker 5: he's a genius and can just go off script whatever.
Speaker 5: You gotta practice a speech like that. Can you imagine
Speaker 5: Trump like practicing jokes?
Speaker 2: No, I can't.
Speaker 1: But he had like one good Barry Weiss joke. He
Speaker 1: had a couple of like well structured.
Speaker 5: Jokes that he even the Berry Wises joke, which was good.
Speaker 5: He didn't like he didn't deliver it well, like he
Speaker 5: could have delivered it in a funnier way.
Speaker 1: But also I think it was in the prepared remarks.
Speaker 1: There's like a like a portion of his stump about
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom in California that he seemed to be reading
Speaker 1: off the teleprompter and it and so like he says
Speaker 1: horrible things about elon Omar, Like he just goes into
Speaker 1: his sort of vicious and cruel, mean spirited ripping and
Speaker 1: so the whole like he doesn't he goes pokes a
Speaker 1: little bit of fun at himself here and there, but like,
Speaker 1: of course there's not gonna be people laughing. It's deeply
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to be an event that's supposed to be lighthearted
Speaker 1: and you just like go for the jugger like you
Speaker 1: would at a rally. He's just like, you're not built
Speaker 1: for this because you're such a fucking asshole, you know.
Speaker 3: The comedy seller. At eleven PM, you're in front of
Speaker 3: the most oversensitive group of people you can find, and
Speaker 3: you're being somli. By the way, didn't Jerry Nadler like
Speaker 3: hit the GLP ones a couple of years ago and
Speaker 3: he's lost a ton of weight too. Yeah, the riffing
Speaker 3: made no sense and.
Speaker 4: He did that.
Speaker 5: He when he talked about Pritzker, the governor of Chicago,
Speaker 5: he mentioned that as well too.
Speaker 4: He's like he's actually looking better, He's looking better.
Speaker 3: He's just the dick is really the problem. But it
Speaker 3: started kind of magnanimous because like he did this whole
Speaker 3: bit at the top about how like the last dinner
Speaker 3: was bad and celebrated the you know, the cops who
Speaker 3: kept everybody safe, and said how that they had to
Speaker 3: you know, they wouldn't let the show get canceled because
Speaker 3: that lets the shooter win. And then we just went
Speaker 3: into this ti rate and.
Speaker 5: When you looked at the all the cuts to the audience,
Speaker 5: when you watch the whole thing, it was like just silent.
Speaker 5: And also I know they said, oh, it's a room
Speaker 5: full of journalists. They don't like Trump, but like all
Speaker 5: of his administration, all his people were there.
Speaker 4: No one was laughing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they just like the funniest thing was when he
Speaker 5: got the laugh there and said I thought that was
Speaker 5: the best joke of the bunch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole thing was very ugly, right, because he's
Speaker 1: going after Caitlyn Collins and all these journalists in this
Speaker 1: really personal and sort of obviously misogynist way. And then
Speaker 1: you have like the the like reporters on the day
Speaker 1: ass kind of like trying to like laugh and there
Speaker 1: the whole thing was ugly. And so then you have
Speaker 1: like New York Times reporters like Peter Baker being like,
Speaker 1: we should rethink this dinner, which is they're on their
Speaker 1: high horse about the fucking dinner because they haven't gone
Speaker 1: forever and are glad for that decision.
Speaker 3: To their credit, Yeah, to their credit. But he I
Speaker 3: was like, what did anyone expect from him? Was he
Speaker 3: going to learn this time? Obviously this is who he
Speaker 3: is and what he was going to say. And by
Speaker 3: the way, like he he says once he had two
Speaker 3: jokes about Kaitlyn Collins. One was suggesting she looked like
Speaker 3: Dylan mulvaney, which she just said. But then also being
Speaker 3: like Kaitlyn Collins never smiles. He says that to her
Speaker 3: all the time at press conferences. Every time she asked
Speaker 3: him a tough question, he's like, what's your problem, your
Speaker 3: pretty girl?
Speaker 4: Smile?
Speaker 3: He's said, a sexist old man, and like he doesn't
Speaker 3: do that as part of a comedy bit. It's part
Speaker 3: of his like stump deflection and routine for hard questions,
Speaker 3: like he's.
Speaker 4: Just a shithead.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a shithead. It might be time to retire. Then,
Speaker 5: now that we've moved it to the the former Trump
Speaker 5: Hotel now the Waldorf Astoria, smaller so that.
Speaker 1: When we knocked down the arch and we sort of
Speaker 1: get the gold leaf off the White House and we
Speaker 1: restore independence the Department of Justice at the bottom of
Speaker 1: that list. We can decide what we want to do
Speaker 1: with what happened to the White House.
Speaker 3: Carss problem for sure, remaining rump state of media didn't stick.
Speaker 1: Around for the mentalists have to say, I didn't didn't
Speaker 1: catch O's didn't you?
Speaker 4: He did it?
Speaker 1: He did give he did do the joke, which was,
Speaker 1: if you're such a mentalist, how come you didn't know
Speaker 1: the shooting was coming.
Speaker 3: Out with the joke everyone made the night of the shooting,
Speaker 3: he'd all his worst show.
Speaker 4: Is this still funny couple months later? No?
Speaker 7: It?
Speaker 4: It went crazy, all right? When we come back, Ben Wickler.
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Speaker 4: Ben with her welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: It's great to be with you, Congress in the new studio.
Speaker 4: Thank you. It's pretty nice, pretty sweet, pretty fancy. All right.
Speaker 5: So I want to get to the book, but first
Speaker 5: I have to take advantage of the entirely coincidental but
Speaker 5: highly opportune timing of you being here and ask about
Speaker 5: the messy gubernatorial primary in your beloved state and the
Speaker 5: messy leadership situation at the d n C which you
Speaker 5: ran to.
Speaker 4: Be chair of. I know you well.
Speaker 5: You are far too wise and generous to shoot on
Speaker 5: Ken Martin. I've got that covered, but I really want
Speaker 5: your your honest thoughts on the DNC's financial situation. Ken's
Speaker 5: argument is that a party is not a savings account,
Speaker 5: that he chose to spend early on organizers and technology
Speaker 5: and state party infrastructure. And that's also like more or
Speaker 5: less your argument, the argument you make in the book.
Speaker 5: But of course the party is now two million dollars
Speaker 5: in debt while the RNC is sitting on one hundred
Speaker 5: and twenty eight point five million dollars in cash. So
Speaker 5: do you buy his defense that that's just the cost
Speaker 5: of investing early.
Speaker 2: So I agree that you should invest early. And the
Speaker 2: goal what you want is to be able to do both.
Speaker 2: You want to be able to both have the money
Speaker 2: to invest in places that it'll take years to be
Speaker 2: able to build the power to win statewide. But their
Speaker 2: state legislative raises everywhere where we can win, and you
Speaker 2: also want to have the ability to invest in the
Speaker 2: places where elections are closest and highest stakes, and then
Speaker 2: your tip those over the top. And I think the
Speaker 2: challenge right now is there's not quite enough money to
Speaker 2: do either. The other thing that's new in this moment
Speaker 2: is the US Supreme Court ruling that allows parties to
Speaker 2: invest in unlimited support for federal candidates. Wisconsin had a
Speaker 2: version of that that was started under Scott Walker. We
Speaker 2: call it the Scott Walker loophole, and it is the
Speaker 2: way that we beat Elon Musk and you know who
Speaker 2: outspent us dramatically, is that the Democratic Party Wisconsin was
Speaker 2: able to raise money and then transfer it to our candidate,
Speaker 2: who got a lower rate for TV ads than the
Speaker 2: superback ads that Elon Musk was funding in our state.
Speaker 2: We also had a better message, better candidate, and didn't
Speaker 2: have Elon Musk hanging around our neck. But the and
Speaker 2: huge grassroots organizing talk about that in the book, But
Speaker 2: right now that means that national committees could do a
Speaker 2: ton more if they have the money to be able
Speaker 2: to do it to support candidates in the places, especially
Speaker 2: for candidates who don't have huge fund raising abilities on
Speaker 2: their own, but who have totally winnable seats and who,
Speaker 2: if they have the funds to get their message out,
Speaker 2: can win in places that are maybe off the national radar.
Speaker 2: So this is a time when having more funds at
Speaker 2: the DNC, having more funds at the other national committees
Speaker 2: makes an enormous difference. And what I want is for
Speaker 2: canon for the DNC to be as successful as possible.
Speaker 2: I think there's a huge opportunity in this election, including
Speaker 2: in a lot of places right now where Republicans aren't
Speaker 2: investing and don't realize how mad voters are. So if
Speaker 2: I wave a magic wand there's a a flood of
Speaker 2: money that comes in and we're able to invest in
Speaker 2: you know, winning sometimes in squeakers, in a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of places that expand the map and safeguard the future
Speaker 2: of American democracy.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, so that's what you just said.
Speaker 5: I mean, you raised and spent sixty three million dollars
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. That
Speaker 5: sounds right, which is a little more than the entire
Speaker 5: Democratic National Committee has raised so far in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: Is the honest answer here that spending early only works
Speaker 5: if you can also raise. Then the raising is the
Speaker 5: failure here.
Speaker 2: I mean there's I think there's a lot of puzzle
Speaker 2: pieces here. I think that right now there's a kind
Speaker 2: of like vicious circle where there's negative news cycles that
Speaker 2: then make it hard to go out and say this
Speaker 2: is a good time to invest. And I think that
Speaker 2: starts changing when people see, oh yeah, if I donate here,
Speaker 2: it's going to have a big impact on making making
Speaker 2: things better and winning elections. And I think that's you know,
Speaker 2: maybe that that change starts right here on the pot
Speaker 2: John maybe, but whatever, whatever it is, like we can't
Speaker 2: as long as we're in circular firing squad mode and
Speaker 2: not you know, pointing to where we need to like
Speaker 2: throw our shoulders against the wheel to save the country.
Speaker 2: It's very hard to get out of that cycle. And also,
Speaker 2: like the election is ninety nine days away, there's a
Speaker 2: huge opportunity to like flood the zone in the places
Speaker 2: where elections are likely to be tightest and where a
Speaker 2: push can make the difference. And I will add that
Speaker 2: that is not just House and Senate races, like at
Speaker 2: all levels, there's going to be state legislative contests that
Speaker 2: have enormous significance. One thing in a I think the
Speaker 2: New York Times story was about the DNC helping Mississippi
Speaker 2: break the Republican supermajority at the state level that I
Speaker 2: love like that was one hundred thousand dollars investment played
Speaker 2: a role. I'm sure there are a ton of other
Speaker 2: people involved as well, but breaking Republican supermajorities in deep
Speaker 2: red states can have an enormous impact on the future
Speaker 2: of things like redistricting. So you know, part of the
Speaker 2: argument of my book and my kind of life's work
Speaker 2: at this moment and the Democratic Party is look at
Speaker 2: the whole map of how power is built and wielded
Speaker 2: in this country. The Right keeps you using its power
Speaker 2: to rig everything so that only a handful of people
Speaker 2: can write the rules for all of us. But if
Speaker 2: you can unrig the system, often at the state and
Speaker 2: local level, those races are often much less expensive and
Speaker 2: have huge up ballot consequences. And I think it is
Speaker 2: good to think as a party about how to fight
Speaker 2: at all those levels at once in.
Speaker 5: The interest of fixing things. What would you do about
Speaker 5: the money situation if you were in Ken's position right now.
Speaker 2: I would which I'm sure Ken is also working on.
Speaker 2: I try to raise more money so that you have
Speaker 2: more money to invest in the various things, and that
Speaker 2: to me, the biggest thing is being able to lay
Speaker 2: out if you invest here is how we're going to
Speaker 2: be able to win more fights that folks care about.
Speaker 2: There's often when people think about the corrupting influence of
Speaker 2: money and politics, which you may have to look at
Speaker 2: the news to see the corrupt influence of money and politics,
Speaker 2: but very often it's about policies that particular candidates or
Speaker 2: elected officials hold. Parties are not where people who want
Speaker 2: to change policy. It's not where they give, especially when
Speaker 2: there's not a democratic president. What parties do is they
Speaker 2: help create infrastructure for victories or losses. And so the
Speaker 2: way to raise money for the Democratic Party is fundamentally
Speaker 2: to instill trust to demonstrate the results that come from
Speaker 2: those investments. And for all the kind of debate about
Speaker 2: the fifty state strategy, I think one of the things
Speaker 2: that is really helpful is when you see what's being
Speaker 2: done in particular states with those investments that actually generates
Speaker 2: electoral victory, and then it makes you enthusiastic about investing.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of stories like that
Speaker 2: that I would love to I'd love to see more
Speaker 2: of and hear more about. I think about, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the state parties that are doing amazing work,
Speaker 2: like North Carolina. There's this huge focus on local organizing
Speaker 2: that's going to affect things like the state Supreme Court race.
Speaker 2: And the country is not thinking about the North Carolina
Speaker 2: State Supreme Court. But the only reason Republicans have a
Speaker 2: majority in the US House right now is because Republicans
Speaker 2: won a state Supreme Court race there in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: by four hundred and one votes, one hundredth of one
Speaker 2: percent of all the votes cast in the state. And
Speaker 2: that put in place a chief Justice who drove the
Speaker 2: jerrymandering that gave the National Republicans their House majority at
Speaker 2: this moment, And there's a Supreme Court race there this November.
Speaker 2: Anita Earls is up for reelection. If she wins, they
Speaker 2: could win a majority. Democrats could win a majority by
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight, and that could lead to the djerymandering
Speaker 2: of that state and affect the future of American democracy.
Speaker 2: And those are the kinds of things that state parties
Speaker 2: specialize in and supporting state parties to do that kind
Speaker 2: of work has a huge effect. I know, I'm personal
Speaker 2: to my own state of Wisconsin, which we can all
Speaker 2: agree is the best state, but it's also a place
Speaker 2: where our state party has been deeply involved in state
Speaker 2: legislative races, minoral races, state Supreme court election. This fall,
Speaker 2: we have a chance to win both chambers of the
Speaker 2: state legislature and across the country. Most people, I regret
Speaker 2: to admit, are not thinking about the Wisconsin state legislative
Speaker 2: battle of twenty twenty six, but that fight could dictator
Speaker 2: proof Wisconsin. Before twenty twenty eight, we were the closest
Speaker 2: state in the country to having the election overturned. After
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, we know Trump is going to try to
Speaker 2: pull something next time he is in danger of losing power.
Speaker 2: You you lock down democracy at the state level, or
Speaker 2: rather un rigged democracy at the state level. That is
Speaker 2: the best way to defend national elections going forward. And
Speaker 2: those are the kinds of races that you know have
Speaker 2: supporting state parties right now, and the DNC is doing
Speaker 2: a lot of Supporting state parties can have a huge
Speaker 2: effect on so I look at the you know, it
Speaker 2: is very painful to read the stories that are unfolding.
Speaker 2: Everyone experiences that. I'm sure everyone within the DNC is,
Speaker 2: you know, not not thrilled about the stories unfolding. But
Speaker 2: there are giant opportunities that are right there where a
Speaker 2: small investment can make a huge outside impact. Because Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's IO sar On is not on those races, but
Speaker 2: we can put our eye on the ball and we
Speaker 2: can win and we can fight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think what I'm most worried about
Speaker 5: is like the DNC doesn't play the biggest role in
Speaker 5: the midterms regardless, right the other party of the committees do,
Speaker 5: and the state parties do certainly play a big role
Speaker 5: in the twenty twenty eight race, and especially with that
Speaker 5: Supreme Court decision. Now we'll play a big role because
Speaker 5: people can donate now much more to the DNC and
Speaker 5: that can help with the campaign directly.
Speaker 4: And the stories are awful to read. No one wants that.
Speaker 5: We all want the Democratic Party to be successful, in
Speaker 5: the DNC to be successful. I think what strikes me
Speaker 5: is that because they're coming from inside the DNC and
Speaker 5: the DNC members, it makes me think that those are
Speaker 5: people who also don't want bad press, but are at
Speaker 5: this point like I'm talking. I'd rather talk and have
Speaker 5: the bad stories and try to fix the situation than
Speaker 5: continue to see this unfold. And I just saw today
Speaker 5: Rufus Gifford, I'm sure you know. Rufus, who finance director
Speaker 5: of the DNC, He's been finance director, worked there for
Speaker 5: eight years, loves the place, you know, has said today
Speaker 5: that the DNC is quote spiraling towards irrelevance and said
Speaker 5: that Ken is a good man with good intentions, but
Speaker 5: simply not meeting this critical moment.
Speaker 4: Do you agree.
Speaker 2: I am the guy who lost the election for DNC chair,
Speaker 2: and I'm the last person you want to be armchair quarterback.
Speaker 2: I can beat me by out organizing me in the
Speaker 2: DNC race, and you know, building trust with voters over
Speaker 2: U with the same kind of strategy that he and
Speaker 2: I both think is really critical to winning elections at
Speaker 2: every level. So I, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be in the middle of this. Not running for the
Speaker 2: ancientia myself. Like I, my goal is to spread a
Speaker 2: message to a much wider number of people about what
Speaker 2: everyone can do. I have a chapter in my book
Speaker 2: about the Democratic Party with the title it's my party,
Speaker 2: and I'll cry if I want to something many you know,
Speaker 2: people feel at various moments at all levels. And the
Speaker 2: argument that I make is that the Democratic Party, however
Speaker 2: you feel about it, it actually has a door that
Speaker 2: is wide open, shockingly open. It is easier to join
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party in whatever state people live in than
Speaker 2: to join the Benevolent Order of the Elks or like
Speaker 2: an even the old nineteenth twentieth century social civic organizations.
Speaker 2: There's not some set of boxes that you have to check.
Speaker 2: You can get involved and then you can you can
Speaker 2: revitalize the party where you are. You can turn it
Speaker 2: into a vessel for organizing and fighting. And I talk
Speaker 2: to people who are like running for county party chair
Speaker 2: all across the count who are mad about the way
Speaker 2: things are going right now, and then they realize, Hey,
Speaker 2: if I get a bunch of people together and we
Speaker 2: get involved, we can just like take over around here.
Speaker 2: And then we can start working to flip the city councils,
Speaker 2: and we can win judicial races, we can flip the
Speaker 2: state legislative seats. There are so many blue states where
Speaker 2: there are people in offices that are not using them
Speaker 2: to have the biggest impact that they could. And there's
Speaker 2: so many places in red states where there's very little
Speaker 2: Democratic Party organization, but if you build enough power, you
Speaker 2: can push through and you can make huge change. And
Speaker 2: then in purple states, it is shocking how few votes
Speaker 2: wind up tipping the entire thing. So if anyone who's
Speaker 2: frustrated about the Democratic Party right now, become the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and build the kind of party that you want
Speaker 2: to be part of, like it is, it is right there,
Speaker 2: and it is a it's a vessel for organizing that
Speaker 2: unlike everything else, it exists everywhere, in every county, in
Speaker 2: every community. And if we can make it stronger, and
Speaker 2: we can make it a body that fights for things
Speaker 2: that benefit everyone, then I think it has a huge
Speaker 2: change on the whole future of the country.
Speaker 5: Your book is excellent. Is tailor made for our audience,
Speaker 5: so I hope everyone buys it. It's called this is
Speaker 5: the Plan. Give us the cliff note version of what
Speaker 5: the plan is.
Speaker 2: Sure, So the plan starts with you, not just you, John,
Speaker 2: but you the reader, viewer, listener, and the thing that
Speaker 2: each of us can do. I have a chapter called
Speaker 2: Unleash you'rre superpower, which is about both the kind of
Speaker 2: art and science and practice of organizing, of getting people
Speaker 2: together to do something they wouldn't otherwise do. So I
Speaker 2: dig into how to have the biggest effect with your
Speaker 2: volunteer hours if you can chip in money, the kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff that makes the biggest difference. And then I
Speaker 2: map out, drawing on the story of how we unrigged
Speaker 2: our state legislative maps in Wisconsin, which is this huge
Speaker 2: multi year fight that took a bunch of different offices.
Speaker 2: I trace out what we can do nationwide to unrig
Speaker 2: our system, which right now pretty clearly is a system
Speaker 2: where a handful of far right billionaires write the rules
Speaker 2: for everyone else to enrich themselves at all of our expense.
Speaker 2: So how do we do that? Step one in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six fight for Houston Senate majorities. But the states
Speaker 2: are the most critical battlefield because, especially if we win
Speaker 2: trifact democratic trifectas in the battleground states a you can
Speaker 2: you can pass laws in those states that prevent Trump
Speaker 2: from being able to steal the twenty twenty eight election.
Speaker 2: Elections are run by the states, So this is you know,
Speaker 2: if you have people who refuse to play along with
Speaker 2: coup attempts. It makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 2: You can also defame the electoral college. There's this law
Speaker 2: called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is a long,
Speaker 2: nerdy name for an amazing bill that has been passed
Speaker 2: already in eighteen states.
Speaker 4: That's what I call it.
Speaker 2: I came up with a way to pronounce the the
Speaker 2: unpronounceable acronym.
Speaker 5: That's great because every time I say it, I didn't
Speaker 5: even I've never said the acronym, and I'm always like,
Speaker 5: it's the National Compact something voter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nivid rhymes with lipstick nipfick.
Speaker 2: We gotta spread nipfick across the country if we if
Speaker 2: no other thing happens, if we all be able to
Speaker 2: find a way to stay niphick, then I will not
Speaker 2: be satisfied with the impact of the book, but I'll
Speaker 2: be happy. So uh, that is a bill that if
Speaker 2: we pass it through the states where Democrats can win
Speaker 2: trifectas in twenty twenty six, you can make it so
Speaker 2: that whoever wins the National Popular Vote wins the presidential election.
Speaker 2: Because states decide where they put their electoral college votes.
Speaker 2: It is very, very close to actually.
Speaker 5: Happening, and basically, so it's like a backdoor way of
Speaker 5: eliminating the electoral college, because the Constitution gives states the power,
Speaker 5: the ultimate power to decide how they assign their electors.
Speaker 5: So the state legislators can decide, we're going to assign
Speaker 5: our electors to the winner of the national popular vote,
Speaker 5: and then that way you can kind of go around
Speaker 5: the electoral college.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. So I was actually talking to Heather
Speaker 2: Cox richardsoner historian about this, and she was pointing out
Speaker 2: to me that originally overwhelmingly states gave their electoral college
Speaker 2: votes on a proportional basis, the way that like Nebraska
Speaker 2: and mayn still do. And then a few states realized,
Speaker 2: starting with Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, that if he made
Speaker 2: his state go for whoever won the majority winner take all,
Speaker 2: that would give him advantage. So then every state kind
Speaker 2: of went to that system. The only way to get
Speaker 2: back to a proportional system is if all is if
Speaker 2: enough states decide to jump together. So this is what's
Speaker 2: special about this law is that it only takes effect
Speaker 2: when enough states have passed the law to choose the
Speaker 2: next president, which means that you know, it's not like
Speaker 2: you're gonna throw away your vote or dilute your power
Speaker 2: until the moment when everyone holds hands jumps together, and
Speaker 2: then all two seventy plus electoral College votes of states
Speaker 2: that have passed this law go to whoever wins the
Speaker 2: national popular vote, and then it transforms this country, like
Speaker 2: we end the era of swing states and safe states.
Speaker 2: Every person's ballot counts the same. The fight for voting
Speaker 2: rights laws in every state suddenly affect the whole national picture.
Speaker 2: It's you know it would it would be complicated and messy,
Speaker 2: but also glorious and I want it so bad.
Speaker 4: I love it. I've thought about it.
Speaker 5: For a while now, and I've been like keeping track
Speaker 5: of how close we're getting to, like the so close. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we're pretty close. Now, are you where with the legal
Speaker 5: challenges or that, like whether it survives legal challenges, because
Speaker 5: there's there's a few arguments, legal arguments about like why
Speaker 5: it might be tricky to pull off, And one of
Speaker 5: the more practical ones is that like it wouldn't get
Speaker 5: challenged until like in the midst of an election, So.
Speaker 2: It has provisions in it about like how to be
Speaker 2: able to withdraw from it and so forth. You know,
Speaker 2: it's been like scrutinizing a whole bunch of different ways.
Speaker 2: And I think it's it looks legally signed. To me,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not a lawyer myself. I will say, even
Speaker 2: if it is completely legally legit, I say that this
Speaker 2: Supreme Court might find some basis so much to strike
Speaker 2: it down. So that goes to another thing I argue
Speaker 2: for in the book. So, you know, step, when we
Speaker 2: win the states, we start moving in nipfick through the state,
Speaker 2: through more state legislatures. We need forty eight more electoral
Speaker 2: college votes to be able to put it into effects.
Speaker 2: So when trifecta is in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, boom, more than enough electoral College votes. Great,
Speaker 2: let's add Alaska while we're at it. Yeah, But then
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight comes along and we existentially have to
Speaker 2: win presidency, House and US Senate, and I think ideally
Speaker 2: we win a majority of the House delegations in a
Speaker 2: majority of states, so that if Trump once again tries
Speaker 2: to mess with the electoral college, if it's still in
Speaker 2: place in the way that it is right now, and
Speaker 2: the election goes to a vote in the House of
Speaker 2: House Delegations that the election is not overturned through another
Speaker 2: coup attempts.
Speaker 4: Which how close the way to a majority of House delegations.
Speaker 2: Far We are far right now. Right now, Republicans have
Speaker 2: thirty House delegation majorities, and we have two election cycles
Speaker 2: to be able to change that. And so that is
Speaker 2: totally doable, and you can far.
Speaker 4: It's not crazy far, it's not crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there are enough states where we could absolutely
Speaker 2: be able to win. It means organizing in places like
Speaker 2: Alaska where Trump won by fourteen percentage points but is
Speaker 2: now hideously unpopular and Mary Peltola would win the Senate race.
Speaker 2: We can win the House race, We could win the
Speaker 2: governorship there, We could have multi party coalitions in the
Speaker 2: legislature like Iowa, we could win a majority of the
Speaker 2: House seats as well as the governorship, the attorney general's race,
Speaker 2: the US Senate race like there are ways that we
Speaker 2: can flip House delegation majorities that also, by the way,
Speaker 2: make life better for people in those states and win
Speaker 2: US Senate majorities. So big map, big field, lots to do.
Speaker 2: And my argument to people is work where you are
Speaker 2: to improve policies, you know, build organized locally, and then
Speaker 2: choose some places, maybe one place where elections are really close.
Speaker 2: It could be adopting a house district. It could be
Speaker 2: deciding to adopt a state legislative chamber and pour yourself,
Speaker 2: get a group of friends together, pour yourself into making
Speaker 2: a difference in that place too. This is a vote
Speaker 2: save of America's Adopt a State project. There you go
Speaker 2: pioneering in this regard. If you do that for a
Speaker 2: couple hours a month, then you know, add up enough
Speaker 2: months and you can have a gigantic impact, especially if
Speaker 2: you you know, find a way to make it fun
Speaker 2: with your friends, maybe involving alcohol or you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of beverage. Like there's lots of there's lots of
Speaker 2: ways to do this. They can feel really good when
Speaker 2: you win. This is one of the reasons I think
Speaker 2: we have so many volunteers in Wisconsin is we've found
Speaker 2: way we lean into so many different fights. People have
Speaker 2: the experience of being part of winning something, often something
Speaker 2: very close, over and over and it feels incredible to
Speaker 2: like stay up late, watch the returns come in and
Speaker 2: realize that you help make the difference in a nail
Speaker 2: bier election that changes everything.
Speaker 5: So best feeling in the world. Best feeling if you're
Speaker 5: a political nerd. Yeah, I mean, if you're not, it'll
Speaker 5: it'll be pretty good.
Speaker 2: It'll turn you into politically it's landslides are great.
Speaker 4: Love those two.
Speaker 2: But the like, if we're winning landslides, then our map's
Speaker 2: not big enough, you know what I mean, Like, there's
Speaker 2: so many places where one more push can get us
Speaker 2: over the edge, and let's do those places too. So
Speaker 2: twenty eight we win the federal trifecta. We get through
Speaker 2: whatever coup attempt it is that Donald Trump tries to pull,
Speaker 2: and we thank goodness that we elected pro democracy mayors
Speaker 2: and governors and attorneys general who fought back against whatever
Speaker 2: Trump's genangans turned out to be. We have a new president.
Speaker 2: They do an inaugural address to great speech. They have
Speaker 2: an even bigger crowd than Trump's twenty sixteen inaugural. We're thrilled.
Speaker 2: And then and this is a big and then we
Speaker 2: have to actually abolish the filibuster and pass fundamental democracy
Speaker 2: reform to unrig the American system of government. And that
Speaker 2: that is I go sort of level by level of
Speaker 2: the American political system in the book and who's working
Speaker 2: on it, where we need to win to be able
Speaker 2: to change it. But my argument that all kind of
Speaker 2: rolls up to the plan in this of the plan
Speaker 2: is that we have to add states to unbalance the
Speaker 2: US Senate. We have to reform the US Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: I think term limits is the most interesting option. If
Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court decides that Congress doesn't have the
Speaker 2: power to do that, then it certainly has the power
Speaker 2: to expand the number of justices. So there's another option
Speaker 2: there too. We have to have some combination of a
Speaker 2: national jerrymandering ban and doubling the size of the House.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested in proportional representation for US House members
Speaker 2: with multi member districts. These are ideas that a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know about right now or read about
Speaker 2: them in the book. There's like lots of countries that
Speaker 2: do this. I mean in American history, these things have
Speaker 2: happened before. But this system right now, where we've got
Speaker 2: the Voting Rights Act, where we can have the country
Speaker 2: completely rigged after each census and even in between the census,
Speaker 2: so most House districts voters have no real say where
Speaker 2: Republicans have a structural advantage in the US Senate, plus
Speaker 2: a filibuster that only blocks things that Democrats might want
Speaker 2: to do. Essentially, it allows tax cuts for rich people
Speaker 2: in confirmation to Supreme Court justice. And then this imperial
Speaker 2: presidency chosen through the electoral college that Congress can't act
Speaker 2: to do anything about because of the filibuster, and the
Speaker 2: courts won't do anything because they have a hammer lock
Speaker 2: on the US Supreme Court. It just doesn't work. It
Speaker 2: doesn't work to have a country that has a huge
Speaker 2: diversity of views in which our structures are built to
Speaker 2: ratchet things just to the right. And so what we've
Speaker 2: experienced this century is, more than any other time in
Speaker 2: American history, a series of change elections where people are
Speaker 2: fed up and they vote for change, and when Republicans come,
Speaker 2: they're like, not that, like that. The Repolicans screw everything up.
Speaker 2: And when Democrats come in, a whole bunch of the
Speaker 2: stuff that they campaign on they can't do because the
Speaker 2: system is set up to block it. The US Supreme
Speaker 2: Court strikes it down, the Senate filibuster blocks it. And
Speaker 2: so a lot of people feel, and I think rightly,
Speaker 2: that the economic system is not working for them that
Speaker 2: like basic things like being able to get healthcare or childcare.
Speaker 2: They vote for people who say that they're going to
Speaker 2: deliver it, and then it doesn't come through. And if
Speaker 2: you ask yourself why that is, it is generally not
Speaker 2: that Democrats have a failure of nerve to vote for
Speaker 2: the thing they want. The House passes these things over
Speaker 2: and over again. It's because we have a system that
Speaker 2: is rigged against delivering for regular people. And so this
Speaker 2: is the plan maps out the plan to change that
Speaker 2: in a way that we've changed how the government functions
Speaker 2: over and over throughout history, and then about a half
Speaker 2: century ago, we stopped. We stopped the mend in the Constitution,
Speaker 2: we stopped adding states, we stopped changing how senator are elected,
Speaker 2: we stopped changing the sides of the House, we stopped
Speaker 2: changing the size of the Supreme Court. All those things
Speaker 2: used to change regularly, and we've been stuck in this
Speaker 2: kind of failure mode where the change that people are
Speaker 2: vote for, organized for, cry out for, never comes. And
Speaker 2: I think it is time to change the delivery vehicle
Speaker 2: for change itself and restore the vision of the best
Speaker 2: traditions of our country and the best moments in the
Speaker 2: founding of this country, which is a system of government
Speaker 2: that actually adapts to be able to respond to the
Speaker 2: crises and needs of the time, where the right of
Speaker 2: the people, as you know, as it says in the
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence, to make their government actually work is
Speaker 2: made real.
Speaker 5: So I don't know if people realize or remember, because
Speaker 5: now it was all of five years ago, how close
Speaker 5: we were in twenty one to getting rid of the
Speaker 5: filibuster to pass the John Lewis Foting Rights Act. It
Speaker 5: was just Mansion in Cinema were the only Democrats not
Speaker 5: willing to remove the filibuster. They're both gone. Cinema was
Speaker 5: replaced with Diego, who's certain totally in favor of that.
Speaker 5: So we basically need a fifty one vote majority, and
Speaker 5: hopefully if we elect some of these new senators and
Speaker 5: some of these tough states, they'll be there as well.
Speaker 5: You bring up the twenty thirty then becomes a pretty
Speaker 5: important year. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 5: but it's part of the plan, because we do all
Speaker 5: these things in twenty eight. One part of your plan
Speaker 5: is to for Democrats to survive the twenty thirty backlash.
Speaker 5: We know there's always a backlash after there's a trifecta.
Speaker 5: There was in twenty ten, you know there could be
Speaker 5: in twenty thirty.
Speaker 4: If this all comes to pass.
Speaker 5: And I wonder what you think of because you're right,
Speaker 5: there've been and you have this stat in the book
Speaker 5: that there have been more sort of change elections like
Speaker 5: party switching power in the last however many years than
Speaker 5: there have been like all throughout history.
Speaker 4: Was like the last couple decades.
Speaker 2: In two thousand, we've had more change in the White House,
Speaker 2: the US House, and the US Senate.
Speaker 5: Than any other time any other time of history. And
Speaker 5: I wonder, like, is there sometimes I wonder this too?
Speaker 5: Is there evidence that delivering actual change, tangible change that
Speaker 5: improves people's lives makes them satisfied enough to not vote
Speaker 5: for change? Again, considering that, you know, Biden passed quite
Speaker 5: a bit in his first couple of years. He passed
Speaker 5: similar checks aside from those the climate investments, everything that
Speaker 5: was in the Build Back Better Bill that was more
Speaker 5: long term investments. Do you think that in addition to
Speaker 5: those democracy reforms in twenty eight Democrats need to pass
Speaker 5: legislation that like improves people's lives absolutely within those first
Speaker 5: two years.
Speaker 2: That's the whole thing. So I want to respond kind
Speaker 2: of at three level. Sure, all right, at the micro level,
Speaker 2: something that I think people forget and very little discussion
Speaker 2: of is that when Biden came in, the emergency measures
Speaker 2: to deal with the COVID pandemic, the expanded unemployment insurance,
Speaker 2: the childcare tax credit, there was a set of things
Speaker 2: that dramatically increased the kind of disposable income for especially
Speaker 2: like the bottom third economically of the country. And it
Speaker 2: was incredibly popular at that time, and then it all
Speaker 2: went away. And so even though it is true that
Speaker 2: like wages grew from the bottom up in the Biden economy,
Speaker 2: for a ton of Americans, especially the people who were
Speaker 2: having the toughest luck in the economy, they got a
Speaker 2: bunch of help, and then suddenly the carpet was yanked
Speaker 2: out from under them, and at the same time as
Speaker 2: prices were rising. So their experience was that their wages,
Speaker 2: their income went down at the same time as prices
Speaker 2: were going up. And those are the exact voters who
Speaker 2: went for Trump for the first time in either of
Speaker 2: our lives. People earning less than fifty thousand dollars a
Speaker 2: year voted Republican in the twenty twenty four president election.
Speaker 2: So I actually think we sort of have a counter example,
Speaker 2: like we have an example for ourselves of if people
Speaker 2: are experiencing material pain, then they will vote for change.
Speaker 4: And that party that part.
Speaker 2: We know, we kind of saw that, right and and
Speaker 2: around the world in every country, the governing party wound
Speaker 2: up losing ground in developed democracies in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: as I right, and prices, inflation and cost of living
Speaker 2: was the biggest issue everywhere, but we actually were doing
Speaker 2: doing something serious about it, and then we stopped. And
Speaker 2: that was there were some policy design choices in there
Speaker 2: that I, you know, I think we should rethink how
Speaker 2: we think about that stuff in the future. That's kind
Speaker 2: of micro level. The second level is the I was
Speaker 2: once talking to an administration official who said, when you
Speaker 2: propose a policy, it's popular. When it's being passed, it's unpopular.
Speaker 2: When it's being implemented, it's unpopular, But when the other
Speaker 2: side drives to take it away, it becomes popular again.
Speaker 2: And perfect example, right, and you know, the battle like
Speaker 2: a bunch of different policies that have been good for
Speaker 2: people have this quality. And to me, the goal of politics,
Speaker 2: you win in order to be able to pass policies
Speaker 2: that make people's lives better. So it is, you know,
Speaker 2: it might not be that there's an iMedia policy reward,
Speaker 2: and especially policies that take a while to actually like
Speaker 2: implement and get them going. It might be that you
Speaker 2: were kind of creating something that the other side can't
Speaker 2: take away that creates an enduring benefit for people. And
Speaker 2: I think that the ACA is proven to be an
Speaker 2: enormous help for Democrats. Twenty eighteen, Republicans try to take
Speaker 2: it away and it was the number one issue, and
Speaker 2: once again Republicans cutting medicids spending that was expanded through
Speaker 2: the ACA. It is an explosive issue that helps Democrats
Speaker 2: right now. So I do think that there's even if
Speaker 2: it takes a couple of cycles, I do think there's
Speaker 2: like a pretty clear path that you can draw towards.
Speaker 2: If you do stuff to help people, then the party
Speaker 2: that tries to scrap it takes a price. And if
Speaker 2: we are the party that keeps doing the good things,
Speaker 2: then the Rebublicans trying to scrap it have a price.
Speaker 2: But the last thing, there's this the very macro level,
Speaker 2: this concept in political sides of political orders, which is
Speaker 2: essentially what's not controversial in a period of time is
Speaker 2: the thing that tells you the most about that period.
Speaker 2: So after the New Deal, there was Eisenhower came in
Speaker 2: and he did not try to rip up the New Deal.
Speaker 2: The political order for decades was that the New Deal
Speaker 2: programs and the sort of set of economic guarantees, those
Speaker 2: were beyond politics and through Reagan exactly, and then came
Speaker 2: the neoliberal order, and Reagan and Reagan you know, did
Speaker 2: union busting and deregulation and a bunch of stuff that
Speaker 2: is you know, still raging through American politics, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that stuff wasn't contested. Both parties were kind
Speaker 2: of fighting on that terrain. The really big goal is
Speaker 2: to build a new political order. And I think what
Speaker 2: we want is a political order for the future where
Speaker 2: which party, you know, wins might change hands, but that
Speaker 2: certain things are actually built in to me. Things that
Speaker 2: start with ensuring that nobody is like going broke because
Speaker 2: they get sick, or nobody is unable to afford a
Speaker 2: place to live. There's an economic guarantees. And then the second,
Speaker 2: well there's three things I want. One is like make
Speaker 2: the economy actually work for working people. And I think
Speaker 2: union rights and you know, and the way our social
Speaker 2: insurance programs work are two critical elements of that. There's
Speaker 2: a bunch of others. The second thing is some rights
Speaker 2: and freedoms that like need to be guaranteed and protected
Speaker 2: by the federal government that are absolutely under assault right
Speaker 2: now in a way that is has been you know, shocking.
Speaker 2: They're trying to repeal the civil rights movement and you know,
Speaker 2: and so much else. And it's like any group that
Speaker 2: has achieved freedom and equality in this country is being
Speaker 2: targeted by this administration. And a lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: was nonpartisan, low stake stuff that both parties agreed in
Speaker 2: at different moments that there were you know, bipartisan majorities. Well,
Speaker 2: the public is still a bipartisan majority for reproductive freedom.
Speaker 2: They there was a period, do you remember when Republicans
Speaker 2: attack trans people in North Carolina? And it was like
Speaker 2: a giant uproar. This idea that attacking trans people is
Speaker 2: is this great popular weg issue for Republicans doesn't need
Speaker 2: to be that way. The public is not always naturally
Speaker 2: inflamed about, you know, whether gender identity should be a
Speaker 2: political battlefield. I'd like to get to a world where
Speaker 2: everyone's humanity is something that we can like a starting point.
Speaker 2: And the third one is democracy itself, which is for
Speaker 2: most of you know, there are periods when the fight
Speaker 2: over this basic question of whether we'll have majority rule
Speaker 2: in this country isn't really up for grabs every election.
Speaker 2: And one reason why we keep telling ourselves that the
Speaker 2: next election is the most important election of our lifetimes
Speaker 2: is because we keep having this this question of whether
Speaker 2: it will be the last free election in America ever
Speaker 2: has I'd like to get a little bit away from
Speaker 2: the precipice and that leaves tons of stuff that we
Speaker 2: can contest. And I think a natural access that makes
Speaker 2: sense is the kind of like what is you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of size of government, role of government in
Speaker 2: public life. There there's lots of different issues that divide
Speaker 2: most Republicans from most Democrats that we can argue over,
Speaker 2: and I think having competitive pressure pushes both parties to
Speaker 2: try to figure out how to govern more effectively. I think,
Speaker 2: like excellence in public service and government is produced more
Speaker 2: when there are electoral stakes, and you might lose power
Speaker 2: if you don't do a good job. All those things
Speaker 2: are good, but building a political order where these kind
Speaker 2: of like you don't feel as though the ground might
Speaker 2: crack open beneath you and swallow.
Speaker 4: Not every election is like a manichein struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would like I'd like to turn down the
Speaker 2: stakes a little bit, and you know that we can,
Speaker 2: you can. I don't know if would be helpful for
Speaker 2: the political podcasting business if fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take We'll take this right,
Speaker 4: I'll take the right. Take it speen of high stakes.
Speaker 5: I know that you're staying neutral in the primary in Wisconsin,
Speaker 5: in the governor's race until the bitter end. I know
Speaker 5: you're not neutral in wanting a democratic governor in that
Speaker 5: state who will be responsible for, among other things, certifying
Speaker 5: the presidential result in twenty twenty eight. Is that a
Speaker 5: reason for primary voters in Wisconsin to think about electability
Speaker 5: differently this year than they normally would.
Speaker 2: I think that Wisconsin voters think about electability a lot.
Speaker 2: We have over and over experienced. Yeah, what happens when
Speaker 2: we lose, It's not bigod We've had the Wisconsin I
Speaker 2: argue in the book, Wisconsin is like a mini version
Speaker 2: of what the country is going through right now. Because
Speaker 2: we had our authoritarian breakthrough came when Scott Walker won
Speaker 2: in twenty ten and then tried to rig our political
Speaker 2: system and defund schools and public services and smash unions,
Speaker 2: all this stuff the same way Donald Trump has done
Speaker 2: on a national level. Now, so we have experienced our
Speaker 2: own state level, you know, authoritarian moment the same way.
Speaker 2: Lots of states in the South have continued to experience it.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a big debate about, you know,
Speaker 2: what is electable right now, who's going to vote? How
Speaker 2: do you energize people? And then this trade off of
Speaker 2: like what do you get when you win? What is
Speaker 2: the issue that the animate you all? That is like
Speaker 2: legitimate grounds for having a debate and for people making
Speaker 2: those different arguments. Wisconsin has this great tradition I write
Speaker 2: about in the book is the birthplace of the progressive
Speaker 2: movement Capital p progressive movement, and one of the reforms
Speaker 2: of the progressive movement that started in Wisconsin' swept the
Speaker 2: nation is direct primaries to choose your nominee, where the
Speaker 2: people decide who the nominee will be, and the party
Speaker 2: when the Democratic Party Wisconsin, which I used to chair,
Speaker 2: I'm an advisor to the new chair. Different Memorkers, I
Speaker 2: think doing a killer job, very hard job. One of
Speaker 2: the party's core commitments in our constitution is that the
Speaker 2: party itself doesn't put its thumb on the scale, even
Speaker 2: if elected officials and public you know, citizens and groups
Speaker 2: and unions and everybody does their different endorsements. The party
Speaker 2: is neutral in the primary so that voters can decide
Speaker 2: who they want their nominee to be, and then the
Speaker 2: party can play a role of saying that everybody, hey, like,
Speaker 2: even though that was tough and you know, messi and complicated,
Speaker 2: we're going to like put that behind us. We're going
Speaker 2: to unite, and we're going to do everything we can
Speaker 2: to chew through concrete and win the general election. And
Speaker 2: that that is my own role in this fight, and
Speaker 2: that's what I invite everyone to do.
Speaker 5: There's no confident that no matter who wins the primary
Speaker 5: that I mean, you know all these candidates personally, do
Speaker 5: you think that all of them like could could definitely
Speaker 5: beat Tom Tiffany.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a path with each of these candidates,
Speaker 2: and I think that what that path looks like is
Speaker 2: actually a little different with the different candidates, and they
Speaker 2: are building the coalitions around them based on their approach
Speaker 2: to campaigning and their arguments they're making and the positions
Speaker 2: that they have and their own stories. And the thing
Speaker 2: that would cause us to lose is if we lose
Speaker 2: the nerve to say that we can win. If Democrats
Speaker 2: decide the day after the primary that, oh, well, I
Speaker 2: guess we're not going to win, then they will not win.
Speaker 2: But if they say, you know what, this is a
Speaker 2: state we're over and over thirteen times since two thousand,
Speaker 2: we've had elections that come down to one percentage point
Speaker 2: or less, and it like donating that extra buck, like
Speaker 2: knocking on that extra door, calling that extra friend, could
Speaker 2: be the thing that tips the entire state. If we
Speaker 2: bring that kind of will to the race, I think
Speaker 2: that any of the candidates can beat Tom Tiffany and
Speaker 2: Wisconsin could be a a thriving democracy for the future.
Speaker 5: Last question, what is your thought process like as you
Speaker 5: consider potentially running in the state that you love in Wisconsin?
Speaker 2: Well, I love the living shit out of my state.
Speaker 2: I just think Wisconsin is the greatest state, and I
Speaker 2: will think about, you know, what I do in the future.
Speaker 2: In the future, I think my just obsession right now
Speaker 2: is to make sure that Wisconsin not only wins the governorship,
Speaker 2: but as I've mentioned, the state legislative chambers in November,
Speaker 2: and those will come probably down to a couple hundred
Speaker 2: votes in a few different communities around the state. Like
Speaker 2: it is, it has been the work of years to
Speaker 2: unrig our state legislative maps to get to this point
Speaker 2: where we have a shot at winning majorities in both
Speaker 2: legislative chambers. And next year could be a blooming of
Speaker 2: democracy and workers rights and of ability of folks to
Speaker 2: get healthcare, all this stuff if we can win the
Speaker 2: trifecta in Wisconsin in the next ninety nine days. So
Speaker 2: I'm I have this book. I want to spread the
Speaker 2: gospel of like rolling up puce sleeves getting involved. I
Speaker 2: want to make sure that people see the kind of
Speaker 2: hope that we've experienced in my state by building this
Speaker 2: kind of permanent campaign on a year round basis. I
Speaker 2: want more places to do that. And then I'm going
Speaker 2: to just throw myself into with everything I've got into
Speaker 2: the fight in my state, and then I'll figure out
Speaker 2: what's next.
Speaker 5: Well, I've to this on the pod when you're not here.
Speaker 5: That is a is a democrat and a citizen. I
Speaker 5: wanted you to be d n C chair because I
Speaker 5: think it would have been good for the party and
Speaker 5: good for the country. As your friend, sort of glad
Speaker 5: you're not because it's such a terrible job no matter
Speaker 5: who has it. But when it comes to running for
Speaker 5: offs in Wisconsin as a citizen, a Democrat and your friend,
Speaker 5: I would love you. I would love to see you
Speaker 5: to run one of these days.
Speaker 4: So I think about it, honored by the sentiment we
Speaker 4: need more Ben Wickler in America.
Speaker 2: So let's let's zero in on what all of us
Speaker 2: can do. Yes, right now, that is That is my message,
Speaker 2: that this is the plan.
Speaker 4: He's on message. That's why I love Ben Wickler. Thanks
Speaker 4: so much, Thanks so much, John.
Speaker 5: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ben Wicker for
Speaker 5: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
Speaker 5: new episode on Friday. Positive America is a Crooked Media production.
Speaker 5: Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts,
Speaker 5: and Faris Safari with re Cherlin, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill.
Speaker 5: Our team includes Matt de Grote, Ben Heffcote, Jordan Cantor,
Speaker 5: Charlotte Landis Krol, pel Avive, David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young,
Speaker 5: and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the
Speaker 5: Writers Guild of America East